Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 156 posts

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#61

Post by footlose_3815 »

sampton wrote: post #5

Google is guilty of a lot of things but this is a drive-by shakedown by predatory law firms.

The people who are running the diversity stuff at Google when I was there were very "Eye-for-an-eye".

Some dumb stuff that happened while I was at Google:

* There was a ERG for literally every single race except White people. "Just join one of the others" was what they told me.

* During an onboarding learning exercise because I was merely showing initiative before the rest of the group. "Ok everyone here's my idea". I was tapped on the shoulder by the contractor-teacher-person and asked to move aside and let the group do the very same thing without me.

* Nonwhite employees in my org also got a special mentor who helped them get a leg-up in the company. Some employees were whisked-away from their work responsibilities to go on little field trips with other teams. A few of these people were totally inept technically at their job and I saw them convert into better jobs. It must have been nice.

I'm pretty liberal, but this corpo-liberalism that somehow thinks an eye-for-an-eye to people living in 2025 is insane to me. It might even burn someone so much it changes their politics if they're whimsical.

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#63

Post by myaccountonhn »

jsemrau wrote: post #51
myaccountonhn wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it matters, because minorities experience a lot of ways in which products fail them that probably would not have happened had their needs had been represented and prioritized. If a minority group is not represented in the development of a product, their needs are more likely to be neglected.

Products are developed for a specific market. If the market of the given minority group where large enough, there would be special providers only for that. If I go buy an Italian Pizza place, I expect to receive an Italian Pizza, and not an Italian Pizza with a Chinese nuance to it. That's when I go to a Fusion place. It's by definition impossible to make product that satisfies everyone.

I agree that it's impossible to build a product that satisfies everyone, which is the issue with global tech companies. In my utopian world, we would educate people and develop tools so that communities can build their own tools to cater to their own needs (in the same spirit as unix). I think that's better than what we have today with technocrats in Silicon valley dictating how tech should look and function for the rest of the world.

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#64

Post by dionidium »

rchaud wrote: post #27
sampton wrote: post #5

Google is guilty of a lot of things but this is a drive-by shakedown by predatory law firms.

Got any evidence for that? Is Google in the habit of paying out giant HR-related settlements for something other than protecting good ol' boys like Andy Rubin? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/andy-rubin-google-settlement-se... Google has enough money to hire the best law firms too. Why would any law firm engage in frivolous litigation against a potential future client? The linked settlement is 10X that of this one, whic…

> Got any evidence for that? Is Google in the habit of paying out giant HR-related settlements for something other than protecting good ol' boys like Andy Rubin?

The state of US case law -- IANAL, this is a layman's understanding -- is that plaintiffs only have to show that there exists "disparate impact," which is to say that outcomes were not exactly the same for Asians/whites and blacks.

Two things can be true: 1) Google did not intend to discriminate, did not institute any policy designed to discriminate, did not in actual fact discriminate against non-Asian/white employees; and 2) they could still be held liable for hiring results that look like discrimination in a single-variable analysis.

So, yes, I think there are indeed situations in which they'd pay out settlements knowing full well they've done nothing morally or ethically dubious.

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#65

Post by lupusreal »

thephyber wrote: post #53
dietr1ch wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Side rant. Cut the Latinx crap please, Latinos don't really feel represented by the force-fed "inclusive" name that straight up goes against their gendered languages. It's overriding the language to seem more inclusive in English

Quit policing other people’s speech, please.

Lead by example.

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#67

Post by bena »

footlose_3815 wrote: post #61
sampton wrote: post #5

Google is guilty of a lot of things but this is a drive-by shakedown by predatory law firms.

The people who are running the diversity stuff at Google when I was there were very "Eye-for-an-eye". Some dumb stuff that happened while I was at Google: * There was a ERG for literally every single race except White people. "Just join one of the others" was what they told me. * During an onboarding learning exercise because I was merely showing initiative before the rest of the group. "Ok everyone here's my idea".…

FYI to those not in the lingo ERG is an "Employee Resource Group".

I don't know if it's a common thing at companies or not, but it's a new initialism to me.

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#68

Post by theflyinghorse »

yieldcrv wrote: post #11
sampton wrote: post #5

Google is guilty of a lot of things but this is a drive-by shakedown by predatory law firms.

Except people on Blind brag about doing this under the domains they control. I wouldn't interpret this as a top-level policy, just some individuals in some hiring and pay/leveling decisions with little accountability. This does mean they represent Google though, and one remedy for that is a settlement by the corporate entity. Ideally shareholders would become interested in rooting this out and creating better, less e…

What's the effective difference between unofficial policy of discrimination and individual groups conducting discrimination en mass?

Thinking back to a unicorn I worked for we were unofficially told to favour women in hiring. We all thought it was a great idea at that time, but also I do remember a coworker saying how her group has been doing heavy favouring of women in hiring for years already before being told to do so.

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#69

Post by z2 »

jsemrau wrote: post #51
myaccountonhn wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it matters, because minorities experience a lot of ways in which products fail them that probably would not have happened had their needs had been represented and prioritized. If a minority group is not represented in the development of a product, their needs are more likely to be neglected.

Products are developed for a specific market. If the market of the given minority group where large enough, there would be special providers only for that. If I go buy an Italian Pizza place, I expect to receive an Italian Pizza, and not an Italian Pizza with a Chinese nuance to it. That's when I go to a Fusion place. It's by definition impossible to make product that satisfies everyone.

I don't think I disagree, so this is perhaps a devil's advocate argument--to the extent a product is meant for somewhat general use, by integrating more perspectives during development, we might uncover blind spots and innovate in ways that resonate more deeply with their core audience, not less. Asking, “Whose needs might we be overlooking?” could be useful not because every minority requires a bespoke solution, but because overlooking them might mean missing opportunities to serve even the majority better.

From anecdotal experience with voice recognition software: early versions struggled with accents and also required training on your voice specifically, which limited their utility. Making models more flexible didn’t just help minority users with accents—I think it improved accuracy for everyone. Similarly, curb cuts on sidewalks, originally designed for accessibility users, now benefit parents with strollers and even those food delivery robots running around some cities.

Maybe one frame is to avoid unintentional exclusion? The pizza shop isn't obligated to, but could at least consider the fact that some people don't eat meat (or pork or whatever), and therefore keep the margherita on the menu to the benefit of everyone.

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#70

Post by Workaccount2 »

kweingar wrote: post #49
derfnugget wrote: post #23

does anyone care if they perform better or does even suggesting that make me a racist in the modern world?

If you read the complaint, the allegation is that controlling for performance evaluations , members of certain groups were preferred over others for promotion.

I don't have any insight, but given the culture that google projects, I would be skeptical of the integrity of their performance evaluations.
Post reply on HN