"The author had a right to express their views on those topics—we encourage an environment in which people can do this and it remains our policy to not take action against anyone for prompting these discussions." Maybe he missed the memo that the author has been fired? How is that encouraging for people with unpopular opinions?
Federal and California law protect your ability to discuss labor issues in the workplace -- this is CYA.
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.
a restrictive intellectual environment is anathema to the kind of intelligent people they want to hire to keep the company competitive
So what? This action might be damaging to Google's bottom line (I doubt it) but that's actually less important that running a company in the way the overwhelming majority of employees want it to be run.
To use an ad absurdum argument - if it could be demonstrated that people who are openly racist write better code I still wouldn't believe Google should hire them.
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,…
It's worse than that. Ex-Googler Zunger is being celebrated for refuting Damore's argument by advancing gender stereotypes suggesting women naturally possess skills essential to the engineering process. > All of these traits which the manifesto described as “female” are the core traits which make someone successful at engineering https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-man... How is it ok to push a g…
I would give Zunger a pass, since he states very clearly that he wouldn't have made that statement were he still employed at Google.
> 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.
The fact that these engineers passed the same hiring process, consisting of problem solving, that other employees also were subjected to, and that these workers deliver enough value to pass the fitness evaluations?
If you're suggesting they were subjected to different practices, contrary to what HR at Google is stating, then you better cough up evidence. Do the women and minorities at Google perform worse than White males?
Note that he says they are "described as", not that they are actually gender specific. The quotes also make it clear that he is referencing Damore's argument and pointing out an interest issue with it. He is not claiming that position as his own.
No. He's all but saying it. Mincing words may give a free pass in your book. Not in mine.
How is that "mincing words"? He spends several paragraphs arguing those differences are not supported by science (right or wrong), then proceeds to allow them as a base assumption to point out the argument still falls apart, even if you allow the faulty premise.
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,…
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.
A "Note to Google Employees" on a public site. Seems legit.
As you might have noticed the debate did not involve Google employees exclusively. It is of them that he is CEO, though. It would be quite megalomaniac to title it "To all ye of this planet, listen to me!"
There is just no winning in the following chain of arguments: - We can debate anything - However, some views are too harmful to be debated - Whoever is most vocally outraged decides the boundary between open to debate/too harmful
The memo itself was incoherent. Many of its statements made sense for debate, and the author himself pointed out that you can't tell much about any individual from the general data, which I think has not been focused on enough. He seemed to think he was doing everybody a service and that his views were not detrimental to anybody. But the actual choices in how to express the generalities showed really bad judgement and overall apparently ran afoul of the code of conduct. People are definitely putting words in his mouth, but at the same time: An incoherent companywide memo is not the best way to start a debate on a sensitive topic. You might not instantly fire this person if he had chosen a way to express his ideas that didn't burn bridges with half the people who work there, if not more. This was not just "debate", it was maybe 80% debate and 20% attack on the credibility of all women in traditionally male professions. If he did not mean it come across that way, which I believe might be the case, then I feel sorry for him. And maybe he should have the opportunity to edit the memo to better reflect the debate he intended. But that's on him. He chose how to do this and what words to use.