On the one hand they sincerely want to increase diversity because increasing the pool of candidates means there are more candidates to choose from. Also, having more women see technology as a career path is a good thing for the American workforce --it strengthens it.
On the other hand, there are some who then see this initiative to begin their crusades for diversity in their vision. That is, it ends being a means to enrich the pool of applicants but rather a means to play favorites and push agendas. That's to say Google wants to increase women in the workforce but they do not want to make men "unwanted".
I have known people there and I am told that the generalities that we hear that conservatives tend to stay quiet and that one side of the political spectrum in encouraged while the other is shunned is true.
Beside that, this person left voluntarily, they did not get fired despite their attempts to re-start contentious conversations management had sought to regain control over.
By the way, overlooked in all this is the overrepresentation of non-American citizens in the companies, with respect to wanting the companies to reflect the Am pop at large. And, who cares about that stat. I mean, they contribute a whole hell of a lot. Yet, you see, people only care about _their_ interpretation of what is acceptable diversity and unacceptable diversity figures.
> the overrepresentation of non-American citizens in the companies, with respect to wanting the companies to reflect the pop at large
Or underrepresentation, depending on whether you're talking about the US pop or world pop. Or the population of countries where Google is not firewalled, and hence is the dominant gateway to the internet there.
When you try to emulate a college environment and change work from a job to a lifestyle this seems to be what happens. People want to change their environment to reflect their values. Engineers especially. Both this guy and Damore seem to have sincerely good intentions, and if Google really was a college campus, their discussions might work but they're just incompatible with the reality of a workplace as-is.
This is a good point. I live on the East Coast and have never worked for Google, so I hadn't considered how the work environment and their unique company culture might have been significant factors.
There's just not that many (if any) companies here which have taken such a radical approach (I mean this in the most positive sense) to intentionally crafting a company culture so focused on employee satisfaction and retention.
But, I hadn't thought about how those features which seem like extraordinary perks from the outside--like, no-charge gourmet meals on campus, on-site laundry, and a college-environment, might transform the culture in totally unanticipated ways.
Anyway, oddly enough (now that I think about it), the Navy was remarkably similar in their approach: they did provide a "campus" (ship), with no charge ~~gourmet meals~~ chow, on-site laundry, and pretty good security. ;)
College parties is where these conversations happened. Not in math or database classes. Converse all you want with your peers off the clock and off record if you truly want to emulate college
Google and workplaces in general are in a very tough spot here. "Diversity & Inclusion" are grenades in the current political environment and more often than not any discussion in a non monolithic setting where ideas from both sides will be argued (ie. a large multinational) will probably end up with mudslinging and fire throwing. I've seen it within my own companies forums and I have no doubt this was going on at Google. I definitely understand where HR and senior executives where coming from, I'm sure more than one post went off the fucking rails.
I'm all for diversity & inclusion within the work place but in general I would suggest companies do it in a more "covert" manner -- reach out to HBCUs, re-evaluate your interview process, talk to your employees who are "underrepresented minorities" to see how they feel about working for you. In general I think a lot of companies are simply inviting too much scrutiny by plastering diversity on the walls and screaming to high heavens.. press releases and chief diversity officers will not make you a more diverse company.
chief diversity officers will make a corporation more diverse - that is their job. companies that do PR around their diversity are not doing it right - D&I is an industry competitive advantage. The most diverse organizations in the Fortune 1000 outperform their industry median financial returns by 35%. I agree the 'covert' manner works but the role of chief diversity officers is critical to the macroeconomic impact of globalizing and increasing market representation in our modern workforces.
Seriously, the only thing I truly gleaned from all the internal screenshots here is that Google is a horrific place to work where people are fighting about politics and the like with other coworkers. The infighting, the whole idea of blocking or blacklisting fellow employees... Who would seriously want to work in that hostile an environment?
this is one of the more important points that isn't being discussed enough. Why does the workplace need to be turned into a political minefield, there's something incredible presumptuous about the idea that everybody is supposed to proselytize at work.
