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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 o

by Shank 9y ago

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 reality of business. One does not simply create a PR disaster for the company, with no positive return, and still maintain their job.

endtime 9y ago
The leakers caused the bad press, not Damore. (Unless he was the leaker, of course...)
- thomasahle 9y ago
  It was all over the media before the leak. Before it was just based on rumors of "some internal viral memo". Leaking it might even have helped calm the waters.
  - otterley 9y ago
    It's my experience that time calms waters far more effectively than adding more ships.
  - votepaunchy 9y ago
    Those "rumors" are still a leak.
  - malandrew 9y ago
    No, those that were most outraged about the leak internally and turned to public shaming outside Google's walls are the actual problem. Why has the CEO not publicly reprimanded these individuals as well? I'm sure many in the company see the leakers as heroes. This attitude sets your company up for a culture of leaking. You have to reprimand both leftist and rightist leaker and try to get the conversation back to being civil. Furthermore, his memo canceling the town hall made things worse when he declared the majority agreed and that some wish he had done more. He didn't acknowledge any of the people internally that disagreed with the firing. He's probably not even aware that he's set himself up to only hear opinions that agree with the firing because others will be too afraid to question it. Honestly, I want Google to have a third-party set up a truly anonymous poll of all employees and measure how people really feel instead of speculate on how many agree or disagree with the firing. This is a company with expertise in analytics after all.
  - zzmicier 9y ago
    There were not only "rumors" but biased description of the situation, incorrect representation of Damore's words, plain lies about the memo contents and blame of Google diversity policies. You'll find it all in the Motherboard's report that has revealed the story to the general public.
- sever5 9y ago
  My guess is an SJW was trying to make an example of Damore, the condemnations and soap-boxing came incredibly fast, this backfired obviously.
gonzofish 9y ago
So why wasn't the person who released the internal memo fired? I don't agree with the memo's author, but it was an internal memo, not something released to the wild
- skybrian 9y ago
  Apparently the leakers haven't been found yet.
  - drdeadringer 9y ago
    With how much Google allegedly knows about its own workers, let alone the general public, I have a doubt. It also wouldn't surprise me, given bureaucracy.
endorphone 9y ago
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 doing it in an anti-science, anti-evidence way they legitimized almost everything he said, and it makes them look reactionary. They could have simply said that they were taking punitive actions and kept him in the fold.
- vkou 9y ago
  The firing was necessary, because not firing someone who creates a hostile working environment opens you to lawsuits from every single other person employed in your company. [1] Anyone who's taken training on sexual harassment would understand this. His essay is not scientific, or evidence-based. It's ten pages of micro-facts, followed by his biases or misunderstands, followed by enormous leaps of logic to macro-conclusions. It wouldn't pass as a bloody undergrad essay. [2] (It is a poster child of a techie looking at a complicated problem that they don't understand, and saying 'I'm smart! This is easy! You guys are all wrong!') [1] https://twitter.com/mcclure111/status/895071933666017280 https://twitter.com/mcclure111/status/895071933666017280 [2] https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-biological-claims-made-in-the-anti-diversity-document-written-by-a-Google-employee-in-August-2017/answer/Suzanne-Sadedin https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-bio...
  - GreaterFool 9y ago
    From the Quora post you've linked: > argues that cognitive sex differences influence performance in software engineering, but presents no supporting evidence This is completely made up
    - renaudg 9y ago
      And in more than one way too : 1) he didn't discuss "performance" but "affinity" 2) there was supporting evidence linked, before Gizmodo conveniently stripped it away.
naturalgradient 9y ago
> 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. Debatable, the shareholders might not be happy that Google might now become a political target for oppressing views. However, I agree that given potential liability issues from hostile workplace lawsuits almost forced his hand, which is very unfortunate.
- malandrew 9y ago
  The leakers of the memo caused the bad press. It was an internal affair until that happened.
- lotsoflumens 9y ago
  In most large companies today, the shareholders outside of the top 3 management levels are irrelevant and usually just a tedious burden.
Amezarak 9y ago
Incidentally, what Damore did is probably a 'concerted protected activity' (his stated goal is to take actions that improve working conditions by making the job less stressful, increase diversity, etc) covered by the NLRB, and thus Google quite possibly broke the law in firing him for the memo. That's not protecting the company. EDIT: I forgot to add that from the coverage I've seen, there are also claims that Google management is illegally sharing hiring blacklists (based on a person's perceived political views) with other companies. That would also be very serious.
