Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

blog.google

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 423 posts

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#11

Post by zaptheimpaler »

Moral of the story: stupid angry lynch mobs win when they are loud enough to be the majority. It doesn't matter how uninformed the majority viewpoint is.. majority > minority.

There is no debate, only angry people seeing what they want to see. Get angry first, ask questions later (or never) - just people being people.

Googles response is simply to appease both sides as best they can, recognizing that one is the majority. The firing is enough blood to appease the stupid & intolerant, this post is to appease the rest.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#13

Post by jamesrcole »

By firing the employee, Google is sending a strong signal that they will not tolerate a diversity of opinions.

That does not bode well for them, for a restrictive intellectual environment is anathema to the kind of intelligent people they want to hire to keep the company competitive.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#14

Post by nothrabannosir »

octaveguin wrote: post #8

Let a thousand flowers bloom.

(In case someone missed the reference: this is a comparison to Mao's Hundred Flowers campaign, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign. People were spurred to speak their minds freely, but, after a few years, punished for dissenting.)

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#16

Post by lagadu »

se2 wrote: post #10
koolba wrote: post #5

Quoting Sundar Pichai (Google CEO), emphasis mine: > At the same time, there are co-workers who are questioning whether they can safely express their views in the workplace (especially those with a minority viewpoint) . They too feel under threat, and that is also not OK. People must feel free to express dissent. So to be clear again, many points raised in the memo—such as the portions criticizing Google’s trainings,…

I believe you have misconstrued the message Sundar was giving. The difference between having the freedom to speak one's mind, and breaching a code of conduct that you sign when you agree to work for Google is clear cut in his note.

By firing the employee they're effectively sending out a strong message about it no matter how they sugarcoat it.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#17

Post by kbart »

pimmen wrote: post #9
tokenizerrr wrote: post #3

> The past few days have been very difficult for many at the company, and we need to find a way to debate issues on which we might disagree ...So we've fired the person starting the debate? Am I missing something here?

As the note basically says; starting a debate does not excuse you from suggesting that some of your co-workers are there because of a "lowered bar", your evidence being psuedo-scientific bullshit about the tech-skill distribution among minorities and women.

"your evidence being psuedo-scientific bullshit"

*Citation needed.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#18

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

Wow, I'm surprised to see the comments here being hateful towards this statement. I don't think it's contradictory at all. The stance he takes is that any subject is up for debate, so long as you don't step out of line with respect to the code of conduct. The guy who was fired was way out of line, far beyond any reasonable limits to topics of discussion. Even as a particularly opinionated person myself, who would be likely to start a lot of shit at Google - even about diversity, I consider these limitations just.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#19

Post by la6470 »

We all know that men and women are different but under no circumstances can you club a large section of population and say they are inferior in some respect ... hitler did it with the Jews, whites did it to the blacks , Japanese did it to the Chinese and history is rife with extreme examples of the Dangers of generalization of a large section of population. Our job as human civilization is to evolve positively and to survive by dispersion of empathy - not by corroding it every day and making a certain section feel weak and vulnerable. No matter what your point of view is there is no doubt the author of the article had touched a raw nerve deliberately which he could have easily avoided. Therefor Google is right to fire him and the majority is absolutely within their rights to condemn him.
Post reply on HN