Damore wasn't hired as an inhouse biologist but as an engineer. Same goes for everybody else. I personally have enough stuff to care about at work, I don't need to be drawn into any culture wars, if you want to discuss politics do it over a drink after work.
I partially blame Google for this because they have fostered a culture that turns the work environment into a living environment to squeeze as much brainpower out of their employees as possible. We need to go back to professional environments.
This is arguably also better for diversity in the first place. Women and minorities seem to do better in rule based environments like academia rather than summercamp like startups.
It doesn't have to be, per se - and really shouldn't be.
Practice the principle of charity. Assume the best of your debate parter(s). Argue in good faith. Desire truth, not for your claim to the correct one. Find shared values in others, even amidst disagreement. Decouple political beliefs from your identity as a person.
There's no real good reason discussions about politics and religion ought to be divisive.
Why? If you are distracted by political discussions, just put on your earphones. Just like I do when my colleagues discuss which football team that is the best.
> The post also pointed to an external blog post written by a Googler that stated, “Blacks are not equal to whites.”
Here's what Altheide’s document quotes a "Googler" as writing on an external blog:
> Blacks are not equal to whites. Therefore the “inequality” between these races is expected and makes perfect sense. (This also explains why progressives are unable to come up with a black martyr who was not killed while committing a crime.)
Was this really written by someone who works for Google?
> “As far as I can tell Urs is of the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ school with regards to diversity topics,” he added. “This is best summed up by him saying ‘if the majority of your coworkers are Nazis, it is better if you don’t know about it’ because productivity.” Altheide wrote that he remembered the quote verbatim, and told Gizmodo that he was so struck by the comparison that he jotted it down after the meeting.
That's also quite an accusation. Are there any other reports of Urs saying anything in that ballpark of crazy?
> This also explains why progressives are unable to come up with a black martyr who was not killed while committing a crime.
That's just braindead. Not that it's necessary to point out the falsehood of a quote so obviously motivated by hate and bereft of truth, but...
Vernon Dahmer offered to pay the $2 poll tax for those who could not afford it. His home was doused in gasoline and set on fire, and he died a few hours later as a result. I guess sleeping in your own house is a crime.
Harry Moore and his wife Harriette were killed by a bomb detonated directly below their bedroom on Christmas. I guess Christmas is illegal.
That's not crazy - Urs is just saying "don't talk about politics at work" which is a rule Google could apparently use a lot more of, given the things coming out in the Damore lawsuit. His second statement was almost certainly a response to someone saying "but muh coworkers are nazzzzzzis" and rather than argue with this self-evidently stupid statement, he pointed out that if this were true, ignorance would be bliss. But of course he thinks it's not true.
> Blacks are not equal to whites. Therefore the “inequality” between these races is expected and makes perfect sense. (This also explains why progressives are unable to come up with a black martyr who was not killed while committing a crime.)
I'm about to step into a minefield here, but whatever.
So the black martyr thing I don't really care to touch since that's pretty unrelated to the other statement of inequality between races.
It seems you are calling that statement crazy. If it makes you so uncomfortable to think about black people (on average) having a lower IQ than white people. What about black people's domination of most sports? Is there systemic discrimination against white people in basketball and football? Or could it be that there are more black people who are more well suited to play these sports than whites?
It might be worth sharing that when some Googlers made a custom Cards Against Humanity deck, one of the cards just said "Cory Altheide". (Or so I heard.)
Let's just say the man is neither shy nor politically correct. "Worrying pattern of posting topics that are divisive" is understating things because it leaves out the "gleeful" part. I miss his G+ feed.
Why does Google encourage discussions of these policies in the first place? What’s there to gain?
It’s up to the owners of the company to communicate the values they want to promote in the workplace; management to implement specific policies; and employees to suck it up (and talk to HR if they feel their rights are being violated).
To take an example from the other end of the spectrum, I don’t imagine that fundamentalist Christian owned Hobby Lobby has an internal mailing list for discussing their policies. Why should Google feel any more compelled to seek employee approval?
I'm sure the regexp /[gG]od/ shows up in corporate Hotel Lobby email, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Friday night fellowship is organized via Hotel Lobby company email lists (to discuss how better devote yourself to the Lord).