- Tasboo 9y ago
  Damore can claim he was protecting the company, but if the effect of what he said in his memo is causing the opposite of that, then it can be a fire-able offense, regardless of what he said he was trying to do.
  - Amezarak 9y ago
    It's not about whether Damore was trying to protect the company, it's about whether Damore was communicating with his coworkers about ways to improve working conditions. It is illegal to fire someone for doing so. Damore presents several ideas about improving working conditions, claiming this would also increase diversity. If I was paranoid I'd say he wrote the memo with the possibility of being illegally fired in mind, because it appears to have been written carefully with that angle in mind.
- vkou 9y ago
  If you are trying to improve working conditions, and in doing so creating a hostile working environment, your employer is obligated to fire you. If they don't, they can be sued by other employees. And let me tell you, while you may not feel that this memo has created a hostile working environment, a lot of other people do. Google would drown in lawsuits if they let him stay on.
  - peoplewindow 9y ago
    But would such lawsuits succeed? I don't see how you can argue that a single guy who isn't in management writing a memo creates a "hostile work environment". Most of the people complaining wouldn't even be working with him at all. They can file lawsuits but would they hold water? After all, management could just tell the lawsuit filers to be more tolerant of others: it's not like Damore was attacking individuals. So I don't see where Google's obligation to fire him comes from. Unpopularity with other employees does not make a legal obligation. On the other hand, firing someone who is trying to raise possibly illegal conduct with management does have legal implications.
the_common_man 9y ago
> Honestly, I think he made the right move just from a PR perspective The person who posted their thoughts did so in a _closed_ mailing list that was intentionally setup to discuss all this. The document was leaked. At best, he deserved a reprimand. Firing him makes it clear that there is no room for alternate thoughts in Google other than the ultra-progressive view point.
- yoz-y 9y ago
  One thing I do not get is why was the (original) memo written in "Google's voice" rather than stated as a personal point of view. Who, except maybe Sundar Pichai and the head of HR, has a right to talk for the company as a whole?
  - peoplewindow 9y ago
    What makes you think it was?
  - vanattab 9y ago
    I don't think it was written in Google's voice. It was written in the voice of a young likely somewhat autistic engineer talking to his colleagues on an message board designed for discussing the topic of his memo. Then the media/Pichai sacrificed him on the alter of political correctness/profit.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    For an internal discussion? Someone who sees a pattern and can put a summary on it. It's just saying "This is how things seem to me to go here".
- skybrian 9y ago
  It was in Google Docs. When the internal storm started, he could have easily shut down permissions, buying time to figure out what to do. (It's happened before when a doc becomes controversial.) Whether you think it should have been controversial doesn't change what you do when something goes viral; the first thing is to stop the damage. But since then, there's some evidence that he wanted the controversy - look where he's giving interviews now.
Alex3917 9y ago
> I think he made the right move just from a PR perspective. By firing an employee just for reiterating the stuff that every undergrad is taught in CogDev 101 and wildly misrepresenting his position?
humanrebar 9y ago
> His firing makes sense: the CEO and HR are both acting to protect the company. No. His firing confirmed part of Demore's thesis; that Google has monoculture issues and sits in some sort of bubble. > This is the reality of business. Is it? If that's true, we need to be much more aggressive about corporate consolidation because the only way to make room for diversity of opinion is to make sure that there's diversity of opinion at the corporate level. If you quit Google because it's too (insert culture war concern here), which big tech employer is substantially different?
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  Just to clarify, you're saying this incident is illustrating that corporations have too much power?
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    > ...is illustrating that corporations have too much power? Compared to employees and consumers? Yes. There aren't enough options out there to let competition correct for these kinds of cultural problems. Of course, this might be a problem that solves itself. As expectations for fair compensation trickles through the rest of the job market, maybe transferring to an equivalent job in a medium sized company in Denver would generally be a lateral move.
- s73ver 9y ago
  "No. His firing confirmed part of Demore's thesis; that Google has monoculture issues and sits in some sort of bubble." Google had to decide which they value more: Demore's manifesto, or the contributions of a third of their workforce.
  - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
    > "Google had to decide which they value more: Demore's manifesto, or the contributions of a third of their workforce." False dichotomy...
nemonemo 9y ago
