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You will learn a lot about Margaret Mitchell's firing by simply reading this piece she shared publicly on Twitter: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ERi2crDTo
by aerosmile 6y ago
You will learn a lot about Margaret Mitchell's firing by simply reading this piece she shared publicly on Twitter: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ERi2crDToYhYjEjxRoOzO-uOUeLgdoLPfnx1JOErg2w/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ERi2crDToYhYjEjxRoOzO-uO...
A few punchlines:
"Every moment where Jeff Dean and Megan Kacholia do not take responsibility for their actions is another moment where the company as a whole stands by silently as if to intentionally send the horrifying message that Dr. Gebru deserves to be treated this way."
"Dr. Gebru refused to subjugate herself to a system requiring her to belittle her integrity as a researcher and degrade herself below her fellow researchers. Within the next year, let those of us in positions of privilege and power come to terms with the discomfort of being part of an unjust system that devalued one of the world’s leading scientists, and keep something like this from ever happening again."
In short, she was getting paid handsomely while calling out her bosses by name and taking them through the dirt. I have nothing but respect for people willing to fall on their sword for the sake of making the world a better place. But if she thought even for a second that she could possibly be a martyr and also keep her job, she's delusional. I have a hard time aligning myself with people who are fighting for the right cause, but have completely lost their touch with reality.
Perhaps she expected to get fired and knew that moving the files was only going to accelerate the inevitable? In that case, she deserved to be celebrated. But if she thought that she was untouchable, and in addition to being a major PITA for her employer also ended up so easily getting caught red-handed for a fireable offense - then I start questioning her judgement and have to wonder if her arguments against Google are equally skewed.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- aliyfarah 6y agoDeleted
- xboxnolifes 6y agoI'm confused, you seem to say that the parent's opinion is delusional, but then you share their same opinion in the next sentence.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- true_religion 6y agoSitting silently is the opposite of falling on your sword. By complaining and getting fired, she became a martyr.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> But if she thought that she was untouchable, She was complaining about her peer and co-lead being fired by top management, going around their shared immediate management, dishonestly and in retaliation for internally highlighting problems. I think the one thing you can be absolutely sure of is that she didn't see herself as invulnerable. > so easily getting caught red-handed “so easily caught red-handed”? It took 5 weeks from when she was locked out over a supposed automated alarm of a possible unauthorized activity. for her to be fired. If (and no one not directly involved has any way of knowing this) she was actually “caught red handed” it doesn't seem to have been very easy.
- tantalor 6y ago> she didn't see herself as invulnerable Yet: Dr. Gebru and I had just been promoted to “Staff” Research Scientist, which is meaningful in the world of STEM, with the sort of honor associated with becoming tenured. We had thought it meant a certain amount of job security.
- cauthon 6y agoI’m assuming the parent comment means she didn’t see herself as invulnerable after Dr. Gebru’s firing. The quote describes their mindset before the firing in order to highlight why she found it unexpected.
- Clewza313 6y agoStaff at Google is L6, which is a mid-high rank at best. For comparison, fresh grads are typically L3, while a Fellow is L12.
- thirtyseven 6y agoWhy hire an Ethics team if you won't let them interrogate unethical behavior?
- Cacti 6y agoYeah, that's not why they were fired.
- dragonwriter 6y agoWell, that’s not why Google says they were fired. But then, if it was, Google would defeat the purpose by admitting it.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> Why hire an Ethics team if you won't let them interrogate unethical behavior? The same reason to hire a token minority in a position of on-paper significance: something to point to for PR purposes. But, with an ethics team, there's also another advantage; if you get strong people who would be contributing to the field anyway and constrain their output to suit your interests, you reduce the degree to which areas you wish to exploit come under ethical scrutiny.
- thirtyseven 6y agoSeems to defeat the purpose then if the company's response to any criticism is firing them.
- worker767424 6y agoThe real question is why would you join an ethics team that's obviously for PR purposes, then complain about it being for PR purposes. These resigned/fired researchers might be good in their field, but they're pretty dumb when it comes to their jobs.
