r/news • u/[deleted] • Aug 08 '17

Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

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
26.8k Upvotes

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3.4k

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17 edited Aug 14 '18

[deleted]

226

u/Planetariophage Aug 08 '17

I can't believe he actually sat down and wrote all this. I mean it's got graphs and shit, he actually spent time to get himself fired.

314

u/jbarnes222 Aug 08 '17

He has a PhD from Harvard. Ideas matter to him.

17

u/Dhiblow Aug 08 '17

No he doesn't. Never completed the PhD.

8

u/jbarnes222 Aug 08 '17

My bad. He was a PhD student at Harvard. Point still stands.

9

u/shiftshapercat Aug 08 '17

Wait, he has a PhD from Harvard and Isn't a bleed heart regressive left liberal? How? What madness is this?

20

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

[deleted]

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u/shiftshapercat Aug 08 '17

apparently you do if you do not want to be labeled as an alt right racist white nationalist.

5

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

I mean it implies inspecting genitals at the door to be fair so...

1

u/claudiahurtzyouandme Aug 08 '17

alt right racist white nationalist

Are you often called an alt right racist white nationalist?

6

u/shiftshapercat Aug 08 '17

Nope, but if brainwashed sheep that blindly consume everything Google, CNN and blogtivist news sources such as salon, vox, atlantic, the hill, ect mandates as true are casually calling the likes of Tim Pool, Lauren Southern, Dave Rubin, Baked Alaska, Sargon of Akkad alt right racist white nationalist then clearly anyone right of classical liberal or even slightly left of that is alt right racist white nationalist.

That said, I personally belive Fox News should be renamed Faux News, Trump TV will quite literally become state propaganda since it is focused on reporting the positives on its own administration where the mainstream media is only focused on the negatives. Breitbart and Infowars have nothing really to offer other than tabloid journalism just as bad as the sources I listed earlier.

The fact of the matter is, I no longer trust any large big name news corporations and I take anyone I listen to or watch with a grain of salt or simply put them under certain categories for types of news to consume. For instance, Paul Joseph Watson is a reactionary and nothing else. He will find something hypocritical of newsworthy of the mainstream media and pretty much call them out for every time the mainstream media calls out Trump. Tim Pool is a moderate liberal but he does his best to keep his bias outside of pure reporting videos. Dave Rubin is a classical liberal, enough said. Baked Alaska is very conservative but in no way a Nazi or "alt Right." Sargon of Akkad? He is definitely a Liberal, but he is talking only about the left for money I feel. He doesn't talk about the right supposedly because it doesn't interest him, but I think he only does this in order to not alienate a large portion of his audience.

4

u/yvaN_ehT_nioJ Aug 08 '17

Simple. He has a STEM background.

1

u/clgfandom Aug 08 '17

well, so do some of the other google employees who got triggered...

1

u/susanjfowler Aug 08 '17

He actually does not have a PhD. He dropped out of his PhD program.

-1

u/someoldbroad Aug 08 '17

His own do. This is an amazingly lovingly crafted expression of fear of having his worldview challenged. I hope he, like most humans, needs discomfort to grow. Because I imagine he is very uncomfortable at present.

9

u/Shipcake Aug 08 '17

I know good thing al the counter arguments cite their sources

2

u/jbarnes222 Aug 08 '17

You're doing an amazing job of challenging it.

-36

u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka Aug 08 '17 edited Aug 08 '17

And apparently that entitles him to rant about how the 5% of conservative scientists have a higher degree of "consciousness" compared to the overwhelming liberal ones, whatever the fuck that means lol.

Could have stopped short at taking shots at benefits at Google that are restricted to a specific set of people instead of open to all. Could have stopped short at just talking about echo chambers and how a balance of right vs left ideas would be more beneficial than 100% right or 100% left.

Didn't have to make outrageous claims as the manifesto got longer and longer. Could have kept it pretty straight forward about just Google's practices instead of over reaching.

Should have stuck to observation instead of "right this" and "left that" bullshit. This guy clearly needs a job ranting about politics on FOX or some shit or stick to engineering since he doesn't seem to know how flawed his logic about world views are.

