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Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

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Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#461

Post by trentnix »

bronz wrote: post #119

the author of the memo is completely correct and, as others have said, his memo is drastically misrepresented in the coverage it has received. he simply points out that women could have less desire to go into fields such as cs because of their biological makeup. he never says that women should leave google -- he only says that trying to reach a perfectly equal distribution is misguided. perhaps those who are red in t…

  as a liberal i find that it is important to not shy away
  from controversy: women and men are biologically different.
  i am sorry, but they are.
That you felt the need to apologize for a statement that is so blatantly obvious even a small child could see it is telling. I understand why you did and find myself doing similar things. It's pitiful.

Unfortunately, your pre-emptive apology for recognizing the obvious won't save you from the mob - those whose minds are so rotted and aloof they insist everyone indulge their fantasy because they can't cope with reality. Feelings, safe spaces, groupthink, and all that.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#462

Post by ViktorV »

bduerst wrote: post #423
ViktorV wrote: post #315

What I don't get in many of the left-leaning comments is that they're basically saying that 'patriarchy'/society is the only reason why women are underrepresented in tech. In India/Russia, there are way more women represented in tech then in US. Do you think that these cultures are more welcoming/less sexist to women than US? It should be so in your world view. I suspect that the companies in these countries doesn't…

Where are you seeing that? Your comment is the only one here saying anything about patriarchy.

I was referring to gender norms for women + systemic bias against women as patriarchy. You are right, nobody wrote that explicitly, I just don't want to write a wall of text :) Hence the /society part.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#463

Post by jorgemf »

williamaadams wrote: post #454
jorgemf wrote: post #432

We don't need diversity program, we need tolerance programs so everybody can see the value of an individual regardless their gender,race or whatever thing irrelevant for the job

"diversity" and "inclusion" often go hand in hand. Throw in some "unconscious bias" training, and you begin marching down a path. I think it's something only time and a diverse gene pool will heal. Relevance to the job is a key thing, as simple as it sounds. You always want "the best", and in tech, that often means "people like me", which necessarily means "not people like them", and we find ourselves where we are to…

I think this is like medicine, you can cure the illness or treat the symptoms. Diversity programs treat the symptoms, tolerance programs might solve the problem. I don't see how hiring women and putting in a toxic corporate culture will help. It will mostly scare the women and potentially new hires. We need different things, and firing a person who raises this topic is not helping.

I don't think the big companies got big hiring similar people as the founders. But getting diverse roles. Although once they got big,the middle management night so what you say.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#464

Post by NTDF9 »

Why do people/companies go to two extremes over this?

I can see what the Google engineer wanted to point out. He's simply saying that companies get aggressive in trying to improve diversity at the expense of merit.

Does that mean there are no competent employees of non-white-male backgrounds?

If Google really thought that they disagree with this employee, just prove it. Why such a furor?

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#465

Post by gerash »

I don't think this guy should've been terminated.

He wrote an inflammatory memo asserting that biological differences between men and women is a major factor in their performance at tech jobs. I don't believe the crux of his argument is scientific. He didn't provide much evidence but he did raise some valid points throughout his memo.

He just made a bunch of wrong assertions. The appropriate response should've been a statement saying the company does not agree with this one guy. Google should've ended it there but perhaps it became a PR headache.

This outrage on the net and people posting on Twitter that they declined job offers from Google is overmuch.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#466

Post by kbhn »

Method-X wrote: post #446
escape_goat wrote: post #203

The best explanation of why he was going to be fired and why that was the right thing to do (that I read) came from Yonatan Zunger, who had recently left a Human Resources position at Google; especially his third point, in the following post on Medium: https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-man... In many way, it was not an unfamiliar sort of rant for the internet, and I was struck by the author's e…

>You have probably heard about the manifesto a Googler (not someone senior) published internally about, essentially, how women and men are intrinsically different and we should stop trying to make it possible for women to be engineers, it’s just not worth it . I stopped reading after the first paragraph. Totally not what the memo was saying.

You did yourself a disservice by stopping after the first paragraph.

