8 ms·

This can definitely be the case. There are lots of sh--ty white male programmers working in the industry. I have met plenty of white men who have masters level

This can definitely be the case. There are lots of sh--ty white male programmers working in the industry. I have met plenty of white men who have masters level CS education, have worked for Google and other top name companies, and can't produce a line of useful working code to save their lives. The reasons why corporations frequently hire people who don't actually produce anything are varied and complex, but it happens, a lot. If someone is incompetent and also happens to be from a minority group then everyone starts complaining about how they are a "diversity hire" but with incompetent white males they just shrug and go "that's the way it is." In other words, it is so common with white males that no one even notices.

wpietri 9y ago
And I'd add that there's evidence (and plenty of anecdote) that the men who most object to diversity are not so good at what they do. Which makes sense; they are the ones who have the most to lose from an increased talent pool. [1] Personally, I'd be very interested to see Damore's code. We already know that he lied about both a PhD and being a chess master. [2] I would not be shocked at all to find out that he's not good at programming. [1] http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0131613 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjourna... [2] https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/18271/is-james-damore-a-fide-master https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/18271/is-james-dam...
- gizmo686 9y ago
  From the complaint: "23. Damore was diligent and loyal, and received substantial praise for the quality of his work. Damore received the highest possible rating twice, including in his most recent performance review, and consistently received high performance ratings, placing him in the top few percentile of Google employees. Throughout the course of his employment with Google, Damore received approximately eight performance bonuses, the most recent of which was approximately 20% of his annual salary. Damore also received stock bonuses from the Google amounting to approximately $150,000 per year. 24. Damore was never disciplined or suspended during his entire tenure at Google. 25. Based on Damore’s excellent work, Damore was promoted to Senior Software Engineer in or around January 2017—just eight months before his unlawful termination by Google."
  - flukus 9y ago
    Sounds like he was pretty good, but I wonder about this part: > Damore received the highest possible rating twice, including in his most recent performance review, and consistently received high performance How are these ratings done, by the team/manager or externally? IME when it's done by the same team then reviews are more about politics than performance.
    - Idontknowmyuser 9y ago
      so let me get this staright: when Damore is being rated politics have an effect on ratings and promotions when Damore speaks out against politics affecting hiring and promotion, he is wrong I'm fascinated how one can reconcile both beliefs
      - flukus 9y ago
        Sorry that was terribly worded, I meant politics/political in the personal sense, who's friends with who, etc.
  - wpietri 9y ago
    Yes, I'm sure Damore claims he was excellent. But claims of excellence do not correlate perfectly with actual excellence. And neither do promotion packets; I'm sure we've all worked with somebody who did better on paper than was justified. So I'd still like to see his code. And talk with some of his coworkers.
    - smsm42 9y ago
      You're just mining for something by now. It is clear that you implication that Damore was a sore loser that covered his lack of performance by blaming diversity has no connection to reality. Damore had performance completely satisfactory by Google's standards, and achieved significant praise from his peers, so whatever would be your evaluation of it, he was not in a loser position, had no reason to be sore for anything and had no reason to blame diversity for anything related to performance or its perception by others. Time to leave this horse, it's dead.
- Goladus 9y ago
  > We already know that he lied about a PhD No, he did not lie about this. You are lying about it. His linkedin listed him as having been part of a PhD program and people took it to mean he had a PhD. There is absolutely no evidence he ever intended to mislead anyone about this. So, please stop spreading lies. ==== PS I know because I actually saw the linkedin profile before he edited it. It did not say he had a PhD. It clearly listed that he was in the program for 2 years, which any person reasonably familiar with PhD programs would immediately suspect meant that he had not finished. And indeed, I followed up by looking up what publications he had, and while his name was on a couple of papers he had clearly not published a dissertation. So, to anyone who wasn't deliberately looking to discredit him for malicious or self-interested reasons, as Business Insider's Natasha Tiku almost certainly was, would not have been fooled for a second by his profile nor would they have believed that Damore intended to fool them. Note the business insider article you linked uses these weasel words: James Damore, the fired Google engineer who wrote the now-infamous memo on diversity at the company, has removed mention of PhD studies in biology from his LinkedIn profile. The removal comes after Wired writer Nitasha Tiku confirmed with Harvard that Damore has not completed his PhD. He then goes on to call out the "Right-wing argument" appealing to his credibility because he had a PhD. If you read carefully, you'll see that they frame as if it was this embarassing thing that they'd shamed him into doing, to encourage lazy, non-critical readers to reach the same conclusion that you did, while using the technically correct words to avoid defamation liability. But, careful analysis of the facts shows that I am correct. He did not lie about the PhD, others either lied on his behalf without his knowledge; or were confused by careless/overly-optimistic reading of the LinkedIn profile.
  - wpietri 9y ago
    I saw the LinkedIn profile too; I looked him up when the story first broke. I saw it and said, "Damn, a PhD in systems biology, he should know better than this." People who don't finish their PhDs either a) don't list the PhD, just leaving it as a Master's, or b) are explicit that they don't have the PhD. (E.g., "ABD in Systems Biology.) So at the very best, his resume was misleading because he was incompetent at putting together a resume. That doesn't jibe with the theory that he's so very brilliant. The fact that he quickly edited it when called out confirms even he saw it as misleading; that he didn't comment or apologize suggests it was not a simple mistake. Ah, and now that I go look for images, it did not list him as being part of a PhD *program". it just said "PhD, Systems Biology" under education: http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/598b0f3776084a30198b5538-808/screen%20shot%202017-08-09%20at%2093313%20am.png http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/598b0f3776084a30198... I'm glad to hear you weren't misled by that thanks to your expertise, but there's no denying that is misleading to a general-audience reader.
dotnetisnotdead 9y ago
>If someone is incompetent and also happens to be from a minority group then everyone starts complaining about how they are a "diversity hire" but with incompetent white males they just shrug and go "that's the way it is." In other words, it is so common with white males that no one even notices. You could be right this is definitely a possibility. I did not intend to suggest that all white male programmers are awesome, certainly not the case.