Agreed. Science matters little for a business if it offends people who pay for the business or the people within the business. Even scientists themselves have issues with such results -- a part of the file drawer problem. I guess a NYT columnist can say this because click-bait-y titles always help for revenue and Google does not stop giving the ad revenue when news articles are critical of its CEO. This looks like both parties doing their roles well enough.
boobsbr 9y ago
Agreeing with the memo or not, the author posted it in an internal forum. The person who leaked the internal memo to the public caused the PR disaster.
yters 9y ago
Blaming someone for reactions to their carefully written opinion piece seems the wrong way to go. The people causing the PR meltdown are to blame.
deleted 9y ago
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wonderwonder 9y ago
I would argue that the author did not cause the PR disaster, Google did. They author submitted the memo directly to the diversity team months ago and they ignored it. It was posted and updated on Google provided employment forums for months and Google ignored it. They are now publicly vilifying him for expressing opinions that are now being publicly supported by scientists. They have essentially publicly attempted to silence him because they don't like his opinion, validating his initial complaints. I don't know if Pichai should be fired but a lot of people dropped the ball on this and they have escalated a story that could have been quietly handled in house via a few conversations months ago. I have no idea if Damore's arguments for biological differences are valid or not, some scientists have stated they are (mileage may vary) but I don't feel that anything he said was stated with malice of with the intent to denigrate anyone. He may not have had the best communication skills but he was trying to start a conversation not a war. Google for some reason responded to his inquiry with the equivalent of scorched earth and are now realizing that perhaps they overreacted.
luckydude 9y ago
No, the right move would have been to take Damore aside, say "dude, you stirred up a mess. You aren't wrong but the mess is a PR disaster. How about we hand you a big pile of money, you go find your next job elsewhere, and we agree not to throw mud at each other?" I can see not doing that when you are cash poor but Google is paying engineers as much as $600K/year in total comp, they could have landed $10M on Damore and never noticed it. My personal opinion is much like Brook's - Pichai was pandering to the mob. That's not true leadership in my opinion. Edit: don't understand the downvote, this is HR 101. Companies don't want this sort of attention and they'll pay to avoid it. I'm very surprised that a cash rich company like google didn't take that route. Are you suggesting with your down vote that it is better for google to be in the news cycle for months/years while this works its way through the courts?
- pgeorgi 9y ago
  > they could have landed $10M on Damore and never noticed it. Word would get around. Followed by many manifestos worth $10M.
  - luckydude 9y ago
    Companies have been doing this for decades. They usually include an NDA in attempt to not let the word get around. So far as I know, the NDA's mostly work. If what I'm suggesting seems weird I'd encourage conversations with HR people at large companies. This is part of what a good HR person does, sadly.
- wonderwonder 9y ago
  I'm pretty amazed how badly google dropped the ball on this. They could have easily made the problem go away, likely with a few conversations where they agree to sit down and listen to his concerns upon his first submission of them to the diversity team or as you suggested a check and NDA. Whoever runs the diversity team should absolutely lose their job for letting this get to this point. Following that whoever decided that flying the CEO back to publicly fire someone and denigrate them was a good idea and the best way to proceed. A CEO of one of the worlds most powerful companies publicly firing and shaming an employee who simply presented an opinion through proper channels is just not a well thought out move. Staggering amount of poor judgement all around.
mc32 9y ago
It's been in the news not because someone had a different, opposing view (many people have views others not us, see as deplorable) The backlash is mostly about the firing decision itself rather than the person having been fired. They washed their hands of the uncouth worker. They should be in the clear if that was the source of the outrage. The disbelief is not that people have strange anti social views (we all have them to one degree or other) it's that a company feels so threatened by dissent that they swiftly want to leave themselves and absolve themselves to present themselves as pristine, unspoiled humanity.
danarmak 9y ago
Sundar could have fired Damore without making an official statement. Or he could have made a statement that doesn't elaborate on the reasons for the firing, or that says what you did - that he's being fired for causing bad PR. Instead, Sundar found it necessary to lie in his official statement about what Damore had said. He defamed him by saying that his memo contained things that are contrary to what the memo actually says and that Damore himself would certainly denounce if asked. Because, presumably, Sundar felt it was preferable to appease a mob by acquiescing in their villification of a Google employee. That is what is this particular post claims makes Sundar a bad CEO. I don't know if that's true - that is, whether it makes him an ineffective CEO, whether his actions were good for Google in the long run; that remains to be seen. But the author of this piece feels that it was a morally wrong action (and I agree).