The same way that after work alcohol parties (colloquially known as "drinks") or board games at the office after a hard day of coding are organized via Slack; humans are going to talk to each other about idle activities.
“The document, which was written in 2016 and shared publicly this week, provides a striking counterpoint to allegations made by former Google employees James Damore and David Gudeman in a discrimination lawsuit filed against their former employer.”
These two actions by Google are not necessarily in conflict. It’s possible to discourage both opinions without showing any kind of biased agenda.
Pathetic attempt of another white hetro male trying to demonize diversity in a shallow and transparent attempt at retaining white privilege through the world.
"...ALLEGATIONS made by former Google employees James Damore and David Gudeman in a discrimination lawsuit filed against their former employer. Damore and Gudeman CLAIM that Google encouraged pro-diversity voices within the company and stifled conservative views. However, THE NEW DOCUMENT ILLUSTRATES that employees who spoke out in favor of diversity initiatives were reprimanded as well..." [ALL CAPS added by me]
So, the consistently left-leaning analysts at Gizmodo inform us that James Damore, whom Google themselves say they fired for the opinions expressed in a memo we can all read and see for ourselves what he was fired for, is still only alleging and claiming that the company that SAYS they fired him for expressing these views stifles conservative views.
But a MEMO written by a guy whom Google didn't fire at all, much less for expressing a pro-diversity opinion, but simply quit becomes a NEW DOCUMENT that ILLUSTRATES facts about Google not otherwise in evidence.
I lived in a country once with a state-controlled media that would begin its evening news reports with statements such as, "US President so-and-so claimed such-and-such today, but our-glorious-leader set the record straight, pointing out that blah-blah." I wondered how people in that country could hear that template and not see that it was blatantly biased at the template level. It wasn't just a biased interpretation of the issue, but was biased on the face of it, even before anything about the actual issue was inserted in the blanks.
But I discovered that people who consistently heard media talking this way couldn't detect even this blatant a bias in format, much less in the content of the actual issue, so the writers didn't have to even pretend superficially. With government-controlled media, most people lived in a bubble. Everything they were told agreed with everything else they were told, so it was just common sense, and anything I said that contradicted "the narrative" was considered utter nonsense.
What does it say about the tech audience Gizmodo is writing for that they are as confident as the state media in that small, tropical dictatorship, that they can be this blatant and their audience lives in such an ideological bubble, self-imposed in our case, that they'll approve of it and want more like it?
It's common practice in media when dealing with court cases which have not been resolved to use language consistent with the non-resolution. So yes, they use the words "alleging" and "claiming," because it is consistent with what is going on in the courts.
Several things,
1. it's an assumption that gizmodo is writing for a tech audience,
2. it's not really "blatant" in that, ultimately, it's completely intentional since this is what gets monetizable views - gizmodo pushes an agenda because it's profitable to do so
Overall, great comment.
This is so suspicious it's comical. Just when it seems like Google has been humiliated by the embarrassing screenshots in Damore's lawsuit, a mysterious new document, from the summer of 2015 to 2016, never-before-released until right now, showing Google's top brass handle controversy over diversity smoothly and professionally. No bickering, no cursing, no hostile workplace. No booing of White males, no anti-Trump memes, no antifa recruitment, no "sexually identifying as a wingless dragonkin." Just the professionalism of Google.
And who discovered this document that totally vindicates Google and refutes Damore's lawsuit?
Why, it's Gizmodo! The very same people who originally leaked Damore's memo (out of context, with all of the sources removed) kicking off all of the outrage and accusations of sexism against him in the first place.
[+] [-] mc32|8 years ago|reply
On the one hand they sincerely want to increase diversity because increasing the pool of candidates means there are more candidates to choose from. Also, having more women see technology as a career path is a good thing for the American workforce --it strengthens it.
On the other hand, there are some who then see this initiative to begin their crusades for diversity in their vision. That is, it ends being a means to enrich the pool of applicants but rather a means to play favorites and push agendas. That's to say Google wants to increase women in the workforce but they do not want to make men "unwanted".
