Margaret Mitchell fired from Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#861

Post by pas » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 8:48 PM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #860

pas wrote: post #851

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.platformer.news/p/the-withering-email-that-got-a... this one? I'm not familiar with US (nor FAANG) workplace culture, could you please explain what's so insane about it and why?

It's extremely poorly written and mostly nonsense.

I agree it's poorly written - just like her twitter, and it even sounds nonsensical, but why is it nonsense?

The basic point seems to be that she has been handled differently than others (discrimination), made to wait a lot; and that she has been handled a "final decision" without any explanation, which she tries to present as a big no-no and against any inclusion effort that Google officially virtue signals.

Furthermore her point about how OKRs don't incentivize what officially is Google's policy (diversity, equity/egality, inclusion) seems like a solid point. Ironically Damore's memo tried to make the same "data driven" argument, and that made Google's blessed diversity team look pretty foolish, so he got fired because his style was also poor and nonsensical.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#862

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 8:59 PM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #860

pas wrote: post #851

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.platformer.news/p/the-withering-email-that-got-a... this one? I'm not familiar with US (nor FAANG) workplace culture, could you please explain what's so insane about it and why?

It's extremely poorly written and mostly nonsense.

None of it's nonsense that I can see; a lot of it is jargon laden and clearly expecting people not have a lot of context people outside of Google wouldn't to understand details beyond the general shape of the point. And it's “poorly written” from the perspective of a formal document as it's fairly stream of consciousness without a lot of editing for structure, but it was a posting to an internal, by most accounts I've seen fairly informal, discussion group, but Google seems to be notorious for (1) having these, (2) encouraging their use for informal internal discussion aimed at improving the environment including critiquing internal cultural problems, and (3) intermittently deciding to treating the fact that people took them seriously about #2 as key factors in termination.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#863

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 9:04 PM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #511

bradlys wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money isn’t usually enough. I walked away from a job paying more than $1m/yr (to be clear - I am not rich or financially independent, the stock is still illiquid atm and I live in a 400sqft in-law unit). You need satisfaction overall with your environment. I kept asking myself how much a year of my life was worth and it turns out - unless it’s fucking insane money ($10mil+ liquid) then I can’t suffer through somethin…

I should have explained better: why are smart people so bad at navigating the workplace? Gebru’s email was insane.

Maybe they aren't trying to navigate through the workplace as much as steer society including the workplace?

Some people take a job for pay, and maybe would like to have an impact if they can fit it in.

Some people take a job for impact, but don't mind the paycheck while they are there.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#864

Post by knorker » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 10:50 PM UTC

yuliyp wrote: post #859

knorker wrote: post #831

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you honestly saying this is what happened here? I think your question is ridiculous.

No, what I'm saying is that dismissing a complaint of the company doing something wrong is missing the point. Deferring to a policy whose theoretical purpose is to defend against leaks and protect trade secrets as a justification for firing someone who was archiving their own e-mails is naive.

"Archiving their own emails". There's an orwellian tint to your comments.

This policy is not arbitrary, rare, or unreasonable. In fact not enforcing it is not really an option, if you want to continue to exist as a company.

Every comment you have made in this thread has tried to distort the truth, and you've avoided saying what actually happened.

I have no respect for this sort of rhetoric. Instead of making an actual point you deliberately misdescribe the facts.

You, sir or madam, are a liar.

Two wrongs don't make a right. I'm calling neither Mitchell, Gebru, nor Google blameless here. But there's no point discussing it with someone who's actively out to move away from the truth.