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > Sundar found it necessary to lie in his official statement about what Damore had said It could be a lie? It seems more logical that it's a misunderstanding. Neither make Pichai look good, especially since he had no discussions with Damore (according to Damore) to clear up any misunderstandings.
  - danarmak 9y ago
    It's like the article says: either Sundar didn't take the time to read the memo himself (which would be stupid and dangerous), or he didn't understand it (which is another way of calling him stupid), or - as seems most likely - he knowingly misrepresented it.
    - humanrebar 9y ago
      It may be a knowing representation, though Hanlon's Razor would indicate some lack of rigor instead.
      - danarmak 9y ago
        I find it unlikely that Hanlon's Razor should apply to a case of reading comprehension by a CEO of Google. But if it does, that's a different reason to want him to resign.
wmil 9y ago
At the same time, Google should also pull in and disciple their employees that were rabble-rousing about the memo on social media. They aren't doing that and it's creating a perception of unfairness.
- Caveman_Coder 9y ago
  > "They aren't doing that and it's creating a perception of unfairness." They have already been doing this...after the election a lot of my conservative co-workers at Google admitted to feeling "harassed" and "targeted." The memes posted on Memegen, the discussions on eng-misc, as well as the terrible TGIF (where the message VPs sent was basically that "Google" supported Hillary and "We" lost and it was going to be "Okay"). The unfairness is already there, this just highlights it even more. TLDR: 1. Guy has conservative opinion against the current norms = Fired. 2. Numerous posts on Memegen/eng-misc/internal message boards hostile towards conservatives (including posts made by managers) = no action
deleted 9y ago
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badloginagain 9y ago
Travis Kalanick should have resigned as a CEO, and there is a collection of reasons why. The bar is quite high in terms of how bad things have to be for how long before pressuring a CEO out makes sense. Google does not come close to that level. If someone needs to be sacked for the diversity memo, it needs to be the author in question. At maximum, you could argue that a VP of HR could be sacked, as to 'shake up' the hiring processes and address any issues in it. This does not go to the CEO. More damage would be done by his leaving than him staying. He reports to the shareholders, not to the moralists.
- j45 9y ago
  I can't locate any opinion articles in the NY Times calling for the resignation of Uber's CEO. I agree the bar was much higher in his case too.
gamblor956 9y ago
I know that this is an unpopular opinion on this thread, but Pinchar also made the right move from a legal perspective. James' memo created a hostile work environment. And legally, that's all it takes to support terminating his employment for cause. 1) He claimed that biological differences were responsible for the behavior of his female co-workers. Yes, he actually says that in the section "non-bias causes of gender gap in tech." If you can't see why that's offensive, try replacing that sentence with "Biological differences are responsible for the behavior of blacks. Or latinos." Legally, this single section, by itself, disseminated on an internal company board, was enough to create a hostile work environment for his female co-workers. 2) Then he goes on to say that "diversity" candidates get special treatment. They get a lowered bar. His words, not mine. So now he's implying that many of the "diversity" candidates only work at Google because they weren't held to the same standards. And unlike his earlier statements about biological differences not applying to any specific individual women, he doesn't qualify this statement--so he's lumping all of his female and non-white co-workers together. This section, on its own, would also be enough to create a hostile work environment for all of his female and non-white co-workers. 3) Then he goes and says the Left denies science on IQ and sex. And that their behavior has created a "psychologically unsafe environment." This, by itself, would also be enough to create a hostile work environment for all of his co-workers that would define themselves as liberals. (Note: there's a reason that most companies don't allow overtly political activities or expression like this in the workolace--it's to prevent political hostilities from dividing the workplace.) That's 3 things he said that legally would have justified firing him. It doesn't matter whether science supports the broad statements or not. It doesn't matter whether his suggestions at the end or good or not. It doesn't matter whether Google leans left or oppresses conservative expression. What matters is that he created a hostile work environment for large swaths of his co-workers with these 3 statements.
daxorid 9y ago
> One does not simply create a PR disaster for the company The memo wasn't a PR disaster; the firing was. Data point of one: Google has lost, just from my personal accounts alone, $40/mo in G Suite/YouTube Red revenue, and $620/mo in GCE Compute instance revenue. Not because of the memo; because of the firing. Absolutely disgusting and unconscionable.
angry_napkin 9y ago
I’ve seen several people miss the point on this termination. You don’t make your boss look bad. That’s it. California is an at-will employment state.

