“Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber” memo goes viral, usual suspects outraged

Biggest lickspittle on boardz

Google employees and Silicon Valley pundits are reacting with outrage to a 10-page document written by a Google engineer that criticizes the company's "left leaning" culture, taking aim at company policies meant to foster a more diverse workplace.

The document, which was first reported by Motherboard and published in full by Gizmodo, was written by a Google engineer and went "viral" inside the company on Friday. The engineer's identity has not been revealed, but he reports to Google VP Ari Balogh, who is listed on Crunchbase as the company's executive VP of storage infrastructure products.

It argues that differences in pay between men and women in the technology sector are not entirely related to bias against women, but are partly attributable to biological differences between the genders. It also called on Google to "stop alienating conservatives" and calls into question practices like "unconscious bias" training for committees that promote employees.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/05/google-engineer-posts-anti-diversity-treatise.html


A full copy of the 10 page memo is available here:
https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-diversity-screed-1797564320/amp

It makes you wonder if the (soon to be ex) employee has a point. I would argue that diversity programs and 'unconscious bias' courses are doing more harm than good at this point. This identity politics nonsense is something that really has no place in a business or work environment. The best person should get the job, end of. Gender quotas are, by their very nature, a form of discrimination.

No doubt the man will now be exposed, fired, possibly prosecuted, and subjected to an online witch hunt and twitter lynch mob.

brevity

I hope the person isn't fired and Google try to organise some sort of open mike thing for people to have a proper discussion.

It seems like a fairly well put together piece that should foster dialogue rather than outrage.

Also, the author is definitely a fan of Jordan Peterson.

strandroad

So his points are "De-emphasize empathy" and then "Stop alienating conservatives". Etc etc. Empathy is bad, unless it's for conservatives. Diversity is overrated, unless it's to include more conservative thought. Got it.
I hope this guy is not in engineering, because his logic fails...

Randle P. McMurphy

"I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes. When addressing the gap in representation in the population, we need to look at population level differences in distributions. If we can’t have an honest discussion about this, then we can never truly solve the problem."

We can't and we won't.

Biggest lickspittle on boardz

strandroad wrote: »

So his points are "De-emphasize empathy" and then "Stop alienating conservatives". Etc etc. Empathy is bad, unless it's for conservatives. Diversity is overrated, unless it's to include more conservative thought. Got it.
I hope this guy is not in engineering, because his logic fails...

Diversity is meant to involve everyone, including those that you don't like.
Freezing out conservatives because you dislike them is pathetic, dangerous, and discrimination.

wes

Employees should do there job and not engage this kind of political nonsense. If an employee has issues with how things are run, talk to management and not use company resources for political purposes.

Honestly if he did use company resources and time Google can probably fire him on that alone.

When at work, it's best to leave your politics at the door, be it left or right.

wes

Biggest lickspittle on boardz wrote: »

Diversity is meant to involve everyone, including those that you don't like.
Freezing out conservatives because you dislike them is pathetic, dangerous, and discrimination.

They should do politics in there own time imo. Same goes for anyone else. It a work place not a political convention.

strandroad

Biggest lickspittle on boardz wrote: »

Diversity is meant to involve everyone, including those that you don't like.
Freezing out conservatives because you dislike them is pathetic, dangerous, and discrimination.

Eh it's him questioning diversity and empathy, not me.

Biggest lickspittle on boardz

wes wrote: »

Employees should do there job and not engage this kind of political nonsense. If an employee has issues with how things are run, talk to management and not use company resources for political purposes.

Honestly if he did use company resources and time Google can probably fire him on that alone.

When at work, it's best to leave your politics at the door, be it left or right.

The problem here seems to be that it is impossible to leave politics at the door, for the simple reason that mandatory ideology courses are being forced down the employees throat in the form of diversity quotas, unconscious bias training, gender quotas, political correctness, and other absurd ideological doctrines.
It is a dangerous, dangerous move when companies start pushing their liberal politics onto their employees.
And you can bet that simply being neutral will have you marked an 'not being a team player'.

Biggest lickspittle on boardz

wes wrote: »

They should do politics in there own time imo. Same goes for anyone else. It a work place not a political convention.

I agree, the workplace is not the place for politics.

Widdershins

He's complaining about the politics in his workplace so how can he not bring politics into it.

Wombatman

Widdershins wrote: »

He's complaining about the politics in his workplace so how can he not bring politics into it.

Although they often say "your views as an employee are important to us" companies are not democracies. If the powers that be at Google aspire to a left or right or whatever culture, that's their business. We can endorse or reject this with our behavior and euros.

