Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#881

Post by nyxtom » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 1:31 PM UTC

peoplewindow wrote: post #860

nyxtom wrote: post #843

You know, I actually thought Sundar's response to this whole thing was actually quite on point. He addresses the issue of needing to be able to discuss points in the memo that are open to discussion (such as the effectiveness of a policy and how to make things more inclusive for all); and at the same time addresses the hostile work environment that was produced as a result of the surrounding context. It sounds like m…

> They too feel under threat, and that is also not OK. People must feel free to express dissent Yet he fired the guy. Ultimately he had to pick a side: freedom of speech or women who got upset by a bunch of links to scientific studies with a pile of social and cultural commentary on top. He picked the latter.

It isn't 100% fair, but the guy also stated that a systemic bias will likely create a negative (and one can conclude hostile) reaction rather than constructive discourse. It is safe to assume that if you can predict that there is likely to be a hostile reaction to your opinions due to context and systemic bias, there are other ways in which you might want to promote your ideas.

Advancing stereotypes aside, given that he knew that this was the case, he went ahead and published the article anyway rather than conduct private conversations on the topic or explore the discussion in other constructive ways.

Interestingly, he may have gotten a lot further in advancing constructive discourse by leaving it an open survey and reporting his findings on systemic bias. Rather than base his conclusions on his own naive assumptions, he could have conducted research and collect data from the internal Google employees and then reported his findings as objectively as possible.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#882

Post by troupe » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 1:31 PM UTC

tchaffee wrote: post #844

slackingoff2017 wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You imply bias in the the hiring process is what is causing the gender imbalance in tech. Indicators such university enrollment in CS programs show that this is unlikely to be the case. If the author is wrong, that there definitely isn't some inherit genetic behavioral bias influencing job choice, than the bias is happening before students finish highschool. I'm a proponent for an "early bias" theory because of far l…

If women get paid more for the same qualifications because the supply of women is lower and the demand is higher, then market forces will eventually make sure education at all levels gets fixed. There are many ways to solve the same problem. Fixing a government run school directly sounds like one of the harder ways to go about it.

> If women get paid more for the same qualifications

Isn't that kind of the definition of the gender discrimination most companies are trying to avoid?

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#883

Post by hordeallergy » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 1:32 PM UTC

Affirmative action in south Africa was a laughing stock. The country is in terminal decline riddled with corrupt people who have no business being in their positions. No appreciation of their positions and what ordinarily would be required to achieve the position. I will bet against any institution which implements affirmative action as a solution.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#884

Post by BeetleB » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 1:32 PM UTC

slackingoff2017 wrote: post #714

tunesmith wrote: post #123

People can't seem to summarize his argument without getting much of it grossly wrong, because his manifesto was a haphazard collection of good points, bad points, good arguments, lousy arguments, misrepresentations of others' views, and unstated implications. A perfect recipe for people to argue past each other about it. It's worth remembering that one of his conclusions was to end or replace gender-based diversity p…

You imply bias in the the hiring process is what is causing the gender imbalance in tech. Indicators such university enrollment in CS programs show that this is unlikely to be the case. If the author is wrong, that there definitely isn't some inherit genetic behavioral bias influencing job choice, than the bias is happening before students finish highschool. I'm a proponent for an "early bias" theory because of far l…

>You imply bias in the the hiring process is what is causing the gender imbalance in tech. Indicators such university enrollment in CS programs show that this is unlikely to be the case.

>it strongly suggests that attempting to make the engineering team 50% female will result in a lower hiring bar for women.

I cannot speak for Google and I haven't been following their recruitment efforts.

However, I will say I'm a little tired of this notion that such companies are aiming for 50%.

I know one company that has really ramped up hiring of minorities (mostly women, though). And everyone is criticizing them for targeting 50% when there is a problem in the supply.

Except they never said they were targeting 50%. Not once. What they did was look at their different grade levels' skills, and compared that to the number of women in the market who should qualify, and compared that to the proportion in the company.

Example: They found that 20% of PhDs in a relevant field that they hired from were women, whereas in the company only 10% of PhDs hired were women. So their recruitment efforts are to hit 20%.

Not 50%.

Any time someone says 50%, they are likely invoking a strawman.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#885

Post by falcolas » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 1:33 PM UTC

ltrcola wrote: post #382

falcolas wrote: post #100

We fire people for snickering at the word "Dongle". We witch hunt people who play at Gor in their spare time. We hound CEOs who disagree with the popular stance on gay marriage. We fire people who clumsily try to open a dialogue internally to a company. The tech industry is indeed fucked, but perhaps not for the reasons that are currently popular.

And yet every single woman I've ever asked has had some pretty horrible stories regarding sexism, if not outright harassment. There's also still a horrible bro culture problem in a lot of places. In no way have we crossed a line where everything sexist has been fixed and now it's just all about witch hunts.

