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Alphabet Inc.'s Google has fired an employee who wrote an internal memo blasting the web company's diversity policies, creating a firestorm across Silicon Valley. James Damore, the Google engineer who wrote the note, confirmed his dismissal in an email, saying that he had been fired for "perpetuating gender stereotypes." He said he's "currently exploring all possible legal remedies."
[...] Earlier on Monday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent a note to employees that said portions of the memo "violate our Code of Conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace." But he didn't say if the company was taking action against the employee. A Google representative, asked about the dismissal, referred to Pichai's memo.
[...] After the controversy swelled, Danielle Brown, Google's new vice president for diversity, integrity and governance, sent a statement to staff condemning Damore's views and reaffirmed the company's stance on diversity. In internal discussion boards, multiple employees said they supported firing the author, and some said they would not choose to work with him, according to postings viewed by Bloomberg News.
"We are unequivocal in our belief that diversity and inclusion are critical to our success as a company," Brown said in the statement. "We'll continue to stand for that and be committed to it for the long haul."
Source: Bloomberg.
[Update: Apparently Julian Assange has offered James Damore a job, saying that "Censorship is for losers". - Fnord666]
Previously: Googler's Memo on Culture of Diversity Extremism Goes Viral Inside Google
(Score: 3, Funny) by Justin Case on Tuesday August 08 2017, @09:56PM (1 child)
By daring to notice that the Feminazi Emperor's talking points are self-contradictory, he said out loud what everyone already knew but also knew to pretend to ignore.
Anyway, she doesn't look very hot naked.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 08 2017, @11:11PM
The reason she doesn't look hot naked is that she is a transsexual... they needed a few more of those to hit the quota so it got the job.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 08 2017, @11:41PM (9 children)
My takeaway from this whole incident is that Google is a bloated, bereaucratic workplace that has grown large enough that they can support a fair amount of deadwood. Diversity Officer? What the hell does her workday consist of? I guess this guy just gave her an opportunity to justify her job. Seize the moment; burn the infidel! Show your power as a woman is greater than the man's!
Honestly, the vast majority of their products are either forgettable crap that eventually fails and they drop, or else it's an acquistion (Android, Youtube, etc.)
They do have search though, and all that data mining on you funds the failures.
(Score: 4, Funny) by kaszz on Wednesday August 09 2017, @12:12AM (4 children)
Is search the only good product they have?
Anyway considering some other companies. There seems to be some common warning signs:
* In deep cahoots with the government.
* In deep cahoots with the military.
* Firing the founder(s).
* Being bought by company that is larger than yours.
* Management wouldn't understand what their foot people do even if their life would depend on it.
* Management lack anyone with a engineering degree.
* They have high paying deadwood positions. Like human resources or diversity officers etc.
* Obvious and inexplicable inefficiencies.
* They are just too big for the given task.
If you see any of these. Consider to not invest, buy, work or be associated with them.
And a general advice is to stay away from people in HR, diversity officers, and social issues mission people.
Anyone stranded on the Moon. What would they need. A) Diversity officer B) CEO C) Engineer that can fix the oxygen generator?
And what happens to the groups that select the the wrong composition of merits? :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @05:51AM (2 children)
Search used to be good.
Now it's really so-so. Their recommendations are crap, and the hoops you have to jump through to use their vaunted search features are ridiculous.
How many fucking times do I try to narrow down a search to show something I actually give a fuck about, before Google comes back with prove-you're-a-human bullshit? I'm getting tired of Google deciding I must be a bot just because I try incremental searches.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @06:42AM (1 child)
Have you heard of Bing!? Do you like to watch Gladiator movies, Jimmy?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday August 11 2017, @12:48AM
Bing = Microsoft.
They are lapdogs to the uppercase letter things.
(Score: 1) by DECbot on Wednesday August 09 2017, @05:55AM
I don't know. Bang the flight attendant until the oxygen is depleted?
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @12:48AM (3 children)
Her only previous job was apparently at IBM. Also as diversity officer. And her schooling is solely in the Business wheelhouse. MBA generally says enough. As the old saying goes, the fastest way to ruin a business is to hire a Harvard MBA (not that her MBA school was anywhere near that prestigious).
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday August 09 2017, @01:49AM (2 children)
Four hours and 37 minutes before the debug session found the faulty component, the MBA bug! ;-)
Death by MBA (tm).
Is there anything more known about this political commissar?
Seems the Microsoft owned linkedin.com profile [linkedin.com] won't let out much except this to search engines:
Doesn't seem to like privacy protection schemes either so anyone else that can extract the full data?
I recall some government agency whining about the Google workforce not being diverse enough some time ago. Perhaps anyone else remember where those article are and where to find it?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 09 2017, @09:17AM (1 child)
Apparently inclusion works by excluding people. Apparently Google has always been a competitor of Eastasiacorp.
