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

171–180 of 423 posts

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#171

Post by SamBam »

cdubzzz wrote: post #24
lagadu wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

A strong message about breaking the code of conduct, yes. The message here seems abundantly clear and I have trouble understanding how it can miscontrued to be anything other than reacting to a clear violation. I can't even think of how to restate what is so clearly laid out in the note. I wouldn't rule out the potential that there is uneven enforcement of such violations, and that would make this action look questio…

> reacting to a clear violation.

If it's so clear, then could you specify exactly which parts of the memo were "fair to debate" (as Pichai says) and which part were "clear violation?"

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#172

Post by ropman76 »

The real issue is how much a corporation can enforce "correct" opinions among it's employees. This was an internal company forum. He expressed opinions that deviated from company policy (and from the sounds of it a lot of other employees at Google disagreed as well) and a lively debated ensued. OK that what sounds like a healthy thing to have happen and get ideas out there and agreed upon or shot down. However by firing him that sends a very clear message that any deviation from the norm will not be tolerated. That's not diversity, that is an attempt at moral conformity.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#173

Post by sergiotapia »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #85
Pyxl101 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The guy who was fired was way out of line, far beyond any reasonable limits to topics of discussion. What did the author say that was "out of line"? Can you please cite a section of the essay and explain? Note: Please see this response to the memo from four scientists who study the field of psychology: http://archive.is/z6xxP The reason given by Google for the author's termination was "advancing harmful gender ster…

A lot of what he said was on-point and I agree with it. However, it also puts forth a lot of inappropriate generalizations, and in many places presents absurdisms as valid points. I think his "manifesto" would have been a lot more compelling and less divisive if he had presented it much differently.

Examples please

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#174

Post by tchaffee »

fwn wrote: post #49
cdubzzz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A strong message about breaking the code of conduct, yes. The message here seems abundantly clear and I have trouble understanding how it can miscontrued to be anything other than reacting to a clear violation. I can't even think of how to restate what is so clearly laid out in the note. I wouldn't rule out the potential that there is uneven enforcement of such violations, and that would make this action look questio…

Not sure whether a management decision to remove the author is helping or hurting the goal to create an environment that isn't intimidating. ..because - compared to what was written in the memo - this is a very intimidating thing to do.

> this is a very intimidating thing to do.

It should be. If violating the CoC has no consequences then there should be no CoC in the first place.

The CoC makes it clear that some actions and some types of speech are entirely unwelcome at the company.

The memo also makes it clear that if you have a minority viewpoint that does not violate the CoC, then you should be encouraged to express those viewpoints. It even gave specific examples of the parts of the original memo that do not violate the CoC.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#175

Post by fullshark »

MichaelGG wrote: post #104
puranjay wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is how it should be. The owners of any business are free to create whatever business environment they want to create. The market is supposed to punish or reward them accordingly.

By that logic, we should let companies have explicit policies against certain races cause the market will sort it out... I don't think I've ever heard that "the market" will deal with unfair internal HR policies.

> don't think I've ever heard that "the market" will deal with unfair internal HR policies.

Really cause that's a boilerplate libertarian argument.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#176

Post by shishy »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #85
Pyxl101 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The guy who was fired was way out of line, far beyond any reasonable limits to topics of discussion. What did the author say that was "out of line"? Can you please cite a section of the essay and explain? Note: Please see this response to the memo from four scientists who study the field of psychology: http://archive.is/z6xxP The reason given by Google for the author's termination was "advancing harmful gender ster…

A lot of what he said was on-point and I agree with it. However, it also puts forth a lot of inappropriate generalizations, and in many places presents absurdisms as valid points. I think his "manifesto" would have been a lot more compelling and less divisive if he had presented it much differently.

I realize this is a touchy topic, but people keep echoing a similar sentiment about inappropriate generalizations.

However, I read the original document the (now ex-) Googler wrote and from what I can see he presented his claims in a reasonable and carefully worded manner. Many people seem to be misquoting him or taking it out of context.

Could you please provide example(s) of these inappropriate generalizations? I am curious if I am misreading the original text, or if you are perceiving it from a perspective that I cannot see (in which case, it would be nice to understand where you're coming from).

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#177

Post by slantyyz »

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…

>> It doesn't even matter what you write because most people won't even read the original source

I have to wonder if the artificial urgency that social media has created doesn't have something to do with this. Everyone these days wants to be the first to respond, which results in a "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality. You end up with a giant, unstoppable snowball of knee jerk reactions to other knee jerk reactions rolling down a bottomless hill.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#178

Post by justinjlynn »

hidden-markov wrote: post #65
k-mcgrady wrote: post #28

This thread seems to be a perfect demonstration of the problems when it comes to diversity in tech. People just don't seem to get it. I see the same thing in threads around big SV names sexually harassing women (and in those cases it blows my mind even more that people don't get that it's a problem). It seems like a lot of people are basing their opinions on logic (fine) but in a perfect world where everyone has equa…

This thread feels like a Breitbart comment section.

HN Threads on articles unrelated to technology matters tend towards the dumpster-fire end of the spectrum. The aforementioned classification is orthogonal to the (insert leftist news site here)/(insert rightist news site here) axis.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#179

Post by tchaffee »

swat535 wrote: post #127
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.

Google can indeed impose a code of conduct on its employees when they sign up. However, that does not give licence to Google to place unreasonable limits on employees constitutional rights. To do so would give privately entered contracts the power to overturn the constitution which society has enacted. The debate here is over whether his comments were reasonable in this context.

Which constitutional rights? The right that guarantees the government will not interfere with your free speech? Or some other right?

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#180

Post by TeMPOraL »

xenadu02 wrote: post #165
tedmiston wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

This was only ever true in online discussion forums, Usenet, etc. I agree that there is a lot of mob mentality going on, it’s just difficult to get upset about this case because the original author was spouting debunked “biotruth” arguments. Twitter replies are mostly full of men who didn’t read the original memo or who are willfully pretending it didn’t claim women are less biologically suited to being engineers. I…

> the original author was spouting debunked “biotruth” arguments

C.f. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14956592, where an actual scientist is quoted to say "The author of the Google essay on issues related to diversity gets nearly all of the science and its implications exactly right."

See also http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger... for plenty of good references on the topic.

But generally, I mean, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I don't expect to see peace over this topic any time soon.

Post reply on HN