by Shank 9y ago

endtime 9y ago

The leakers caused the bad press, not Damore. (Unless he was the leaker, of course...)

thomasahle 9y ago
It was all over the media before the leak. Before it was just based on rumors of "some internal viral memo". Leaking it might even have helped calm the waters.
- otterley 9y ago
  It's my experience that time calms waters far more effectively than adding more ships.
- votepaunchy 9y ago
  Those "rumors" are still a leak.
- malandrew 9y ago
  No, those that were most outraged about the leak internally and turned to public shaming outside Google's walls are the actual problem. Why has the CEO not publicly reprimanded these individuals as well? I'm sure many in the company see the leakers as heroes. This attitude sets your company up for a culture of leaking. You have to reprimand both leftist and rightist leaker and try to get the conversation back to being civil. Furthermore, his memo canceling the town hall made things worse when he declared the majority agreed and that some wish he had done more. He didn't acknowledge any of the people internally that disagreed with the firing. He's probably not even aware that he's set himself up to only hear opinions that agree with the firing because others will be too afraid to question it. Honestly, I want Google to have a third-party set up a truly anonymous poll of all employees and measure how people really feel instead of speculate on how many agree or disagree with the firing. This is a company with expertise in analytics after all.
- zzmicier 9y ago
  There were not only "rumors" but biased description of the situation, incorrect representation of Damore's words, plain lies about the memo contents and blame of Google diversity policies. You'll find it all in the Motherboard's report that has revealed the story to the general public.
sever5 9y ago
My guess is an SJW was trying to make an example of Damore, the condemnations and soap-boxing came incredibly fast, this backfired obviously.

gonzofish 9y ago

So why wasn't the person who released the internal memo fired? I don't agree with the memo's author, but it was an internal memo, not something released to the wild

skybrian 9y ago
Apparently the leakers haven't been found yet.
- drdeadringer 9y ago
  With how much Google allegedly knows about its own workers, let alone the general public, I have a doubt. It also wouldn't surprise me, given bureaucracy.

endorphone 9y ago

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 doing it in an anti-science, anti-evidence way they legitimized almost everything he said, and it makes them look reactionary. They could have simply said that they were taking punitive actions and kept him in the fold.

vkou 9y ago
The firing was necessary, because not firing someone who creates a hostile working environment opens you to lawsuits from every single other person employed in your company. [1] Anyone who's taken training on sexual harassment would understand this. His essay is not scientific, or evidence-based. It's ten pages of micro-facts, followed by his biases or misunderstands, followed by enormous leaps of logic to macro-conclusions. It wouldn't pass as a bloody undergrad essay. [2] (It is a poster child of a techie looking at a complicated problem that they don't understand, and saying 'I'm smart! This is easy! You guys are all wrong!') [1] https://twitter.com/mcclure111/status/895071933666017280 https://twitter.com/mcclure111/status/895071933666017280 [2] https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-biological-claims-made-in-the-anti-diversity-document-written-by-a-Google-employee-in-August-2017/answer/Suzanne-Sadedin https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-bio...
- GreaterFool 9y ago
  From the Quora post you've linked: > argues that cognitive sex differences influence performance in software engineering, but presents no supporting evidence This is completely made up
  - renaudg 9y ago
    And in more than one way too : 1) he didn't discuss "performance" but "affinity" 2) there was supporting evidence linked, before Gizmodo conveniently stripped it away.

naturalgradient 9y ago

> 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. Debatable, the shareholders might not be happy that Google might now become a political target for oppressing views. However, I agree that given potential liability issues from hostile workplace lawsuits almost forced his hand, which is very unfortunate.

malandrew 9y ago
The leakers of the memo caused the bad press. It was an internal affair until that happened.
lotsoflumens 9y ago
In most large companies today, the shareholders outside of the top 3 management levels are irrelevant and usually just a tedious burden.

Amezarak 9y ago

Incidentally, what Damore did is probably a 'concerted protected activity' (his stated goal is to take actions that improve working conditions by making the job less stressful, increase diversity, etc) covered by the NLRB, and thus Google quite possibly broke the law in firing him for the memo. That's not protecting the company. EDIT: I forgot to add that from the coverage I've seen, there are also claims that Google management is illegally sharing hiring blacklists (based on a person's perceived political views) with other companies. That would also be very serious.