People operations - specialising in engineerectomy.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday August 09 2017, @05:55PM
VP and Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer, People Operations
means?
Venom-Producer and Chief Diversion & Exclusion Officer, People Oppression operation ? :P
If she gets out of work. I heard Merkel-Feacebook-STASI is hiring again [infowars.com] after a 28 year interruption ;-) Seems it was a mistake to not lookup the Stasi agents like Anetta Kahane, when the wall fell in Europe 1989.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @12:36AM (16 children)
He has a well reasoned argument that brings up a real issue, but then probably goes too far in the jump to a conclusion.
The argument is that men and women are, on average, significantly different. (Duh)
But the two distributions have significant overlap, so these differences in the average person say little about each individual. (Still supportable science.)
On average, this makes men better suited than women for many jobs that Google needs. Especially where technical or stress handling trump empathy. (Possibly supportable but certainly not PC science?)
Google appears to have an affirmative action employment policy with the goal of equalizing the roles of men and women at Google.
This includes unequal treatment in hiring and training to nudge the balance to equal.
He says that since on average, women are less suitable for the jobs at Google, an optimal situation would not be an equal balance of men and women at Google.
I think he missed something that led him astray here.
He may be provably correct on average, but Google can does not hire average folks.
They cherry pick, and this process should allow them to pick folks in the distribution that are not representative of the average distribution.
So if they so choose, they should be able to get a good selection of folks with an equal M/F ratio.
But doing so would provide a strange working environment much different than every day life.
His feeling is that the equality goal is driven by liberal PC and furthermore that the PC is squashing conservative viewpoints on this issue.
Without discussion as to the reasons and effects of the policy, it is unlikely that the policy will optimizing anything useful.
Saying this definitely collides with PC dogma, but I think his heart is in the right place.
IE where PC is supposedly trying to get to.
We don't get to find out, because he's history.
Too bad, his idea of having an actual discussion seems useful for actually embracing diversity.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Justin Case on Wednesday August 09 2017, @12:50AM (4 children)
You seem to be contradicting yourself, or maybe I've misread.
Have you ever posted a job opening with firm, deep technical requirements? Every time I did (or worked with a team that did) we got 90% male applicants*. Relatively few women were [interested / self-assessed as qualified].
So what do you do then? Arbitrarily toss away 8 out of every 9 qualified males, just to pursue some Politically Correct Social Modification goal that has nothing whatsoever to do with your company's product?
A business that refuses to hire qualified people when they are needed and available will harm itself, and possibly even damage its competitiveness.
* SJWs will say the job description wasn't written fairly. What does that mean? Our business is evil for needing Entity-Relationship Modeling skills? Or we should have added "likes plucking daises" to the requirements, for no business reason, but just because? And if you do that, how is that not sexist?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @01:38AM
Just in case you are serious, you should write a memo on this to straighten out the place you work. Put in a proposal for Affirmative Action for Trump supporters, while you're at it. They could use a boost.
(Score: 2) by boxfetish on Wednesday August 09 2017, @02:39AM (2 children)
As long as the company is being honest with themselves about which candidates are qualified, they can do whatever they want to promote various kinds of diversity. So, in short, IMO, as long as the Black, Hispanic, woman, (or what have you) is truly qualified to do the job, then the company can, in fact, look past 8 of every 9 candidates (who are white males) and promote diversity. Problems arise on every level, though, when they start promoting diversity over job qualifications and start deluding themselves about who is qualified in order to check boxes, or fill quotas.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 09 2017, @09:25AM (1 child)
Employers should simply be colour-blind with respect to all things that are irrelevant to doing the job. Which means not shying away from minorities, but also not shying away from white males.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Wednesday August 09 2017, @09:49AM
They were born white, and even worse, male. That's a crime. Haven't you been paying attention?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @01:35AM
No, you troglodyte! The argument is that employees and co-workers are all the same. How can conservatives be so stupid as to know that everyone knows they are wrong, and still maintain they are right, unless it is some perverse trolling behavior?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jmorris on Wednesday August 09 2017, @02:15AM (9 children)
You are failing to see the full horror. Look and despair. Let us travel to Google's version of Cubeville in an invisible ship of the mind and observe.
Ok, Google's Political Officer demands 1/2 of all new hires in position Q be women. Let us assign an arbitrary (even if we assume it is impossible to assess in RL to the accuracy I will imply can be measured) skill level of 50 for primary skill this position focuses on as "typical for the industry" but Google, being Google, only hires the best of the best so demands 100. Let is further assume, purely for the purposes of illustration, that the skill distribution for the main skill for position Q is such that 75% of recent graduates can meet the 50 requirement but ringing that 100 bell requires three full standard deviations. For the general population. But the pool of available candidates aren't generic "average people", they choose to major in a degree including this particular skill and some will have real work experience beyond college to raise their skill level. But still, three deviations means a filter that only few will pass. The pool of applicants is not evenly distributed by sex and as this biologist (and pretty much every other biologist) tells us, ability is not evenly distributed by sex/race either.