The existence of one problem does not justify purposefully ignoring the other; both sexism and witch hunts are bad, and both should be corrected, neither should be ignored.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#886

Post by dijit » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 1:36 PM UTC

Grue3 wrote: post #551

escape_goat wrote: post #203

The best explanation of why he was going to be fired and why that was the right thing to do (that I read) came from Yonatan Zunger, who had recently left a Human Resources position at Google; especially his third point, in the following post on Medium: https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-man... In many way, it was not an unfamiliar sort of rant for the internet, and I was struck by the author's e…

That medium post is exactly why dudebro Silicon Valley culture persists. It's all about "cooperation", "collaboration", "empathy" for your "peers" for these people. Which means if you're different from your "peers" (i.e. rich white liberal cis males) you're not a "cultural fit". If you don't drink beer all Friday with your "team" and then go to a strip club for some "teambuilding", you're not a team player. Which mea…

I'm sure somebody has harmed you rather badly for this to be your opinion of all tech.

You should visit Europe- we're taking on SV hiring biases due to being so in love with the US, but "Bro" culture is not a thing I've ever seen. Ever.

The most sexist thing I've ever seen in tech is a sales guy being a bit over confident with his flirting. But then, he did it with guys to (not that I'm justifying it).

The inability to even discuss what is happening with hiring biases leads centrists to wish to discuss things; and the only people who are even open to discussion are the right wing. Who most centrists generally disagree with too.

I'm a classic liberal, left by many definitions. But the extreme left will very happily crucify me as right wing if I open my mouth with an opinion. Double so if I'm a white hetero man.

That attitude is much worse than any "bro" culture that may exist, not that I believe it does, and if that did exist then we can all rally against it and let those companies fail.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#887

Post by TheGirondin » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 1:38 PM UTC

puranjay wrote: post #567

eagsalazar2 wrote: post #555

Google really blew it. Just look at this conversation, normally happy and polite HN is barely restraining itself only because of fear of being hell banned and this is a tiny watered down version of the outrage they have unleashed nation wide. Had they just (as they should ethically have done) privately let the guy know "hey uh, independent of whether we agree with you, can you please cool it because this is USA, Bay…

They did screw up. But this guy had to be fired. Not because they had to make an example out of him, but because by publicly sharing his biases, he's ensured that a large part of Google wouldn't want to work with him. It's a team sport after all.

Sorry, that doesn't fly. Working with people who have different political views is part of being a professional.

It's a team sport after all.

Something tells me that you aren't also going to defend the firing of anyone with open SJW beliefs for the same reason.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#888

Post by PeterStuer » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 1:38 PM UTC

Two populations can have the same median and average score on fit for a criterion. However, if they have a different distribution, let's say population A has a 'normal' distribution while population B has a U-Shaped distribution, then after the application of a high pass filter with a cutout above the shared median, you will be left with proportionally higher residue of population B than of population A and unbiased sampling of the result will reflect this. Applying a high-pass filter below the median will show an inverse result. A high-pass filter with cut-off at the median will result in a 50/50 result between A and B remainders. As always, statistics do not say anything about any individual in any of the populations. Statistics does also not address the potential underlying causes of the distribution differences. Using statistical arguments to judge individuals is usually referred to as prejudice or discrimination. Many countries have adopted laws and regulations to curb some select forms of discrimination, while permitting others.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#889

Post by TheGirondin » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 1:40 PM UTC

ghort wrote: post #776

peacetreefrog wrote: post #308

It's crazy to see such overtly anti free speech arguments in the discussion around this memo, even on Hacker News. "Well actually, the first amendment only protects against government intruding on free speech, it doesn't apply to the rest of us!" Free speech used to be the thing everyone agreed on. It's like a fundamental tenant of Western, liberal democracy has gone out of vogue.

Not sure what you are saying. It is the first amendment that grants the right to fire people you don't agree with. So presumably not everyone agrees on what free speech is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_...

If you read your own link, you will learn that free speech and the first amendment are not the same thing.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#890

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 1:41 PM UTC

slackingoff2017 wrote: post #714

tunesmith wrote: post #123

People can't seem to summarize his argument without getting much of it grossly wrong, because his manifesto was a haphazard collection of good points, bad points, good arguments, lousy arguments, misrepresentations of others' views, and unstated implications. A perfect recipe for people to argue past each other about it. It's worth remembering that one of his conclusions was to end or replace gender-based diversity p…

You imply bias in the the hiring process is what is causing the gender imbalance in tech. Indicators such university enrollment in CS programs show that this is unlikely to be the case. If the author is wrong, that there definitely isn't some inherit genetic behavioral bias influencing job choice, than the bias is happening before students finish highschool. I'm a proponent for an "early bias" theory because of far l…

[deleted]