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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

#381

Post by unityByFreedom »

johnsea wrote: post #190
cynicalkane wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

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

The one Pichai cited,

>> It is contrary to our basic values and our Code of Conduct, which expects "each Googler to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination."

> I did not notice any inferior/superior claims.

He said women have a harder time leading. That's a pretty big claim. None of his sources back it up, so it's just his opinion. At best, that makes him a legal risk for Google if he were involved in any hiring or promotional processes.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#382

Post by morgtheborg »

dopamean wrote: post #325
morgtheborg wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should the company just say "well this guy made some good points maybe we should reconsider our diversity programs." Only if they had been so close-minded to not consider that possibility before and are now convinced when this new evidence is presented after doing their due diligence to verify it (good luck with that). Seems more likely the truth of the guy's points are irrelevant and the programs the company provi…

Thanks for the reply. You're pretty much the only person that attempted to answer my question.

Yea, I tend to be rather literal :)

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#383

Post by beaconstudios »

uncletaco wrote: post #380
beaconstudios wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

part of the problem is that the organisations themselves have become extremely political. Google is known to be a very left-leaning company and I can imagine that working inside such a political organisation, especially one that talks a big talk about being logic and reason-driven, would cause one to want to express their views.

> organisations themselves have become extremely political This is not true if only for the fact that organizations have always engaged in politics. In one of the worst cases, the United Fruit Company lobbied the US President to overthrow the elected government of Guatemala. In one of the most benign cases, Subaru sponsored gay pride events and publicly supported LGBT groups in the 1990s. Besides that, everything els…

organisations have always been political, but the current political environment inside tech is at what I would consider to be an extremely high point. Politics right now are extremely divisive (I think much more so than say 10 years ago) and many tech companies have openly picked a side. Yes I am familiar with the UFC, and have read about their involvement in various Caribbean nations and the whole "banana republic" concept.

> Besides that, everything else you've said is useless hyperbole. Get your history together before you go spouting nonsense.

Why be so hostile? If you want to be a dick to strangers on the internet then piss off back to reddit.

Feel free to point out which of these two statements is useless hyperbole:

> Google is known to be a very left-leaning company

> [Google] talks a big talk about being logic and reason-driven

Everything else I said was conjecture.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#384

Post by beaconstudios »

elevenfist wrote: post #360
beaconstudios wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

then you're arguing for diversity of opinion or viewpoint, rather than gender or skin colour? Because that's the opposite of the approach google is taking here.

I'm arguing for diversity of gender, skin color, cultural or sub-cultural background and identity. Diversity of viewpoint should already be a given. In order to promote tolerance you have to shut down and remove the people who support intolerance. Firing this guy is clearly in line with that mission and improving productivity. We learn this in grade school, are you all foreigners or something? Or has American educati…

well for one thing I'm British. I agree that it's fair game for companies to seek to remove people who are actively hostile to other employees but from what I've read about this memo (admittedly I haven't read the original itself) it seems like he wasn't saying "quick, fire all the female engineers!" but more like "Google's diversity initiative to get equal representation amongst male/female engineers is nonsensical because women are on average less likely to become engineers due to natural temperament differences in men/women". Maybe I haven't bought into the ideological argument but nothing there seems particularly contentious, nor does it seem like he's saying women shouldn't or can't be engineers.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#385

Post by ilaksh »

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…

Because such a large percentage of people have had to deal with bias, there are laws against it and Codes of Conduct etc. So they had to fire him to prevent lawsuits. In less public disputes people may be able to get away with it, but that doesn't mean it's legal. Sexism, racism, ageism, etc. are not legal in most workplace contexts but still unfortunately very popular.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#386

Post by throwaway12124 »

pas wrote: post #214
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's not "now". People were doing this in these recent years. And it's sort of ... makes sense. You should be allowed to augment your mind with fucking spreadsheets/lists. It's different if a government/company does it.

It's not the augmentation method that's the problem. It's the apparent fact that managers/etc at Google are apparently building secret lists of people they won't work with because of ideological reasons. That's both morally awful and quite insubordinate.

What should they be doing instead? (1) STFU. (2) Do their jobs.

It's called being professional.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#387

Post by nailer »

joshuamorton wrote: post #283
SamBam wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?"

Pichai does in the note.

Where?

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#388

Post by joshuamorton »

nailer wrote: post #387
joshuamorton wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pichai does in the note.

Where?

>So to be clear again, many points raised in the memo—such as the portions criticizing Google’s trainings, questioning the role of ideology in the workplace, and debating whether programs for women and underserved groups are sufficiently open to all—are important topics. The author had a right to express their views on those topics—we encourage an environment in which people can do this and it remains our policy to not take action against anyone for prompting these discussions.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#389

Post by nailer »

joshuamorton wrote: post #388
nailer wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where?

>So to be clear again, many points raised in the memo—such as the portions criticizing Google’s trainings, questioning the role of ideology in the workplace, and debating whether programs for women and underserved groups are sufficiently open to all—are important topics. The author had a right to express their views on those topics—we encourage an environment in which people can do this and it remains our policy to n…

Sorry I should have been clearer: which parts were the clear violation?

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#390

Post by appleflaxen »

soundwave106 wrote: post #255
johnsea wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

I think the memo made two mistakes here. The first, from my perspective, is that it crossed a line that you really have to tread with care when it started talking about "biological IQ". Anyone familiar with the sordid history of eugenics knows that you tread that line really carefully, both because of the sordid history of policy on that sort of thing, the extreme difficulty of separating biological vs. environmental…

this was a fantastic critique. very well-reasoned; thank you.
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