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The email she posted [1] makes it pretty clear that she sent an email with some demands/conditions (separate from the one "to Brain women and allies") and said

The email she posted [1] makes it pretty clear that she sent an email with some demands/conditions (separate from the one "to Brain women and allies") and said that she would resign if they weren't met. Google said they wouldn't agree to them, accepted her threatened resignation, and told her it was effective immediately. Without knowing more context, it sounds like she tried to do some hardball negotiating by threatening to leave, and got her bluff called. Quoting the tweets for posterity, link at the bottom: > I need to be very careful what I say so let me be clear. They can come after me. No one told me that I was fired. You know legal speak, given that we're seeing who we're dealing with. This is the exact email I received from Megan who reports to Jeff > Who I can't imagine would do this without consulting and clearing with him of course. So this is what is written in the email: > Thanks for making your conditions clear. We cannot agree to #1 and #2 as you are requesting. We respect your decision to leave Google as a result, and we are accepting your resignation. > However, we believe the end of your employment should happen faster than your email reflects because certain aspects of the email you sent last night to non-management employees in the brain group reflect behavior that is inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager. > As a result, we are accepting your resignation immediately, effective today. We will send your final paycheck to your address in Workday. When you return from your vacation, PeopleOps will reach out to you to coordinate the return of Google devices and assets. [1]: https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1334364732480958467 https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1334364732480958467

