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I think the synthesis of both of these narratives goes like this: Google had been wanting to get rid of Gebru for a while, for both good reasons (based on her

I think the synthesis of both of these narratives goes like this: Google had been wanting to get rid of Gebru for a while, for both good reasons (based on her emails and tweets she does indeed seem like an incredibly toxic personality and I sure wouldn't want to work anywhere near her) and bad (retaliation against the lawsuit she filed last year, which is both unlawful and incredibly unethical). They picked this paper as what must have seemed like a clean reason when she made the threat to resign, but taking her up on that threat has blown up in their face because everyone can see their supposed rationale doesn't hold water. Taken as a whole, neither side looks particularly sympathetic, which makes it easy for partisans to latch onto the bad behavior of whomever they dislike.

StavrosK 6y ago
I mostly agree, but on the other hand, if you were Google and wanted to fire Gebru, how would you do it? It's not like there's a better alternative, just firing her normally would probably have been worse.
nmfisher 6y ago
It’s abundantly clear that Google was itching to get rid of her. They probably couldn’t believe her luck when she (stupidly) tried to bully them with not just a threat of resignation, but an actual statement of “I will resign on date XXX”. I also don’t believe that Google would have done this for no reason (given her behaviour during the LeCunn incident) so I’m sympathetic towards Google’s conduct. If Gebru had simply come out and said “Google tried to censor my paper and so I was forced to resign”, I would be thinking very differently.
- jasonv 6y ago
  She also claimed she was previously going to sue Google. She claimed it loudly and publicly. As long as we’re accounting...
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  I don’t believe anyone has claimed she said “I will resign on date XXX.” The wording I think she and Dean have said she used was “or I will work on a last date” or something. As in “or I’ll work on figuring out what my last date at google will be.”
  - busterarm 6y ago
    That's a commitment to resign. Many large companies have a policy of walking out a resigned employee immediately.
    - 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
      I’m not arguing that she did or didn’t resign, just that she didn’t say “or my last date is the 10th” or anything else that clear.
      - busterarm 6y ago
        My point is that that's not necessary. It's a clear commitment to having an end date.
    - dekhn 6y ago
      That's not SOP at Google except in very limited circumstances. When I resigned, I told my manager and we negotiated an exit date 2 weeks after. I volunteered to give up my laptop early etc and not come into the office, but they really wanted me to finish up. People who steal or leak, however, could be terminated immediately and walked out by security. I guess also if you worked on a competitive product and changed to a competitor, they'd walk you out, too.
      - busterarm 6y ago
        And that just tells you how Google felt about this particular relationship. It still doesn't translate to a firing.
vfclists 6y ago
What exactly does toxic mean if she has the sympathy of her coworkers? Toxic to management, embarrassing to her line managers or toxic to the colleagues she co-produces her work with? Was she toxic to the company's profits, toxic to the company's profits, or both?
- bpodgursky 6y ago
  She has the (public) sympathy (of some fraction) of her direct (subordinate) team. You can have the loyalty of a couple of close coworkers and still be toxic for the company as a whole, if you don't have professional interactions with other teams, or with your own managers.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
    Last I saw the internal petition supporting her was at above 1,200. Stereotyping is doing a lot of work here, driving people's assumptions about Gebru.
    - 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
      I mean, there’s no counter petition (nor should there be) so it’s pretty tough to know whether those 1,200+ are representative. Where I work, if someone is ousted, people might talk about the person’s toxicity or whatever got them fired one on one or in small groups, in a pretty off the record kind of way. I’d bet the people who agree with the petition think it’s representative and the people who disagree think it’s not representative (“people are generally like me” is a reasonable prior).
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - concreteblock 6y ago
      There are significant incentives for anyone critical of Gebru to remain (publicly) silent. 1. If someone is to sign a petition for Gebru, what could they lose? 2. If someone were to speak out, under their name, against Gebru, what could they lose? 3. If someone is neutral on the issue and a pro Gebru petition gets passed around asking for support, what is the path of least resistance? See also https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_timnit_gebru_and_google_megathread/gepq3u8?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_t...
roenxi 6y ago
> ...based on her emails and tweets she does indeed seem like an incredibly toxic personality and I sure wouldn't want to work anywhere near her... I agree I wouldn't want her reporting to me, but is it really that hard to fire someone in California? From the outside Google management seems to endorse solidly left-leaning politics, so while anything is possible it seems unlikely that they objected to her views or activism. If they think she is toxic, it follows that they likely had actual reasons - and if there are actual reasons someone is a bad employee then they can be fired in my experience. That lends some credence to the retaliation theory. If they can't expel her for good reasons, grab the first half-baked opportunity.
- busterarm 6y ago
  Google can afford lawyers and PR to deal with an employment lawsuit but a lot of smaller companies don't feel like they can. I had an experience once where a toxic, delusional, pathological liar of an employee was hired and started making up wild accusations about their coworkers on day 1. They then proceeded to do no work and had their role at the company progressively minimized so that they could have satisfactory performance for how little they were doing (and couldn't do much damage). There was no way the company was going to fire them and thankfully after a couple of years they decided to quit, despite making their entire team miserable that whole time.
  - pseingatl 6y ago
    The solution to dealing with such a person is a transfer, TDY for successive three month periods around the country (including Alaska in the winter), requiring reimbursement of hotel bills (i.e., no cash advance). You'll find the disgruntled employee resigns quickly, usually after the first safari.
- metabagel 6y ago
  Employment in California is “at will”, meaning that absent extenuating circumstances (such as a written contract) either the employee or the employer can terminate the relationship at any time, without cause. So, it’s not hard to terminate someone in California, but nonetheless employers are hesitant to terminate employees without cause, probably for fear of being sued. I think it has to do with lawsuits being highly visible whereas underperforming employees are sort of an invisible cost. So, the risk assessment focuses on the rare but highly visible occurrence rather than the ongoing cost of continuing to employ someone who isn’t productive. Just guessing. I don’t really understand this phenomenon.
seles 6y ago
I couldn't find any reference to the lawsuit last year, could you provide some more information / link about it?

