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That's why you wouldn't open the floor for political discussion. You're missing the point.
by Igelau 6y ago
That's why you wouldn't open the floor for political discussion. You're missing the point.
- wpietri 6y agoI am fascinated that on HN of all places people are suggesting that engineers should never be allowed to express opinions about workplace policy.
- rbanffy 6y agoThey are allowed. But they also need to take responsibility for the consequences of their message. If you alienate half of your colleagues, you'll probably get fired.
- ALittleLight 6y agoGoogle didn't fire Damore when he wrote the memo. They didn't fire him when he shared it for feedback. They didn't fire him when it was internal discussion. They fired him when it leaked to press and there was a social media furor. The idea that Google fired Damore for anything other than bad publicity is not supported by evidence. They asked him for feedback. He provided an intelligent and well researched document. They debated it. A social media mob got mad, and Google, being greedy cowards, fired Damore.
- Igelau 6y agoSo many truths shift on how we paint the timelines. This is a very important angle to consider.
- wpietri 6y agoCould you please show me your source for the claim that they asked him for feedback?
- ALittleLight 6y agoSure. Wikipedia has a description of it citing a Guardian article. "James Damore was spurred to write the memo when a Google diversity program he attended solicited feedback." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Chamber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Ch...
- wpietri 6y agoThat's an article about Damore's POV, so I believe the correct way to express it is that Damore claims he wrote it in response to a request for feedback. And given that he put it up with a go link, it's pretty clear he didn't just submit this as an email to the D&I team. He published it internally, hoping to spark discussion. So I think it's disingenuous to talk about this as if it were something Google's managers ordered him to do. Damore set out to cause a stir and got one.
- ALittleLight 6y agoI said Damore was asked for feedback not that his managers ordered him to write the document and then fired him for it. Damore claimed he originally wrote it as feedback for a diversity meeting he attended and then shared it for broader feedback. To my knowledge this account has never been contested by Google or anyone else and is the agreed upon account. I agree it is possible that Damore is lying about why he wrote it, and that if Google said he wrote it under some different circumstances there would be ambiguity because Damore's own account could be self serving - but, just because it is possibly Damore is lying doesn't mean we should assume he is. There is no dispute about why he originally authored the memo, is there?
- wpietri 6y agoWhen you talk about how "Google fired Damore" and "They asked him for feedback" you imply that the firer and the feedback-re are the same entity. But there's no reason to think that's the case. A more plausible interpretation is that somebody running D&I programs said something general, like "we welcome feedback on our programs". But there's no evidence that he specifically was asked, and even if he were, sharing it broadly appears to be his own idea. In which case, the general request for feedback is irrelevant to him getting fired.
- Igelau 6y agoI'm not saying that. I'm saying that in the parent comment's particular case, knowingly inviting discussion and then firing people when you get butthurt is stupid.
- wpietri 6y agoNot at all. When companies give power to employees, they expect that it be used responsibly and roughly in line with the goals of the company. If I give somebody root access and they just rm -rf everything because it seems like fun, or because they're trying to prove some sort of point, then I'm going to fire them. Google correctly gave employees a lot of power to have internal discussions because they thought that would benefit them as a company. And the great bulk of people used that responsibly. Damore didn't and paid the price.
- Igelau 6y agoSomeone abusing root access to destroy data doesn't compare at all to punishing unpopularity in a falsely "open" forum. Analogies tend to suck in debates, but yours is particularly bad.
- wpietri 6y agoThe problem was not just "unpopularity". Many people at Google have surely said many unpopular things, and Google didn't fire them.
- M2Ys4U 6y agoWhy? A lot of people here want to be the boss of their own start-up, which means they won't want their future (perhaps hypothetical) employees organising against them.