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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

#181

Post by xenadu02 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #111
eeks wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot pose as a parangon of free speech when your company just fired a dissenting voice. For all intents and purposes the content of the memo was balanced, polite, and restricted to the Google audience. The adult reaction should have been to punish the leaker (which I believe should be an actual breach of the code of conduct) and organize internal debates to allow multiple viewpoints to confront. Rallying with t…

I agree. Having read the original memo, if anything in there actually violates Google's Code of Conduct, then they need to have a serious discussion about the CoC itself (and how they interpret it).

Uhh Pichai repeats exactly what the memo claimed: that women are

>being “agreeable” rather than “assertive,” showing a “lower stress tolerance,” or being “neurotic.”

Go ahead and claim women are more neurotic and have a lower stress tolerance. Don’t expect everyone to pat you on the back and claim you’re just expressing a minority viewpoint... because you clearly aren’t. James Damore didn’t bother to do any research on the topic - I guess he just assumed his feelings were correct? And he assumed he wouldn’t suffer any consequences for claiming 1/3 of his coworkers were meek easily spooked neurotics?

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#182

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

sebastos wrote: post #143
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

SUCH AS? Jesus Christ.

1.

He boils down the sides do absurd minimal values that understandably cause offense. He calls the people the "left" support as "weak" and says the left worldview prefers an "unstable" approach.

2.

He jumps directly into generalizations about men and women. THe subject has hardly been breached at this point and he's already stirring discomfort among any readers for whom his generalizations do not hold.

3.

He says that women have a harder time negotiating for salary et al as part of their inherent nature.

4.

He directly states that women are neurotic and indirectly states that women cannot handle high-stress work. These terms were called "scientific" by the parent comment, but so is "retarded", and calling someone a retard is pretty fucking rude.

I empathise with the idea that men are being marginalized in order to accomodate for others. Supressing the views of conservatives is equally troubling and worth addressing. Many of his other points hold as well. But he goes too far and throws a rotten egg into the whole document.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#183

Post by vivekd »

cnlwsu wrote: post #150

Keep politics/religion out of work. Its one thing to rant on reddit at end of day, its another to broadcast it to co workers. What did he expect would happen? His little write up would change everyones mind? Both left/right are extremists these days and will never change. All you will do is alienate and anger a bunch of co workers for a few pats on back from "your" side. While the smart people will put heads down and…

But the memo wasn't a political document, it was a document about google's diversity policies that was geared towards starting a discussion and changing those polices:

Here is a copy of the memo

https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-di...

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#185

Post by imron »

pimmen wrote: post #101
slavak wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He referred to a "lowered bar" in the form of a reduced false-negative rate for "diversity candidates"; at no point in the document did he imply his female engineer colleagues are less qualified. He also had a reference to apparently support this assertion, but since the hyperlink leads to an internal Google group we can't really know its contents unless a Googler informs us. From the original memo: > However, to ach…

Let's assume this guy knows statistics; by lowering the rate of false-negatives, you raise the rate of false-positives. This means that he's heavily implying Google has employed undeperforming engineers with these practices.

> This means that he's heavily implying Google has employed undeperforming engineers with these practices.

No he hasn't. Rather, he's implying that 'non-diverse' hires have a higher bar to to pass, and that by enforcing diversity quotas you tend to end up hiring exceptionally qualified people from the 'non-diverse' group, which can have the opposite of your desired effect, and perpetuate stereotypes about the performances of people from different groups.

For example, let's say you have 100 people interviewing for 10 positions. Of that, due to current representation of women in tech let's say the candidates comprise 20 women and 80 men.

Let's also assume that 25% of those interviewing meet the technical standards a.k.a 'the bar' required by Google (that makes for 5 women and 20 men).

Google however is only hiring 10 positions, and in order to meet diversity requirements will hire 5 women and 5 men (50/50 split).

Each one of the people hired is qualified to work at Google and meets the bar (none of them are underperforming).

