Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O • Hacker News Board

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

#481

Post by untangle » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 8:40 AM UTC

> Some people embrace moral absolutism in a desperate effort to find solid ground. They feel a rare and comforting sense of moral certainty when they are purging an evil person who has violated one of their sacred taboos.

I find this observation on-point and profound.

I expect this level of moral reasoning in my teenager. But I was shocked at its embrace by much of Google. It seems unlikely to me that CEO Pichai would be caught up directly in this stream of moral certitude and virtue signaling. Far more likely that influencers carried the torch.

But while I disagree with Pichai's decision, I think that firing him would be an inappropriate remedy that would represent a form of counter-extremism. I do suggest that Pichai surround himself with more able counsel (and not just legal). And that this episode be discussed at the Board level within the context of Google's culture.

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

#482

Post by kofejnik » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 8:48 AM UTC

dahart wrote: post #435

yorwba wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically, for basically the only significant difference in distribution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligenc...

Thank you. So, tell me if I'm summarizing correctly. The currently accepted state of things is there's no difference in average IQ between men and women, but there is a known difference in variance which is symmetric. The variance discrepancy may be associated with specific subjects. So if we assume that the US tech sector hires only above-average people, the difference in variance could lead to some difference in me…

higher variance leads to the fact that above 130 IQ, _and_ below 70 IQ, there will be more men than women

so if we select only people with very high IQ, we get more men

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

#483

Post by Yetanfou » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 8:56 AM UTC

urahara wrote: post #477

Yetanfou wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way did that memo make the environment 'more hostile to... his female coworkers'? I read the thing from start to finish and back again, checked the references and did not find anything which would serve to create a 'hostile environment'. Yes, he does question some of the programs at Google which discriminate against men (by refusing them access to resources solely based on their gender) but that criticism doe…

In a very subtle and non-evident way. He doesn't do it directly, but as a whole, given the 'memo's structure and its tone, it creates wrong assumptions, ignores important points, emphasizes secondary ones, creates doubts where there is nothing to doubt about and doesn't question things that should be questioned instead, which in general presents an incompetent and harmful way of thinking about the subject. It's like…

“It is easy to find a stick to beat a dog” comes to mind here, also "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him".

Yes, anyone looking for ulterior motives behind the manifest will be able to find something as demonstrated in the bit of prose above which goes so far as to include references to "raping children". Going to such extents to prove a point actually weakens it considerably.

What makes it so difficult for some people to accept an open discussion on these 'touchy' subjects? What are they afraid of? If those programs which the writer questions are in fact valid and worthwhile they would stand on their own merits, if they are not they should be cancelled unless there is a 'political' reason to keep them in place in which case this should be made clear to all involved parties - employees, stock holders and regulators.

Stop the witch hunt, it didn't help Salem and it won't help Google.

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

#484

Post by palerdot » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 10:41 AM UTC

Ajedi32 wrote: post #379

nobodyman wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The author isn't saying that biological differences are the _only_ factor; only that that they are _a_ factor... This is true, but as /u/taysic pointed out elsewhere, Damore dedicates the majority of his memo on this this one factor and wishes to change corporate policy because of it. > ... and that Google has been completely neglecting that factor with the current implementation of their efforts to improve diversi…

> Damore dedicates the majority of his memo on this this one factor and wishes to change corporate policy because of it. Right. I explained why that was in the previous part of my comment. > Perhaps Google is evaluating more factors than Damore? [...] Perhaps so. They made no such claim in their response to Damore's essay though. In fact, they didn't address any of his points at all; they just fired him, thus proving…

> Perhaps so. They made no such claim in their response to Damore's essay though. In fact, they didn't address any of his points at all; they just fired him, thus proving the main point of his essay

Google's firing should be seen in the context of how it affects their workplace. This notion of "anyone can say anything" does not stick in a social gathering like a workplace. Free speech is relative, in this case relative to the workplace. This memo challenges that and that was addressed by google. This is similar to firing someone making a "I will gut you if you send me a poorly constructed pull request" threat. That is not free speech. That is unsettling a social gathering. The person making the threat may be right on his intentions, but context and how he puts across matters.

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

#485

Post by ralfd » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 11:43 AM UTC

agentultra wrote: post #89

endorphone wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> cishet

Was that necessary? A) The women working at Google are predominantly also cishet and B) gay guys can be misogynistic too (sometimes even more, as they dont need women in any way).

