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

nytimes.com

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

#71

Post by hrktb »

EduardoBautista wrote: post #12

Convincing women to focus on a career in STEM is telling them that their choices for careers in nursing, teaching, and any other career dominated by women are wrong choices. I don't believe that, they are essential to our society and are arguably more important than helping create better ads at Google and Facebook.

Objectively these careers are less well paid.

We all have our opinions, but money is society’s way of prioritizing activities. And these jobs as essential as they should be, also get shittier shittier in average , as time goes on, which doesn’t help.

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

#72

Post by daughart »

jalayir wrote: post #7

The big assumption in David Brooks' piece is that the so-called "manifesto" was Damore's one and only "transgression". Were there other, previous internal complaints about him, and this was the straw that broke the camel's back?

Especially given the reporting about him offending his classmates at Harvard.

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

#73

Post by RodericDay »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #53
endorphone wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The firing has been a PR disaster, and amplified and exaggerated the effect of this issue (not to mention that it drew attention to other factors, like Google's institutional ageism). And while I don't want to diagnose over the internet, it seems like it's attacking someone on the spectrum for traits of being on the spectrum. By firing him they made him a hero to enormous groups, and doubled down on this discussion.…

By and large the people outraged about this are the crazy men's rights, reactionary, Trumpist, Alex Jones mob that have been looking for things like this to be outraged for the past 30 years. Everyone wants to be a victim. Damore isn't a victim of anything but bad judgment. If he's hero of the mob, so what.

You're getting downvoted but you're exactly right.

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

#74

Post by ubertaco »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #53
endorphone wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The firing has been a PR disaster, and amplified and exaggerated the effect of this issue (not to mention that it drew attention to other factors, like Google's institutional ageism). And while I don't want to diagnose over the internet, it seems like it's attacking someone on the spectrum for traits of being on the spectrum. By firing him they made him a hero to enormous groups, and doubled down on this discussion.…

By and large the people outraged about this are the crazy men's rights, reactionary, Trumpist, Alex Jones mob that have been looking for things like this to be outraged for the past 30 years. Everyone wants to be a victim. Damore isn't a victim of anything but bad judgment. If he's hero of the mob, so what.

Paraphrased:

By and large the people outraged about this are...people we don't like, whose opinions don't matter, and who I think should be marginalized anyways.

If he's the hero of people we don't like, so what.

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

#76

Post by Yetanfou »

endorphone wrote: post #20
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…

The firing has been a PR disaster, and amplified and exaggerated the effect of this issue (not to mention that it drew attention to other factors, like Google's institutional ageism). And while I don't want to diagnose over the internet, it seems like it's attacking someone on the spectrum for traits of being on the spectrum. By firing him they made him a hero to enormous groups, and doubled down on this discussion.…

Even 'punitive actions' would have been wrong as their is no punishable offence. Google supposedly wants to have an open culture so they should just have accepted the 'manifesto' as part of this open culture, something to use in discussions on the subject matter. Any other reaction - and certainly the current reaction - only goes to show the truth of the accusations about Google not having an open culture.

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

#77

Post by peoplewindow »

I am minded to agree. And that's a shame, because Pichai has done good things for Chrome and Android when he was leading those.

The article doesn't really touch on Pichai's biggest mistakes here.

Mistake one: Damore's memo alleged discrimination, both against men and conservatives. Gender and political affiliation are both protected classes in California and they just fired him for whistleblowing. He has now filed a complaint with the NLRB. This seems like a legal headache that a better CEO could have avoided by not firing the guy. Put him on the roof or something, wait for things to blow over, find some other solution but the moment they fired him, they set themselves up for this.

Mistake two: Google shareholders asked at the last shareholder meeting if it was true that Google was a hostile work environment for conservatives (or words to that effect). They assured shareholders that this wasn't true. Clearly that answer has problems. Employees are leaking like crazy to Breitbart of all places that Google is extremely hostile to conservatives. I don't know what happens if leadership misleads shareholders in these sorts of questions, maybe nothing. But it can't be good.

Mistake three: Google managers have been publicly announcing within the firm that they are blacklisting employees for not being sufficiently pro-feminist or even for just questioning the policies or the mob reaction to it. There are screenshots of this along with interviews, again, on Breitbart. This seems like a fantastically unhealthy culture that Pichai has allowed to grow on his watch. I have heard from other Googlers that in one incident, a manager claimed he'd blacklist anyone who was subscribed to an internal mailing list for discussion of conservative viewpoints, and then when people objected, that he'd blacklist them too (so they couldn't transfer to his team). Again this seems like a cut/dried case of discrimination against people of certain political affiliations.

Mistake four: this debate is happening because Googlers are furiously attacking each other through leaks to the press. This is happening in both directions: the original leak was clearly intended to get Damore fired and publicly shamed, now others are leaking screenshots of internal communications and Pichai's emails. Pichai has quite clearly lost control of his own workforce to a staggering degree.

How much more of Google's guts spilling out onto the street will shareholders tolerate?

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

#78

Post by whorleater »

endorphone wrote: post #20
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…

The firing has been a PR disaster, and amplified and exaggerated the effect of this issue (not to mention that it drew attention to other factors, like Google's institutional ageism). And while I don't want to diagnose over the internet, it seems like it's attacking someone on the spectrum for traits of being on the spectrum. By firing him they made him a hero to enormous groups, and doubled down on this discussion.…

> The firing has been a PR disaster

In the sense that it's an argument both sides want to have. The left want to argue for better workplace treatment of women, while the right want to argue for speech without social repercussions.

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

#79

Post by onebot »

I also believe it was the correct move. But not because he wrote it, but because what he actually said in it. He made many generalizations that contribute to gender inequality and never backed any of those statements up with any scientific data. Thus, it could be reasoned that he clearly displayed his own biases and showed that he is a contributor to gender inequality.

Furthermore, the PR backlash against his firing is far more news worthy if it was "wrongful" and he has gone on a media tour acting as the "victim". I am not sure news outlets would approach the firing objectively.

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

#80

Post by vkou »

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, and then uses 'logic' with a big sprinkling of bias, to reach amazing macro-conclusions.

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