8 ms·

His take still seems a little tone deaf and defensive (e.g., repeated use of "echo chamber"). But he hits the nail on the head of why Google fired him: ... t

• reactor4 9y ago
  Upper management tried to placate this surge of outrage by shaming me and misrepresenting my document, but they couldn’t really do otherwise: The mob would have set upon anyone who openly agreed with me or even tolerated my views.
  • true_religion 9y ago
    > Upper management tried to placate this surge of outrage by shaming me and misrepresenting my document... You are James Damore?
  • CalChris 9y ago
    Actually, companies mostly exist to get work done and CA is an at will state. If you get in the way of getting work done then you likely will get fired. The document was readable by anyone internally and eventually everyone externally. So there was no misrepresentation.
    • toomuchtodo 9y ago
      I encourage folks to start surveilling Google employees in public who take part in civil disobedience for progressive issues, and demand they be fired. Companies exist to get work done, and CA is an at will state. This won't get fixed ("its okay to fire someone if they don't align with my opinions") until everyone has had their proverbial nose bloodied. Disclaimer: Progressive myself.
      • evgen 9y ago
        If they do it on company time perhaps, otherwise you have no case at all.
        • toomuchtodo 9y ago
          Your opinions and beliefs aren't just on company time, and that's what this gentleman was fired for; his beliefs after presenting research that accompanied his reasoning. Gulag indeed!
        • koolba 9y ago
          That's the best part! You don't need a case because all employment is at-will. Just enough dirt, or supposed dirt, to frame a person in a negative enough light that the company considers them persona non grata.
      • CalChris 9y ago
        It is ok to fire someone if they don't align with the company's opinions in CA. It really is. Advertisement: Progressive myself.
        • tajen 9y ago
          To check the full extent of CA's reasoning: Is it ok to fire someone who fights for LGBT, black or women's rights, because it doesn't align with a company's opinions?
          • toomuchtodo 9y ago
            It is.
      • gamblor956 9y ago
        It's a real problem that you can't tell the difference between what people do on their own time outside of work, and what they do at work, in a work forum. If JD had posted his diatribe online on his own personal blog, there'd be a lot of discussion about it but he'd probably still be employed at Google. The problem is that he posted his diatribe on a company forum. Legally, he forced the company to fire him and refute his words or else be treated as adopting his words as their own. (And yes, that is how workplace harassment laws work in the US. If you have a problem with that, take it up with Congress, not Google.)
    • leifaffles 9y ago
      Yes, there was misrepresentation. Google's CEO said: “To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not O.K.” He said no such thing. This is a cruel smear. Google, including its CEO and VP of Diversity & Newspeak, acted like thugs. And no, this has nothing to do with at-will employment. It has to do with hypocrisy. Google claimed they be open and tolerant, and then they proceeded to directly contradict that ethos by firing Demore and viciously lying about him on the way out the door.
      • CalChris 9y ago
        > Yes, there was misrepresentation. > Google's CEO said: “To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not O.K.” Possible non bias causes of the gender gap in tech ... On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. Work your rhetorical magic on that.
        • cxseven 9y ago
          Colleagues selected by Google already made the cut, so that's more predictive than gender?
        • engel 9y ago
          He says that if 10% of men and 8% of women are suitable for tech, and google hires unbiased from suitable people, then google should expect a 55:45 gender gap. That doesn't mean that the female colleagues are unsuitable for tech, since they were exactly hired among people who were suitable. He is also not saying that this explains the complete gender gap, just that there is no point in blindly aiming at 50:50 without considering research on the underlying distribution. He may have the research wrong, but otherwise the point seems to stand? EDIT: Of course, this argument only works for a binary 'suitable/not suitable' distinction. If 'tech talent' was said to be normal distributed, with men having a slightly higher expectation, it would follow that the average men above some cut was also better than the average woman above the same cut. So in that way he does attack his colleagues.
    • shas3 9y ago
      I think he clarifies this. Two things are germane: 1. Google is "more than just a company." It is more like an old style company-town by now. 2. They are the gatekeepers of all information ever. Perhaps we should hold them to different standards, especially when it comes to opinions and ideologies?
