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This doesn't look like a tantrum firing. He created too much drama for his own good. As an owner, anyone would find that distracting and unnecessary. This certa

This doesn't look like a tantrum firing. He created too much drama for his own good. As an owner, anyone would find that distracting and unnecessary. This certainly doesn't advance the company's interest in any way. Now whether he is able to successfully sue google and make big bucks is difficult to predict at this point. But it's certain that his career is finished for the foreseeable future. It is a profoundly stupid thing to do for anyone who likes their job as an engineer. Maybe this guy doesn't and wants to start a new career in blogging or some similar shit. In that case, this may be a great new start for him.

mc32 9y ago
It's not a tantrum firing but it's also not a firing with cause and it steers close to free speech. If Pao could sue KPC&B, I think he stands a chance, unrelated as they are, it suggests suits can go forward on slim allegations and here he has evidence clear as day they fired him for having a difference in opinion on their hiring practices. He personally didn't discriminate nor personally conduct himself untowards anyone. He offered some (unconvincing evidence about how women don't have the same aptitude as men --but you are likely to find evidence Google does have internal hiring goals and allows a culture which virtue signals against the majority culture) and they didn't like it. Thing is, if this had been a woman or minority citing some dubious data about how more women and minorities should be hired (which I agree with but on other principles), we would not even blink at it, if it even would have surfaced)
- SamReidHughes 9y ago
  That's not how it works. Google can fire him for no reason, and arguing with a company's policies on a mailing list is a pretty good reason to fire. Like, it's perfectly legit for a company to say shut up and get with the pogrom. Even if he's fired for saying stuff that is true. Edit: However, there might be specific technical reasons it's an illegal firing outlined in other posts in this thread. IANAL
  - mc32 9y ago
    But they didn't fire him for no reason. They fired him for a reason, but not a reason you typically fire someone for. Ergo either big severance + NDA or forthcoming lawsuit.
    - SamReidHughes 9y ago
      What I'm disagreeing with your post is the general "free speech" issue. That's not going to be it. It might be some specific "raising concerns about discrimination" reason, sure. I'm not sure we're really disagreeing -- I'm only disagreeing with the general nature of your previous post. I agree that hypothetically they fired him for some illegal reason -- or that at least such could be argued in court (for all I know).
- icebraining 9y ago
  If Pao could sue KPC&B People in general can sue anyone if there's any possibility they might win. The only way her lawsuit would be thrown out if she had never worked for them, or something like that. Otherwise, the way to find out if her claims have merit is the lawsuit. Which she lost, and was forced to pay $276k to KPC&B. So not exactly a good omen.
  - mc32 9y ago
    Right but IIRC, they fired her for perf issues, she retaliated with harassment or discrimination. Here they fired him not for perf (defensible) but for difference in opinion (maybe defensible but icky) not anything bad he did. I think he stands a better chance than Pao's retaliatory suit.
    - DanBC 9y ago
      > Here they fired him not for perf (defensible) but for difference in opinion (maybe defensible but icky) not anything bad he did. He wrote the manifesto and distributed it within the workplace. That's absolutely an action he took at work, that's a thing he did. See also the Shoe Rebellion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12022280 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12022280 You don't have freedom of speech at work. Apparently in the US that's not a freedom of speech issue until the Government says you can't say certain things at work.
  - canoebuilder 9y ago
    And to bring this back around to the utter insanity and disingenuousness that has erupted from this episode, this is a line from the linked article, Ellen Pao’s gender-discrimination lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 2015 also brought the issue to light, Pao's issue was shown to be a non-issue, yet "it brought the issue to light" ok... I wonder why the author didn't mention the resolution of the lawsuit? I wonder why she mentioned it all? Oh right, peddling falsehoods, both explicitly and implicitly.
- evgen 9y ago
  The problem with this line of reasoning is that Google can make a legitimate claim that the firing was for cause. Creating a hostile work environment is sufficient cause for termination, and I am quite sure that something like this is buried in some clause of the standard Google employment contract. You don't have free speech rights at work, or more to the point you can say whatever you want and the company can do just about whatever it wants in response to this speech. To go full Godwin here, if this employee had, instead of talking about how women and minorities "lowered the bar", wrote and distributed interally a manifesto about how Google had too many Jewish employees and how these employees were mostly hired because of post-Holocaust western guilt and maybe we need to reexamine whether this whole Holocaust thing really happened I can assure you that he would have been shown the door within the hour. No one is locking him up for his speech act, but Google would have had no problem in firing him for that same speech act. Others have pointed out in great detail all of the unpleasant future consequences for any potential interaction that leads to conflict between this employee and his peers. This situation was created entirely by the employee who posted the manifesto. He can sue Google, but he will lose.

