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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

#191

Post by TeMPOraL »

xenadu02 wrote: post #181
TeMPOraL wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Having read the original memo, if anything in there actually violates Google's Code of Conduct, then they need to have a serious discussion about the CoC itself (and how they interpret it).

Uhh Pichai repeats exactly what the memo claimed: that women are >being “agreeable” rather than “assertive,” showing a “lower stress tolerance,” or being “neurotic.” Go ahead and claim women are more neurotic and have a lower stress tolerance. Don’t expect everyone to pat you on the back and claim you’re just expressing a minority viewpoint... because you clearly aren’t. James Damore didn’t bother to do any research…

> James Damore didn’t bother to do any research on the topic - I guess he just assumed his feelings were correct?

Go and actually read the original memo at https://medium.com/@Cernovich/full-james-damore-memo-uncenso.... Which, for this particular point, links to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology#..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathizing%E2%80%93systemizin... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism (see in particular https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism#Sex_differences). From which you can access about a metric fuck ton of actual research.

We can't expect to have any reasonable discussion on the topic if the standard of criticism is not reading the piece one is criticizing, and then stating obvious falsehoods (like "didn’t bother to do any research") as facts - probably hoping other readers also won't bother checking.

EDIT:

Also:

> Go ahead and claim women are more neurotic and have a lower stress tolerance. Don’t expect everyone to pat you on the back and claim you’re just expressing a minority viewpoint...

Those are actual falsifiable statements. They can be either true or false. The whole idea of considering them as "viewpoints" is ridiculous and it's precisely what's the problem with the whole environment surrounding the discussion.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#192

Post by ummonk »

pimmen wrote: post #101
slavak wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He referred to a "lowered bar" in the form of a reduced false-negative rate for "diversity candidates"; at no point in the document did he imply his female engineer colleagues are less qualified. He also had a reference to apparently support this assertion, but since the hyperlink leads to an internal Google group we can't really know its contents unless a Googler informs us. From the original memo: > However, to ach…

Let's assume this guy knows statistics; by lowering the rate of false-negatives, you raise the rate of false-positives. This means that he's heavily implying Google has employed undeperforming engineers with these practices.

Not true. You can lower the rate of false negatives without raising the rate of false positives using multiple measurements instead of just one, which as I understand it is what Google does for candidates from underrepresented groups.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#193

Post by unityByFreedom »

protomyth wrote: post #109

Frankly, the CEO has more problems than this memo. Breitbart has been a garbage fire for a while, but if the screen shots and messages in the article[1] aren't fake then Google is going to have some problems. This is really not the thing you want going on when you already have a government labor investigation underway. I wish anyone impacted luck. 1) http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/08/07/revealed-inside-goo...

> if the screen shots and messages in the article[1] aren't fake

You could share your thoughts on this rather than making a clickbait comment.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#194

Post by novembermike »

xenadu02 wrote: post #181
TeMPOraL wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Having read the original memo, if anything in there actually violates Google's Code of Conduct, then they need to have a serious discussion about the CoC itself (and how they interpret it).

Uhh Pichai repeats exactly what the memo claimed: that women are >being “agreeable” rather than “assertive,” showing a “lower stress tolerance,” or being “neurotic.” Go ahead and claim women are more neurotic and have a lower stress tolerance. Don’t expect everyone to pat you on the back and claim you’re just expressing a minority viewpoint... because you clearly aren’t. James Damore didn’t bother to do any research…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism#Sex_differences

Neuroticism is an actual measurable thing and the research seems to indicate that women typically measure about half a standard deviation above men on it.

I honestly didn't know this before but it seems like when he's making these claims he's using objective research that finds these things across cultures.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#195

Post by bostik »

cynicalkane wrote: post #128
koolba wrote: post #5

Quoting Sundar Pichai (Google CEO), emphasis mine: > At the same time, there are co-workers who are questioning whether they can safely express their views in the workplace (especially those with a minority viewpoint) . They too feel under threat, and that is also not OK. People must feel free to express dissent. So to be clear again, many points raised in the memo—such as the portions criticizing Google’s trainings,…

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…

> In particular, as part of Google's mandatory diversity training, you're presented with Google's internal research showing that diversity hiring yields both better individual and group performance.

Are these numbers available to public somewhere?