Tasboo 9y ago
Damore can claim he was protecting the company, but if the effect of what he said in his memo is causing the opposite of that, then it can be a fire-able offense, regardless of what he said he was trying to do.
- Amezarak 9y ago
  It's not about whether Damore was trying to protect the company, it's about whether Damore was communicating with his coworkers about ways to improve working conditions. It is illegal to fire someone for doing so. Damore presents several ideas about improving working conditions, claiming this would also increase diversity. If I was paranoid I'd say he wrote the memo with the possibility of being illegally fired in mind, because it appears to have been written carefully with that angle in mind.
vkou 9y ago
If you are trying to improve working conditions, and in doing so creating a hostile working environment, your employer is obligated to fire you. If they don't, they can be sued by other employees. And let me tell you, while you may not feel that this memo has created a hostile working environment, a lot of other people do. Google would drown in lawsuits if they let him stay on.
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  But would such lawsuits succeed? I don't see how you can argue that a single guy who isn't in management writing a memo creates a "hostile work environment". Most of the people complaining wouldn't even be working with him at all. They can file lawsuits but would they hold water? After all, management could just tell the lawsuit filers to be more tolerant of others: it's not like Damore was attacking individuals. So I don't see where Google's obligation to fire him comes from. Unpopularity with other employees does not make a legal obligation. On the other hand, firing someone who is trying to raise possibly illegal conduct with management does have legal implications.

the_common_man 9y ago

> Honestly, I think he made the right move just from a PR perspective The person who posted their thoughts did so in a _closed_ mailing list that was intentionally setup to discuss all this. The document was leaked. At best, he deserved a reprimand. Firing him makes it clear that there is no room for alternate thoughts in Google other than the ultra-progressive view point.

yoz-y 9y ago
One thing I do not get is why was the (original) memo written in "Google's voice" rather than stated as a personal point of view. Who, except maybe Sundar Pichai and the head of HR, has a right to talk for the company as a whole?
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  What makes you think it was?
- vanattab 9y ago
  I don't think it was written in Google's voice. It was written in the voice of a young likely somewhat autistic engineer talking to his colleagues on an message board designed for discussing the topic of his memo. Then the media/Pichai sacrificed him on the alter of political correctness/profit.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  For an internal discussion? Someone who sees a pattern and can put a summary on it. It's just saying "This is how things seem to me to go here".
skybrian 9y ago
It was in Google Docs. When the internal storm started, he could have easily shut down permissions, buying time to figure out what to do. (It's happened before when a doc becomes controversial.) Whether you think it should have been controversial doesn't change what you do when something goes viral; the first thing is to stop the damage. But since then, there's some evidence that he wanted the controversy - look where he's giving interviews now.

Alex3917 9y ago

> I think he made the right move just from a PR perspective. By firing an employee just for reiterating the stuff that every undergrad is taught in CogDev 101 and wildly misrepresenting his position?

humanrebar 9y ago

> His firing makes sense: the CEO and HR are both acting to protect the company. No. His firing confirmed part of Demore's thesis; that Google has monoculture issues and sits in some sort of bubble. > This is the reality of business. Is it? If that's true, we need to be much more aggressive about corporate consolidation because the only way to make room for diversity of opinion is to make sure that there's diversity of opinion at the corporate level. If you quit Google because it's too (insert culture war concern here), which big tech employer is substantially different?

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
Just to clarify, you're saying this incident is illustrating that corporations have too much power?
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > ...is illustrating that corporations have too much power? Compared to employees and consumers? Yes. There aren't enough options out there to let competition correct for these kinds of cultural problems. Of course, this might be a problem that solves itself. As expectations for fair compensation trickles through the rest of the job market, maybe transferring to an equivalent job in a medium sized company in Denver would generally be a lateral move.
s73ver 9y ago
"No. His firing confirmed part of Demore's thesis; that Google has monoculture issues and sits in some sort of bubble." Google had to decide which they value more: Demore's manifesto, or the contributions of a third of their workforce.
- Caveman_Coder 9y ago
  > "Google had to decide which they value more: Demore's manifesto, or the contributions of a third of their workforce." False dichotomy...

