Done.
Score one for the free thought police who tell us what we’re allowed to think.
You are allowed to think whatever thoughts you want.
But to write something up and publish it on internal network for everyone to see? No.
He can publish it on the newspaper, or social network. Let’s see how this will play out, it’s not the end of the story
I think it is actually a good idea for google to fire this guy. Because retaining him might lead to protests and even possible boycotting of google products, doing harm to shareholders. On the flip side, firing him might need to dismay among some people, but they will not protest nor boycott.
So, from a google shareholder standpoint, I support firing this guy.
Employee rule No.1: You are hired to do your employer’s bidding.
Google wants diversity. It publicly says so. It doesn’t matter if you are right or wrong. You just don’t crap on it.
And Pichai was just beginning his vacation. Now he has to cut it and come back to deal with this shit? You make your CEO leave his wife and kids and NOT have a vacation? And you say you shouldn’t be fired?
Are you kidding me?
What??? I thought CEOs should be working 24hr shifts and sleeping in the office. How dare he goes on to vacation at times like this. We paid him big bucks for a reason. Cancel that vacation, Mr. Pichai!!! 
The firing just confirms his point about the ideological echo chamber. There was just no discussion about the merits of his points. Just people being outraged about being offended. The people offended got their way regardless of if his points had merit. That’s not a way to have productive conversation to move forward. If people want to criticize him, then they should counter his points with facts and data. The day people can shutdown a conversation by proclaiming they are offended is the day critical reasoning and logic no longer matter.
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Yes unfortunately he was scapegoated. People need a whipping boy sometimes. It’s a necessary evil.
The ex-Googler claims women are biologically inferior to men in tech, and implied they got hired because of their gender.
How can women cooperate with him? Can Google assign any women to work under him? Above him? Anytime there is a conflict how should Google handle it? Google is required under the law to maintain a non-hostile work environment. Keeping him on opens Google to all kinds of lawsuits.
Again, Scott Frostall was fired purely because he’s difficult to work with. Just being difficult is reason enough to fire a senior officer. Now this guy openly professes sexist views. How can he not be fired?
He also harms Google’s brand. Google openly embraces diversity. Whether you agree with it or not it doesn’t matter. The one who pays you says they want it. And for an employee to damage its brand like that? How can Google advance its diversity goal if they keep him on? How can Google recruit women with a straight face saying they are welcome in the company?
Forstall was fired for refusing to sign the apology for Apple maps.
The guy wrote about strengths, weaknesses, and preferences of both genders. How is that offensive to people? If we cant acknowledge the genders aren’t identical, then there’s zero respect for science in the conversation.
Again, there’s zero uproar about lack of women in skilled trades, oil fields, or any other male dominated profession that don’t involve the most prestigious employers in the world. If women are the same as men, then go fight for women to be 50% of oil rig workers too. Those people make over $100K/yr.
If a woman wrote an article about how men don’t make good nurses because their bedside manner usually sucks, do you think there’d be the same uproar? Would the woman get fired? What if a woman wrote about how men lack the empathy required to effectively teach elementary school?
The media is full of articles about the short comings of men. Women get celebrated for writing them. No one is fired over it. Men don’t go crazy online about how they are victims from it.
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“Distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership,” James wrote in an internal company memo last week.
“Portions of the memo violate our Code of Conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace,” Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said in an internal email viewed by Reuters on Monday
The memo stoked a heated debate over treatment of women in the male-dominated Silicon Valley that has boiled for months following sexual harassment scandals at Uber Technologies Inc and several venture capital firms.
No one claims women and men are the same. What matters is whether their differences matter in a specific job’s performance.
No one sane in this country would say women are biologically unfit to drive a car. But in Saudi Arabia they do. Women are not allowed to drive by themselves.
Give reasons why women are not good in programming because of their gender. Why can they be good doctors, good lawyers, good physicists, good chemists, but not good programmers?
Not only is this claim of the ex-Googler’s wildly offensive, it’s plain wrong.
In physical labor I agree women are biologically inferior to men. They have less muscle mass in their arms. No one disputes that. But in programming?
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Next thing you know saying that men contribute sperm and women contribute an egg to make a baby will be sexist. It’ll be changed to two people contribute DNA to make another human.
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Did you read the section “non-discriminatory ways to close the gender gap”? If this is offensive, then wow.
"Women on average show a higher interest in people and men in things
We can make software engineering more people-oriented with pair programming and more collaboration. Unfortunately, there may be limits to how people-oriented certain roles and Google can be and we shouldn’t deceive ourselves or students into thinking otherwise (some of our programs to get female students into coding might be doing this).
Women on average are more cooperative
Allow those exhibiting cooperative behavior to thrive. Recent updates to Perf may be doing this to an extent, but maybe there’s more we can do. This doesn’t mean that we should remove all competitiveness from Google. Competitiveness and self reliance can be valuable traits and we shouldn’t necessarily disadvantage those that have them, like what’s been done in education. Women on average are more prone to anxiety. Make tech and leadership less stressful. Google already partly does this with its many stress reduction courses and benefits.
Women on average look for more work-life balance while men have a higher drive for status on average
Unfortunately, as long as tech and leadership remain high status, lucrative careers, men may disproportionately want to be in them. Allowing and truly endorsing (as part of our culture) part time work though can keep more women in tech.
The male gender role is currently inflexible
Feminism has made great progress in freeing women from the female gender role, but men are still very much tied to the male gender role. If we, as a society, allow men to be more “feminine,” then the gender gap will shrink, although probably because men will leave tech and leadership for traditionally feminine roles."
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Sure. He wrapped a lot of platitude around that one single crap that got him fired.
Pichai: To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK.
Why do the male-female biological differences matter in programming? Why does it not matter in medicine? Law? Other physical sciences?
Also, this ex-googler did a very bad job communicating. Why would he post something like that in a email alias? He should have consulted with his manager first before doing so. And google hired him to code. Why in the world would he write a memo when he should be coding???
Well, I hope he has that 5mil in savings handy (or 10m according to manch) because he’s going to need it now…
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It’s called open culture. People do not use emails, they post on internal social media. It’s just like what we are doing here.
Nothing is unusual in terms of communication method. The essay is just an expression of his personal opinion on internal media, pretty normal
He’s suing google trying to get his 10m. Also he’s now a star in the alt right. Maybe he can make good living giving speeches?
What does Ann Coulter do for a living?