If you would have recognized his opening paragraph as hyperbole, you would have gone on to read a comprehensive opinion from a former Google HR employee on the ramifications of publishing such a memo. He makes very good points that are worth consideration, or at least reading for the detailed insight into why Google's hand was played and forced to fire him.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#467

Post by kylestlb »

wildmusings wrote: post #35

The author's arguments have been completely misrepresented. He pointed out widely-believed and sometimes scientifically-established differences in the DISTRIBUTION OF traits in men and women. He said that those differences make attempts to achieve numerical parity misguided, discriminatory, and harmful. What is his conclusion about how we should behave? "Treat people as individuals, not as just another member of thei…

Can you really say 'the establishment' is somehow masterminding anything, when the President of the USA will likely go on twitter to shame Google for what they've done?

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#468

Post by strictnein »

kozikow wrote: post #217

Suppose that you work for the company that consists of 80% vimers and 20% emacsers. All documentation is geared towards vimers. There are interests groups geared towards vimers. No one questions you if you are a vimer. If you are a stuck with some error as an emacser there are fewer people to turn to or discuss your favorite text editor, so some people start to suggest that emacsers are worse programmers. The company…

Answer: All the employees should be forced to use nano or fired.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#469

Post by wutbrodo »

wildmusings wrote: post #35

The author's arguments have been completely misrepresented. He pointed out widely-believed and sometimes scientifically-established differences in the DISTRIBUTION OF traits in men and women. He said that those differences make attempts to achieve numerical parity misguided, discriminatory, and harmful. What is his conclusion about how we should behave? "Treat people as individuals, not as just another member of thei…

> Honestly, Google might have even been rational to fire him, due to the toxic situation created by the mass outrage. How incredibly damning of our society.

This is always the case. Even companies who are sane need to respond to the foaming-at-the-mouth lunacy of Twitter and related cesspools. As disgusting as the Brendan Eich thing was, I never really blamed Mozilla. I'm just not sure how tech in particular ended up so strongly under the influence of a relatively small amount of loud, shitty people.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#470

Post by postnihilism »

sp527 wrote: post #435
postnihilism wrote: post #275

This feels like the blue and black (white and gold) dress. It boggles my mind that people don't see the fundamental and toxic misogyny in this 'manifesto'. Please have a woman you care about in your life, preferably one in tech, read this and then ask their opinion of the piece. The "treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group" sentiment of the author is fine except that we have hundreds of…

> Diversity programs are not about lowering the bar As an Asian male who once upon a time had to apply to colleges, I'd like to see some evidence for that assertion. To be clear, I (and hopefully many other people commenting here) have no problem with outreach, anti-harrassment, and other such workplace training initiatives. It's unfortunate that we can't all achieve a baseline level of civility that abstracts away a…

I appreciate where you are coming from. And I agree we should, "strive towards a world in which we stop making exactly those kinds of distinctions and instead judge people on the content of their character and the value they can create." And I honestly believe that diversity and outreach programs are part of that process.

The economic and social structure of the United States is the result of historical processes that were driven by racism and sexism; disparities in wealth and power between these groups continue to exist today due to that legacy.

To take one example, "If average black family wealth continues to grow at the same pace it has over the past three decades, it would take black families 228 years to amass the same amount of wealth white families have today." [0]

While it is a great sentiment that everyone should be treated purely as individuals and it is something to strive for, it completely ignores the economic reality of our country and is an ahistorical approach to public policy or the construction of a hiring pipeline.

We can argue about to what role public companies can or should play to reduce these historical inequities. I think that outreach and education at all levels to increase the number of candidates from underrepresented groups in the tech hiring pipeline is a great step and that reducing these inequities, beyond being ethical, will create a stronger workforce. Others might disagree and have good reasons to disagree. That is a conversation worth having, but it needs to happen in the historical context in which we find ourselves.

Writing a manifesto that claims that the disparity in tech is the result of biological differences that lead women to be inferior at performing in tech and leadership capacities is not the way to start this conversation. In fact this is the exact kind of sentiment that you call out by saying, "I personally find it inflammatory to equate the concept of diversity with differences in sex and race in the first place."

[0] http://www.ips-dc.org/report-ever-growing-gap/

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