nemonemo 9y ago

Agreed. Science matters little for a business if it offends people who pay for the business or the people within the business. Even scientists themselves have issues with such results -- a part of the file drawer problem. I guess a NYT columnist can say this because click-bait-y titles always help for revenue and Google does not stop giving the ad revenue when news articles are critical of its CEO. This looks like both parties doing their roles well enough.

boobsbr 9y ago

Agreeing with the memo or not, the author posted it in an internal forum. The person who leaked the internal memo to the public caused the PR disaster.

yters 9y ago

Blaming someone for reactions to their carefully written opinion piece seems the wrong way to go. The people causing the PR meltdown are to blame.

deleted 9y ago

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wonderwonder 9y ago

I would argue that the author did not cause the PR disaster, Google did. They author submitted the memo directly to the diversity team months ago and they ignored it. It was posted and updated on Google provided employment forums for months and Google ignored it. They are now publicly vilifying him for expressing opinions that are now being publicly supported by scientists. They have essentially publicly attempted to silence him because they don't like his opinion, validating his initial complaints. I don't know if Pichai should be fired but a lot of people dropped the ball on this and they have escalated a story that could have been quietly handled in house via a few conversations months ago. I have no idea if Damore's arguments for biological differences are valid or not, some scientists have stated they are (mileage may vary) but I don't feel that anything he said was stated with malice of with the intent to denigrate anyone. He may not have had the best communication skills but he was trying to start a conversation not a war. Google for some reason responded to his inquiry with the equivalent of scorched earth and are now realizing that perhaps they overreacted.

luckydude 9y ago

No, the right move would have been to take Damore aside, say "dude, you stirred up a mess. You aren't wrong but the mess is a PR disaster. How about we hand you a big pile of money, you go find your next job elsewhere, and we agree not to throw mud at each other?" I can see not doing that when you are cash poor but Google is paying engineers as much as $600K/year in total comp, they could have landed $10M on Damore and never noticed it. My personal opinion is much like Brook's - Pichai was pandering to the mob. That's not true leadership in my opinion. Edit: don't understand the downvote, this is HR 101. Companies don't want this sort of attention and they'll pay to avoid it. I'm very surprised that a cash rich company like google didn't take that route. Are you suggesting with your down vote that it is better for google to be in the news cycle for months/years while this works its way through the courts?

pgeorgi 9y ago
> they could have landed $10M on Damore and never noticed it. Word would get around. Followed by many manifestos worth $10M.
- luckydude 9y ago
  Companies have been doing this for decades. They usually include an NDA in attempt to not let the word get around. So far as I know, the NDA's mostly work. If what I'm suggesting seems weird I'd encourage conversations with HR people at large companies. This is part of what a good HR person does, sadly.
wonderwonder 9y ago
I'm pretty amazed how badly google dropped the ball on this. They could have easily made the problem go away, likely with a few conversations where they agree to sit down and listen to his concerns upon his first submission of them to the diversity team or as you suggested a check and NDA. Whoever runs the diversity team should absolutely lose their job for letting this get to this point. Following that whoever decided that flying the CEO back to publicly fire someone and denigrate them was a good idea and the best way to proceed. A CEO of one of the worlds most powerful companies publicly firing and shaming an employee who simply presented an opinion through proper channels is just not a well thought out move. Staggering amount of poor judgement all around.

mc32 9y ago

It's been in the news not because someone had a different, opposing view (many people have views others not us, see as deplorable) The backlash is mostly about the firing decision itself rather than the person having been fired. They washed their hands of the uncouth worker. They should be in the clear if that was the source of the outrage. The disbelief is not that people have strange anti social views (we all have them to one degree or other) it's that a company feels so threatened by dissent that they swiftly want to leave themselves and absolve themselves to present themselves as pristine, unspoiled humanity.

danarmak 9y ago

Sundar could have fired Damore without making an official statement. Or he could have made a statement that doesn't elaborate on the reasons for the firing, or that says what you did - that he's being fired for causing bad PR. Instead, Sundar found it necessary to lie in his official statement about what Damore had said. He defamed him by saying that his memo contained things that are contrary to what the memo actually says and that Damore himself would certainly denounce if asked. Because, presumably, Sundar felt it was preferable to appease a mob by acquiescing in their villification of a Google employee. That is what is this particular post claims makes Sundar a bad CEO. I don't know if that's true - that is, whether it makes him an ineffective CEO, whether his actions were good for Google in the long run; that remains to be seen. But the author of this piece feels that it was a morally wrong action (and I agree).