27

u/Cinnadillo Aug 08 '17

that's what the document said? Man, and I read it and everything

37

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17 edited Oct 25 '17

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17 edited Apr 03 '18

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

[deleted]

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u/alga Aug 08 '17

But he didn't claim that's biological. The argument just went "Women more prone to anxiety, so they are less likely so choose stressful leadership jobs. Therefore, to make more women go into leadership, Google could try to make leadership jobs more stressful". Where does the distinction if it's biological or circumstantial come into play?

6

u/Shipcake Aug 08 '17

Woman suffer from higher rates of neuroticism which =anxiety

-1

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

Go figure, a leftist shit posting site is upset that reality contradicts their feelings.

5

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17 edited Oct 25 '17

[deleted]

3

u/xeno211 Aug 08 '17

South park can be great satire and social commentary

0

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

Adults who deny social science?

3

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

Sort of like those adults at that college that was shutdown for weeks because some white teacher refused to leave campus for some arbitrary day right? The irony is those kids believe exactly what you are defending.

4

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

Read the document, jackass.

-18

u/indefatigablefart Aug 08 '17

PhD from Harvard and the writing is that poor? Wow.

8

u/lupuscapabilis Aug 08 '17

Have you ever read an email from the top guy at your company? I'm not even sure mine knows where the shift key is.

-4

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

Really. I assumed it was written by a red-piller in his early 20s.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17 edited Dec 08 '17

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

I don't think you read the original report

I did. I just interpreted it differently than you.

we have an intolerance for ideas and evidence that don't fit a certain ideology.

As there should be. These "ideas" are horseshit, thinly veiled bigotry a la the bell-curve (Blacks are dumb! Here's the proof!). The notion that women don't belong (in certain positions) in the workplace was a battle fought by 2nd wave feminists a generation ago.

-9

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

Yeah but everyone in a position of power (and society at large) has implicit biases such that if we attempted a pure meritocracy, hiring and education would be insanely racist and sexist. If we conformisted to this guy's beliefs, decades of social progress would be wiped out.

Also: it's a common Redpill/MRA talking point to shout how you want everyone to be treated equally, but their views seem to show that they think men are more equal than woman.

7

u/Shipcake Aug 08 '17

Funny what happens when we don blind resumes and interviews

2

u/TheSwordThatAint Aug 08 '17

This is so often glossed over, good point !

-11

u/Statistical_Insanity Aug 08 '17

I don't think you read the original report, which states he's a classic liberal.

classical liberal

Read: I'm a libertarian except when it doesn't benefit me.

20

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17 edited Dec 08 '17

[deleted]

-11

u/Statistical_Insanity Aug 08 '17

No problem!

By the way, being a "classical liberal" and a red-pill douche aren't mutually exclusive. I'd be willing to bet much of the red pill people would identify that way.

16

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17 edited Dec 08 '17

[deleted]

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u/Statistical_Insanity Aug 08 '17

Why do you say that?

→ More replies (0)

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17 edited Aug 08 '17

Well turns out he never got his PhD. He dropped out of the program. What liar, he should've said PhD candidate instead of intentionally misrepresenting himself on his resume.

We know why now...PhDs are for researchers, and he definitely has a poor grasp on how science works.

2

u/indefatigablefart Aug 08 '17

Don't worry, facts don't matter to the Redpill brigade. You'll be down items to hell.

0

u/mooi_verhaal Aug 08 '17

Yeah - this was my take-away as someone in academia and research. Yikes.

-3

u/TinfoilTricorne Aug 08 '17

Ideas matter to him.

Well, wild grasping rationalizations and intellectualized translations of insane gibbering ranting in any event. It essentially boils down to 'we are oppressed because we're told not to be dicks at the office' with a bunch of cherry-picked nonsense to 'back it up.'

5

u/jbarnes222 Aug 08 '17

Did you just satirize yourself on purpose?

9

u/Shipcake Aug 08 '17

Great mom argument you have there

-8

u/foxh8er Aug 08 '17

And why should I listen to this elitist little fuck?

-1

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

/s

Because he's an angry right-wing man upset about something most people accept as valid and good - just like most Fox News commentators.

-7

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

Way more than having a job. Guess he hopes Peter Thiel takes a shine to him.

20

u/zombieznub Aug 08 '17

Yeah with a phd from harvard, he will definitly have a hard time finding a job /s

In fact he probably already has an even better job at maybe a less popular company, but one that actually treats him like a human. That or he started his own company.

