Opinions about Google engineer being fired for his memo?

Parent Cafe
1

The actual memo written by the Google engineer is here:
https://diversitymemo-static.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf

In my opinion, it is worth reading before you post your own opinion.

As a woman in a male-dominated field, I don’t agree with everything that the Google engineer has written (obviously). On the other hand, I find his to be a quite rational memo on the topic; and this seems to be a case where further discussion would be profitable, on a point-by-point basis. I think some ideas would emerge as correct and others as incorrect, from the discussion. Certainly a great many of these same ideas have been voiced by male colleagues of mine (who were not fired).

I might have some qualms if the engineer were, say, President of Harvard University, with responsibility for the equal education of men and women. But in fact I find the engineer’s specific views less troubling than Larry Sommers’ views.

Google has polarized the discussion by firing the engineer. Ironically, I think they have confirmed some of the comments about Google’s culture that were made in his memo.

2

I’m a woman engineer and I agree with you. I think he was wrong in a lot of things he said, but he wasn’t rude, or offensive, or stereotyping all women. I don’t like a knee-jerk reaction by many that follows any attempt to deviate from the single “correct” point of view. It doesn’t do any good to women in tech, and those women who claim to feel uncomfortable and threatened being in the same company with this guy only confirm his (patently untrue) assumption that women on average don’t handle stress as well.

3

I just have to say it looks like this was written and formatted by a high-schooler (I should know). A lot of weak points were made without actually saying anything overall. What was his end goal? To stop a functionally non-existent diversity effort and change it into something more acceptable? And then what? I don’t believe he had any overtly harmful intentions, but why post this publicly?

On Google’s tech side, Black, hispanic, and female individuals make up one, three, and twenty percent of workers respectively. His claims of Google having too much of a focus on diversity don’t make any sense when looking at these numbers. I feel like Google was within its right to terminate him. Don’t go around criticizing (and publicly embarrassing) your employer. That’s just common sense.

4

Perhaps he was fired because he was hugely disruptive and many women would no longer want to work with him? From a company’s perspective those things are independent of any viewpoints he expressed, and are undesirable in an employee.

If I went spouting off on some (any) issue that caused a lot of disruption and made people not want to work me, I’d get fired too.

5

I’d bet my last dollar that he wasn’t fired for the memo. He was fired for it becoming public. I thought I read that it was was known internally for months but now I can’t find anything about that.

Yes, I think he should have been fired. When you start talking about biological differences, you’ve crossed the line. Do women have a harder time negotiating salary and the like? Yup, but it’s not a biological difference. There are many cultures where women are just as “assertive” as guys. It’s a cultural construct and it’s precisely because of things like this.

He’s also just plain wrong in many cases:

Nope. Just… nope. Not even close. Other than maybe height, nothing is universal among human cultures. Literally, nothing.

One of many things that are just demonstrably untrue.

6

Yup, my company encourages us to have a strong social media presence in order to promote the company and our individual expertise. It’s understood that if we reflect negatively on the company, however, then there will be a parting of the ways.

7

What @romanigypsyeyes said in her second paragraph was my take from the start.

8

What is omitted from the linked article is his page of links to research supporting some of his ideas re male/female differences. When you leave off the research he cited, you A)censor B) make it easier for others to misrepresent what you said.

The original posting had links to research. Sad that not only did Google take the whole memo down, but then it was “leaked” without his backup material. And now it is so buried that I am having trouble finding a viable link to share the whole thing with you. But it is out there.

9

Oh and HE didn’t post it publicly. It was flagged internal only

10

Thanks for posting the actual memo…i had not seen it until now. Well, I’m a woman who works in a field of mostly men and its simply no big deal. I believe there aren’t a lot of women around my field because its not that interesting to lots of people and because the people who are interested in it tend to be guys. If someone came to us tomorrow and said, “you really need to have at least 50% women here”, well, we’d be up the creek. I can imagine that there are female-heavy professions where participants might say the same.

If there’s a talented woman who’s also interested, hire her. No biggie.

11

Can someone explain like I am 5 years old as to why he would even have written the memo? Is he a human resource employee for the company? Did his boss or Human Resources ask employees for input on diversity efforts? If not, why isn’t he doing his own job instead of someone else’s job?

12

The article and entire fiasco makes me think of why my daughter did not choose to major in Computer Science, and the reasons are NOT biological or a lack of inherent ability.

My daughter took AP Computer Science as a sophomore in high school, and quickly earned the nickname “Coding Queen.” She was by far the best programmer in her class, with an intuitive understanding of computer science and a great love for every aspect of it. She had won tech awards in middle school, so her love of computing was not new. She formed a Computer Science club at her school in 11th grade and served as President until she graduated. Did she decide to major in Computer Science in college? No. Here’s why. It was a slow realization over time that as a female, she was an outcast among the typical “tech guys” (my term, not hers) attracted to computing, and the female viewpoint was not addressed in that world.

