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

nytimes.com

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

#271

Post by skybrian »

gonzofish wrote: post #19
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…

So why wasn't the person who released the internal memo fired? I don't agree with the memo's author, but it was an internal memo, not something released to the wild

Apparently the leakers haven't been found yet.

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

#272

Post by evolve2017 »

GreaterFool wrote: post #117

This is the first fair and balanced article on this topic I've seen. > In his memo, Damore cites a series of studies, making the case, for example, that men tend to be more interested in things and women more interested in people. (Interest is not the same as ability.) I've been trying to hammer this point to all my colleagues (in private of course, I wouldn't dare to post it on public channel due to high probability…

I'm finding this to be a fascinating look at how people, as a group, do literary criticism.

I think, if we step back from the actual words on the paper and examine the author's intent, his choice of evidence, and the mere fact that he chose to write this, we can learn just as much as from trying to decide whether or not he was talking about a population effect when talked about women before mentioning Google employees.

This is totally different from wondering about the biology. As a biologist, I think it's preposterous to start to infer biological bases to the types of psychology experiments cited. I do, however, think this could be open to debate. I feel that the undertone to the author's message is likely less unclear.

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

#273

Post by [deleted] »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #119
ubertaco wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paraphrased: By and large the people outraged about this are...people we don't like, whose opinions don't matter, and who I think should be marginalized anyways. If he's the hero of people we don't like, so what.

As a Southern white male from a conservative background, I don't want to be marginalized. But when I see the rabid way people are defending the guy like he wrote the Federalist Papers, who at best is guilty of being unaware that what he was saying is controversial, I don't feel outraged if he got fired in a massive company known for its liberal views. What did he expect? He's not helping it by making himself a darlin…

[deleted]

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

#274

Post by ebola1717 »

mwytock wrote: post #135

A lot of people on "our side" did a bad job of simply refuting the argument presented. Its straightforward to do in one sentence: "While there may be scientific evidence of differences between men and women, using these differences to conclude that women are biologically less inclined to engineering is a gross leap in reasoning that is not at all supported by the facts." Then you can go on and explain why for histori…

I think people have done a very good job of saying that. They just get drowned out by outrage from the right, and overly clipped soundbites from both sides.

My twitter feed has tons of very thoughtful pieces responding to the memo. They just never breach the front page of Hacker News.

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

#275

Post by Ajedi32 »

taysic wrote: post #222
Ajedi32 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anti-science way? Do you realize how subjective this is and how impossible it is to prove that today there are no other influences at play than biology? First of all, the original memo said nothing of the sort. Secondly, I'm pretty sure GP is not saying the reaction to this memo is anti-science merely because it opposes the position taken in the memo. Rather, it's anti-science because they threw all rational debate…

Why even bother mentioning biology then if there are other influences more important and relevant? It seemed very emphasized. They did not fire him because they didn't believe in the studies he linked. Obviously that's very much mischaracterizing things. This is a complicated issue with ample studies to link to from both sides. And anyway, I truly question studies on such broad topics.

> Why even bother mentioning biology then if there are other influences more important and relevant? It seemed very emphasized.

Because that portion of the essay was meant to counter what the author perceived to be Google's current position on the matter: that societal factors are the _only_ factor resulting in a lower percentage of women in tech.

From the memo:

> For the rest of this document, I’ll concentrate on the extreme stance that all differences in outcome are due to differential treatment and the authoritarian element that’s required to actually discriminate to create equal representation.

Followed by a section titled:

> Possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech

The author isn't saying that biological differences are the _only_ factor; only that that they are _a_ factor, and that Google has been completely neglecting that factor with the current implementation of their efforts to improve diversity within the company.