mc32 9y ago

It's not a tantrum firing but it's also not a firing with cause and it steers close to free speech. If Pao could sue KPC&B, I think he stands a chance, unrelated as they are, it suggests suits can go forward on slim allegations and here he has evidence clear as day they fired him for having a difference in opinion on their hiring practices. He personally didn't discriminate nor personally conduct himself untowards anyone. He offered some (unconvincing evidence about how women don't have the same aptitude as men --but you are likely to find evidence Google does have internal hiring goals and allows a culture which virtue signals against the majority culture) and they didn't like it. Thing is, if this had been a woman or minority citing some dubious data about how more women and minorities should be hired (which I agree with but on other principles), we would not even blink at it, if it even would have surfaced)

SamReidHughes 9y ago
That's not how it works. Google can fire him for no reason, and arguing with a company's policies on a mailing list is a pretty good reason to fire. Like, it's perfectly legit for a company to say shut up and get with the pogrom. Even if he's fired for saying stuff that is true. Edit: However, there might be specific technical reasons it's an illegal firing outlined in other posts in this thread. IANAL
- mc32 9y ago
  But they didn't fire him for no reason. They fired him for a reason, but not a reason you typically fire someone for. Ergo either big severance + NDA or forthcoming lawsuit.
  - SamReidHughes 9y ago
    What I'm disagreeing with your post is the general "free speech" issue. That's not going to be it. It might be some specific "raising concerns about discrimination" reason, sure. I'm not sure we're really disagreeing -- I'm only disagreeing with the general nature of your previous post. I agree that hypothetically they fired him for some illegal reason -- or that at least such could be argued in court (for all I know).
icebraining 9y ago
If Pao could sue KPC&B People in general can sue anyone if there's any possibility they might win. The only way her lawsuit would be thrown out if she had never worked for them, or something like that. Otherwise, the way to find out if her claims have merit is the lawsuit. Which she lost, and was forced to pay $276k to KPC&B. So not exactly a good omen.
- mc32 9y ago
  Right but IIRC, they fired her for perf issues, she retaliated with harassment or discrimination. Here they fired him not for perf (defensible) but for difference in opinion (maybe defensible but icky) not anything bad he did. I think he stands a better chance than Pao's retaliatory suit.
  - DanBC 9y ago
    > Here they fired him not for perf (defensible) but for difference in opinion (maybe defensible but icky) not anything bad he did. He wrote the manifesto and distributed it within the workplace. That's absolutely an action he took at work, that's a thing he did. See also the Shoe Rebellion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12022280 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12022280 You don't have freedom of speech at work. Apparently in the US that's not a freedom of speech issue until the Government says you can't say certain things at work.
- canoebuilder 9y ago
  And to bring this back around to the utter insanity and disingenuousness that has erupted from this episode, this is a line from the linked article, Ellen Pao’s gender-discrimination lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 2015 also brought the issue to light, Pao's issue was shown to be a non-issue, yet "it brought the issue to light" ok... I wonder why the author didn't mention the resolution of the lawsuit? I wonder why she mentioned it all? Oh right, peddling falsehoods, both explicitly and implicitly.
evgen 9y ago
The problem with this line of reasoning is that Google can make a legitimate claim that the firing was for cause. Creating a hostile work environment is sufficient cause for termination, and I am quite sure that something like this is buried in some clause of the standard Google employment contract. You don't have free speech rights at work, or more to the point you can say whatever you want and the company can do just about whatever it wants in response to this speech. To go full Godwin here, if this employee had, instead of talking about how women and minorities "lowered the bar", wrote and distributed interally a manifesto about how Google had too many Jewish employees and how these employees were mostly hired because of post-Holocaust western guilt and maybe we need to reexamine whether this whole Holocaust thing really happened I can assure you that he would have been shown the door within the hour. No one is locking him up for his speech act, but Google would have had no problem in firing him for that same speech act. Others have pointed out in great detail all of the unpleasant future consequences for any potential interaction that leads to conflict between this employee and his peers. This situation was created entirely by the employee who posted the manifesto. He can sue Google, but he will lose.