So let us use our power of the theoretical to say that in fact, if we (somehow) examined the general population we would find that the the capability to be educated or lean on the job to the required 100 skill is possessed in such low quantity that it requires four standard deviations for the general population but only bad things happen in the crosstabs. White men possess it at 3.85 standard deviations, Asian men at 3.8 and white women at 4.1 and the CrimeStop kicks in here so we bury the study and pray nobody ever learns we did it. The reality still exists though. And yes I just assumed that only people with raw ability 1 SD above general pop even graduate.
Still gets worse. Colleges are under the same pressure to recruit women so they will be admitting anyone with visible female secondary sexual characteristics and trying really hard to drag them to a degree to counter the reality women aren't as interested in a degrees in the skill we are looking for. So the odds of finding a skill 100 in the pool of female graduates is likely even worse than the math would indicate for the general population. Google isn't the only company with positions in Q to fill and the pool of applicants is skewed badly. Skewed by raw numbers, by the skill possessed and now by the intense competition for the few females who can demonstrate even basic skills in the applicant pool. That small difference on the distribution curve means that even if you had a thousand resumes you might not find a single female applicant that actually met the qualifications and frankly with only a thousand apps you might not find a male applicant either if fortune is frowning on you today. Now we see why Google uses tricks to collect preselected applicants instead of the usual open process and wading through tens of thousands of applications.
In reality you will be lucky to get women with 75 average skill after a long and arduous search, including a lot of money paid to headhunters, and you will pay them more than the men with 100 or more and hope nobody ever compares pay stubs. So instead of hiring six people you will hire eight, five men and three women and hope the three women can make up for the guy you couldn't hire because you at least tried to pick some that might bring some of those mystical benefits of diversity in; i.e. they have other useful skills than Q. Then you hope you don't get fired for not hiring 4/4, and end up making a deal with HR to hire those eight PLUS some blue haired fug who went to school with the Diversity Czar and lacks any ability to make a meaningful contribution other than help institute more diversity programs throughout the department. At least you will have the Czar in your corner when you ask for a budget increase to pay for all this.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday August 09 2017, @04:35AM (5 children)
As soon as the chaff is accumulating the path to become pray to other corporations has been opened. The market place doesn't give extra favors for irrelevant stuff.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday August 09 2017, @04:48AM (3 children)
Not a problem at the moment since it appears taking on a Political Officer is quickly becoming a requirement to qualify for VC. The incumbents understand the danger are are ensuring everyone is Pozzed so everybody is "equal" in being ineffecient. This will work until the Impossibility of SJW Convergence renders them unable to carry out their stated mission, which could be some time as long as the free resources keep flowing into the equity markets from the FED. That only leaves the Alt-Tech movement as competition and while it is a good thing that Gab and such exist they aren't anywhere ready to take on Google, Twitter, Patreon, etc. head on.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday August 09 2017, @05:27AM (2 children)
So it's the FED (US central bank?) that keeps by proxy companies like SoundCloud up and running? what's in it for them?
So you have uncovered a business opportunity in competing by not being burdened by political correctness? I'll guess China and Russia have no problem exploiting this or even Japan. Or anyone that can fend of these diversity czars.
I know taking on Google, Twitter, Patreon, etc head on is not workable right now. But they seem to now slide in the wrong direction and there will be a point in time when it will be possible to take a bit out of them and use that to take a even bigger bite, self reinforcing.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday August 09 2017, @06:10AM (1 child)
More like a side effect. The FED threw trillions out the helicopter over Wall Street with the bailouts and ZIRP, and now the problem is what to do with it? Interest rates are below inflation, most investments are still pretty risky so by default it is inflating a huge bubble in a few stocks. Especially tech stocks. There is also some sort of deal in place where one tech company per niche gets "the mandate of heaven" and is rewarded on losses. The Amazon / Netflix model where a profitable quarter will be brutally punished by the markets, next quarter shows the expected loss and zoom! The company funds itself by converting the increase in equity into operating cash by means not fully understood by mortals. Then there are the companies who make so much profit it is obscene enough they have to hide it with all manner of money losing ventures or stashing it overseas, i.e. Apple and for a long time, Microsoft. It is all a fake economy now so inefficiency doesn't matter too much. They aren't in the selling stuff at a profit business.
Everything in the tech space is now fantasy, which is why breaking in will be difficult, without the ability to use fantasy math you won't survive long against them. Won't matter whether you try in the valley or in China. Look at Google. Do you really think they are worth two Exxon Mobils? The markets say they are worth that so they can throw around virtually unlimited resources as long as that continues to be the market's opinion. Investors buy it because Exxon gives a 3% dividend while Google's stock price is a rocket sled to the moon.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday August 09 2017, @06:44AM
If you make something people will pay you for. Then you have succeeded?