    • JSONwebtoken 9y ago
      No misrepresentation? Like Sundar Pichai and the media conveniently conflating neurosis with the completely unrelated theory of neuroticism? Search "Google memo neurosis" and see how many headlines contain "neurosis" when that word or concept was never referred to even once in the 10 pages.
      • alexqgb 9y ago
        Here's a direct quote from the "Personality Differences" section of the screed: "Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance).This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs." So yeah, it was referenced, specifically, explicitly, and used in direct support of the central argument that the preponderance of men in Google's ranks was biologically determined, meaning a number of Google's D&I initiatives were misguided, at odds with scientific consensus, and should be discontinued.
        • kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
          Neuroticism isn't a vague insult. It's a specific technical term in psychology and is one of the Big Five personality traits—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism People want Damore to have written a PhD level thesis for an internally circulated document but most haven't themselves done even a basic Wikipedia level research before bringing out the pitchforks.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • exabrial 9y ago
    Definitely a sign of weak leadership.
• toomuchtodo 9y ago
  They could've had a spine and supported intelligent discourse. Seems like a leadership problem. "At Google, just as we strive for a diverse workforce, we also encourage the free flow of ideas and along with that, support the vigorous discussion around those ideas. We don't comment on specific HR issues." (EDIT: Minor grammar edits for my faux PR statement) And that would've been the end of it, had they had the fortitude to ignore the witch hunt.
  • briholt 9y ago
    It would've been a week of impotent whiny tweets, then the outrage machine would've moved on to the next faux issue. What kind of insane world do we live in where leaders are too cowardly to withstand mean internet comments? Now they've got a lawsuit on their hands (which will surely open the floodgates) and an anti-science stigma that will stick with them for years.
    • jmduke 9y ago
      To clarify: you are aware that, prior to the memo, Google already a lawsuit on their hands from the Department of Labor with regards to alleged gender discrimination?
      • toomuchtodo 9y ago
        Don't forget to mention Google wouldn't hand over the data the Department of Labor demanded.
        • ue_ 9y ago
          This is what really gets me and confuses me. Google is accused of a "left wing bias" by many defenders of the manifesto and the writer himself. And yet, they don't want to turn over information that they're fairly hiring, firing and paying wages fairly? How is being sly and secretive about your hiring practices and wage information "left wing"? Hardly seems consistent with the idea of supporting worker rights. So how does Google (not to mention, it is a capitalist organisation) have a "left wing bias", as they say? I see no evidence for it.
• mrisoli 9y ago
  I partially agree, had this been kept as an internal firestorm they could have some other solution(offer placement somewhere else within the company or another company), I have personally seen this happen elsewhere.
• notruthallowed 9y ago
  Extremist leftist opinions are constantly voiced at google - the same voices which are equating what he did with physical violence and claim to 'no longer feel safe at google'. I hate to break it to you pal - men and women are different.
• gavanwoolery 9y ago
  I have seen this argument a lot, but there is no hard evidence there were not two options. IMHO firing him created worse PR for the company. They could have scolded him and it would have blown over within a month.
  • alexqgb 9y ago
    Spoken like a dude who hasn't listened to a single response from women.
    • gavanwoolery 9y ago
      Anecdotally (fwiw), my wife, whose profession requires a high level of expertise in biology, agrees with the memo writer
      • egonschiele 9y ago
        Can you elaborate on this? What part does she agree with? What are her thoughts on this Quora answer? 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...
