Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 507 posts

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#81

Post by ebola1717 »

EduardoBautista wrote: post #12

Convincing women to focus on a career in STEM is telling them that their choices for careers in nursing, teaching, and any other career dominated by women are wrong choices. I don't believe that, they are essential to our society and are arguably more important than helping create better ads at Google and Facebook.

The fact that those fields are undervalued (and often underpaid) is a huge part of this discussion that anyone who fights for diversity in tech is well aware of and has been saying long before this memo was released.

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#82

Post by peeters »

UK-AL wrote: post #64
eganist wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the argument being made by advocates for women in STEM. The mission (I among one of many adherents to it) is to open pathways in STEM up to women who are choosing not to pursue it because of socioeconomic blockers. Blockers such as this guy. Anyway, the real position being pushed by Women in Tech/STEM movements is that anyone can/should be free to work in any career and not expect e.g. pay differences and…

The more free the genders are, the more they tend to polarise on certain careers. Since they tend to pursue what they prefer. I'm all for having no blockers for people choosing what careers they want. However people will move towards there preferences, and there preferences will be set either by nature or culture.

What evidence do we have of that?

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#83

Post by humanrebar »

Shank wrote: post #8

Honestly, I think he made the right move just from a PR perspective. His firing makes sense: the CEO and HR are both acting to protect the company. The author of the manifesto caused Google a PR disaster and created a huge state of internal conflict, valid or not. The shareholders are probably really happy that their CEO removed a person who managed to get Google so much bad press in so little time. This is the reali…

> His firing makes sense: the CEO and HR are both acting to protect the company.

No. His firing confirmed part of Demore's thesis; that Google has monoculture issues and sits in some sort of bubble.

> This is the reality of business.

Is it? If that's true, we need to be much more aggressive about corporate consolidation because the only way to make room for diversity of opinion is to make sure that there's diversity of opinion at the corporate level.

If you quit Google because it's too (insert culture war concern here), which big tech employer is substantially different?

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#84

Post by rednerrus »

dogecoinbase wrote: post #65
EduardoBautista wrote: post #12

Convincing women to focus on a career in STEM is telling them that their choices for careers in nursing, teaching, and any other career dominated by women are wrong choices. I don't believe that, they are essential to our society and are arguably more important than helping create better ads at Google and Facebook.

they are essential to our society and are arguably more important than helping create better ads Then they should be more respected and be paid more. Until they are, asking people to go into them when better, easier jobs exist is patronizing.

Is your assertion that being a teacher or a nurse is easier than SWE?

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#86

Post by nemonemo »

Shank wrote: post #8

Honestly, I think he made the right move just from a PR perspective. His firing makes sense: the CEO and HR are both acting to protect the company. The author of the manifesto caused Google a PR disaster and created a huge state of internal conflict, valid or not. The shareholders are probably really happy that their CEO removed a person who managed to get Google so much bad press in so little time. This is the reali…

Agreed. Science matters little for a business if it offends people who pay for the business or the people within the business. Even scientists themselves have issues with such results -- a part of the file drawer problem.

I guess a NYT columnist can say this because click-bait-y titles always help for revenue and Google does not stop giving the ad revenue when news articles are critical of its CEO. This looks like both parties doing their roles well enough.

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#87

Post by Amezarak »

vkou wrote: post #62
Amezarak wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incidentally, what Damore did is probably a 'concerted protected activity' (his stated goal is to take actions that improve working conditions by making the job less stressful, increase diversity, etc) covered by the NLRB, and thus Google quite possibly broke the law in firing him for the memo. That's not protecting the company. EDIT: I forgot to add that from the coverage I've seen, there are also claims that Google…

If you are trying to improve working conditions, and in doing so creating a hostile working environment, your employer is obligated to fire you. If they don't, they can be sued by other employees. And let me tell you, while you may not feel that this memo has created a hostile working environment, a lot of other people do. Google would drown in lawsuits if they let him stay on.

The legal definitions of a hostile work environment is not simply based on how something makes you feel. It is very unlikely a hostile work environment suit for not firing Damore based on this memo would win, though of course Google might choose to settle.

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#88

Post by ynniv »

I must have read a different memo than everyone else. The one I read said that the massive gender imbalance in software could be due to genetics, and because of that we shouldn't try to fix it with policy. But the reality is that there is a gender imbalance in software because of the way women are treated, and the best way to correct that is through policies that treat them better.

It shouldn't be a stretch to see that arguing against treating people respectfully is offensive.

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#89

Post by agentultra »

endorphone wrote: post #20
Shank wrote: post #8

Honestly, I think he made the right move just from a PR perspective. His firing makes sense: the CEO and HR are both acting to protect the company. The author of the manifesto caused Google a PR disaster and created a huge state of internal conflict, valid or not. The shareholders are probably really happy that their CEO removed a person who managed to get Google so much bad press in so little time. This is the reali…

The firing has been a PR disaster, and amplified and exaggerated the effect of this issue (not to mention that it drew attention to other factors, like Google's institutional ageism). And while I don't want to diagnose over the internet, it seems like it's attacking someone on the spectrum for traits of being on the spectrum. By firing him they made him a hero to enormous groups, and doubled down on this discussion.…

> By firing him they made him a hero to enormous groups,

To a small, vocal group.

> By doing it in an anti-science, anti-evidence way

There were good reasons for doing it that had nothing to do with science or evidence.

There are women working at Google who do not need to be reminded of the genetic and biologic differences they have from their cishet male counterparts.

If Damon had issues with the policies at Google there were many other channels open to him that didn't involve circulating a manifesto. He brought it upon himself. Once word of that memo leaked there was nothing for Google to do but fire him.

Re: Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O

#90

Post by ocdtrekkie »

zellyn wrote: post #29

It seems disingenuous not to mention the many debunkings of the memo's Science by Scientists. For example: https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-bio...

I've also read several supporting takes by scientists in related fields as well. The statements Damore made are indeed supported by some studies, and science being science, there are studies which conflict it as well.

Pretending 'science' supports one political view or another is the sort of thing that got us in this mess in the first place. I think if we're going to avoid being disingenuous, we need to recognize that there is not a widely accepted consensus on this topic.

Post reply on HN