StavrosK 6y ago

I mostly agree, but on the other hand, if you were Google and wanted to fire Gebru, how would you do it? It's not like there's a better alternative, just firing her normally would probably have been worse.

nmfisher 6y ago

It’s abundantly clear that Google was itching to get rid of her. They probably couldn’t believe her luck when she (stupidly) tried to bully them with not just a threat of resignation, but an actual statement of “I will resign on date XXX”. I also don’t believe that Google would have done this for no reason (given her behaviour during the LeCunn incident) so I’m sympathetic towards Google’s conduct. If Gebru had simply come out and said “Google tried to censor my paper and so I was forced to resign”, I would be thinking very differently.

jasonv 6y ago
She also claimed she was previously going to sue Google. She claimed it loudly and publicly. As long as we’re accounting...
6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
I don’t believe anyone has claimed she said “I will resign on date XXX.” The wording I think she and Dean have said she used was “or I will work on a last date” or something. As in “or I’ll work on figuring out what my last date at google will be.”
- busterarm 6y ago
  That's a commitment to resign. Many large companies have a policy of walking out a resigned employee immediately.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
    I’m not arguing that she did or didn’t resign, just that she didn’t say “or my last date is the 10th” or anything else that clear.
    - busterarm 6y ago
      My point is that that's not necessary. It's a clear commitment to having an end date.
  - dekhn 6y ago
    That's not SOP at Google except in very limited circumstances. When I resigned, I told my manager and we negotiated an exit date 2 weeks after. I volunteered to give up my laptop early etc and not come into the office, but they really wanted me to finish up. People who steal or leak, however, could be terminated immediately and walked out by security. I guess also if you worked on a competitive product and changed to a competitor, they'd walk you out, too.
    - busterarm 6y ago
      And that just tells you how Google felt about this particular relationship. It still doesn't translate to a firing.

vfclists 6y ago

What exactly does toxic mean if she has the sympathy of her coworkers? Toxic to management, embarrassing to her line managers or toxic to the colleagues she co-produces her work with? Was she toxic to the company's profits, toxic to the company's profits, or both?

bpodgursky 6y ago
She has the (public) sympathy (of some fraction) of her direct (subordinate) team. You can have the loyalty of a couple of close coworkers and still be toxic for the company as a whole, if you don't have professional interactions with other teams, or with your own managers.
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
  Last I saw the internal petition supporting her was at above 1,200. Stereotyping is doing a lot of work here, driving people's assumptions about Gebru.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
    I mean, there’s no counter petition (nor should there be) so it’s pretty tough to know whether those 1,200+ are representative. Where I work, if someone is ousted, people might talk about the person’s toxicity or whatever got them fired one on one or in small groups, in a pretty off the record kind of way. I’d bet the people who agree with the petition think it’s representative and the people who disagree think it’s not representative (“people are generally like me” is a reasonable prior).
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - concreteblock 6y ago
    There are significant incentives for anyone critical of Gebru to remain (publicly) silent. 1. If someone is to sign a petition for Gebru, what could they lose? 2. If someone were to speak out, under their name, against Gebru, what could they lose? 3. If someone is neutral on the issue and a pro Gebru petition gets passed around asking for support, what is the path of least resistance? See also https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_timnit_gebru_and_google_megathread/gepq3u8?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_t...

roenxi 6y ago

> ...based on her emails and tweets she does indeed seem like an incredibly toxic personality and I sure wouldn't want to work anywhere near her... I agree I wouldn't want her reporting to me, but is it really that hard to fire someone in California? From the outside Google management seems to endorse solidly left-leaning politics, so while anything is possible it seems unlikely that they objected to her views or activism. If they think she is toxic, it follows that they likely had actual reasons - and if there are actual reasons someone is a bad employee then they can be fired in my experience. That lends some credence to the retaliation theory. If they can't expel her for good reasons, grab the first half-baked opportunity.

busterarm 6y ago
Google can afford lawyers and PR to deal with an employment lawsuit but a lot of smaller companies don't feel like they can. I had an experience once where a toxic, delusional, pathological liar of an employee was hired and started making up wild accusations about their coworkers on day 1. They then proceeded to do no work and had their role at the company progressively minimized so that they could have satisfactory performance for how little they were doing (and couldn't do much damage). There was no way the company was going to fire them and thankfully after a couple of years they decided to quit, despite making their entire team miserable that whole time.
- pseingatl 6y ago
  The solution to dealing with such a person is a transfer, TDY for successive three month periods around the country (including Alaska in the winter), requiring reimbursement of hotel bills (i.e., no cash advance). You'll find the disgruntled employee resigns quickly, usually after the first safari.
metabagel 6y ago
Employment in California is “at will”, meaning that absent extenuating circumstances (such as a written contract) either the employee or the employer can terminate the relationship at any time, without cause. So, it’s not hard to terminate someone in California, but nonetheless employers are hesitant to terminate employees without cause, probably for fear of being sued. I think it has to do with lawsuits being highly visible whereas underperforming employees are sort of an invisible cost. So, the risk assessment focuses on the rare but highly visible occurrence rather than the ongoing cost of continuing to employ someone who isn’t productive. Just guessing. I don’t really understand this phenomenon.

seles 6y ago

I couldn't find any reference to the lawsuit last year, could you provide some more information / link about it?