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

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

#251

Post by danarmak » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 4:38 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…

Sundar could have fired Damore without making an official statement. Or he could have made a statement that doesn't elaborate on the reasons for the firing, or that says what you did - that he's being fired for causing bad PR.

Instead, Sundar found it necessary to lie in his official statement about what Damore had said. He defamed him by saying that his memo contained things that are contrary to what the memo actually says and that Damore himself would certainly denounce if asked. Because, presumably, Sundar felt it was preferable to appease a mob by acquiescing in their villification of a Google employee.

That is what is this particular post claims makes Sundar a bad CEO. I don't know if that's true - that is, whether it makes him an ineffective CEO, whether his actions were good for Google in the long run; that remains to be seen. But the author of this piece feels that it was a morally wrong action (and I agree).

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

#252

Post by AnimalMuppet » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 4:38 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #80

lisper wrote: post #33

The primary thesis of Damore's memo [1] was not that women are biologically unsuited to STEM careers. The primary thesis was that, at Google, you cannot even advance the hypothesis that biology might be a factor without putting your career at risk. Ironically, by firing Damore, Pichai proved him correct. EDIT: if you doubt this, just look at the document's title and TL;DR section. [1] https://assets.documentcloud.org…

No, his thesis was that the gender gap can be explained by biology. Verbatim, from the manifesto: "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." The way he explains it with biology is that he rattles off a bunch of micro-facts…

The line you quote is not saying that all of the gender gap can be explained by biology. It's saying that it is an extreme position to say that all of it can be explained by "differential treatment" (sexism in one form or another).

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

#253

Post by thomasahle » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 4:38 PM UTC

nzjrs wrote: post #58

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...

By my estimation there is about 7 layers of recursive debunkings so far. How many times you recurse before breaking out seems to depend most strongly on your initial starting biases.

If the refutals are serious, you should be able to eventually find some underlying, simpler disagreement, or some experiment that needs to be done. If we give up, and break the recursion early, we get tribalism.

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

#254

Post by humanrebar » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 4:38 PM UTC

taysic wrote: post #190

richardknop wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people who are outraged by this are people who are afraid to live in a society where you can be fired and your career ruined for having a political opinion (not even controversial one).

I really don't care what political opinion my coworkers have. But if they feel called to publish a memo about company policy that affects me due to this political opinion - it better be a very open discussion in such a way that they can't get the last word. I also question if a drawn out debate (which it should be) would be a waste of company time. Also this one was very controversial.

> I really don't care what political opinion my coworkers have.

Except when you do care?

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

#255

Post by mwytock » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 4:39 PM UTC

lobotryas wrote: post #218

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…

You start by saying something is not "supported by the facts" and then go on by talking about how it's "highly offensive" (i.e.: hurts your feelings). I just want you to meditate on this for a bit.

I'm not sure what the contradiction is here?

Also, I wasn't making any claim about my own feelings, the massive response shows that the memo was highly offensive to many people.

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

#256

Post by akhilcacharya » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 4:39 PM UTC

GreaterFool wrote: post #202

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…

Meanwhile there's been an ongoing campaign to discredit Stephen Miller based on his looks . I found this portrayal shocking: https://youtu.be/ej_5vyDkZgU?t=280 He's been labeled "a creep" for no reason by those who claim to be righteous and politically correct and fighting for the marginalized.

He's already a creep for his views (Muslim ban, opposition to Hart-Cellar).

His looks (and prior statements) just don't help.

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

#257

Post by noarchy » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 4:39 PM UTC

moneytalks wrote: post #105

Let's take bets on how long this survives on the front page. I'm going with 15-20 minutes from now. Who wants the over/under? edit: Already down from 3rd to 6th while points went from 130 to 170. 7 minutes in. edit: now 7th

Weird, the post was flagged/dead at one point, and now it isn't. Of course it has since sunk off the first page, too.

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

#258

Post by chongli » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 4:39 PM UTC

mwytock wrote: post #245

chongli wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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." That is not true. The facts support the exact opposite conclusion: that prenatal exposure to androgens orients a person toward things/systems rather than people. [0] [0] https:…

I'm not sure what you are arguing, can you be more explicit? You're saying that you agree with the fundamental point of the memo?

I'm saying that the scientific research agrees with the point of the memo. Whether or not I agree is irrelevant to the facts.

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

#259

Post by humanrebar » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 4:39 PM UTC

danarmak wrote: post #251

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…

Sundar could have fired Damore without making an official statement. Or he could have made a statement that doesn't elaborate on the reasons for the firing, or that says what you did - that he's being fired for causing bad PR. Instead, Sundar found it necessary to lie in his official statement about what Damore had said. He defamed him by saying that his memo contained things that are contrary to what the memo actual…

> Sundar found it necessary to lie in his official statement about what Damore had said

It could be a lie? It seems more logical that it's a misunderstanding. Neither make Pichai look good, especially since he had no discussions with Damore (according to Damore) to clear up any misunderstandings.

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

#260

Post by where_do_i_live » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 4:40 PM UTC

hliyan wrote: post #9

Isn't this author's reaction to the firing the same as Google's reaction to the memo -- over-outrage?

Arguing someone should be fired from their job for doing a bad job doesn't seem to be over-outrage... seems applicable. Maybe you disagree with his arguments, but seems normal to me.