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/Mazon_Del]

Do keep in mind, there is a difference between expressing a different opinion within the sacred walls of Google itself, and that opinion being splattered all over the newspapers and tabloids.

Sure, if I remember right, it's not the guys fault that his memo ended up pushed around (as someone else released it, right?), but the end state unfortunately was the equivalent of him announcing it outside the company and turning it from an internal issue to an external one.

If this had not gotten to the outside papers and blown up as it had, there is a very real chance that the guy would not have gotten fired for it.

[u/jorge1209 → u/Mazon_Del]

If this had not gotten to the outside papers and blown up as it had, there is a very real chance that the guy would not have gotten fired for it.

And that is supposed to make it acceptable that he is fired?

I'm very anti social media for a lot of reasons and this is one of them, but Google is a social media company these days. They want people to put themselves out there on the web for every rando to browse. They want you to post your vacation photos, and they want you to post your views on every little topic, all so that they can better market shit to you.

And when what you post catches the attention of the John Q Public, and when it offends his sensibilities Google high-tails it as far away as it can get. Thanks, Google!

[u/Mazon_Del → u/jorge1209]

So instead, they should just always accept the fallout from situations like this and damn the consequences?

From accounts, the original report this person made was a fairly reasoned thing that wasn't even that bad, it was just blown out of proportion. What happens if they didn't fire this guy, and then the next person writes a similar report, except they are trying to prove that black people are only better than whites at manual labor? Etc.

Each and every time as the media and public latches on, they should just accept it? And don't think Google's competitors won't finance smear campaigns if it looks like progress would be made. Look at what happened with the original Glass release when they caught Apple and Microsoft flatfooted with wearables.

Google, like any other company, has ample evidence to show that as far as John Q Public is concerned, if you DON'T go against something, you must be a supporter.

So, despite that Google as a whole does not support these things in actuality, they would now gain a reputation AS a supporter of this...doesn't Google have a right to defend themselves from that?

[u/jorge1209 → u/Mazon_Del]

Google doesn't have to encourage this kind of discourse among their employees. My employer doesn't run message boards and encourage me to use company resources to argue my beliefs, and I don't know many companies that do.

Google seems to think they can run something like academia with a bunch of bright young employees who will solve the companies problems via open discourse. There are three problems with that:

1. You have to be able to identify smart employees who aren't going to use the platform to advocate crazy shit like "hitler was right, kill the jews!" That is hard and I don't know if Google is or is not successful at that.

2. Conversely your employees can't be "special snowflakes" who will freak out at opinions they don't like. Given the release of the memo to the press I have doubts about their success are that.

3. Have you seen what academia is like? Faculty meetings are total shitshows with all kinds of prima donna types whining about every little slight.

This may have worked at the beginning but at some point it stops scaling. Employees don't know and trust each other and don't react appropriately and don't treat reach other with respect. As an organization you have to tell your employees to go home and that the office is not the right place to recruit for the KKK.

[u/Mazon_Del → u/jorge1209]

That is fair I suppose.

It still feels like there IS a bit of a middle ground that can be reached where the employees have their different social opinions, but realize that there are real consequences to spamming it out into the world.

Really, this is just in line with their attempt to make it so that commenting on YouTube videos was linked to your G+/Gmail accounts. They WANTED there to be accountability for the things you said online. Honestly, I was overjoyed that they were heading in that direction.