techbusters 6y ago
There is still a civil way to accept a resignation, with proper timelines and transfer of responsibilities. She offered to resign in some time due to some demands, and the immediate termination seems to be related to an email unrelated to those demands. This sounds a lot like a sleazy move by Google to couch an immediate firing as a resignation.
- unishark 6y ago
  I'd call it petty more than sleazy. Drama queens on both sides.
  - loopz 6y ago
    Threat of resignation is not a resignation. Either they follow due termination process, or she might still be employed or have good legal case.
    - apsec112 6y ago
      There's no legal requirement for a termination process in the US. A company may choose to give notice, but with a few rare exceptions, they can fire you on the spot at any time for any reason if they want to.
      - GolDDranks 6y ago
        Is that true? Is there not any laws protecting the employees or setting time limits for the notice and the actual end of the contract?
        _iyig 6y ago
        In many U.S. states to include California, employment is legally considered “at-will.” This means the employer can terminate the employment agreement at any time and for nearly any reason. You cannot fire someone for membership in a protected class (race, religion, sexual orientation, etc) or participation in protected activities like reporting an employer’s violations of the law, but it’s difficult to prove intent in such cases. There are exceptions for unionized workplaces with collective bargaining agreements. Employers in those situations cannot fire employees without “just cause.” Google R&D is not unionized, however. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment
        me_me_me 6y ago
        why is this being downvoted? They stated facts not opinions.
        nbzso 6y ago
- jariel 6y ago
  Google did the right thing and they were civil. She made some pretty serious demands, not having been met, with such politicization there's no reasonable way to accommodate a longer handoff, and she knew that. Waaay too much risk there. She set her own terms, they accepted, that's it. She should have been more transparent in this, because in her Tweets she wasn't forthcoming that it was her terms. There are a ton of people who are sympathetic to those who are oppressed, but misrepresentations, cancelling etc. on the wrong terms are going to lose general sympathy very quickly. None of this should be construed as a measure of whether or not Google is 'Good or Bad' or whatever, all these things are individual situations, with their own unique circumstances.
  - apsec112 6y ago
    Do you know what the demands were? I don't think anyone has published them yet.
  - jonathankoren 6y ago
    Do we even know what her demands were? I haven’t seen them posted anywhere. That said, it’s not behooven on either party to be transparent — to the public, or even other employees — because that’s just lawsuit bait. All we know is that she gave a hardball ultimatum, and Google accepted option 2. I don’t know enough about what’s going on, but if you say “Do this, or I quit,” you have to be prepared for them to show you the door immediately. That’s how at-will employment works.
    - jariel 6y ago
      It doesn't matter really what they were other than we know she offered to resign if they were not met. "“Do this, or I quit,” you have to be prepared for them to show you the door immediately. That’s how at-will employment works." That's pretty much it. She must be smart enough to know better and possibly she was looking for an exit of some kind.
    - visarga 6y ago
      Some third hand hearsay mention: > In the letter she criticised the use of pre trained language models in Google's products (e.g., BERT is now used for most searches, machine translation, etc.). Apparently, the two conditions she mentioned concern how Google goes forward in deploying these models despite the warning of (their own) AI ethics researchers about biases that are manifested in these models.
- dehrmann 6y ago
  If someone says (in nicer words) "Do X or I'll resign" and the company doesn't agree to those terms, it's best to accept the resignation immediately because the employee's interests aren't aligned with the company's. It's also pretty common in roles like sales and PR to be shown the door the day you give notice, especially if you're going to a competitor.
  - jariel 6y ago
    This is really obviously clear to the point wherein it shouldn't be a discussion. Anyone with two years in any industry has to know this. If you make an ultimatum to your employer, and they don't want to accept, assume that it's over, right then and there. Unless you're Michael Jordan, or have some kind of really existential terms with the company.
    - fxtentacle 6y ago
      I'm surprised that she opted to publicly put the blame on someone and link to their Twitter. That could be interpreted as a dog whistle to her followers to start the public shaming. But at the very least, I'd guess that this will make any potential future employer think twice if they really want to be her manager. And lastly, I remember the name Jeff Dean from reading about advanced AI research, so if someone publicly says "Jeff Bean says XY is unbearable", I'd be inclined to just believe it. All in all, this looks to me like Timnit Gebru could improve her career chances by being a bit more diplomatic with her public announcements.