- ulfw 6y agoMoney rules the world
- Cacti 6y agoThe whole piece of so amazingly self-entitled. > Dr. Gebru refused to subjugate herself to a system Like working at a gigantic publicly traded US corporation? > belittle her integrity as a researcher and degrade herself below her fellow researchers Funny way of phrasing "paper wasn't good enough yet to pass peer review." > let those of us in positions of privilege and power come to terms with the discomfort of being part of an unjust system Like those who went to elite academic institutions and then went on to make boatloads of money at one of the worlds best known, respected, and profitable companies? Must be nice to have that sort of economic privilege where you can go out of your way to get fired and not to have to worry about losing your home or not being able to pay your bills. > part of an unjust system that devalued one of the world’s leading scientists I don't mean to insult her or anything, but one of the _world's leading scientists_? Really? The myopia and self-important of the Valley never fails to baffle me. > In short, she was getting paid handsomely while calling out her bosses by name and taking them through the dirt. Exactly. Who wants to work with someone who craps on everyone around them when they don't get their way? And what company is going to tolerate that sort of behavior out of someone who is supposed to be a leader? News flash: if even Jeff Dean thinks you're an unbearable asshole, you got some issues.
- geofft 6y ago> Funny way of phrasing "paper wasn't good enough yet to pass peer review." Peer review happens after it's submitted, in a blinded review process, by other researchers who don't have a conflict of interest - i.e., people who are at other institutions. It does not happen internally by people hand-picked by management. You can disagree about the merits if you want, but it's important that we're on the same page about the facts. The review process Jeff Dean got mad about was an internal review process (for IP etc.), not a peer review process. It also was approved in the internal review process, which Jeff Dean confirmed in his letter. He was unhappy that the reviewer chose to review it and approve it within a day (which the reviewer was allowed to) instead of sitting around for two weeks to give management a chance to stick their fingers into the process.
- JamesBarney 6y agoGebru was a very bright individual who could have gotten a job in academia, but instead chose to work for Google. Part of that arrangement was Google got discretion on what she could print. They wanted her to change what was printed because they believed the paper was unfairly critical of technologies Google had a stake in. She disagreed, threatened to resign, wrote an unprofessional email and then Google accepted her resignation. Where's the scandal?
- trhway 6y ago>The firing of Dr. Timnit Gebru is not okay, and the way it was done is not okay. if i remember correctly she made an ultimatum and threatened to resign, and her resignation was accepted. That doesn't look like firing until we call "firing" any resignation when one disagrees with the employer. To me that intentionally looking sleight of hands with firing/resignation in the Mitchell's doc already undermines trust to whatever point she is making there.
- worker767424 6y agoI have no idea why the media (people through this word around, but in this case, it's a lot of major outlets) keeps reporting it as her getting fired when she clearly threatened to resigned as an ultimatum. Maybe Google making it immediate changed things, but saying "fired" is pretty disingenuous. Margaret Mitchell got fired, though. 100%.
- pseudalopex 6y agoFiring someone who gave notice is still firing in California.[1] And Gebru didn't even give notice. She proposed discussing a resignation date. [1] https://www.edd.ca.gov/uibdg/Voluntary_Quit_VQ_135.htm https://www.edd.ca.gov/uibdg/Voluntary_Quit_VQ_135.htm
- refurb 6y agoBut it was still an ultimatum. Acting like she was fired out of the blue is dishonest. She threatened to resign unless things changed so good fired her.
- pseudalopex 6y agoCalling it firing isn't acting like it was out of the blue.
- room500 6y agoBut it is acting as if it wasn't a mutual agreement. Maybe "resignation" doesn't meet your criteria. But "firing" implied that the employee wanted to keep their job but the company ended it. Would you accept "mutual termination" ?
- pbreit 6y agoI always wonder how smart, driven people aren't able (willing?) to cope with these situations.
- bradlys 6y agoMoney isn’t usually enough. I walked away from a job paying more than $1m/yr (to be clear - I am not rich or financially independent, the stock is still illiquid atm and I live in a 400sqft in-law unit). You need satisfaction overall with your environment. I kept asking myself how much a year of my life was worth and it turns out - unless it’s fucking insane money ($10mil+ liquid) then I can’t suffer through something I disagree with or basically feel like I’m someone’s bitch. I think eventually to a person it feels like you’re living a dishonest life because you’re working on something you disagree with but you have to shove down those feelings to get paid. It grows resentment. But who knows, I’m really only speaking to my own experience.
- gassius 6y agoUnless we are talking about a job with inherently long term health risk and/or ilegal activity with prosecution risk I would be willing to put up a year or two in order to secure a life long financial independence. 2M USD is enough to confortable spend the rest of your life doing what you really want to do. But hey, maybe is me
- knorker 6y agoStaff won't give you anywhere near a million per year in total comp. Not even before tax or living expenses. You'll be able to put away 100-200k a year on that at best, is my estimate. (This includes bonus and stock)
- bradlys 6y agoDepends on where you want to live and the lifestyle you want. Personally for me, it’s not enough. I’d need $10mil+ to retire. Even then, I don’t want to retire. I’d prefer to keep learning and growing. I have goals of eventually running a large organization or doing my own startup. Also, again, you’re literally trading years of your life away.