Going back to middle school, she had wanted to sign up for a summer game design camp, but she discovered to her dismay that all the gaming camps only taught how to make war games. She wanted to make a game similar to Club Penguin, which is like a day in the life of a (human-like) penguin. She signed up for a 3-D modeling class instead, and wound up being the only girl. All the boys made a design of an elaborate 3-D sword, and she designed a space shuttle. She was the most talented in the camp class, and was the only one to go beyond making the 3-D image to learn how to animate it. So what? It was quite a lonely experience for her. She was ignored in the class by the boys taking it and by the young male instructors.

In her high school computer science club, she was also isolated by the second year. It had attracted a group of “tech guys” that all talked loudly together about the latest technological gadgets hitting the market, and other things that she had no interest in discussing. She still knew more programming than anyone in the club and was learning things online beyond what her AP Comp Sci had taught, but there was no bonding whatsoever with the guys who wound up dominating the club to the point of only listening to each other and not her, the president. She wanted to drop the role her senior year, but I encouraged her to just stick it out even if she was taking a back seat to these other students.

When she started looking at Computer Science majors and departments at universities – including a couple of prestigious programs she was accepted to with scholarships – she decided that she would pursue a science major instead. She could see that she would be outnumbered by the same types of guys who had excluded her for years, talked over her, acted better than her, and ignored her viewpoints, including views on the direction projects should take.

My daughter is more than capable of working in a tech position, but she has decided to approach it from a roundabout way. She is learning how to use supercomputers to conduct scientific research in labs related to the life sciences. She is around plenty of female role models and peers, gets respect, and has a voice. This summer alone she used 8 software programs and a few programming languages at her summer research internship. While I know her plan to pursue a PhD is not the easy, lucrative path that CS can be, she at least feels good about it and welcome.

Is she less talented than a guy because she would rather create a fun computer game than a war game, or a space shuttle than a sword, or talk about programming instead of tech gadgets? Of course not. Until the tech world is more welcoming to females and their viewpoints and less isolating for them, I think Google and all the rest will continue to have trouble attracting all the girls out there who have the ability and desire to work in tech, but who don’t want to put up with the lack of respect and consideration, and the social isolation. Kudos to the females who do pursue that path, but I don’t think it’s tolerable for all.

13

The issue is that talented women no longer need to put up with bulls**t to get/keep their jobs in male-dominated fields. Coworkers should not be allowed to make sweeping generalizations about women any more than they should be able to make sweeping generalizations about black people or heavyset people or old people … at least, not publicly (and public here includes the folks at work), and I don’t care if they link to studies that support their beliefs (I am sure there are studies that refute their beliefs, too).

I was a production supervisor in a truck manufacturing plant in the late 70’s/early 80’s. I had to put up with a lot of crap that I am thrilled to know women today do not need to put up with. From photos of naked, spread-eagled women on the walls to not-so-veiled references to the fact that women didn’t belong in the plant (“I go home and beat my wife at night because I hate working for a woman so much”), none of it belongs in the place of business. We have come a long way in the workplace, and it’s not okay to accept that this sort of generalization about a group of people has any legitimate place in business.

I know a lot of female engineers (I went to an engineering college), and I know that their actions speak louder than some dude’s beliefs that he thinks his coworkers need to know in order to help them deal with women in the workplace. Just the same, I don’t want them to have to put up with this sort of behavior in 2017 any more than they should have had to in 1977.

14

I also would love to know what prompted the guy to draft that poorly written memo as I have not been following the news.

15

I also would love to know what prompted the guy to draft that poorly written memo as I have not been following the news.

16

I don’t understand what the point was of writing this, why he wrote it, and to whom.

Seems to me a rather naive young man to think that his employer would react in any other way.

17

This was his Jerry Maguire moment I guess. Plus Google has a bunch of internal “social media” where they discuss stuff.

I don’t think he says anything untrue, he posits items that he thinks should be discussed. I don’t disagree with that. If we keep harping on the wrong thing, the right thing never is noticed or fixed. And his opinion is that their culture no longer allows dissent or dicussion, so they won’t fix any real issues. If you focus on the evil patriarchy instead of the root causes, nothing will change, but men are demonized and psychologically “unsafe”.

I read the whole thing and while he puts out items for further discussion about biology and culture, I’m not sure what is reported is actually what he said.

I’m not sure where this memo fits into any real corporate culture. It’s not a democracy.

18

I have a daughter working at Google as a software engineer. From everything I have heard about the memo and reaction to it within the company, absolutely the right decision for him to be fired.

19

@mommyrocks Shame about your daughter. There are in fact many perfectly friendly and considerate men in CS. Middle and high school boys can be terribly annoying, but some of them eventually grow up. But her chosen career sounds even more exciting.

20

Until the tech world is more welcoming to females and their viewpoints and less isolating for them, I think Google and all the rest will continue to have trouble attracting all the girls out there who have the ability and desire to work in tech, but who don’t want to put up with the lack of respect and consideration, and the social isolation. Kudos to the females who do pursue that path, but I don’t think it’s tolerable for all.

This is the truth. As one who blazed a path, I can tell you that it isn’t fun. I did it because I wanted the experience, but I also left the company because management wanted to promote me within manufacturing. I grew up as the only girl with a bunch of brothers, and I have never had an issue hanging with the guys. But after a few years, I wanted to be where I didn’t have to act like a man to be heard.