      - thu2111 6y ago
        Jeff Dean isn't just someone from advanced AI research. He's one of the longest time Google employees and a key part of the company's success. He's one of the chief engineers behind MapReduce, BigTable, Spanner, the re-awakening of neural network research and many other incredible achievements. At one point inside Google there was a website called "Jeff Dean Facts" similar to the Chuck Norris facts. The guys reputation is out of this world. He's also a rather mild mannered and very nice man. When I worked there I never heard anyone say anything bad about Dean. He rarely expressed strong opinions even on engineering topics; the sort of guy who prefers to win debates by simply coding up the best solution. The name Timnit Gebru also rings bells for me. Last time this name came up she was busy chasing Yann LeCun off Twitter with pitchforks. LeCun! One of the other major luminaries of AI research. In fact she stirred up so much trouble and made so many outrageous accusations he quit Twitter altogether. She appears to be a serious troublemaker, far more interested in identity politics than AI. She was an embarrassment to Google before and it's good for them they finally canned her, but seriously, why did it take this long? And who will hire her next? I'm sure someone will be dumb enough to do that but hardly any companies have openings for "ethical AI researchers", and she already burned her bridges at Facebook.
- trhway 6y ago
  >There is still a civil way to accept a resignation, with proper timelines and transfer of responsibilities. that just reminded how Marisa resigned - if i remember correctly she just called on Monday morning to notify that she is already at Yahoo. So the "at-will" works both way. >> certain aspects of the email you sent last night to non-management employees in the brain group reflect behavior that is inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager. as my friends managers explained to me - a manager represents the company to employees, i.e. when a manager speaks it is basically the company speaks and thus [until the company reacts quickly by disowning the manager's words] the company bears the burdens and responsibilities that the manager made promises/representations about - similar to that relationship between Pope and God pictured in the Dogma - so managers are trained to be very accurate with their words, and understandably a manager going off-rails is like a fire emergency to be dealt with immediately.
- bayindirh 6y ago
  You're right but, the tone of the mail hints that there's an underlying tension already. Also, the mention of other email (which I didn't read) further hints that there's something heated going on amongst the parties. So looks like Timnit sent an e-mail to the group which wasn't OK in the eyes of the higher management, then sent a strong mail about her demands to the same management and used "I'll resign otherwise" card to force her way. The management, agitated from the first e-mail, didn't buy it and sent her home. The way they did is neither elegant nor polite but, she pushed a lot to get this response it seems. This is my understanding of the issue and I may be completely wrong but, this is what I was able to decipher.
- telltruth 6y ago
  I don't think she ever resigned. My guess is that her manager Megan was being nice to her by saying that this is not firing but "accepting resignation". Unfortunately, her manager was obviously not trained in firing. Never "accept resignation" if employee didn't actually resigned, even if you want to nice to them.
  - lacker 6y ago
    If you say “I will resign unless X”, your employer is then entitled to accept your resignation. HR prefers to accept resignations rather than fire people, because then the company is much less likely to be found at fault, and it sounds like this communication was carefully managed with the help of HR.
rlt 6y ago
> Without knowing more context, it sounds like she tried to do some hardball negotiating by threatening to leave, and got her bluff called. Or she was on her way out anyway (or at least ambivalent about staying, it sounds like) and wanted to provoke Google to fire her. These days getting fired as a female minority is a good way to elevate your reputation among a certain crowd, maybe get a more lucrative offer elsewhere, and possibly get a payday if your employer didn’t have good lawyers. Just look at her Twitter mentions right now, she’s getting an enormous amount of attention, including job offers and lawyer recommendations.
- whymauri 6y ago
  >These days getting fired as a female minority is a good way to elevate your reputation among a certain crowd, maybe get a more lucrative offer elsewhere, and possibly get a payday if your employer didn’t have good lawyers. This is the olympics of mental gymnastics.
villgax 6y ago
This is some next level drama alright. Threaten workplace with your own demands.
telltruth 6y ago
