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Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

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Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#131

Post by [deleted] »

h4l0 wrote: post #44
se2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Misconduct would be expressing these views under his blog while putting emphasis on Google and blaming his company for what he finds unreasonable. He used internal messaging services. Someone leaked the document. That "someone" is sitting in his/her office today getting no punishment whatsoever.

[deleted]

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#132

Post by TeMPOraL »

aeorgnoieang wrote: post #122
TeMPOraL wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People being up in arms about this issue is exactly 'the market punishing or rewarding Google accordingly'. That said, don't expect the market to give you a solution that's fair to people - the only one you'll get is the one of maximum profitability under implicit rules of the current culture. Those are very much not the same things.

To be fair, 'the market' is much less strictly economic now – the phrase or even the idea itself, not the network of economic activity (which remains as 'economic' as ever).

Ultimately, the fate of businesses is mostly decided by the economical part of "the market". Looking at how the companies live and die, both in tech industry and outside, I don't believe this issue is significant enough to affect a big organization in a meaningful way.

People get easily outraged - which can and does end up with individuals getting hurt - but they also quickly forget and move to next issue. See also the arguments why boycotts generally don't work.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#133

Post by sol_remmy »

Government regulation is actually the culprit here.

Google is being sued by the Department of Labor for violating a gender discrimination regulation: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/07/google-pa...

Google's response is driven by this lawsuit. They have antitrust regulations on one side, discrimination regulations on the other. Sundar is aware that the government could sue Google out of business.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#134

Post by pyroinferno »

cynicalkane wrote: post #128
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,…

Also from the memo: > However, portions of the memo violate our Code of Conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace. Our job is to build great products for users that make a difference in their lives. To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK. It is contrary to our basic values and our Code of C…

>which he wasn't.

I'm sure you have sources that disprove his sources. How about you post them.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#136

Post by TeMPOraL »

cynicalkane wrote: post #128
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,…

Also from the memo: > However, portions of the memo violate our Code of Conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace. Our job is to build great products for users that make a difference in their lives. To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK. It is contrary to our basic values and our Code of C…

> as part of Google's mandatory diversity training, you're presented with Google's internal research showing that diversity hiring yields both better individual and group performance

That would be interesting research to review publicly. But it also reframes the picture, changing it from "some groups are discriminated against and therefore we need diversity focus" to "we need to start discriminating in order to increase diversity, because this leads to better-performing teams".

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#137

Post by talmand »

humanrebar wrote: post #71
h4l0 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Misconduct would be expressing these views under his blog while putting emphasis on Google and blaming his company for what he finds unreasonable. He used internal messaging services. Someone leaked the document. That "someone" is sitting in his/her office today getting no punishment whatsoever.

I haven't read the code of conduct, and I'm disappointed the person was fired, but I presume there's a clause about saying bigoted things. And people consider parts of what he said bigoted.

I consider what you just said as bigoted. You should apologize and fall on your sword for my feelings.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#138

Post by hncens0rship »

mattnewton wrote: post #106
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,…

Part of me suspects he could have stayed had his manifesto not gotten picked up on the front page of CNN. There was only one clear way for the Google brand to distance itself then. The message is clearly think what you want, but if your words end up next to the Google logo on national news... Edit: thinking about that, he couldn't have gone far in the company though without some serious apologies or something, becaus…

There is no scenario where he made it out with his job, SV silences dissent aggressively.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#139

Post by uncletaco »

tedmiston wrote: post #100
ryandvm wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moral of the story is something most adults figure out by their mid 20s: if you like your job, keep your mouth shut about your political/religious beliefs. And despite what any employer will tell you about their workplace being an open forum, they are full of shit. What they mean is, it's an open forum to agree with management.

> 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). Minority viewpoints in tech become silenced and their author(s) ostracized by the biases of a mob mentality. It doesn't even matter what you write because most people won't even read the original source, instead floating by on derivative tweets and ext…

> Irrespective of the original memo, and this is something I've felt more strongly in the past couple years, it's just not safe to share dissenting viewpoints in tech anymore.

It is not safe to share your viewpoints anywhere where it is not considered germane: and the workplace is high on that list. A firm will fire someone who becomes annoyingly political or who makes a public ass out of themselves on social media. I work for a medium sized tech firm in the American South and we had one engineer that was very open and sometimes combative about her progressive viewpoints and people stopped wanting to talk to her, even those who agreed with her. She didn't last a quarter.

Expecting firms to give their employees a forum to speak openly about anything not work related is a recent phenomenon across the board, and many still hold onto the view that if you want to engage in political discussions then do so outside of the workplace.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#140

Post by mc32 »

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,…

In the other thread I asked one of the responders if they could even as a joke wear a Trump hat at Google MTV. and how they might feel/b treated vs wearing a Pussy or Hillary hat.[1]

They compared a Trump hat at Google is the equivalent of walking in to (a presumably hardcore) biker bar in Iowa. That's a pretty damning response, even if they meant the opposite.

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14957708

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