The catch is that any profit in US$, may not be worth anything.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday August 09 2017, @07:28AM
You should pray that these other corporations do not come to realize that you do not know the difference between "pray" and "prey", or they will eat you for the praise of the Most High. Please, kazss, a bit of spell checking and learning of the homophones? Or are your homophonophobic? Weird All has a big dictionary. [youtube.com] Everybody shut up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @05:05AM
Over 4 decades, I've seen the M/F ratio of competent, working engineers go from 1000/1 to 10/1.
Having competent women around definitely improves the outcome for engineering projects.
While that may be a significant improvement, my idea of competent probably wouldn't get you in the door at G.
I can see that 1/1 may not be achievable given Google's standards.
It's not because women aren't able, it seems more that they are not willing, or maybe make a wiser choice on average.
If this says Cherry picking doesn't work, then I see two options.
1) Quash debate, put head in sand, and do the best you can with what you can get.
2) Talk about the issue, decide there is a problem, and then go make more Cherrys.
Perhaps G should be figuring out how to get more kids (especially girls) interested in computers?
That might be a PC way to actually address the problem.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday August 09 2017, @06:52AM (1 child)
Oh my, bless your soul, jmorris! Of course we all see the full horror. But we do not despair because it is progress and enlightenment! What makes you tear up and curl up in a fetal position is what makes others proud to be members of the human species! Imagine, people being appreciated for what they are, not believing in archaic gender roles, not thinking that money is something that has intrinsic worth, not believing in some sky fairy who conveniently happens to be a White Male (thar she blows!) instead of a pile of pasta, all this and more inspires your enemies: real people. So look on with horror and despair. This is a good thing. Take khallow with you. Runaway might come, but he really has no idea what has happened or what is going on.
But there is an option open to you. Come to the bright side, jmorris! We have cookies! Homebaked cookies! Some with cannibus! You, too, could become a progressive and work for the improvement of humanity!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @08:46AM
"The Horror! The Horror! Horror! Horror has a face, and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies."
jmorris =Col. Kurz.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @03:44AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @04:46AM (3 children)
Can we leave descriptions of scientific knowledge to bona-fide scientists? This PhD-dropout memo writer does not qualify.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @06:55AM
Gee, I didn't realize I had to have a PhD in order to SCIENCE. Who are the true gatekeepers of this forbidden knowledge of SCIENCE?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @07:37AM (1 child)
So, only scientists can refer to science? Everyone else must act like morons?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @09:19AM
You're out of your league, Donny!
And,
Lighten up, Francis!
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday August 09 2017, @07:50AM (1 child)
Why? What makes them think it's necessary? Can they point to any market leader that achieved or improved their position through more diversity?
I'm asking this as a supporter of affirmative action. Taking a stand a political stand - and the right one - is fine for privately held companies. But this is a publicly traded company. Unless they can demonstrate hiring less capable employees is somehow beneficial to their bottom line, it's pretty clear they're betraying their share holders.
Seriously, I understand the government too paralyzed, misogynist and racist to get anything socially constructive done. But that doesn't mean you get to play SJW with other people's money. There's a place for political agendas: Politics. Google's CEO is free to stop hedging their bets on both parties and start focusing their efforts on the democratic party. They're free to start their own philanthropic ventures like Gates. They can even run for office like Trump did. But they don't get to do any of it at our expense.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 13 2017, @07:26AM
If you support affirmative action you're a sexist & racist who believes women and minorities aren't as capable as white men..
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @06:37PM
...the saddest are these: /pol/ was right again!
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday August 10 2017, @01:05AM
Google Memo: Fired Employee Speaks Out! | James Damore and Stefan Molyneux [youtube.com]
He definitively looks like a nerd and got into Google in the nerd way too.
Looks like Google stuck their hands into the wasp nest.. Maybe nerd community has fury ;)
More:
Rebel Media: Gavin McInnes: Stop lying about Google “anti-diversity” memo [youtube.com]
Stefan Molyneux: What Pisses Me Off About The Google "Anti-Diversity" Memo [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday August 11 2017, @08:30AM
Seems Google cop out of standing up for their policies:
Google cancels all-hands diversity meeting over safety concerns [arstechnica.com]
Google Cancels Meeting on Diversity, Citing Safety Concerns for Employees [wsj.com] 2017-08-10
WSJ:
Firing and hounding people is okay. Exposing their own ass is not. Seems the standard Human Resources and Diversity(tm) have them by their binary balls.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday August 11 2017, @08:53PM
Youtube Bearing tearing the bullshit down ;)
The Google Diversity Manifesto and Peter Coffin's ill-informed reaction [youtube.com]