        • gavanwoolery 9y ago
          From her personal perspective and that of vicariously raising a daughter, she agrees that females tend to have certain seemingly innate preferences. However (like me) she does not believe that these preferences limit the potential of an individual, but they do provide insight into why the distribution of professions is skewed between the sexes for several fields (both in the favor of males or females depending on the field). Ill have to ask her opinion about the quora piece, but in my opinion there were a few red flags, and for a scientist the tone was not very objective and carried more than a hint of personal bias. "That said, the argument in the document is, overall, despicable trash." < not scientific "what appears to be a covert alt-right agenda" < this shows both a misunderstanding of the alt-right and the memo author, who hold two distinct systems of belief (in the author's memo IIRC he claims to be a classic liberal). "based on extremely weak evidence" < prove it? "completely fails to understand the current state of research" < prove it? "makes repugnant attacks on compassion and empathy" < not scientific "paradoxically insists that authoritarianism be treated as a valid moral dimension, whilst firmly rejecting any diversity-motivated strategy that might remotely approach it." < what? etc
• tylerst 9y ago
  I disagree with your first sentiment... His take, is just that, his take. He did his own research and came to his own conclusions. They might have been flawed, but they were his own. He very well could have changed his mind, had anyone presented more convincing evidence that would lead to a different conclusion. That didn't even appear to be an option, though, and I think that is the more threatening issue.
  • throwaway23998 9y ago
    It's remarkable how much of an uproar and distraction one fairly low level employee can cause. Reminds me of an old Napoleon quote: "whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous." This individual conducted cursory research while thinking he was conducting in-depth research. I fear his "echo chamber" argument will be construed to damage the diversity in tech movement.
  • egonschiele 9y ago
    Context is important. Maybe he can give his take on Hacker News and no one will care. But he can't say whatever he likes at work. Every company has some legal obligations. No sex discrimination is one of them. Even if you think his take is not sex discrimination, that is a big topic in Silicon Valley right now. So to write something like this right now just says "hey everybody, I'm in my own world. I have no social intelligence, and I don't pay attention to what's going on out there."
    • JKCalhoun 9y ago
      > Context is important. Maybe he can give his take on Hacker News and no one will care. I wouldn't even go that far. I work for a tech company and am extra careful, even outside of work — on public forums, talking about my company or even controversial issues regarding tech in general because someone might mistakenly believe I am speaking as a representative of said company. It just wouldn't be professional.
      • egonschiele 9y ago
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• pow_pp_-1_v 9y ago
  Exactly. People just fail to think in the shoes of Google, the company. They don't gain anything by keeping him there. Getting rid of him and preparing for a few weeks of unwanted scrutiny is the best thing they can do.
• johan_larson 9y ago
  > ... Google had absolutely no option but to fire Mr. Damore once this blew up into a firestorm ... That's a bold statement. Care to explain? Why were all other options unacceptable?
  • egonschiele 9y ago
    I've heard it was illegal for Google to keep him on. Here's what I've found online: > Explicit protections against ... sexually hostile work environments, ... discrimination against unlawful sex stereotypes From https://www.workplacefairness.org/sexual-gender-discrimination#2 https://www.workplacefairness.org/sexual-gender-discriminati.... I would love to see a response from a lawyer. My understanding as a layperson is: 1. He is saying that biological differences explain why fewer women go into tech. That is not true, here is the best point-by-point analysis I've seen on it: 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... 2. If you are a manager, and you ignore this analysis and agree that there is a biological difference, you can use that to explain why you aren't hiring/promoting women: it's not you, it's biology!
    • fche 9y ago
      > That is not true, here is the best point-by-point analysis But that is pretty crappy analysis, throwing your conclusion into doubt. > it's not you, it's biology! What if that is literally true somewhere in the causal chain? Is it good to put managers into terror at having to justify hiring Top Men?
  • basseq 9y ago
    You're Google. In a tech environment where Uber is literally falling about because of anti-diversity issues, you have employees and the public beating down your doors because one guy wrote a memo. Let's enumerate your options: 1. Support him and try to foster a dialog. Untenable: everyone's riled up, you can't be seen to support a sexist white male, and "let's talk about it" is naive. 2. Do nothing. Probably the worst option, as it makes you look spineless and wil piss both sides off. 3. Reprimand him. What does that buy you? You still piss off the alt-right, and the left thinks you're "forgiving" it by letting him off with a slap on the wrist. 4. Fire him. Literally all you can do. The left is happy. The right expects it. It optimizes happiness, shows decisive action, appeases the status quo. There really isn't an option once it got this far.