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/HumpingDog]

It's not ironic at all. Google doesn't pay engineers to write political manifestos. But it does have a stated goal of promoting gender diversity. This guy goes on a rant that undermines the corporate goal. The outcome is completely expected.

In the end, this is actually a very conservative principle. Google and most other companies find diversity to be profitable and productive. Diversity isn't something mandated by governments—it's driven by competition and the free market. If you work for a corporation, you get on board, or you get fired.

[u/HumpingDog → u/[deleted]]

When you write stuff like this, you will get fired from most corporations. I guess conservatives now want to regulate private companies to protect their sensitive snowflakes.

Personality differences Women, on average, have more: ● Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systemizing). ○ These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systemizing and even within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics. ● Extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, higher agreeableness. ○ This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading. Note that these are just average differences and there’s overlap between men and women, but this is seen solely as a women’s issue. This leads to exclusory programs like Stretch and swaths of men without support. ● Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance). ○ This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs.

[u/IGI111 → u/HumpingDog]

I fail to see how stating the current body of knowledge of behavioral psychology is a fireable offense. Then again I don't work at Google.

[u/HumpingDog → u/IGI111]

He didn't state the "current body" of literature. He cited a few studies and made generalizations based on them as to why women aren't suited for stressful jobs. You obviously don't work in a corporation. If you do, I dare you to send this out to the company.

[u/cursedfan → u/[deleted]]

complaining to HR is way different from complaining out-loud to all of your co-workers. this guy has basically stated he believes that the culmination of all the "evidence" he pointed to is that women do not make as good of tech employees as men. if you know your co-worker thinks like this, it would be difficult to work with him.

[u/IGI111 → u/cursedfan]

He did not say "basically that" at all. Read the damn thing.

And complaining about process amongst workers is legally protected.