I have known people there and I am told that the generalities that we hear that conservatives tend to stay quiet and that one side of the political spectrum in encouraged while the other is shunned is true.
Beside that, this person left voluntarily, they did not get fired despite their attempts to re-start contentious conversations management had sought to regain control over.
By the way, overlooked in all this is the overrepresentation of non-American citizens in the companies, with respect to wanting the companies to reflect the Am pop at large. And, who cares about that stat. I mean, they contribute a whole hell of a lot. Yet, you see, people only care about _their_ interpretation of what is acceptable diversity and unacceptable diversity figures.
[+] [-] skydv|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] arduanika|8 years ago|reply
Or underrepresentation, depending on whether you're talking about the US pop or world pop. Or the population of countries where Google is not firewalled, and hence is the dominant gateway to the internet there.
[+] [-] siliconc0w|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] calculusftw|8 years ago|reply
There's just not that many (if any) companies here which have taken such a radical approach (I mean this in the most positive sense) to intentionally crafting a company culture so focused on employee satisfaction and retention.
But, I hadn't thought about how those features which seem like extraordinary perks from the outside--like, no-charge gourmet meals on campus, on-site laundry, and a college-environment, might transform the culture in totally unanticipated ways.
Anyway, oddly enough (now that I think about it), the Navy was remarkably similar in their approach: they did provide a "campus" (ship), with no charge ~~gourmet meals~~ chow, on-site laundry, and pretty good security. ;)
[+] [-] mankash666|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 40acres|8 years ago|reply
I'm all for diversity & inclusion within the work place but in general I would suggest companies do it in a more "covert" manner -- reach out to HBCUs, re-evaluate your interview process, talk to your employees who are "underrepresented minorities" to see how they feel about working for you. In general I think a lot of companies are simply inviting too much scrutiny by plastering diversity on the walls and screaming to high heavens.. press releases and chief diversity officers will not make you a more diverse company.
[+] [-] emcarey|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] calculusftw|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gedy|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ocdtrekkie|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Barrin92|8 years ago|reply
Damore wasn't hired as an inhouse biologist but as an engineer. Same goes for everybody else. I personally have enough stuff to care about at work, I don't need to be drawn into any culture wars, if you want to discuss politics do it over a drink after work.
I partially blame Google for this because they have fostered a culture that turns the work environment into a living environment to squeeze as much brainpower out of their employees as possible. We need to go back to professional environments.
This is arguably also better for diversity in the first place. Women and minorities seem to do better in rule based environments like academia rather than summercamp like startups.
[+] [-] SmirkingRevenge|8 years ago|reply
Practice the principle of charity. Assume the best of your debate parter(s). Argue in good faith. Desire truth, not for your claim to the correct one. Find shared values in others, even amidst disagreement. Decouple political beliefs from your identity as a person.
There's no real good reason discussions about politics and religion ought to be divisive.
[+] [-] robotjosh|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bjourne|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xiphias|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] paulddraper|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jancsika|8 years ago|reply
Here's what Altheide’s document quotes a "Googler" as writing on an external blog:
> Blacks are not equal to whites. Therefore the “inequality” between these races is expected and makes perfect sense. (This also explains why progressives are unable to come up with a black martyr who was not killed while committing a crime.)
Was this really written by someone who works for Google?
> “As far as I can tell Urs is of the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ school with regards to diversity topics,” he added. “This is best summed up by him saying ‘if the majority of your coworkers are Nazis, it is better if you don’t know about it’ because productivity.” Altheide wrote that he remembered the quote verbatim, and told Gizmodo that he was so struck by the comparison that he jotted it down after the meeting.
That's also quite an accusation. Are there any other reports of Urs saying anything in that ballpark of crazy?
edit: clarification
[+] [-] totalZero|8 years ago|reply
That's just braindead. Not that it's necessary to point out the falsehood of a quote so obviously motivated by hate and bereft of truth, but...
Vernon Dahmer offered to pay the $2 poll tax for those who could not afford it. His home was doused in gasoline and set on fire, and he died a few hours later as a result. I guess sleeping in your own house is a crime.
Harry Moore and his wife Harriette were killed by a bomb detonated directly below their bedroom on Christmas. I guess Christmas is illegal.