As I understand, she first sent out mass email to large group of employees that outright violated Google's policy. This act alone was sufficient for immediate termination. However, she then tried to bargain with her manager. Her manager basically let her know that bargaining was irrelevant and her action was serious enough that she is being terminated immediately. Then she comes back and tells the story with twist that Google ignored her bargaining and terminated her even while she initiated that bargaining. She goes on to reveal a lot of things except the content of her email or even hint of exactly what was so incriminating. Now she wants to keep lid closed in the name of future lawsuit all the while launching attacks on everyone. I feel whole thing is super muddy. If she is truly ethical, she needs to come out clean on exactly what happened or just stop attacking everyone and keep playing victim.
- kenjackson 6y ago
  The email has been posted in full and it sounds like it was to a standard mailing list. Nothing in the email sounds like something you would be fired over. But Google seems really sensitive these days.
  - bananaface 6y ago
    Do you have a link?
  - trhway 6y ago
    after 20 years at several US BigCo-s i see such an email as a totally fireable offense for a manager in a US company (and in Russia the boss would do bad things to you and would still probably fire you after that if you don't come to your senses :): https://www.platformer.news/p/the-withering-email-that-got-an-ethical https://www.platformer.news/p/the-withering-email-that-got-a... It also sounds like she did lawyer-rammed the Google a year before, so they were tip-topping around her strictly by the book, and with such clear an offense as that email she just threw the HR a freebie, as another commenter put it, so they could now get rid of her strictly by the book.
- cmiles74 6y ago
  Could you outline what content in the email as an "outright violation of Google's policy"? Having read the email, it did not strike me as a fire-able offense.
flippinburgers 6y ago
Her twitter account is full of her retweeting people supporting her and lambasting Google. I wouldn't be surprised if she gets money out of Google. Worst case the person responsible for firing her is let go. This is the world we live in. Twitter is a god awful pitchfork paradise. I cannot stand it.
cmiles74 6y ago
I have to say, this idea that we should assume the best of the large corporate entity to the detriment of the very real human person until "we know more context" strikes me as shockingly and painfully naive. Is the assumption here that Google is somehow better behaved than other corporations? I don't think there's any factual basis for such thinking. In my experience, corporations are laser focused on money, quarter-by-quarter, with little to no concern for the human cost. Google has been asked for comment and has consistently declined, in my opinion we should give much more weight to the real person here. We all have much more in common with the AI researcher than the large, faceless corporate entity. If we are at all principled, it's easy to imagine ourselves in a similar situation. Why the hand-wringing over this email they sent, the suspicion that it was all "hardball negotiating" and "bluffing"? The email to the mailing list pretty clearly outlines their concerns and reaction to Google, it seems a pretty safe assumption that their email to Google management covers much the same information.[0] This idea that they are bluffing strikes me as insulting: is there any reason to suspect they are bluffing? I don't see that in any of the coverage, by my reading this person felt this back-and-forth over the publication of this paper at the last minute was the last straw, their exasperation and frustration with Google is clear. It seems to me they were entirely willing to resign. [0]: https://www.platformer.news/p/the-withering-email-that-got-an-ethical https://www.platformer.news/p/the-withering-email-that-got-a...
- describe24 6y ago
  Most people aren't responding because they're defending the actions of a "large corporate entity". They're relating to the people, such as Jeff Dean, that made that decision. A decision that definitely wasn't taken lightly. The people that had to work closely with her, with whom she has publicly ridiculed on Twitter. She's even tweeted that she suspects there was a team of people behind the decision to accept her resignation. All those people don't put Google first. The hard truth is that she was probably extremely unpleasant to work with it (this is my reading of the above link and from what I've witnessed on Twitter) and they had just reached their limits. Not Google, but the people that had to work with her (I'm clearly not referring to her subordinates who are all apparently "indebted" to her which is a whole other issue onto itself). She comes across as very entitled and quite frankly, although I hate to say it as it's a bit of a cliche at this point, narcissistic. These are all based on what I've been able to find online. I've never met her in person. I'm trying very hard to not see her negatively but it's also hard finding evidence that's she's not hostile to those that don't 100% accept and agree with her. I'm definitely open to seeing her in a different light if anyone wants to share links. However, just because you research ethics doesn't mean you practice what you preach nor that you're a saint who can do no wrong.

