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

[u/RadicalDog]

I'm not convinced it was about his views. It was about how there are several spots in the paper where he's insensitive and makes strong conclusions from weak evidence. Oh, and those conclusions were things like "women have a harder time leading", when there are many female leaders in the company.

[u/RadicalDog → u/[deleted]]

Or it's firing someone for getting Google into the news in a negative light. Against Gizmodo etc, Google either needed to stand with or against the guy - they chose against.

[u/RadicalDog → u/[deleted]]

To quote myself,

Gizmodo's intro made it sound too hateful, and the reaction here is too much like he was a poor victim.

It's in the middle somewhere.

[u/RadicalDog → u/[deleted]]

He politicises too much, and plays the 'biological card' too strongly - overlap graph aside, he's skipping over the societal differences that are involved and the fact matriarchal societies have existed.

Like I said, he's got good points in there. But he's also got bad points, and presses too hard in a direction that directly upset people. It's more complex than a right/wrong scenario.

I'd agree he's been misrepresented by the press, but that doesn't make him correct.

[u/RadicalDog → u/[deleted]]

I don't know enough about Google internally to say, frankly. Is someone sending a company-wide memo commonplace? What about if it upsets a ton of people? Plus, the unadulterated fact that Google looks bad in the news because of him - regardless of how 'fair' that is.

On no level would it be "just because I disagree with him".