I'm asking because I would dearly want to find comprehensive data. When I've done some of my own research, I have run into sets of studies, which all agree on one thing: more diverse groups get better results. The snag is that these studies disagree - wildly - with the magnitude of the effect. Some claim maybe 2% improvement. Some others claim up to ~30%. Yet others somewhere inbetween.

The figures also fluctuate quite a bit over time. Study from 2008/2009 shows numbers that are almost entirely unrelated to a study from 2014/2015. Some studies claim that gender diversity alone bears very little benefit[ß], and other studies from the same time come out with results that sort of imply you will need cultural diversity for notable results.

But by far the worst piece of news is that the measured and/or recorded numbers appear to be geographically distinct. Results from US studies are different from those in UK, which in turn differ from mainland Europe studies. That only raises more questions. Such as...

- are the numbers consistently different across regions?

- ... across continents?

- ... across cultures?

- what is the measured effect between "just" gender diverse and culturally diverse groups?

- do age groups matter?

... and so on. I genuinely would like to know. (For the record, and you can check this from my earlier posts as well: I am firmly in the camp who believe that diversity is beneficial.)

N.B. The most recent study I know of is the McKinsey report from 2015.[0]

---

ß: I can dig out the research articles if there's interest. I have some of them sort of easily accessible.

0: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-...

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#196

Post by unityByFreedom »

Many here seem to feel sorry for the fired employee.

We don't need to tolerate intolerance. Nobody cries for the Nazis, for example.

"Tolerance is an agreement to live in peace, not an agreement to be peaceful no matter the conduct of others. A peace treaty is not a suicide pact." [1]

[1] https://extranewsfeed.com/tolerance-is-not-a-moral-precept-1...

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#197

Post by edynoid »

sremani wrote: post #166
cnlwsu wrote: post #150

Keep politics/religion out of work. Its one thing to rant on reddit at end of day, its another to broadcast it to co workers. What did he expect would happen? His little write up would change everyones mind? Both left/right are extremists these days and will never change. All you will do is alienate and anger a bunch of co workers for a few pats on back from "your" side. While the smart people will put heads down and…

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 is barely credible given the source is Breitbart.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#198

Post by java_script »

mc32 wrote: post #168
Mangalor wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False equivalency. The left at least advocates for inclusion, and asking your workplace not to discriminate is not "just as bad as" saying women shouldn't be able to be engineers.

They advocate for inclusion but oftentimes want their kind of inclusion. For example they may want women to go out and vote, so long as they vote for their candidate. How dare they "vote against their self interest". Like when Hispanics get ostracized for voting republican as if they owe it to Democrats to vote for them.

Agreed, I'm for the political party that just wants people to vote, regardless of which candidate they're voting for. That truly real party that we all know and love.

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#199

Post by tchaffee »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #25
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #18

Wow, I'm surprised to see the comments here being hateful towards this statement. I don't think it's contradictory at all. The stance he takes is that any subject is up for debate, so long as you don't step out of line with respect to the code of conduct. The guy who was fired was way out of line, far beyond any reasonable limits to topics of discussion. Even as a particularly opinionated person myself, who would be…

Not saying Google has to uphold everyone's 1A rights. Not saying dude who wrote the essay is correct either. But it's a lie to say Google's culture supports free speech when the cost of that speech is compliance with the tyranny of a Code of Conduct.

> Not saying Google has to uphold everyone's 1A rights.

What rights? The guarantee that the government will not interfere with your free speech? This has nothing to do with the 1st Amendment.

> It's a lie to say Google's culture supports free speech when the cost of that speech is compliance with the tyranny of a Code of Conduct.

The memo made it clear that diversity of opinion is welcome right up to the point where it violates the CoC, but not beyond that point - if you violate the CoC - you can and will get fired. It even listed which parts of the memo would have been ok.

I've never heard of a company that places some sort of altruist dedication to free speech as a higher priority than their internal code of conduct. Google's position on this is industry standard, protects Google from lawsuits, and protects Google employees from harassment. How is that bad?

Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai

#200

Post by jryan49 »

cnlwsu wrote: post #150

Keep politics/religion out of work. Its one thing to rant on reddit at end of day, its another to broadcast it to co workers. What did he expect would happen? His little write up would change everyones mind? Both left/right are extremists these days and will never change. All you will do is alienate and anger a bunch of co workers for a few pats on back from "your" side. While the smart people will put heads down and…

I thought he just released it on his google+ and it became viral?
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