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

#486

Post by yorwba » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 11:45 AM UTC

dahart wrote: post #435

yorwba wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically, for basically the only significant difference in distribution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligenc...

Thank you. So, tell me if I'm summarizing correctly. The currently accepted state of things is there's no difference in average IQ between men and women, but there is a known difference in variance which is symmetric. The variance discrepancy may be associated with specific subjects. So if we assume that the US tech sector hires only above-average people, the difference in variance could lead to some difference in me…

The lack of concrete numbers has been bugging me, so I decided to hunt down the variance differences and calculate the expected percentage of women in tech.

I found a paper (http://www.ams.org/notices/201201/rtx120100010p.pdf) that reports a variance ratio of 1.15 for the maths scores of boys vs girls. Interestingly, they showed a negative correlation between variance ratio and gender gap for students in different countries. (In countries where boys have higher variance of maths scores, they tend to do worse on average than girls.)

However, the hypothesis that gender ratios in CS are influenced by the higher variance additionally involves a highly selective environment. So I decided to compute how the ratio changes when a minimum score is imposed. Python code below.

  gender_ratio_to_population_ratio = lambda gr: gr/(1+gr)
  from numpy import sqrt
  variance_ratio_to_standard_deviation = lambda vr: sqrt( 2*gender_ratio_to_population_ratio(vr) )
  from scipy.stats import norm
  ratio_above_threshold = lambda thresh, vr: norm.cdf(-thresh, scale=variance_ratio_to_standard_deviation(vr))
  male_female_ratio_above_threshold = lambda thresh: ratio_above_threshold(thresh, 1.15) / ratio_above_threshold(thresh, 1/1.15)
  male_percentage_above_threshold = lambda thresh: gender_ratio_to_population_ratio(male_female_ratio_above_threshold(thresh))

When the threshold is "at least average intelligence"

  >>> male_percentage_above_threshold(0)
  0.5

equal representation, as expected.

In steps of one standard deviation above the mean:

  >>> male_percentage_above_threshold(1)
  0.52668314725189336
  >>> male_percentage_above_threshold(2)
  0.58239639246408581
  >>> male_percentage_above_threshold(3)
  0.66604327143250408
  >>> male_percentage_above_threshold(4)
  0.76581194732953917
  >>> male_percentage_above_threshold(5)
  0.86031277779790205

To fully explain 80% men in a profession using only higher variance as the criterion, you need a threshold of at least 4 standard deviations above the norm. In terms of IQ, that is at least 160. I don't think programmers have to be quite that smart.

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

#487

Post by alixaxel » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 12:41 PM UTC

Flagged, huh? Censor everything!!!

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

#488

Post by angry_napkin » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 2:07 PM UTC

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…

I’ve seen several people miss the point on this termination.

You don’t make your boss look bad. That’s it. California is an at-will employment state.

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

#489

Post by angry_napkin » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 2:14 PM UTC

ltrcola wrote: post #472

luckydude wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My take, and it's worth what you paid for it which is nothing, is that he was genuine in his opinions. I didn't get that he had a conservative axe to grind (I did get a sense that he might lean that way) but it didn't seem like he was trying to move the needle to the left or to the right, he was trying to find a better way to do what google was trying to do. What I'm trying to say is that I think the conservative med…

I'm not convinced. His repeated use of the words "echo chamber" seems fairly indicative of his views, and I don't think it simply leans conservative. This is all just conjecture though. But either way, if he didn't take the money and went public it would turn out worse for Google, possibly even legally. They really took the only action they could, in my opinion.

It’s suspiciously alt-right in tone. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he posts or follows t_d

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

#490

Post by yellowapple » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 2:39 PM UTC

lucozade wrote: post #426

yorwba wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But whether they should or not should be a question about what's in the best interest of the company as a whole. That reminds me of something I read recently: For each of these changes, we need principled reasons for why it helps Google; that is, we should be optimizing for Google—with Google's diversity being a component of that. Can you guess where I read that? (Hint: It was written by James Damore). Now it just…

I don't have to guess, I read it. Also, I don't agree with him. His whole premise is that he doesn't think there should be major change at Google as he seems to like it like it is. I find his approach to reaching that conclusion somewhat disingenuous. And I don't get your point on profit. He didn't mention it nor do I think that's the part of the culture he wants to retain particularly. I didn't mention it either. I…

"His whole premise is that he doesn't think there should be major change at Google as he seems to like it like it is."

I had the opposite impression when I read it: there should be major change at Google (away from "echo chambers") and he absolutely does not like it the way it is.