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Didn't read his memo, am not interested in the debate, and am not saying he should be fired or kept. That said, I'd think that he was fired not because of his

Didn't read his memo, am not interested in the debate, and am not saying he should be fired or kept. That said, I'd think that he was fired not because of his opinions, but because he seems to have done an irreparable damage to Google's image: for good or bad reasons, people will react strongly and negatively to the publication of his memo, and whatever Google does -- keeps him or lets him go -- this negative impact will stick. EDIT: many, many people will react negatively.

syshum 9y ago
>> but because he seems to have done an irreparable damage to Google's image The same can be said for the firing, it is also doing irreparable damage to Google's image, likely more so than the publication of the memo
- deleted 9y ago
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peoplewindow 9y ago
The memo wasn't published. It was leaked. Whoever leaked it is the one who damaged Google's reputation. They then damaged it more when they claimed they respect diversity and then fired the guy in response to mob outrage. The damage to Google's reputation here is on them. Almost by definition.
- minipci1321 9y ago
  You are correct, but letting this outside is only the first item on the list of consequences. Next comes -- many, many people inside Google probably stopped working productively and are still absorbing-the-shock/digesting/battling/persuading/discussing/ruminating-alone -- again, for good or bad reasons, but many of them. The leaker didn't do that.
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virtualized 9y ago
Google could have published a letter that addresses the issues mentioned in the leaked memo in a diplomatic way without firing anyone. Google's immature reaction damaged the perception of the diversity ideology instead of defending it.
- huji 9y ago
  Diversity of ideology geez who do you think these ppl are? Bunch of guys behind a desk the whole day keeping advertising empire afloat...you are not going to see any of them in front of a tianamen tank.
humanrebar 9y ago
> ...he seems to have done an irreparable damage to Google's image... 1. From my perspective, the firing was more damaging to Google's reputation than anything in the article. People still remember the Eich incident with bad feelings for Mozilla. This one is actually worse because there's no "CEOs are PR officers" reasoning to fall back on. If there's still damage when the dust settles here, it will be due to blowback originating from people who misunderstood the text or don't care that it's basically misunderstood. That's my next point. 2. It's becoming more apparent to me that a large portion of the outrage is due to a misunderstanding of the text. I suspect that people haven't actually read the text, not really. The concrete objection I notice the most ("he said that female engineers are inferior") is not true and directly addressed in the text. There are comments in this thread that are misunderstanding or uninformed about what he wrote about overlapping distribution curves. 3. With that in mind, I can't tell if Google leadership is having a reading comprehension issue, a problem understanding statistics, or if they are making a purely political/PR decision here. None of those situations should make a Google engineer confident in their leadership.

syshum 9y ago

>> but because he seems to have done an irreparable damage to Google's image The same can be said for the firing, it is also doing irreparable damage to Google's image, likely more so than the publication of the memo

deleted 9y ago
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peoplewindow 9y ago

The memo wasn't published. It was leaked. Whoever leaked it is the one who damaged Google's reputation. They then damaged it more when they claimed they respect diversity and then fired the guy in response to mob outrage. The damage to Google's reputation here is on them. Almost by definition.

minipci1321 9y ago
You are correct, but letting this outside is only the first item on the list of consequences. Next comes -- many, many people inside Google probably stopped working productively and are still absorbing-the-shock/digesting/battling/persuading/discussing/ruminating-alone -- again, for good or bad reasons, but many of them. The leaker didn't do that.

deleted 9y ago

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virtualized 9y ago

Google could have published a letter that addresses the issues mentioned in the leaked memo in a diplomatic way without firing anyone. Google's immature reaction damaged the perception of the diversity ideology instead of defending it.

huji 9y ago
Diversity of ideology geez who do you think these ppl are? Bunch of guys behind a desk the whole day keeping advertising empire afloat...you are not going to see any of them in front of a tianamen tank.

humanrebar 9y ago

> ...he seems to have done an irreparable damage to Google's image... 1. From my perspective, the firing was more damaging to Google's reputation than anything in the article. People still remember the Eich incident with bad feelings for Mozilla. This one is actually worse because there's no "CEOs are PR officers" reasoning to fall back on. If there's still damage when the dust settles here, it will be due to blowback originating from people who misunderstood the text or don't care that it's basically misunderstood. That's my next point. 2. It's becoming more apparent to me that a large portion of the outrage is due to a misunderstanding of the text. I suspect that people haven't actually read the text, not really. The concrete objection I notice the most ("he said that female engineers are inferior") is not true and directly addressed in the text. There are comments in this thread that are misunderstanding or uninformed about what he wrote about overlapping distribution curves. 3. With that in mind, I can't tell if Google leadership is having a reading comprehension issue, a problem understanding statistics, or if they are making a purely political/PR decision here. None of those situations should make a Google engineer confident in their leadership.