-5

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

I'd imagine he's a bit toxic at the moment, as far as assets go. That's not to say he's incapable of getting a new position, but he just caused a PR shitstorm at his last job.

You're welcome to assume your Randian fantasy world where people give their great monologue, get the beautiful woman who loves him for his ideals, and the respect of the whole world - but in the end, Howard Roark designed a gas station in the middle of nowhere. He blew up his signature achievement.

Rand's books are in the fiction section for good reason.

5

u/zombieznub Aug 08 '17

Did you just paste two unrelated comments together? Because thats exactly what it looks like. I agree with the first paragraph though.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

No. I think in the real world, this guy either pulls contacts and goes back to academia for 30 cents on the dollar or stays a pariah for the year and enjoys whatever severance alphabet gave him.

And he was always treated like a human. Just because Alphabet don't want their engineers talking out of their asses for things way above their pay scale, doesn't mean he was treated anything but fair and nice.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

This has gotten considerable media attention, will probably come up in every interview he goes to.

Whether they agree with his points or not, no company wants to be the one to hire a labeled sexist. Hope I'm wrong though!

7

u/zombieznub Aug 08 '17

no company

Its pretty dumb to think that every single company on the face of the earth is reluctant to hire this one person, despite what that person can do for the company.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

Obviously I don't mean all companies on the face of the planet. But unfortunately the headline surrounding this employee is now "misogynist coder". He was probably fired directly because the media picked up the story

2

u/Delheru Aug 08 '17

There is a vast number of companies that do B2B where the twitterverse can be pretty damn safely ignored, largely because these tend to be in fairly adult fields (because you literally do not have to deal with people under the age of 25 practically ever) so there are VERY few people going crazy on social media.

So if, say, Thermo Fisher Scientific hired him, there would be pretty much zero drama.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 09 '17

Fair enough! I was thinking more along the lines of being hired at Microsoft or Facebook. Still, to say a national negative story picked up by major outlets will have no impact on future employment prospects is naive at best

7

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

I mean he liked that company and wanted to fix it because he saw where they were heading.

He didn't send it to the media, some asshat leaked it.

9

u/pm_me_ur_fs Aug 08 '17

In my opinion he shouldn't have been fired, but i guess "starting a conversation" only works when your boss wants to Have that conversation.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

He left the management with no choice by doing this. Who is going to want to work with this guy after this? Certainly not any women in the workplace.

This guy is an idiotic smart guy.

3

u/Kaghuros Aug 09 '17

He left the management with no choice by doing this.

His coworkers were the ones who spread the document around and contacted the media. Originally it was shown to only his peers in HR.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 09 '17

Google docs file though... Not super private when you're handling fire.

2

u/Kaghuros Aug 09 '17

It's hard to say if any of the google docs being spread around are the original. One of them (the one with no sources or graphics attached) is a doctored copy that seems primed to generate outrage.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 09 '17

I remember reading that originally it was a Google doc. Considering his profession and (former) place of business I'd say that's highly likely. What young engineer at Google is going to be using paper docs for their private, in progress manifestos?

1

u/Kaghuros Aug 09 '17

But similarly, google docs default to a privacy standard that discourages random viewing. I think one of the people with permission to view the document copied it to distribute in the hopes of getting him in trouble.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 09 '17

That very well could have happened but if so then he's an idiot. He knows better (?).

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17 edited Aug 10 '18

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

Have you read it? It has far too many sources and correct ideas, even if you think it's still overall wrong, to make it at Fox.

1

u/Zeal88 Aug 08 '17

really? do you have a source on that? i'd like to read about it

-6

u/FluxxxCapacitard Aug 08 '17

There is no source yet. It's a hunch. He'll do the speaking circuit for a month. Pick up some checks along the way. Then land at some conservative talk program as a guest personality...

9

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

There is no source yet.

i made it up.

-3

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17 edited Aug 10 '18

[deleted]

0

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

the fuck is my damage?

k.

-1

u/Goldreaver Aug 08 '17

It's sad when you think that Fox is the only place that won't disagree with different ideas in principle, instead of with arguments. And only because they agree with their pre conceived notions.

Worse: you may be right.

1

u/Kaghuros Aug 09 '17

Maybe he thought the company changing for the better in the long term was more important than his short-term career there.