humanrebar 9y ago
> Sundar found it necessary to lie in his official statement about what Damore had said It could be a lie? It seems more logical that it's a misunderstanding. Neither make Pichai look good, especially since he had no discussions with Damore (according to Damore) to clear up any misunderstandings.
- danarmak 9y ago
  It's like the article says: either Sundar didn't take the time to read the memo himself (which would be stupid and dangerous), or he didn't understand it (which is another way of calling him stupid), or - as seems most likely - he knowingly misrepresented it.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    It may be a knowing representation, though Hanlon's Razor would indicate some lack of rigor instead.
    - danarmak 9y ago
      I find it unlikely that Hanlon's Razor should apply to a case of reading comprehension by a CEO of Google. But if it does, that's a different reason to want him to resign.

wmil 9y ago

At the same time, Google should also pull in and disciple their employees that were rabble-rousing about the memo on social media. They aren't doing that and it's creating a perception of unfairness.

Caveman_Coder 9y ago
> "They aren't doing that and it's creating a perception of unfairness." They have already been doing this...after the election a lot of my conservative co-workers at Google admitted to feeling "harassed" and "targeted." The memes posted on Memegen, the discussions on eng-misc, as well as the terrible TGIF (where the message VPs sent was basically that "Google" supported Hillary and "We" lost and it was going to be "Okay"). The unfairness is already there, this just highlights it even more. TLDR: 1. Guy has conservative opinion against the current norms = Fired. 2. Numerous posts on Memegen/eng-misc/internal message boards hostile towards conservatives (including posts made by managers) = no action

deleted 9y ago

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badloginagain 9y ago

Travis Kalanick should have resigned as a CEO, and there is a collection of reasons why. The bar is quite high in terms of how bad things have to be for how long before pressuring a CEO out makes sense. Google does not come close to that level. If someone needs to be sacked for the diversity memo, it needs to be the author in question. At maximum, you could argue that a VP of HR could be sacked, as to 'shake up' the hiring processes and address any issues in it. This does not go to the CEO. More damage would be done by his leaving than him staying. He reports to the shareholders, not to the moralists.

j45 9y ago
I can't locate any opinion articles in the NY Times calling for the resignation of Uber's CEO. I agree the bar was much higher in his case too.

gamblor956 9y ago

I know that this is an unpopular opinion on this thread, but Pinchar also made the right move from a legal perspective. James' memo created a hostile work environment. And legally, that's all it takes to support terminating his employment for cause. 1) He claimed that biological differences were responsible for the behavior of his female co-workers. Yes, he actually says that in the section "non-bias causes of gender gap in tech." If you can't see why that's offensive, try replacing that sentence with "Biological differences are responsible for the behavior of blacks. Or latinos." Legally, this single section, by itself, disseminated on an internal company board, was enough to create a hostile work environment for his female co-workers. 2) Then he goes on to say that "diversity" candidates get special treatment. They get a lowered bar. His words, not mine. So now he's implying that many of the "diversity" candidates only work at Google because they weren't held to the same standards. And unlike his earlier statements about biological differences not applying to any specific individual women, he doesn't qualify this statement--so he's lumping all of his female and non-white co-workers together. This section, on its own, would also be enough to create a hostile work environment for all of his female and non-white co-workers. 3) Then he goes and says the Left denies science on IQ and sex. And that their behavior has created a "psychologically unsafe environment." This, by itself, would also be enough to create a hostile work environment for all of his co-workers that would define themselves as liberals. (Note: there's a reason that most companies don't allow overtly political activities or expression like this in the workolace--it's to prevent political hostilities from dividing the workplace.) That's 3 things he said that legally would have justified firing him. It doesn't matter whether science supports the broad statements or not. It doesn't matter whether his suggestions at the end or good or not. It doesn't matter whether Google leans left or oppresses conservative expression. What matters is that he created a hostile work environment for large swaths of his co-workers with these 3 statements.

daxorid 9y ago

> One does not simply create a PR disaster for the company The memo wasn't a PR disaster; the firing was. Data point of one: Google has lost, just from my personal accounts alone, $40/mo in G Suite/YouTube Red revenue, and $620/mo in GCE Compute instance revenue. Not because of the memo; because of the firing. Absolutely disgusting and unconscionable.

angry_napkin 9y ago

I’ve seen several people miss the point on this termination. You don’t make your boss look bad. That’s it. California is an at-will employment state.