Without any diversity requirements a candidate would need to be in the top 10% of other candidates to get a position however now, for the women, they only need to be in the top 25% of other woman candidates to get the position, whereas the men need to be in the top 6.25% of male candidates.

The bar has been effectively lowered for the women candidates and raised for the male candidates, despite all of them being worthy and capable of working at Google.

If you are always hiring equal numbers of people from both groups, but from one group you are always hiring the top 6.25% of candidates, and the other group you are hiring from the top 25% of candidates, then over time you'll start to find that on average, one group has a larger percentage of high performers than the other.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#186

Post by novembermike »

swalsh wrote: post #163
cnlwsu wrote: post #150

Keep politics/religion out of work. Its one thing to rant on reddit at end of day, its another to broadcast it to co workers. What did he expect would happen? His little write up would change everyones mind? Both left/right are extremists these days and will never change. All you will do is alienate and anger a bunch of co workers for a few pats on back from "your" side. While the smart people will put heads down and…

I'd mostly agree with you, but this was not an "in general" opinion that he posted to some "off topic" list. It was a direct opinion about the policies of his company. There is no better place to disagree with your companies internal hiring policies, than on an internal mailing list.

In fact, this might be legally protected speech. I don't know how applicable they are but there are a few old pro-union laws on the books that prevent people from being fired because they were talking about improving the workplace or because they discussed discrimination they reasonably felt was happening (it doesn't matter if it actually happened).

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#187

Post by elevenfist »

intern4tional wrote: post #158
pyroinferno wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>which he wasn't. I'm sure you have sources that disprove his sources. How about you post them.

He's most likely referencing his next two lines down, "As part of Google's mandatory diversity training, one is presented with Google's internal research claiming that unconscious bias is real and measurable, and that diversity hiring yields both better individual and group performance. Google has a line which they feel is backed by research..." so he can't post that data publicly as it is Google's private research.…

> "... that diversity hiring yields both better individual and group performance."

This is a well-known, well-researched fact of organizational psychology. Are you guys really this stupid? Think about it from a problem-solving perspective, in terms of the solutions individuals and groups will come up with.

Sexism, racism, and discrimination in general doesn't benefit anyone but the wealthiest few, and only if they're really, really stupid.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#188

Post by tchaffee »

mejin wrote: post #91
pimmen wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What can Google or any other company do to hire more from one group (example, women) other then by making it easier (lowering the bar) for those groups to be hired?

> What can Google or any other company do to hire more from one group (example, women)

1. Making the workplace less hostile to that group. The code of conduct and this firing both seem to addressing this point.

2. Making sure salaries are equal for equal work. Google might have some problems in this area.

3. Investing in the hiring pipeline (education) to make sure bias isn't occurring earlier in the pipeline.

Those are just a few ideas. Someone really committed to that goal could surely find more ideas.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#189

Post by justinjlynn »

spodek wrote: post #73

To Sundar Pichai: How could someone express the views the author felt without getting fired, while still promoting discussion? Is it possible , just possible , that Google's policies are counterproductive? If so, how would Google find out? By what process could someone change them? If such processes exist, why would someone the company valued enough to hire risk his job to send this memo? Is it possible that Google's…

This precisely. It's a pity they'll never be specific in addressing exactly how these points could have been raised without sanction. As admitted, the (former) employee clearly felt the discussion was worth starting - why won't they provide concrete examples of how they would be preferred the issues be raised in this case? (It's a rhetorical question; of course, we know why they won't and can't do that.)

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#190

Post by johnsea »

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…

Would be helpful to know WHICH Code of Conduct he is supposed to have violated.

From glancing over the memo I perceive that: women/man are different and men prefer working in engineering. No need to artificially increase percentage of women engineers with incentives. I did not notice any inferior/superior claims.

Being fired for this polite memo? And being characterized as a kind of toxic outcast? - I'm sorry, what have our society and companies become?

Googlers seem to be allowed to do his/her utmost only within a narrow cage of accepted/mainstream borders.

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