techbusters 6y ago

There is still a civil way to accept a resignation, with proper timelines and transfer of responsibilities. She offered to resign in some time due to some demands, and the immediate termination seems to be related to an email unrelated to those demands. This sounds a lot like a sleazy move by Google to couch an immediate firing as a resignation.

unishark 6y ago
I'd call it petty more than sleazy. Drama queens on both sides.
- loopz 6y ago
  Threat of resignation is not a resignation. Either they follow due termination process, or she might still be employed or have good legal case.
  - apsec112 6y ago
    There's no legal requirement for a termination process in the US. A company may choose to give notice, but with a few rare exceptions, they can fire you on the spot at any time for any reason if they want to.
    - GolDDranks 6y ago
      Is that true? Is there not any laws protecting the employees or setting time limits for the notice and the actual end of the contract?
      - _iyig 6y ago
        In many U.S. states to include California, employment is legally considered “at-will.” This means the employer can terminate the employment agreement at any time and for nearly any reason. You cannot fire someone for membership in a protected class (race, religion, sexual orientation, etc) or participation in protected activities like reporting an employer’s violations of the law, but it’s difficult to prove intent in such cases. There are exceptions for unionized workplaces with collective bargaining agreements. Employers in those situations cannot fire employees without “just cause.” Google R&D is not unionized, however. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment
        me_me_me 6y ago
        why is this being downvoted? They stated facts not opinions.
        nbzso 6y ago
jariel 6y ago
Google did the right thing and they were civil. She made some pretty serious demands, not having been met, with such politicization there's no reasonable way to accommodate a longer handoff, and she knew that. Waaay too much risk there. She set her own terms, they accepted, that's it. She should have been more transparent in this, because in her Tweets she wasn't forthcoming that it was her terms. There are a ton of people who are sympathetic to those who are oppressed, but misrepresentations, cancelling etc. on the wrong terms are going to lose general sympathy very quickly. None of this should be construed as a measure of whether or not Google is 'Good or Bad' or whatever, all these things are individual situations, with their own unique circumstances.
- apsec112 6y ago
  Do you know what the demands were? I don't think anyone has published them yet.
- jonathankoren 6y ago
  Do we even know what her demands were? I haven’t seen them posted anywhere. That said, it’s not behooven on either party to be transparent — to the public, or even other employees — because that’s just lawsuit bait. All we know is that she gave a hardball ultimatum, and Google accepted option 2. I don’t know enough about what’s going on, but if you say “Do this, or I quit,” you have to be prepared for them to show you the door immediately. That’s how at-will employment works.
  - jariel 6y ago
    It doesn't matter really what they were other than we know she offered to resign if they were not met. "“Do this, or I quit,” you have to be prepared for them to show you the door immediately. That’s how at-will employment works." That's pretty much it. She must be smart enough to know better and possibly she was looking for an exit of some kind.
  - visarga 6y ago
    Some third hand hearsay mention: > In the letter she criticised the use of pre trained language models in Google's products (e.g., BERT is now used for most searches, machine translation, etc.). Apparently, the two conditions she mentioned concern how Google goes forward in deploying these models despite the warning of (their own) AI ethics researchers about biases that are manifested in these models.
dehrmann 6y ago
If someone says (in nicer words) "Do X or I'll resign" and the company doesn't agree to those terms, it's best to accept the resignation immediately because the employee's interests aren't aligned with the company's. It's also pretty common in roles like sales and PR to be shown the door the day you give notice, especially if you're going to a competitor.
- jariel 6y ago
  This is really obviously clear to the point wherein it shouldn't be a discussion. Anyone with two years in any industry has to know this. If you make an ultimatum to your employer, and they don't want to accept, assume that it's over, right then and there. Unless you're Michael Jordan, or have some kind of really existential terms with the company.
  - fxtentacle 6y ago
    I'm surprised that she opted to publicly put the blame on someone and link to their Twitter. That could be interpreted as a dog whistle to her followers to start the public shaming. But at the very least, I'd guess that this will make any potential future employer think twice if they really want to be her manager. And lastly, I remember the name Jeff Dean from reading about advanced AI research, so if someone publicly says "Jeff Bean says XY is unbearable", I'd be inclined to just believe it. All in all, this looks to me like Timnit Gebru could improve her career chances by being a bit more diplomatic with her public announcements.
    - thu2111 6y ago
      Jeff Dean isn't just someone from advanced AI research. He's one of the longest time Google employees and a key part of the company's success. He's one of the chief engineers behind MapReduce, BigTable, Spanner, the re-awakening of neural network research and many other incredible achievements. At one point inside Google there was a website called "Jeff Dean Facts" similar to the Chuck Norris facts. The guys reputation is out of this world. He's also a rather mild mannered and very nice man. When I worked there I never heard anyone say anything bad about Dean. He rarely expressed strong opinions even on engineering topics; the sort of guy who prefers to win debates by simply coding up the best solution. The name Timnit Gebru also rings bells for me. Last time this name came up she was busy chasing Yann LeCun off Twitter with pitchforks. LeCun! One of the other major luminaries of AI research. In fact she stirred up so much trouble and made so many outrageous accusations he quit Twitter altogether. She appears to be a serious troublemaker, far more interested in identity politics than AI. She was an embarrassment to Google before and it's good for them they finally canned her, but seriously, why did it take this long? And who will hire her next? I'm sure someone will be dumb enough to do that but hardly any companies have openings for "ethical AI researchers", and she already burned her bridges at Facebook.
trhway 6y ago
>There is still a civil way to accept a resignation, with proper timelines and transfer of responsibilities. that just reminded how Marisa resigned - if i remember correctly she just called on Monday morning to notify that she is already at Yahoo. So the "at-will" works both way. >> certain aspects of the email you sent last night to non-management employees in the brain group reflect behavior that is inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager. as my friends managers explained to me - a manager represents the company to employees, i.e. when a manager speaks it is basically the company speaks and thus [until the company reacts quickly by disowning the manager's words] the company bears the burdens and responsibilities that the manager made promises/representations about - similar to that relationship between Pope and God pictured in the Dogma - so managers are trained to be very accurate with their words, and understandably a manager going off-rails is like a fire emergency to be dealt with immediately.
bayindirh 6y ago
You're right but, the tone of the mail hints that there's an underlying tension already. Also, the mention of other email (which I didn't read) further hints that there's something heated going on amongst the parties. So looks like Timnit sent an e-mail to the group which wasn't OK in the eyes of the higher management, then sent a strong mail about her demands to the same management and used "I'll resign otherwise" card to force her way. The management, agitated from the first e-mail, didn't buy it and sent her home. The way they did is neither elegant nor polite but, she pushed a lot to get this response it seems. This is my understanding of the issue and I may be completely wrong but, this is what I was able to decipher.
telltruth 6y ago
I don't think she ever resigned. My guess is that her manager Megan was being nice to her by saying that this is not firing but "accepting resignation". Unfortunately, her manager was obviously not trained in firing. Never "accept resignation" if employee didn't actually resigned, even if you want to nice to them.
- lacker 6y ago
  If you say “I will resign unless X”, your employer is then entitled to accept your resignation. HR prefers to accept resignations rather than fire people, because then the company is much less likely to be found at fault, and it sounds like this communication was carefully managed with the help of HR.

rlt 6y ago

> Without knowing more context, it sounds like she tried to do some hardball negotiating by threatening to leave, and got her bluff called. Or she was on her way out anyway (or at least ambivalent about staying, it sounds like) and wanted to provoke Google to fire her. These days getting fired as a female minority is a good way to elevate your reputation among a certain crowd, maybe get a more lucrative offer elsewhere, and possibly get a payday if your employer didn’t have good lawyers. Just look at her Twitter mentions right now, she’s getting an enormous amount of attention, including job offers and lawyer recommendations.

whymauri 6y ago
>These days getting fired as a female minority is a good way to elevate your reputation among a certain crowd, maybe get a more lucrative offer elsewhere, and possibly get a payday if your employer didn’t have good lawyers. This is the olympics of mental gymnastics.