- sangnoir 6y ago> In short, she was getting paid handsomely while calling out her bosses by name and taking them through the dirt I think their job was just that: call out the company (and others) on AI ethics issues - I don't see how it comes as a surprise to you that a person in such a role is also concerned about ethics in general, or the ethics of AI ethics at Google, so to speak.
- JamesBarney 6y agoYou think their job responsibilty was to publically shame their employer? (With private internal documents no less)
- pseudalopex 6y agoWhat private internal documents did she publish?
- JamesBarney 6y ago> “After conducting a review of this manager’s conduct, we confirmed that there were multiple violations of our code of conduct, as well as of our security policies, which included the exfiltration of confidential business-sensitive documents and private data of other employees.” I assume this was to release to the press to shame/pressure Google, and wasn't corporate espionage. But what reason do you think she was doing it for?
- pseudalopex 6y agoBut did she release documents to the press? Exfiltration of confidential documents could mean just forwarding emails to herself or an employment lawyer.
- JamesBarney 6y agoI don't know if she's released them to the press. What's your best guess for why she was running a script to exfiltrate a bunch of e-mails related to Gebru? Mine is it involves releasing them to the press.
- ALittleLight 6y agoIs she really calling Dr. Gebru one of the world's leading scientists or am I misreading something?
- geodel 6y agoOne thing to understand is that these folks form a mutual admiration society and keep propping each other by making bombastic claims like this.
- staticautomatic 6y agoMutual Admiration Society has a good ring to it.
- mst 6y agoThere seem to be quite a few people that consider Dr. Gebru to be one of the leading scientists within that specific (sub)field. I don't know the field well enough to have an opinion on the merits but it seems like a view one might disagree with but would not be surprised to find somebody to hold.
- whoooooo123 6y agoBut calling someone "one of the world's leading scientists within their specific subfield" is a much, much weaker claim than calling them "one of the world's leading scientists". People in the latter category win Nobel Prizes, not Twitter fights.
- mst 6y agoWhen both people involved share a subfield and the piece is talking about what's fundamentally intra-subfield drama, I'd say there are three possibilities: 1) They meant "within the subfield" but assumed it could be taken from context 2) They meant "within the subfield" but have an overinflated notion of the importance of their subfield 3) They genuinely believe the strongest form of the claim Which of these possibilities one considers most likely probably depends more on one's prior opinion of the people involved than anything else, and I continue to not really have a prior opinion because this whole situation is a trainwreck and I don't know the background well enough to be able to even start to try and read past the biases of the various people commenting.
- jariel 6y ago"she was getting paid handsomely while calling out her bosses by name and taking them through the dirt. I have nothing but respect for people willing to fall on their sword for the sake of making the world a better place. " There is a major implied assumption here that those she was 'calling out' were actually doing bad things. I sincerely doubt this of Jeff Dean & Co. and a look at this specifics of the Timnit case I don't think make Google look bad. In summary - she was castigating her managers and peers who were actually acting within reason. This employee was toxic, furthering more toxicity. Just because you believe that you're 'doing good' doesn't mean that you are, or those who you disagree with are evil. This is the big blind spot of (some of) the ostensible promoters of Social Justice: the self absolution and assumption of perfect moral clarity. Ironically, Google is full of good people, more or less, by virtue of their every day practices, making the world a tiny bit of a better places. (Except for the anti-competitive things of course, but that's more strategic impetus)
- choppaface 6y agoJeff Dean is getting paid two orders of magnitude more and yet he let the fire burn for several months before things went critical. Everybody in this story is making too much money, but some way way way more than others.
- bitcharmer 6y agoHow do you know Jeff Dean's salary?
- that_guy_iain 6y agoI am a major pain in the ass at my company. I point out flaws constantly and clearly state what problems exist. But when I do that, I literally don't name names and make general statements such as "Company does not currently have the expertise to solve this issue and are requesting a consultant" while talking about basic issues or "Everyone is leaving because IT is seeing how bad things are and we're at the forefront so all the problems will be hitting the rest of you guys soon." And even then I think if I wasn't in a country with such strong legal employement rights I would so get fired for it. So calling out people by name just seems nuts.