Google memo: employee fired for memo questioning corporate culture

[twocows]

There's been a big fuss over an internal memo circulated at Google regarding its corporate culture as it pertains to its diversity policies and employees' freedom to question its culture. Recently, the author of the memo was terminated by the company. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-diversity-idUSKBN1AO088
The memo in full: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf
tl;dr of what the memo is about (taken directly from the linked PDF):

● Google's political bias has equated the freedom from offense with psychological safety, but shaming into silence is the antithesis of psychological safety​.
● This silencing has created an ideological echo chamber where some ideas are too
sacred to be honestly discussed.
● The lack of discussion fosters the most extreme and authoritarian elements of this
ideology.

○ Extreme: all disparities in representation are due to oppression
○ Authoritarian: we should discriminate to correct for this oppression
​

● Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we
don't have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership.
● Discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business.

Some key facts:
The employee responsible has a doctorate in systems biology from Harvard (source)
Much of the basic science mentioned in the memo has been corroborated by other scientists (source), though they don't necessarily agree with his conclusions or how they pertain to Google

What are your thoughts on this? Do you agree or disagree with the memo? Do you believe it was right for Google to fire him over it?

 

[Kanzler]

Honestly, after him having written that memo, he's established himself as a disruption to the workplace. I haven't read the whole thing, but just skimming through and considering its length or tone, it reads as a manifesto, not like something that gets shoved into the suggestions box. There's a reason that you don't discuss politics or religion at work, and this is exactly it. If a person with left-wing leanings wrote a similar document and with a similar intended audience about how Google's hiring practices are too conservative and don't go far enough in creating a diverse workplace, and calling their colleagues blind and ultimately criticizes our culture and society at large, I think the outcome would have been the same. Bottom line is that in a professional setting there are certain things you cannot do and still have your way and that includes sticking out politically like a sore thumb. Might be sad, but that's just the way of large corporate businesses no matter where you go. Given how the document is written, I imagine he figured that this could've blown up and that was all part of the plan to begin with.

 

[Her]

Given how the document is written, I imagine he figured that this could've blown up and that was all part of the plan to begin with.

This is the biggest aspect that stuck out to me - I don't know if he considered the possibility of being fired, but it reads like something that he intended for a worldwide audience, given the stature of Google, rather than something that would make the rounds of corporate workplaces and then be relegated into only the memory of a few sympathisers. It very much reads like his version of the Ninety-five Theses and that he expected this to become a global discussion, regardless of the consequences.

 

[Aliencommander1245]

Person says lame, bad things and is punished for it. What a surprise

 

[Sir Codin]

Just a reminder, freedom of speech protects you from government prosecution. It doesn't protect you from private entities and everyday people punishing you for your speech.

This man's free speech rights were not violated.

 

[MarinaSpeaks]

He called his own company a "biased ideological echo chamber" and made some pretty questionable statements, leaving out sources. I read the memo with an open mind and he made some interesting points, but I noticed there was a lot of stereotyping too. One of his more questionable statements was where he said that women on average have higher neuroticism (greater anxiety and lower stress tolerance) than men, linking to wikipedia as his source. Now is that a fair thing to say? I personally don't think so.

So on to my thoughts... :P I don't believe the guy is sexist, but he does make a lot of pretty serious generalizations, which many people seem to be prone to doing, sadly. To my knowledge though, his job wasn't actually being threatened until after the memo circulated. At this point he turned himself into a controversial attraction in the business, which lead to upper management taking action and him being fired. Seems to me like a decision google made to save themselves from backlash really.

 

[Aliencommander1245]

I definitely think he's sexist, he said a lot of objectively wrong & dumb things coming from a point of belittling women

 

[Sir Codin]

He wrote this on company time using company resources, that alone is grounds for firing someone.

I think the risk of him being fired would've been minimized if he had just wrote this at home on his own time. He makes a few good points here and there that I can agree with, but he's still a sexist twit who succumbed to making broad generalizations that, at best, have little basis in reality. Using wikipedia as your fact-checking source also loses you points.

 

[Tek]

From the article.

On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren?t just
socially constructed because:
? They?re universal across human cultures
? They often have clear biological causes and links to prenatal testosterone
? Biological males that were castrated at birth and raised as females often still identify
and act like males
? The underlying traits are highly heritable
? They?re exactly what we would predict from an evolutionary psychology perspective
Note, I?m not saying that all men differ from all women in the following ways or that these
differences are ?just.? I?m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men
and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why
we don?t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences
are small and there?s significant overlap between men and women, so you can?t say anything
about an individual given these population level distributions.

Is it really so radical to postulate - not even declare, but postulate - that real biological differences between men and women may be associated with psychological differences, leading to different outcomes in job seeking and performance?

He is not saying - and I am not saying - that discrimination isn't real or that discrimination is justified. Of course it happens, and I agree we should strive not to do it. But what is the value of attributing inherent differences between men and women to discrimination?

I suppose it's very valuable if you're interested in shutting down people's speech. It's becoming increasingly acceptable to ignore science and promote violence so that people don't have to hear things they don't like. By the time we realize where that road leads, it's probably going to be too late to turn around.

 

[Kanzler]

From the article.



Is it really so radical to postulate - not even declare, but postulate - that real biological differences between men and women may be associated with psychological differences, leading to different outcomes in job seeking and performance?

Or is this just another event at the Outrage Olympics?

Who is questioning such postulation? Who is outraged?

 

[Tek]

Who is questioning such postulation? Who is outraged?

Seriously? Are you on social media?

But even more than questioning the postulation, the Google execs themselves are clearly taking a position that such things ought not be spoken.

Anyways, I figured people would hone in on part of that post and use it to avoid discussing the real arguments I'm making, so I'm retracting those statements. Not going to say anything else about it here.

 

[Kanzler]

Seriously?

Anyways, I figured people would hone in on that and use it to avoid discussing the real arguments I'm making, so I'm retracting the statement. Not going to say anything else about it here.

Cuz like, no one here seems to express opposition to the mere postulation that men and women have biologically determined psychological differences. Everyone knows that a person's testosterone/estrogen levels affect their personality. People get hormone replacement therapy for a whole bunch of reasons and everybody's anecdotes are out there.

But that's not all he did, is it? I outlined some reasons that would be sufficient to explain his firing, and I believe most people who read my post are on board with that.

And to discuss outrage, it seems that conservatives are the ones outraged this time, at least much more so than the proponents of the liberal-slanted ideas that you seem to oppose.

So of course I would hone in on that - you want to have a discussion on something that is very much on your agenda, but I honestly don't think what you're saying is relevant to the situation discussed in this thread. If you want to have that discussion, fine, but like these hypothetical outraged people at the mere postulation of blah blah blah are not amongst your audience here. Or maybe they are, but I think you'd have to make a case for that.

But even more than questioning the postulation, the Google execs themselves are clearly taking a position that such things ought not be spoken.

Yeah, I disagree. I honestly think some people are overpoliticizing it. I've mentioned my reasons justifying why I don't think Google has taken a position on the content of the speech in my previous post.

 

[Aliencommander1245]

It's pretty telling that the dude immediately jumped to be interviewed by the alt right the moment he could

 

[Esper]

It's a little unfortunate that there can't seem to be a conversation about this among the Google people because they fired the guy (not necessarily wrongly) so quickly, but also because they cancelled their follow-up attempt at a company-wide talk after some employees got doxxed and were afraid to speak up. Now all sides are going to isolate themselves out of fear or resentment. The people who might feel like their misguided ideas on gender are being silenced will just dig in more strongly.