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

#276

Post by charrondev »

daenz wrote: post #143
s73ver wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"By doing it in an anti-science, anti-evidence way" But they didn't. That man's argument was not science. It wasn't. There was absolutely no scientific evidence behind his argument. He misrepresented studied, and he cherry picked what he wanted. For more on that, check here: http://blog.goldieblox.com/2017/08/open-letter-james-damore-... It's an article from a female engineer who read the manifesto, and takes issue w…

>That man's argument was not science. It wasn't. There was absolutely no scientific evidence behind his argument. He misrepresented studied, and he cherry picked what he wanted. I want to follow up on this, can you give an example? From what little I know, it's essentially settled science that men and women have statistically different interests, and those interests exist across all cultures (implying a biological ca…

You won’t get one. I’ve yet to see anyone serious even attempting to debunk that claim, and I doubt it will happen here.

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

#277

Post by luckydude »

pgeorgi wrote: post #241
luckydude wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the right move would have been to take Damore aside, say "dude, you stirred up a mess. You aren't wrong but the mess is a PR disaster. How about we hand you a big pile of money, you go find your next job elsewhere, and we agree not to throw mud at each other?" I can see not doing that when you are cash poor but Google is paying engineers as much as $600K/year in total comp, they could have landed $10M on Damore a…

> they could have landed $10M on Damore and never noticed it. Word would get around. Followed by many manifestos worth $10M.

Companies have been doing this for decades. They usually include an NDA in attempt to not let the word get around.

So far as I know, the NDA's mostly work.

If what I'm suggesting seems weird I'd encourage conversations with HR people at large companies. This is part of what a good HR person does, sadly.

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

#278

Post by hrktb »

godd2 wrote: post #197
hrktb wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Objectively these careers are less well paid. We all have our opinions, but money is society’s way of prioritizing activities. And these jobs as essential as they should be, also get shittier shittier in average , as time goes on, which doesn’t help.

The median income for a pediatrician is ~170k vs the median income of software engineer at ~80k, but 75% of pediatricians are women. So no, it's not only the "less well-paid" jobs. And even if it were, a lot of the lowest paid jobs are almost entirely men, like garbage collectors and construction workers.

I’m not familiar enough with the field, but from what I get scanning payscale.com:

- general physician: 60% women, 137k in average

- pediatricians: 80% women, 144k in average

- obstetricians/gynecologists: 70% women, 205k in average

- radiologist: 20% women, 300k in average

Basically, in the doctors field pediatrician or gynecologist are middle range salary. Nothing to sneeze at, but the more lucrative areas pay way more and are dominated by men. And honestly I don’t think the requirements for radiologist is so much harder than gynecologists, or is it ? (I am no radiologist, that’s just my impression)

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

#279

Post by clavalle »

GreaterFool wrote: post #117

This is the first fair and balanced article on this topic I've seen. > In his memo, Damore cites a series of studies, making the case, for example, that men tend to be more interested in things and women more interested in people. (Interest is not the same as ability.) I've been trying to hammer this point to all my colleagues (in private of course, I wouldn't dare to post it on public channel due to high probability…

First, the author of this article is David Brooks -- a well known, very conservative, commentator. So, it might be fair and balanced in a Fox News sense of the phrase but not fair and balanced as most people would understand the phrase.

And for the general population skew in interests/preferences to make any difference whatsoever to the makeup of Google's technical and leadership staff the argument would have to be that the population that makes up the part of the interest curve on the 'high interest' part of the graph for the underrepresented groups is completely exhausted or would be completely exhausted before parity is reached.

I'd bet big that Google could completely fill their entire company with underrepresented people that rank very high on the interest/preference curve and never make a dent in that population. There are over 7 billion people in the world. That's a big pool. Even the thinner parts of the graph represent huge numbers of people. And Google completely controls their hiring so they can pick and choose -- they are not pulling people at random from that general population. They can easily pick people that compare very favorably with any other colleague on the interest/preference scale.

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

#280

Post by pow_pp_-1_v »

What good would it do if Sundar resigns? If an employee, by his actions, sour the working environment in a company, I would think it's management's duty to get rid of the employee in no time. I am not commenting about the content of the stuff Damore wrote. But why did he write it in a way that would cause harm to his workplace? If he wanted change in the organization he should have probably found less public means of doing it.
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