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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

#231

Post by mc32 »

dopamean wrote: post #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 reprehensib…

The important thing is whether it's company opinion or worker opinion. I used to work in part time blue collar-ish jobs to put myself thru school. Lots of the people there were older blacks and whites who had very little schooling beyond secondary school --you may or may not be able to imagine their opinions on people not their race, women, fat people, non hetero, etc.

It's not pretty to have those views, it's not pretty listening to people's uninformed opinions, but so long as it's not the company and those people are not directly affecting your promotion or success failure, I don't see an easy way out of that issue.

If those companies were to fire people for non conforming opinions, they'd be left with skeleton crews, if any. Blue collar and near blue collar jobs give you a different perspective on life.

In some ways I think Democrats have alienated some of their die hard constituents because of their failure to recognize that blue collar workers don't have the same mindset urban hipsters and political advocates have.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#232

Post by jazzyk »

edynoid wrote: post #197
sremani wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a political rally in Google Campuses in Feb 2017. So, may be you vanilla comments are generally applicable, Google has sort of exempted itself. Now some people in Google are creating black-lists of colleagues. http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/08/07/revealed-inside-goo...

That is barely credible given the source is Breitbart.

If you are alleging that they photo-shopped these screenshots - it would be intellectually honest to present a proof, rather than just smear the source, because you don't like it.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#233

Post by edynoid »

davidreiss wrote: post #206
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…

> 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. > Bo…

This sounds like that weird right-wing notion of "censorship", that has become popular recently. Let me elaborate a little…

When I hear "censorship" I am thinking of government agents sitting in newspaper editorial rooms striking out all statements in an article that does not align with the government's point of view. It means actively suppressing certain kinds of information from being distributed.

What is happening here, looks more like this: a Google employee publishes an email. Lots of people in the company find the content objectionable. Subsequently they decide that they do not want to work with somebody having these opinions. I do not see, how that is even close to censorship. It is not like he has a right to keep that particular job. He can still go out on the street and shout his opinion at the crowd.

Censorship, intimidation & oppression are very strong words to describe a situation, where somebody lost their job, because they wrote an objectionable essay on a company mailing list.

There is a difference between a right to express your opinion, which I support, and a right not to face any resistance or social consequences for voicing that same opinion. The latter of which is made up by the political right trying to relabel it as "free speech".

You can't cry censorship every time you are criticized for something you said. And let's be honest here: white men with regressive points of view are still not particularly threatened of not being heard. After all, they are well represented in pretty much every single powerful institution like parliaments, courts and executive boards. They'll manage to get their opinion heard, I'm afraid.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#234

Post by mc32 »

Brockenstein wrote: post #228
mc32 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They advocate for inclusion but oftentimes want their kind of inclusion. For example they may want women to go out and vote, so long as they vote for their candidate. How dare they "vote against their self interest". Like when Hispanics get ostracized for voting republican as if they owe it to Democrats to vote for them.

I don't believe that's true. At least not in the overly generalized way you're presenting it. You can always find extremists and crackpots in any group, and opponents can always project those people as being representative of the group. This is a human issue that is not confined to liberals and women, or liberals and hispanics. If you go out to rural locales and make a big show about being liberal in a conservative s…

Maybe it's the valley, maybe it's been the luck of my draws... Whenever politics surface in the companies I've worked for, it's assumed I'd agree with people's liberal takes. This is both overt and conversational, jovial, and other random conversations and comments. The undercurrent is always liberally bent. I feel that and have always leaned left (in most ways, but not all), although I'm starting to have my doubts as the left seems to want to go hard left with identity politics.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#235

Post by puranjay »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #123
puranjay wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What tech company would be able to attract top workers if it had an explicit policy against a certain race? The job market, too, is a market.

There's enough "top workers" available in pretty much any kind of social/racial/gender-based group you could delineate, that even companies with explicit discrimination policies can find the talent they need. The market won't give you the solution you seek; the issue does not impact profitability enough.

A company staffed by racists will by boycotted by the majority of consumers. Its only customers will be other racists.

Plus, most other companies will refuse to supply goods and services to it lest they feel the backlash of catering to racists.

Not exactly a feasible venture.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#236

Post by imron »

vivekd wrote: post #183
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...

> Here is a copy of the memo

A copy that conveniently leaves out all the links and citations, as well as several graphs and charts.

And while they do note that "two charts and several hyperlinks are also omitted", one of those charts is quite important given that it's right before he starts going on about how men and women differ on average, but that

"Populations have significant overlap. Reducing people to their group identity and assuming the average is representative ignores this overlap (this is bad and I don't endorse that)"

Anyway, here's the full thing, links and charts included:

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#237

Post by justinjlynn »

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.…

> It doesn't mean it doesn't exist though, just that we won't get access to it.

It may as well be an argument from authority - because that is what it is. One cannot hide behind "but the data show" and then refuse to show the data. That is not how science works and we shouldn't accept it for a second from anyone.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#238

Post by pokemongoaway »

dopamean wrote: post #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 reprehensib…

It seems that your whole comment doesn't work if you don't mischaracterize the whole situation. Please quote the original racism and/or misogyny. And yes, someone should legally be able to cite, for example, that Asians typically have higher IQs than others - don't you think? Besides, if you quit a huge company like Google because one of your colleagues holds an opinion, then how are you so different from a white who wouldn't go to school anymore after the first black joined? This example is closer to reality than yours, I think!

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#239

Post by enraged_camel »

mc32 wrote: post #168
Mangalor wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False equivalency. The left at least advocates for inclusion, and asking your workplace not to discriminate is not "just as bad as" saying women shouldn't be able to be engineers.

They advocate for inclusion but oftentimes want their kind of inclusion. For example they may want women to go out and vote, so long as they vote for their candidate. How dare they "vote against their self interest". Like when Hispanics get ostracized for voting republican as if they owe it to Democrats to vote for them.

You are conflating two different issues.

Voting is always better than not voting, even when it seems as if your vote makes no difference.

Aside from that though, yes, it is bizarre when people vote for candidates who have a track record of screwing over people like them.

This isn't unique to women.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#240

Post by edynoid »

cema wrote: post #225
edynoid wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is barely credible given the source is Breitbart.

An aside note: I have noticed that recently (starting about one year ago) there has been a meme of Breitbart not being a reliable source, while its opposite counterpart Huffington Post does not seem to have this reputation. I wonder if there is a better reason for that than just political disagreement, perhaps there are studies on the relative reliability of different sources (online and offline)? Thanks!

Admittedly I have not fact-checked a statistically significant sample of their articles. But their Wikipedia article for instance tells a tale of published falsehoods, conspiracy theories and the like.

The political disagreement is an orthogonal factor, but does play a role, of course.

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