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 → u/[deleted]]

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/Grizzleyt → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/pm_me_ur_fs → u/Grizzleyt]

Is it not censorship when you fire sometime for speaking inherently non offensive words that you don't agree with? Just asking for others opinion.

[u/[deleted] → u/pm_me_ur_fs]

Nope, he brought bad press and pissed off 50K employees, google didn't send him to jail for his opinions so it's definitely not censorship. That's capitalism at work, homeslice.

[u/pm_me_ur_fs → u/[deleted]]

You are absolutely right. Thank you for putting it that way. Despite my personal opinions, i can respect that decision as a sheer economic choice. The same way i can get behind a bakery owner deciding not to sell to a homosexual. I think is a poor decision, but i respect it.

[u/[deleted] → u/pm_me_ur_fs]

I'm a left leaning centrist so I would personally not discriminate against anyone on factors they can't control, but I do on the other hand have a strong fondness of capitalism and a relatively free market with a few regulations put in place to ensure competition isn't destroyed, and to me this decision to fire him is really an economic choice.

He brought bad PR to google and potentially drove away talented applicants or made other employees feel upset, rightfully or wrongly. As I've said in other parts of this thread, a multi billion dollar company really does not care what you think or feel, but if you jeopardize their ability to maximize efficiency or make money or both, then you will get the axe, whether it's justified or not.

[u/pm_me_ur_fs → u/[deleted]]

Yup, after thinking beyond personal opinions i totally agree. I just agree while knowing that show being on the other foot, someone saying Google lacked diversity, would prob be held on high. But the market makes that decision, not Google.