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Google Grapples With Fallout After Employee Slams Diversity Efforts (npr.org)
An anonymous reader shares a report from NPR: In a 3,300-word document that has been shared across Google's internal networks, an engineer at the company wrote that "biological causes" are part of the reason women aren't represented equally in its tech departments and leadership. The document also cited "men's higher drive for status." The engineer's criticism of Google's attempts to improve gender and racial diversity has prompted two Google executives to rebut the lengthy post, which accused the company of creating an "ideological echo chamber" and practicing discrimination. Wide sharing of the document has highlighted struggles with gender equality and the wage gap in the tech industry and particularly at Google, which was sued by the federal government earlier this year for refusing to share compensation amounts and other data.
But in contrast, the document's author -- whose identity hasn't been publicly released but who claims to work at the company's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters -- accused Google of having "a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence." Not enough has been done, the engineer said, to encourage a diversity of viewpoints and ideologies at Google. The author also faulted the company for offering mentoring and other opportunities to its employees based on gender or race. The engineer began the document by stating, "I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don't endorse using stereotypes." The message ended with a similar sentiment -- but with the added notion, "Stereotypes are much more accurate and responsive to new information than the [company's] training suggests." In addition to the responses made from Google's VP of Diversity, Integrity and Governance, Danielle Brown, former engineer Yonatan Zunger, and Google VP of Engineering Ari Balogh, senior developer Sarah Mei wrote: "This guy almost certainly thinks of himself as a 'computer scientist,' but he does exactly what you're not supposed to do as a scientist. He draws a conclusion favorable to his ego, and then works backwards from there, constructing an argument to justify it. [...] This google dude literally works at the company that made it _trivially easy_ to locate relevant social science research."
But in contrast, the document's author -- whose identity hasn't been publicly released but who claims to work at the company's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters -- accused Google of having "a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence." Not enough has been done, the engineer said, to encourage a diversity of viewpoints and ideologies at Google. The author also faulted the company for offering mentoring and other opportunities to its employees based on gender or race. The engineer began the document by stating, "I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don't endorse using stereotypes." The message ended with a similar sentiment -- but with the added notion, "Stereotypes are much more accurate and responsive to new information than the [company's] training suggests." In addition to the responses made from Google's VP of Diversity, Integrity and Governance, Danielle Brown, former engineer Yonatan Zunger, and Google VP of Engineering Ari Balogh, senior developer Sarah Mei wrote: "This guy almost certainly thinks of himself as a 'computer scientist,' but he does exactly what you're not supposed to do as a scientist. He draws a conclusion favorable to his ego, and then works backwards from there, constructing an argument to justify it. [...] This google dude literally works at the company that made it _trivially easy_ to locate relevant social science research."
Mod parent up. I don't think there can be a more damning reaction from the left than a collective freakout and immediate calls for censorship of wrongthink.
If the intent is to debunk the original author's points, screaming "bad, bad, bad thinker!", is literally the most unpersuasive move in the book.
It's almost as if nobody actually has any logical, reasoned response to his critique...
Google made a shit-ton of money by offering good products. I don't give two fucks about the skin color, sexual orientation, political leanings, etc. of the software developers at Google as long as their search returns fast and accurate results. Diversity has almost nothing to do with quality of product as far as I can tell, but I can tell you that any company that institutes some kind of quota system is going to alienate and drive away some of those people who were responsible for quality products.
If you're recruiting people at disproportionate rates to the pool of available candidates either you need to pay better (and pay everyone else more as well or people will complain about receiving less if they believe that have equal skill or capability) or hire certain demographics at a lower ability threshhold (this assumes that none of the usual diversity demographics have any bearing on ability, which I'll assume you and most of the other people in favor of this crap would argue in favor of anyway) or disproportionately reject candidates who apply but don't fill any diversity quota. This is not an ideal strategy and opens the company up for competitors to offer a better product because they're either utilizing cheaper labor, not adding less skilled workers, or not passing over potentially higher skilled workers.
It might make good short term marketing, but in the end businesses compete on price. If this weren't true we'd still have all manner of goods being made in the United States because there are just as many people who like to virtue signal over their patriotism as there are those who like to about diversity initiatives. People's actions don't always align with their words, and companies run on dollars, not platitudes.
As an interesting aside, I had an interesting thought. Typically when these types of stories get posted someone invariably trots out an argument that diversity improves team performance. I don't think anyone has linked a study to ever support their claim, and for all I know such a study does exist, but assuming that claim were true, it would necessarily mean that those very same diversity characteristics (race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) mean that the people who possess them are somehow different. If that weren't the case, you shouldn't expect a different outcome. But if those characteristics make them different, then why would it be surprising if those characteristics didn't also result in fewer (or more as for that matter some minority groups are disproportionately more likely to be in computing) members of those demographics getting into software development or any other field for that matter. I suppose you could argue that those characteristics themselves aren't responsible, only that they are more strongly correlated with other factors such as growing up poor or something like that. However, that just strikes me as stereotyping people by assuming that just because they're a member of a certain demographic that they must possess some characteristic that will lead to this magical diversity performance improvement.
And don't just take this as some condemnation of hiring minority demographics or something equally asinine. In some cases you do quite clearly want to discriminate and have members of certain demographics. For example, if I were trying to make a phone I'd want to have some women on the team just because they're going to use the device in a different way than men in a very general sense. I don't necessarily mean in terms of apps or what they do with it, just that many will probably carry it in a purse or handbag and that they'll generally have smaller hands among several other things I probably haven't imagined might be important aspects of how the product should function. Yes, that itself is a contrived example, but it illustrates a point itself.
To get back on track, I think you and a lot of other posters make this mistake of assuming that you have some kind of morally superior position to base your argument on and that the rest
The point is even if the average of women can't do X you don't make it impossible for them to try X. Further, if you have a gender gap of "100m sprints" then it may not be because of systemic sexism in an organization that has "100m sprints".
1) It was never argued that women are lesser for having different interests or motivations. Taking more risks isn't necessarily a good or bad in and of itself but it can lead to higher status or higher probability to land in jail or homeless. Likewise, taking fewer risks isn't good or bad but it can lead to less status and less chance to be homeless or in jail. Yes, you are right. Diverse perspectives are beneficial which is why the original memo pointed out that there is a distinct lack of diversity of thought in google. This lack of diversity causes issues such as shaming into silence and an inability to honestly discuss ideas because some are too sacred (as the responses have shown them to be too sacred).
2) Social behavior is influenced by biology such as the examples listed in the original memo. Again, the point is that systemic sexism may not be adequate in accurately explaining the gender gap and forcing 50/50 gender representation through discrimination is unfair and bad for business.
Most people who looked at the evidence seriously came to the same conclusion, but some people keep insisting that we do it all again from scratch and occasionally one of them puts out a well written, reasonable sounding document that people who want to believe those things latch on to.
I can sympathize with that but the problem is when you reject any criticism and any discussion. The lack of diversity of thought coupled with the moralization of politics makes it impossible to discuss and come to a better understanding. The point of any discussion should never be the end result but the arguments, logic, and facts to get there.