Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#951

Post by jorgemf » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 4:40 PM UTC

Kluny wrote: post #573

jorgemf wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If gender-based diversity programs are responsible for qualified women getting jobs that they otherwise wouldn't have gotten due to bias, then the lack of that program means those women wouldn't have gotten those jobs. This is a double sword thing. With the program you might hire more qualified women, but also more less qualified women and you might prevent of hiring more qualified men. Because you have to hire wom…

As a woman with a disability who got hired by a diversity program, I don't give a fuck. I just need a job. Working at McDonald's sucks balls. If I really couldn't do the job, they could have fired me at the end of my probation period. I'm quite happy to earn my position after I've got it.

Can you describe the diversity program? I mean was it a program to source candidates from different places and make them enter the normal hiring pipeline, or was something like there are 1% positions reserved for minorities and you fill one?

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#952

Post by norea-armozel » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 4:45 PM UTC

I'm not sure how I feel about this since I have my own beliefs which make me a big outsider in terms of politics (being a Mutualist anarchist isn't fun when you try to explain it to coworkers). But my view is that it's best to never discuss politics or religion (and sometimes sports this one depends) at the job since it can rub people the wrong way. It's not fun working where you've either ticked someone off or you've been ticked off by someone else. Some polite distancing of one's beliefs from their work life I feel is more important than trying to offer any advice to HR, even if it has some merit. It's just asking for a pink slip and a black mark on your resume.

But the biggest confusion I think is how conservatives react to this situation for me. I use to be an avid fan of Buckley and use to read the National Review regularly as a teenager (yes I'm weird). So when I see conservatives lash out at Google over their right to fire anyone at will or on the basis that the employee is disrupting the environment at work (be it rightful or not from the point of view of fairness) I see hypocrisy of the most base kind. Conservatism in the United States values the freedom of companies, employees, and private citizens to associate and disassociate on their own. If Google wants to hire Mutualists like myself and not hire a GOP or Democrat then they should be on the principles of American Conservatism have their choice respected and not challenged in court or in some dishonest manner which violates the property rights of others. To attempt to walk back or moderate the position of free association on the basis that might hurt some people who share conservative values is to undermine the very basis of conservatism in my opinion. Basically, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Either all businesses and private citizens have the freedom of association (and disassociation) or they do not have that right. It stinks but consistency in political ideologies is an important metric to understanding whether or not an ideology can sustain itself. If American Conservatism cannot sustain itself under such consistency then the ideology is flawed and should be reformed such that it can give a conditional freedom of association on a consistent basis both in political theory and in terms of law (i.e. accepting that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subsequent additions to the law are warranted and consistent with said ideological grounds). Mind you, I'm not a conservative at all but I'm speaking from my beliefs that I held many years ago and how I interpreted American Conservatism. But I recall Buckley holding a similar view as the one I described. And it would take a mighty strong argument for me to be convinced that the contrary is consistent with American Conservatism and conservatism as a whole.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#953

Post by wyclif » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 4:50 PM UTC

gizmo wrote: post #827

wyclif wrote: post #31

Fun fact: the author of the memo earned a PhD in Biology from Harvard. Google can fire him and get away with it, but it's going to be tough, very tough, for him to be falsely characterized as someone who is misinformed or unscientific. And the court of public opinion may well be more important in this controversy than any court of law.

Factual fact: The dude doesn't have a PhD. He suggested he had one, but he never completed his PhD program nor did he publish any papers.

Factual facty fact: he didn't "suggest he had one". You make it sound as if he was inflating his credentials. He was listed as in the PhD Biology programme on Harvard's alumni site, and the press incorrectly reported that he earned a PhD.

Now, it's important to correct the record if he didn't complete the PhD. But he did publish papers (at Princeton and MIT).

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#954

Post by missizii » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 4:51 PM UTC

saturdaysaint wrote: post #835

jorgemf wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If gender-based diversity programs are responsible for qualified women getting jobs that they otherwise wouldn't have gotten due to bias, then the lack of that program means those women wouldn't have gotten those jobs. This is a double sword thing. With the program you might hire more qualified women, but also more less qualified women and you might prevent of hiring more qualified men. Because you have to hire wom…

"If I were I woman (or belong to minority) I would prefer to be being hired without any diversity program." This is like saying "I'd enjoy my success more without the Mortgage Interest Deduction unfairly advantaging me financially". Theoretically feasible, but in practical reality, uh no. If you're hacking it in a competitive environment and you have a life, you most assuredly have 1,000 more important/interesting th…

I am a woman and do NOT want to be (or viewed as) a token diversity hire. It affects my job because it means I get less interesting work, in practical reality. Diversity programs mean that equally & highly qualified women operate under the cloud of an assumed diversity hire, and are thus, viewed as less-competent.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#955

Post by jorgemf » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 5:02 PM UTC

wolco wrote: post #945

jfasi wrote: post #896

One thing that bothers me as someone who works at Google (but is speaking purely his own opinion) is that this manifesto implies some pretty wrong things about our hiring process. In particular, it conflates diversity sourcing programs with a lower hiring bar. As an engineer who's done a fair bit of volunteer recruiting work as well as conducted interviews, my experience has been that race- and gender-specific progra…

Instead of choosing candidates based on diversity during the interview process the recruiting process select candidates to reach out to by diversity. You realize that you still are not selecting the most skilled candidate if you filter based on diversity at any level.

