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Google CEO Sundar Pichai Says He Does Not Regret Firing James Damore (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Google CEO Sundar Pichai responded today to the firing of employee James Damore over his controversial memo on workplace diversity, stating that while he does not regret the decision, he regrets that people misunderstood it as a politically motivated event. Speaking in a live conversation with journalist and Recode co-founder Kara Swisher, MSNBC host Ari Melber, and YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki in San Francisco, Pichai said that the decision to fire Damore was about ensuring women at Google felt like the company was committed to creating a welcoming environment.
"I regret that people misunderstand that we may have made this for a political belief one way or another," Pichai said. "It's important for the women at Google, and all the people at Google, that we want to make a inclusive environment." When pressed by Swisher on the issue of regret, Pichai stated more definitively, "I don't regret it." Wojcicki, who has spoken publicly about how Damore's memo affected her personally, followed up with, "I think it was the right decision."
"I regret that people misunderstand that we may have made this for a political belief one way or another," Pichai said. "It's important for the women at Google, and all the people at Google, that we want to make a inclusive environment." When pressed by Swisher on the issue of regret, Pichai stated more definitively, "I don't regret it." Wojcicki, who has spoken publicly about how Damore's memo affected her personally, followed up with, "I think it was the right decision."
Damore write a memo full of gaps, leaps and ambiguities. If it were code then it wouldn't have compiled. As it was, people could and did fill those gaps according to their preconceptions, and judged him accordingly. It's not surprising that there were such different reactions.
People massively underestimate the value of getting women in tech. Women are no less capable, there's plenty of studies to bear that out. But they're massively under represented. Get them to show up and you'd have a large increase in tech workers which translates into lower pay all around. Supply and Demand.
This isn't politics, it's business.
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"Yep, a welcoming inclusive environment that excludes some people"
You say that as if you were making a valid point?
When one class of people makes another class of people feel unwelcome, then what do you do? You can't please all the people all the time, but you *can* fire the biggest assholes and keep them from making women feel like they don't belong there.
I appreciate you saying this, there are very few people here who have paid much attention to how the paper was written, choosing to focus instead on whether they agreed with its conclusions. The most frustrating thing about this Damore issue for me has been how readily people here on Slashdot have accepted such poorly supported claims. The paper read like an argument on a web forum: many of his claims weren't supported at all, and those which were mostly linked to single-study results or wikipedia articles. This is wildly insufficient support to be making such inflammatory comments in a professional setting.
Even among the people who agreed with him I would have hoped for something like: "I do agree that there's a problem, I just wish it had been better represented here."
most of the studies he cited are highly suspect. I think Google over reacted firing him (they're terrified of losing women engineers since it's a large, untapped labor pool) but I don't think that makes his arguments sound. Also, having worked in IT for 20 years the "locker room" talk gets pretty bad. I could see most ladies not wanting to be anywhere near that. Google's trying to reign that in. That said, they're doing it the wrong way, and I'm fairly certain that California law is such they'll lose the upcoming lawsuit (though almost ironically I'm pretty sure federal law wouldn't be enough to protect Damore, so it's those libby libs that will more than likely make his suit fly).
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That sounds awful, but it's not got anything to do with the Damore case. If you read the actual memo and ignore all the people misrepresenting it, you can see pretty clearly how he created a situation where Google had no choice but to fire him.
Anyway, I think we need to wait for the lawsuit to progress before we can really make a final judgment. The material filled so far is pretty damming, it's clear that both of them were in an untenable position.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The now-infamous “Google memo,” written by engineer James Damore, argued against diversity initiatives at Google and said that female engineers were less capable of leading others.
They must be talking about a different memo. Because his memo did not does say that female engineers are less capable of leading. The closest thing I can find is this:
I think context is important.
The traditional justification for discrimination of all types is that the segregation is the natural expression of talents. Aristocracy was justified by claiming the superiority of Nobel lineage. Slavery by the primitive nature of the enslaved. Lack of women's suffrage because women were too emotional and irrational to be trusted with the vote. etc, etc.
By claiming that women are just naturally less inclined to be engineers and leaders he's really feeding into that traditional narrative.
The other big issue with the memo is that while he acknowledges that discrimination exists he's very dismissive about its significance. I've worked with a lot of women in technical roles and it's very apparent that they're often not taken seriously. As a straight white male I find it fundamentally hard to relate to microaggressions because I don't personally experience them. But I also realize my experience is not universal. People are perceptive and there are a lot of women and minorities who can clearly perceive that they're being treated as less qualified on the basis of their gender or race. By not only brushing away the significance of microaggressions and but actually endorsing some of those stereotypes (IQ differences between races, women are neurotic, women/minorities are diversity hires and therefore assumed to be incompetent, etc). I can understand why the memo really pissed a lot of people off.
I think it's unfortunate what happened to Damore, I think he was sincerely trying to help, but unfortunately he didn't understand the other side of the issue and he managed to write something that understandably offended a lot of people.
I stole this Sig
Have you actually read that document? It contradicts the GP. He doesn't claim to have been asked for feedback and in an interview said the same thing.
More over, the lawsuit lays out all the really good reasons for firing him, but then attempts to claim discrimination as the reason rather than the more obvious "being extremely disruptive and impossible to work with".
The saddest thing is we can't even discuss this, because contradicting the hero narrative is punished with down mods. So much for free speech and the marketplace of ideas.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC