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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

#201
I am a black dude from an upper middle class family that went to private school his whole life and I am very, very familiar with how it's possible to have great ethnic diversity but a severe lack of diversity in other areas (and how negatively that can affect things). Because of this I've often wondered how a company or any group of people can include perspectives that many other people find to be morally reprehensible.

Let's say someone at my company holds the opinion that black people are generally too stupid to do tech jobs and they write a memo to the company explaining that opinion. They cite sources that show how blacks underperform academically compared to other ethnic groups and go about it in a really professional way. Should the company just say "well this guy made some good points maybe we should reconsider our diversity programs." Should they tell all the black employees at the company that they should be more open minded to that opinion? As a black guy at that company I would be really unhappy about that and I'd probably quit. I genuinely don't understand how that's supposed to work and would love to hear some suggestions.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#203

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.

Google has enough money to survive everything for decades.

It may not be the case for smaller companies that love to copy what they do.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#204

Frankly, the CEO has more problems than this memo. Breitbart has been a garbage fire for a while, but if the screen shots and messages in the article[1] aren't fake then Google is going to have some problems. This is really not the thing you want going on when you already have a government labor investigation underway. I wish anyone impacted luck. 1) http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/08/07/revealed-inside-goo...

Breitbart is fascist propaganda, you've made the world worse for sharing anything from them.

Did you actually read the article or it’s just antibodies working?

Actually I didn’t, but they provide with more sources to supplant their narrative than any other “legitimate news source” that I have encountered.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#205

Frankly, the CEO has more problems than this memo. Breitbart has been a garbage fire for a while, but if the screen shots and messages in the article[1] aren't fake then Google is going to have some problems. This is really not the thing you want going on when you already have a government labor investigation underway. I wish anyone impacted luck. 1) http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/08/07/revealed-inside-goo...

> if the screen shots and messages in the article[1] aren't fake You could share your thoughts on this rather than making a clickbait comment.

I did share my thoughts (CEO has other problems, good luck to people impacted), and HN doesn't allow posting images so I posted a link to the article. Inc. Magazine https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/google-manifesto-blacklists.h... looks like they are verifying them although they did not print any.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#206
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…

> Keep politics/religion out of work.

I agree with this. But given how political google is ( remember google's arab spring movement, it's lgbt stance, etc ), maybe google should also be political/religious neutral. Every July, google changes it's frontpage to state their pro-lgbt political stance.

> its another to broadcast it to co workers.

He didn't broadcast it to his coworkers. It was an internal discussion.

> Both left/right are extremists these days and will never change.

Except that leftists extremism is rather normalized in media/corporations.

At google and in the media, you can say there are too many men or too many whites in technology. What would be deemed hateful if only the "genders/races" were switched in the statement is considered "progressive" by the media/corporations.

> All you will do is alienate and anger a bunch of co workers for a few pats on back from "your" side.

Google's stance on lgbt, diversity, etc also alienates people.

The problem I have here is that only one side gets to speak while the other side is censored and attack.

I'm pro-lgbt and pro-diversity. But I also don't want censorship, intimidation and oppression.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#207
post #68
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.

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…

[deleted]

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#208
This is definitely the best response to the memo that I've read. He clearly says which parts of the "manifesto" are an acceptable expression of opinion in the workplace and which aren't. I am very relieved that he didn't jump on the bashing bandwagon and dismissed the memo as a whole just because it contained some questionable and inappropriate parts.

This makes it very credible that he's actually read the whole thing and thought about it. Something that I miss dearly with 99% of the other discussion contributers (e.g. [1] which is IMO just hate speech of a worse kind than the memo it responds to).

I really thought I wouldn't write this but kudos and thanks to Sundar for such a balanced and well thought-out response.

[1] https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-man...

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> And people consider parts of what he said bigoted. Is it enough for some people to consider it that? Consider gay marriage. Each side thinks the other is being bigoted towards some group . Do we just take people's words for it?

Looking at the response in this friend it is worringly normal to let you ever get most easily offended define what is reasonable.

This only leads to people getting increasingly sensitive over increasingly minor things and it's a vicious circle.

So how do we break it? How do we re-establish open discourse?

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