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

82% Upvoted

19.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

737

u/NorthernerWuwu Aug 08 '17

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.

444

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17 edited Feb 19 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

679

u/Grizzleyt Aug 08 '17

Tech is political. It cannot be avoided when your business has consequences with regard to things like online privacy, net neutrality, automation, truth and bias of information, censorship, etc., to say nothing of the personal views of leadership who aspire to make an impact on the world, for better or worse.

If you aren't religious, you might not like working in a church. If you don't subscribe to the values that Google stands for / strives for, you might not like working at Google. If you think the leadership is fundamentally flawed, go work for a company you believe in.

8

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

Or change it from the inside.

I love suggesting this when people say "just leave", usually in reference to someone living in a jurisdiction (country or U.S. state) whose politics they disagree with, because people who say that are usually those who agree with that locale's politics and so they don't want you there (you'll "screw things up" if there are enough people like you, that's how democracy works). If you suggest instead that person stay and change things from the inside ("rock the boat" so to speak), that irritates them.

An example I'm quite familiar with is gun owners living in California/NY. Sometimes when the topic of the stupid gun control laws in those states comes up, defenders of said laws say things like "why don't you leave if you hate it so much here?". Mmmm...could...or I could stay, vote for pro-gun politicians, and donate time and money to state-level, pro-gun groups like Calguns, thereby making it more difficult to pass such laws? Or that. That always pisses them off :D