Google Cancels Town Hall To Discuss Diversity In Its Ranks (nbcnews.com)

NBC News originally reported: Google employees will gather for a town hall meeting Thursday afternoon to discuss the tensions ignited by a memo circulated inside the company that claimed to explain why more women are not engineers. Town hall meetings are nothing new at Google, but this one will likely be different after the so-called "Google Manifesto" went viral over the weekend, adding fresh fuel to the debate around gender bias in Silicon Valley. Google CEO Sundar Pichai told employees in an email earlier this week that he would cut his family vacation short in order to facilitate the forum. "The past few days have been very difficult for many at the company, and we need to find a way to debate issues on which we might disagree -- while doing so in line with our Code of Conduct," he wrote. "I'd encourage each of you to make an effort over the coming days to reach out to those who might have different perspectives from your own. I will be doing the same." The town hall comes amid a report from The Guardian that as many as 60 women are considering filing a class action lawsuit against Google, alleging sexism and wage disparity.
UPDATE: NBC News now reports the event has been cancelled, with Google CEO Sundar Pichai saying "Googlers are writing in, concerned about their safety and worried they may be 'outed' publicly for asking a question in the Town Hall... we need to step back and create a better set of conditions for us to have the discussion." Instead of the company-wide format, Google will now hold several smaller forums "to gather and engage with Googlers, where people can feel comfortable to speak freely," Pichai wrote.

Comments

Re:Count the bumper stickers

[meglon]

Consider that, as a group, people who are anti-intellectual, with a stuck-in-the-1800's mentality probably won't do so great working in a place where it actually takes intelligence to get in the front door. It's interesting though, that you only place importance on diversity when it comes to politics.

Conservatives have become a cult in this country, and like most cults/religions, the members tend to be outspoken about their "beliefs," usually far past the point of simply annoying everyone around them that isn't part of their cult. Growing up on a small farm, there were two butchering shops in our county... one had a great butcher, and was pretty much the go-to place for most people. The other had decent people, but not as skilled as the former. At one point, the owner of the better shop "got religion," and i'm talking born again christian religion. Two years later he was almost out of business, not because people hated Christians.... hell, where i grew up (southern Oregon in the 60's) there was Christian and Jehovah Witness.. no Jews, no Mormon, no nothing; but he was almost out of business because when you went to him ALL he could do was rant and rave about his new-found religion... and everyone, even all the other Christians, got sick and tired of putting up with it.

That...is how conservatives in the US have become. But, with Google at least, they have to be intellectual enough to get in the door to start with. So maybe to increase the number of conservatives working at Google, you should start a campaign to stop conservatives from deriding learning, critical thinking, and actually being intelligent, and instill them with the sense of actually wanting to learn something, to grow, and to be better than what humanity was 200+ years ago.