3 ms·

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.

x0x0 6y ago
Couple things > Have you ever heard of someone getting “feedback” on a paper through a privileged and confidential document to HR? Does that sound like a standard procedure to you or does it just happen to people like me who are constantly dehumanized? Taking a dispute with your management chain re: feedback that said management chain felt they had to take actions like a private, hr-involved feedback session, and broadcasting that dispute to a mailing list of peers, downlevels, etc. > But now there’s an additional layer saying any privileged person can decide that they don’t want your paper out with zero conversation. This was, from the perspective of google management, probably very much not a reasonable characterization of the aforementioned circumstances. Managers represent the company, including publicly. Timnit was obviously in an awkward position where she seems to have been a player coach, ie a manager also doing IC level work (in this case, research). It feels like she expected her actions as an IC not to be viewed as actions that also came from a manager. That's a very hard dual role to have. Third, maybe shouldn't get you fired in a perfect world, but prolly will in ours: Public internal criticism of DEI efforts on the part of your management chain. Imagine how that reads to a line-level employee at Google. Particularly an URM. Fourth, same vein -- auguring on an internal mailing list to get the CBC to criticize your employer > I believe that the Congressional Black Caucus is the entity that started forcing tech companies to report their diversity numbers I'm only paying attention because I'm curious if Timnit was hired to -- if you will excuse the phrase -- whitewash google's policies, and she didn't understand what Google was buying; or if there genuinely was some conflict here. I suspect both from different players in the executive ranks.

x0x0 6y ago

Couple things > Have you ever heard of someone getting “feedback” on a paper through a privileged and confidential document to HR? Does that sound like a standard procedure to you or does it just happen to people like me who are constantly dehumanized? Taking a dispute with your management chain re: feedback that said management chain felt they had to take actions like a private, hr-involved feedback session, and broadcasting that dispute to a mailing list of peers, downlevels, etc. > But now there’s an additional layer saying any privileged person can decide that they don’t want your paper out with zero conversation. This was, from the perspective of google management, probably very much not a reasonable characterization of the aforementioned circumstances. Managers represent the company, including publicly. Timnit was obviously in an awkward position where she seems to have been a player coach, ie a manager also doing IC level work (in this case, research). It feels like she expected her actions as an IC not to be viewed as actions that also came from a manager. That's a very hard dual role to have. Third, maybe shouldn't get you fired in a perfect world, but prolly will in ours: Public internal criticism of DEI efforts on the part of your management chain. Imagine how that reads to a line-level employee at Google. Particularly an URM. Fourth, same vein -- auguring on an internal mailing list to get the CBC to criticize your employer > I believe that the Congressional Black Caucus is the entity that started forcing tech companies to report their diversity numbers I'm only paying attention because I'm curious if Timnit was hired to -- if you will excuse the phrase -- whitewash google's policies, and she didn't understand what Google was buying; or if there genuinely was some conflict here. I suspect both from different players in the executive ranks.