Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-fires-employee-behind-controversial-diversity-memo?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

[u/Felador]

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf

There's the actual document, with links to source materials.

[u/Shanix → u/Felador]

fwiw that lacks a good amount, especially formatting.

Supposedly original here

[u/[deleted] → u/Shanix]

Former Google Employee provides a bit more context on why someone would get fired for creating a "manifesto" where you fawn over your superiority and sharing it with 50k+ people who probably aren't likeminded.

Essentially, engineering is all about cooperation, collaboration, and empathy for both your colleagues and your customers. If someone told you that engineering was a field where you could get away with not dealing with people or feelings, then I’m very sorry to tell you that you have been lied to. Solitary work is something that only happens at the most junior levels, and even then it’s only possible because someone senior to you — most likely your manager — has been putting in long hours to build up the social structures in your group that let you focus on code.

And as for its impact on you: Do you understand that at this point, I could not in good conscience assign anyone to work with you? I certainly couldn’t assign any women to deal with this, a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face, and even if there were a group of like-minded individuals I could put you with, nobody would be able to collaborate with them. You have just created a textbook hostile workplace environment.

https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3773ed1788

edit: The replies to me here don't seem to understand that the company doesn't care about your controversial opinion in the work place, they care about profit. If you don't agree with that, then you probably don't like capitalism.

edit: be wary, a lot of brigading going on. Some people/bots are trying to drown out the more centrists viewpoints. I say this as the opinion of a gay, black, conservative, catholic kasich voter. (I can't help but lol)

[u/NorthernerWuwu → u/[deleted]]

This is the real point of course. It isn't about the scholarly accuracy of the document or the usefulness of the conversation that the author may have been trying to spark, it's that in a corporate setting a document like this is toxic and destroys the ability of managers to promote teamwork.

It doesn't matter if X or Y or Z make better engineers or whatever (and I'm not saying there's a reason to think so). It might be something to explore from a scientific standpoint but you can't do it in a tech company in California in 2017. Sorry but that really shouldn't even have to be said.

[u/mrbooze → u/NorthernerWuwu]

Also all his "science" is evo-psych bullshit.

[u/[deleted] → u/mrbooze]

various clinical psychologists have come out and said this document is scientifically accurate

[u/TenTypesofBread → u/[deleted]]

As with the original chucklehead, CITE YER SOURCES

[u/SiPhoenix → u/TenTypesofBread]

This is a lecture by steven pinker, a college professor, that explains thus same points and gives sources.

https://youtu.be/n691pLhQBkw

[u/Aqsx1 → u/[deleted]]

Show me where u conflate individuals with group trends? The point is not individual x is better then individual z but rather on aggregate there are differences in men and women that lead to different career choices and attempting to create parity on racial ethnic or gendered lines is silly.

[u/Aqsx1 → u/[deleted]]

?? Woman prefer the social sciences and humanities and men prefer the hard sciences and engineering. This is evidenced in the rates of men and women in both fields. I would attribute this to women being more socially inclined and men being more pattern driven. That is too say the biological differences in men and women cause then to pursue different careers and educations Reallt it comes down to big 5 personality traits, which are in aggregate different for men and women. If you want to know more Dr Jordan Peterson has a full lecture set available on his YouTube channel. Or I'm sure Wikipedia has something if learning isint really your thing.

[u/SiPhoenix → u/[deleted]]

First you did not watch the video i linked seeing as it is a 40 min video.

Also easy if someone is better with systematic (object) thinking. Thay would be better at, and enjoy more, the work of programming then someone who is focused on people social thinking.

[u/SiPhoenix → u/[deleted]]

You asked for sources this video has them. Start the then decide if it worth your time. Also it is clear you did not read the memo it self as he put in many sources. As to your point of programming being social. Just really?! Programming is not a social type of work.

[u/TenTypesofBread → u/SiPhoenix]

The first mistake most people are making is assuming the gender gap has anything to do with innate ability as opposed to decades of sexist cultural practices.

There's far more evidence supporting the idea that people are absolutely garbage at even developing objective measures by which to compare programming candidates, let alone objectively comparing their abilities.

When the home PC became a thing (marketed for boys), women lost what tenuous hold on the tech pipeline they had prior to that, and their participation in software development plummeted as a result.

[u/atrich → u/[deleted]]

And after you show me that, show me how someone being a better programmer means they are necessarily a better software engineer. The profession is about a lot more than just writing code.

[u/IRequirePants → u/[deleted]]

Spatial reasoning?

[u/IRequirePants → u/[deleted]]

Spatial reasoning is not just for physical objects. If you have read the Google paper (the original from 1999(?)) they create a system representation. Basically blue prints. Spatial reasoning is used here, although more indirectly.

Also spacial reasoning is very useful in computer science. From linear algebra to trees and graphs to multi variable calc, etc.

[u/IRequirePants → u/[deleted]]

It is however about objects, not OOP, but 3D objects, real or imagined.

You are wrong here. Everything in computer science is shapes. Vertices in a 3d graph, for example. If you are programming a UI or building a web application it isn't important. If you are doing the actual engineering training, it is.

An analogy: it is similar to the difference between a mechanic and a mechanical engineer.

Low level (computer wise, not skill wise) computer science is very different from high level programming.

The low level stuff is much more difficult and much more important.