wpietri 9y ago

And I'd add that there's evidence (and plenty of anecdote) that the men who most object to diversity are not so good at what they do. Which makes sense; they are the ones who have the most to lose from an increased talent pool. [1] Personally, I'd be very interested to see Damore's code. We already know that he lied about both a PhD and being a chess master. [2] I would not be shocked at all to find out that he's not good at programming. [1] http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0131613 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjourna... [2] https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/18271/is-james-damore-a-fide-master https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/18271/is-james-dam...

gizmo686 9y ago
From the complaint: "23. Damore was diligent and loyal, and received substantial praise for the quality of his work. Damore received the highest possible rating twice, including in his most recent performance review, and consistently received high performance ratings, placing him in the top few percentile of Google employees. Throughout the course of his employment with Google, Damore received approximately eight performance bonuses, the most recent of which was approximately 20% of his annual salary. Damore also received stock bonuses from the Google amounting to approximately $150,000 per year. 24. Damore was never disciplined or suspended during his entire tenure at Google. 25. Based on Damore’s excellent work, Damore was promoted to Senior Software Engineer in or around January 2017—just eight months before his unlawful termination by Google."
- flukus 9y ago
  Sounds like he was pretty good, but I wonder about this part: > Damore received the highest possible rating twice, including in his most recent performance review, and consistently received high performance How are these ratings done, by the team/manager or externally? IME when it's done by the same team then reviews are more about politics than performance.
  - Idontknowmyuser 9y ago
    so let me get this staright: when Damore is being rated politics have an effect on ratings and promotions when Damore speaks out against politics affecting hiring and promotion, he is wrong I'm fascinated how one can reconcile both beliefs
    - flukus 9y ago
      Sorry that was terribly worded, I meant politics/political in the personal sense, who's friends with who, etc.
- wpietri 9y ago
  Yes, I'm sure Damore claims he was excellent. But claims of excellence do not correlate perfectly with actual excellence. And neither do promotion packets; I'm sure we've all worked with somebody who did better on paper than was justified. So I'd still like to see his code. And talk with some of his coworkers.
  - smsm42 9y ago
    You're just mining for something by now. It is clear that you implication that Damore was a sore loser that covered his lack of performance by blaming diversity has no connection to reality. Damore had performance completely satisfactory by Google's standards, and achieved significant praise from his peers, so whatever would be your evaluation of it, he was not in a loser position, had no reason to be sore for anything and had no reason to blame diversity for anything related to performance or its perception by others. Time to leave this horse, it's dead.
Goladus 9y ago
> We already know that he lied about a PhD No, he did not lie about this. You are lying about it. His linkedin listed him as having been part of a PhD program and people took it to mean he had a PhD. There is absolutely no evidence he ever intended to mislead anyone about this. So, please stop spreading lies. ==== PS I know because I actually saw the linkedin profile before he edited it. It did not say he had a PhD. It clearly listed that he was in the program for 2 years, which any person reasonably familiar with PhD programs would immediately suspect meant that he had not finished. And indeed, I followed up by looking up what publications he had, and while his name was on a couple of papers he had clearly not published a dissertation. So, to anyone who wasn't deliberately looking to discredit him for malicious or self-interested reasons, as Business Insider's Natasha Tiku almost certainly was, would not have been fooled for a second by his profile nor would they have believed that Damore intended to fool them. Note the business insider article you linked uses these weasel words: James Damore, the fired Google engineer who wrote the now-infamous memo on diversity at the company, has removed mention of PhD studies in biology from his LinkedIn profile. The removal comes after Wired writer Nitasha Tiku confirmed with Harvard that Damore has not completed his PhD. He then goes on to call out the "Right-wing argument" appealing to his credibility because he had a PhD. If you read carefully, you'll see that they frame as if it was this embarassing thing that they'd shamed him into doing, to encourage lazy, non-critical readers to reach the same conclusion that you did, while using the technically correct words to avoid defamation liability. But, careful analysis of the facts shows that I am correct. He did not lie about the PhD, others either lied on his behalf without his knowledge; or were confused by careless/overly-optimistic reading of the LinkedIn profile.
- wpietri 9y ago
  I saw the LinkedIn profile too; I looked him up when the story first broke. I saw it and said, "Damn, a PhD in systems biology, he should know better than this." People who don't finish their PhDs either a) don't list the PhD, just leaving it as a Master's, or b) are explicit that they don't have the PhD. (E.g., "ABD in Systems Biology.) So at the very best, his resume was misleading because he was incompetent at putting together a resume. That doesn't jibe with the theory that he's so very brilliant. The fact that he quickly edited it when called out confirms even he saw it as misleading; that he didn't comment or apologize suggests it was not a simple mistake. Ah, and now that I go look for images, it did not list him as being part of a PhD *program". it just said "PhD, Systems Biology" under education: http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/598b0f3776084a30198b5538-808/screen%20shot%202017-08-09%20at%2093313%20am.png http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/598b0f3776084a30198... I'm glad to hear you weren't misled by that thanks to your expertise, but there's no denying that is misleading to a general-audience reader.

dotnetisnotdead 9y ago

>If someone is incompetent and also happens to be from a minority group then everyone starts complaining about how they are a "diversity hire" but with incompetent white males they just shrug and go "that's the way it is." In other words, it is so common with white males that no one even notices. You could be right this is definitely a possibility. I did not intend to suggest that all white male programmers are awesome, certainly not the case.