villgax 6y ago

This is some next level drama alright. Threaten workplace with your own demands.

telltruth 6y ago

As I understand, she first sent out mass email to large group of employees that outright violated Google's policy. This act alone was sufficient for immediate termination. However, she then tried to bargain with her manager. Her manager basically let her know that bargaining was irrelevant and her action was serious enough that she is being terminated immediately. Then she comes back and tells the story with twist that Google ignored her bargaining and terminated her even while she initiated that bargaining. She goes on to reveal a lot of things except the content of her email or even hint of exactly what was so incriminating. Now she wants to keep lid closed in the name of future lawsuit all the while launching attacks on everyone. I feel whole thing is super muddy. If she is truly ethical, she needs to come out clean on exactly what happened or just stop attacking everyone and keep playing victim.

kenjackson 6y ago
The email has been posted in full and it sounds like it was to a standard mailing list. Nothing in the email sounds like something you would be fired over. But Google seems really sensitive these days.
- bananaface 6y ago
  Do you have a link?
- trhway 6y ago
  after 20 years at several US BigCo-s i see such an email as a totally fireable offense for a manager in a US company (and in Russia the boss would do bad things to you and would still probably fire you after that if you don't come to your senses :): https://www.platformer.news/p/the-withering-email-that-got-an-ethical https://www.platformer.news/p/the-withering-email-that-got-a... It also sounds like she did lawyer-rammed the Google a year before, so they were tip-topping around her strictly by the book, and with such clear an offense as that email she just threw the HR a freebie, as another commenter put it, so they could now get rid of her strictly by the book.
cmiles74 6y ago
Could you outline what content in the email as an "outright violation of Google's policy"? Having read the email, it did not strike me as a fire-able offense.

flippinburgers 6y ago

Her twitter account is full of her retweeting people supporting her and lambasting Google. I wouldn't be surprised if she gets money out of Google. Worst case the person responsible for firing her is let go. This is the world we live in. Twitter is a god awful pitchfork paradise. I cannot stand it.

cmiles74 6y ago

I have to say, this idea that we should assume the best of the large corporate entity to the detriment of the very real human person until "we know more context" strikes me as shockingly and painfully naive. Is the assumption here that Google is somehow better behaved than other corporations? I don't think there's any factual basis for such thinking. In my experience, corporations are laser focused on money, quarter-by-quarter, with little to no concern for the human cost. Google has been asked for comment and has consistently declined, in my opinion we should give much more weight to the real person here. We all have much more in common with the AI researcher than the large, faceless corporate entity. If we are at all principled, it's easy to imagine ourselves in a similar situation. Why the hand-wringing over this email they sent, the suspicion that it was all "hardball negotiating" and "bluffing"? The email to the mailing list pretty clearly outlines their concerns and reaction to Google, it seems a pretty safe assumption that their email to Google management covers much the same information.[0] This idea that they are bluffing strikes me as insulting: is there any reason to suspect they are bluffing? I don't see that in any of the coverage, by my reading this person felt this back-and-forth over the publication of this paper at the last minute was the last straw, their exasperation and frustration with Google is clear. It seems to me they were entirely willing to resign. [0]: https://www.platformer.news/p/the-withering-email-that-got-an-ethical https://www.platformer.news/p/the-withering-email-that-got-a...

describe24 6y ago
Most people aren't responding because they're defending the actions of a "large corporate entity". They're relating to the people, such as Jeff Dean, that made that decision. A decision that definitely wasn't taken lightly. The people that had to work closely with her, with whom she has publicly ridiculed on Twitter. She's even tweeted that she suspects there was a team of people behind the decision to accept her resignation. All those people don't put Google first. The hard truth is that she was probably extremely unpleasant to work with it (this is my reading of the above link and from what I've witnessed on Twitter) and they had just reached their limits. Not Google, but the people that had to work with her (I'm clearly not referring to her subordinates who are all apparently "indebted" to her which is a whole other issue onto itself). She comes across as very entitled and quite frankly, although I hate to say it as it's a bit of a cliche at this point, narcissistic. These are all based on what I've been able to find online. I've never met her in person. I'm trying very hard to not see her negatively but it's also hard finding evidence that's she's not hostile to those that don't 100% accept and agree with her. I'm definitely open to seeing her in a different light if anyone wants to share links. However, just because you research ethics doesn't mean you practice what you preach nor that you're a saint who can do no wrong.