[+] [-] peoplewindow|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bjourne|8 years ago|reply
Yes: https://wasarchived.wordpress.com/2015/03/21/brief-introduct... The other posts on the blog makes it clear that the person authoring the post worked at Google.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] supreme_sublime|8 years ago|reply
I'm about to step into a minefield here, but whatever.
So the black martyr thing I don't really care to touch since that's pretty unrelated to the other statement of inequality between races.
It seems you are calling that statement crazy. If it makes you so uncomfortable to think about black people (on average) having a lower IQ than white people. What about black people's domination of most sports? Is there systemic discrimination against white people in basketball and football? Or could it be that there are more black people who are more well suited to play these sports than whites?
[+] [-] calculusftw|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] skybrian|8 years ago|reply
It might be worth sharing that when some Googlers made a custom Cards Against Humanity deck, one of the cards just said "Cory Altheide". (Or so I heard.)
Let's just say the man is neither shy nor politically correct. "Worrying pattern of posting topics that are divisive" is understating things because it leaves out the "gleeful" part. I miss his G+ feed.
[+] [-] pavlov|8 years ago|reply
It’s up to the owners of the company to communicate the values they want to promote in the workplace; management to implement specific policies; and employees to suck it up (and talk to HR if they feel their rights are being violated).
To take an example from the other end of the spectrum, I don’t imagine that fundamentalist Christian owned Hobby Lobby has an internal mailing list for discussing their policies. Why should Google feel any more compelled to seek employee approval?
[+] [-] skybrian|8 years ago|reply
There was a time when a company could create an internal mailing list called "politics" without worrying too much.
[+] [-] fragmede|8 years ago|reply
The same way that after work alcohol parties (colloquially known as "drinks") or board games at the office after a hard day of coding are organized via Slack; humans are going to talk to each other about idle activities.
[+] [-] oculusthrift|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prepend|8 years ago|reply
These two actions by Google are not necessarily in conflict. It’s possible to discourage both opinions without showing any kind of biased agenda.
[+] [-] petraeus|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SiVal|8 years ago|reply
So, the consistently left-leaning analysts at Gizmodo inform us that James Damore, whom Google themselves say they fired for the opinions expressed in a memo we can all read and see for ourselves what he was fired for, is still only alleging and claiming that the company that SAYS they fired him for expressing these views stifles conservative views.
But a MEMO written by a guy whom Google didn't fire at all, much less for expressing a pro-diversity opinion, but simply quit becomes a NEW DOCUMENT that ILLUSTRATES facts about Google not otherwise in evidence.
I lived in a country once with a state-controlled media that would begin its evening news reports with statements such as, "US President so-and-so claimed such-and-such today, but our-glorious-leader set the record straight, pointing out that blah-blah." I wondered how people in that country could hear that template and not see that it was blatantly biased at the template level. It wasn't just a biased interpretation of the issue, but was biased on the face of it, even before anything about the actual issue was inserted in the blanks.
But I discovered that people who consistently heard media talking this way couldn't detect even this blatant a bias in format, much less in the content of the actual issue, so the writers didn't have to even pretend superficially. With government-controlled media, most people lived in a bubble. Everything they were told agreed with everything else they were told, so it was just common sense, and anything I said that contradicted "the narrative" was considered utter nonsense.
What does it say about the tech audience Gizmodo is writing for that they are as confident as the state media in that small, tropical dictatorship, that they can be this blatant and their audience lives in such an ideological bubble, self-imposed in our case, that they'll approve of it and want more like it?
[+] [-] dang|8 years ago|reply
Please don't. It breaks the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Also, please don't post ideological rants to Hacker News regardless of your ideology. We're hoping for thoughtful discussion here, not flames.
[+] [-] MisterBastahrd|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zzzzzzzza|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulddraper|8 years ago|reply
Reading news seems to requires a very strong -- to borrow Wikipedia's term -- "weasel word" filter, and paying attention to only bare facts.
[+] [-] numismatex|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] nodesocket|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] dlp211|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JoelQ|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fortylove|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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