> You realize that you still are not selecting the most skilled candidate if you filter based on diversity at any level.

This depends on the size of your sample and the positions to fill. It is easier to find one good candidate from 100 individuals than 100 from 1000.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#956

Post by escape_goat » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 5:12 PM UTC

dgudkov wrote: post #406

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…

Zunger believes that asking publicly "are people get hired because of their gender" is toxic and harmful, while asking "are people get paid more because of their gender" is not. This kind of thinking is skewed and biased.

This would be a good point, has he stopped there. I would argue that there are some differences, but it would be a good point for you to bring up.

However, he went much further. He stated that the fundamental problem was due to biological determinism in a way that did not mitigate a non-statistician reading of his words. Casting implicit doubt on the competence of every female gendered person in his workplace.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#957

Post by mikeash » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 5:23 PM UTC

Simon_says wrote: post #927

SmirkingRevenge wrote: post #923

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's worth remembering that one of his conclusions was to end or replace gender-based diversity programs at Google. Given that, it's easy to understand why people would be upset. If gender-based diversity programs are responsible for qualified women getting jobs that they otherwise wouldn't have gotten due to bias, then the lack of that program means those women wouldn't have gotten those jobs. Wouldn't the same be…

The elephant in the room is that it's mathematically impossible to optimize for quality of hires and diversity simultaneously. You have to pick one or the other or some compromise between the two. Start with some selection of people chosen optimally for job performance; any deviation from that for any reason will necessary give sub-opitimal performance.

Of course you can optimize for quality and diversity simultaneously. Let's take an extreme example and say that your hiring process only accepts purple people, and then judges them on merit. If you remove the requirement for purple people and keep the rest, your diversity and quality will both improve.

Here's the problem: "Start with some selection of people chosen optimally for job performance...." That's the hiring equivalent of "assume a spherical cow." Sure, if your existing process optimally chooses people for job performance, then any move toward diversity will reduce quality. Likewise, if you have a spherical, frictionless cow, then its speed after descending a slope with a height of 100 meters will be 44.3m/s. Both statements are correct and equally applicable to the real world.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#958

Post by mikeash » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 5:29 PM UTC

tunesmith wrote: post #123

People can't seem to summarize his argument without getting much of it grossly wrong, because his manifesto was a haphazard collection of good points, bad points, good arguments, lousy arguments, misrepresentations of others' views, and unstated implications. A perfect recipe for people to argue past each other about it. It's worth remembering that one of his conclusions was to end or replace gender-based diversity p…

"A perfect recipe for people to argue past each other about it."

Well put. Regardless of what side you take, I'm sure everybody understands that this is a controversial, emotionally-charged topic that must be approached with extreme care. This fellow did not do so, and created a firestorm in his wake. That alone seems like sufficient reason to fire him.

It's sort of the verbal equivalent to lighting a match to illuminate a darkened oil rig. Maybe you just wanted to illuminate things, but there are better ways to do it.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#959

Post by swat535 » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 5:30 PM UTC

Reposting a comment I posted in another thread with more details.

Fun anecdote: My girlfriend's mom has a double PhD in both computer science and accounting. Her dad is also an electric engineer. She is also really good in math.

She passed advanced math classes in a few months of studying. Did her algebra and got into a top school for engineering. After months of me persuading switches to SWE.

Few semester after despite having top grades she drops out of CS and now does design

I've asked her many times what happened and the only reply I got was: it's not for me. Given her incredible talent I find this hard to believe.

I still catch her checking out CS course material and even her mom argues with her over this. She can get her a top position in SWE team at top company as she is a senior analyst there.

Yet she still insists she likes graphic design more. Either we are pushing women too much to get into CS or there is something inherently wrong in this field that disallows them to get in, it might be the culture, it might be the hours, i don't know..

For her, I know for a fact the issue wasn’t that she found it too difficult, she had top grades during her last semester in CS

I should also mention both the university and the company have diversity programs in place to embrace minorities.

Anyways, just my own personal experience with this issue

I am really baffled.

Re: Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

#960

Post by nlowell » Tue, Aug 08, 2017, 5:32 PM UTC

specto wrote: post #875

I am somewhat surprised that others are upset he was fired. Free speech doesn't always apply within a company context and speaking politically on either side is a bad idea. Not to mention, while he may have some points, he's approaching a people problem as a statistics problems. With deep rooted issues like this (that have lasted for 100s of years) you can't just pull out data that won't apply going forward if we act…

> speaking politically on either side is a bad idea.

Part of the current concern is that it has become common to speak on just one side in tech culture. It is seen in some circles as morally superior to be on the side of social justice no matter what the context is (or what other justices are at play).