Very naive of an intelligent, analytical, leader to think that this document would lead to some kind of Gerry McGuire moment within the company. Might have been better served posting on Boards.ie and not a company forum.

Manic Moran

Without entirely endorsing the document (There are certainly some parts of it I personally would not stand behind), as a general concept, he has some points. I work in another Bay Area tech company, and there is no doubt that the overall culture (as opposed to individuals within it, though they are also) is left-leaning. Unusually, our customer demographic is actually conservative, and it has been cringeworthy watching some of the 'experts' attempting to understand the demographic they are focusing on. The concept of needing more intellectual diversity is not exactly a new one, example http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gad-saad/intellectual-diversity-on_b_6525538.html

As a rule, we generally keep politics out of the office. It's not an official policy, nobody has, to my knowledge, ever been chastised for the occasional Bernie sticker, or I saw a "I stand with standing rock" T-shirt on Friday. (Though the General Manager did have a sort of unofficial policy against doing anything in North Carolina). However, I am a little more centrist than most Bay Area folk. I'm not a trump-flag-waving MAGA follower, just on occasion I take positions which are not well-thought-of by the average San Franciscan. On the rare occasions that a topic of discussion comes up, I counsel myself to either just shut the hell up, or to choose my words with extreme care. I get the impression that my more left-leaning colleagues feel under less compunction to watch what they say, because they know they will receive general approval for their position. It's difficult to explain why I feel like any non-conformist opinions will be unwelcome, but after working here over 5 years, I'm fairly sure they are.

odyssey06

strandroad wrote: »

So his points are "De-emphasize empathy" and then "Stop alienating conservatives". Etc etc. Empathy is bad, unless it's for conservatives. Diversity is overrated, unless it's to include more conservative thought. Got it.
I hope this guy is not in engineering, because his logic fails...

How is diversity that doesn't include diversity of thought real diversity?
Seems entirely logical to me that diversity must encompass different opinions.
I'm an engineer, but it shouldn't need an engineer to figure that one out.

"If everybody's thinking alike, somebody isn't thinking."

Biggest lickspittle on boardz

Wombatman wrote: »

Although they often say "your views as an employee are important to us" companies are not democracies. If the powers that be at Google aspire to a left or right or whatever culture, that's their business. We can endorse or reject this with our behavior and euros.

Nope. A company cannot discriminate on the grounds of their employees political views. Punishing employees because of their (non-hateful) political views is a major no-no.
Also, a company is responsible to its shareholders and clients. Therefore, transparency is in their best interests.

Very naive of an intelligent, analytical, leader to think that this document would lead to some kind of Gerry McGuire moment within the company. Might have been better served posting on Boards.ie and not a company forum.

And yet here we are talking about it, and the memo has gone viral around the world. So he has achieved precisely what he set out the do, and healthy debate that was previously stifled is now taking place.
Objective achieved. Thank God for the internet, the enemy of authoritarians everywhere.

super_furry

Reads like the kind of manifesto that the alt-right lads around here would love.

Biggest lickspittle on boardz

super_furry wrote: »

Reads like the kind of manifesto that the alt-right lads around here would love.

And we're off!

Why bother providing intelligent counter-arguments when you can throw about the alt-right bogeyman label...

SterlingArcher

brevity wrote: »

I hope the person isn't fired and Google try to organise some sort of open mike thing for people to have a proper discussion.

It seems like a fairly well put together piece that should foster dialogue rather than outrage.

Also, the author is definitely a fan of Jordan Peterson.

I doubt that. Outrage seems to trump reasonable debate nowadays. Feelings trump facts.

Google has shown its hand. And it's is playing sjw now.

If I had to guess this engineer had insight into questionable suspensions of accounts across googles platforms. Basically cutting off people with differing views to as some would put it.. far left.

This kind of cult like closed minded approach to hushing up people who think differently. is no better than people blindly repeating after the good reverend "god hates queers" in a church of some back water town.

Diversity my ass.

wes

Biggest lickspittle on boardz wrote: »

The problem here seems to be that it is impossible to leave politics at the door, for the simple reason that mandatory ideology courses are being forced down the employees throat in the form of diversity quotas, unconscious bias training, gender quotas, political correctness, and other absurd ideological doctrines.
It is a dangerous, dangerous move when companies start pushing their liberal politics onto their employees.
And you can bet that simply being neutral will have you marked an 'not being a team player'.

Then quit and get another job. How companies run there company is up to management. You have plenty of conservative companies in the US btw, who push for conservative laws etc. Singling out liberals is bull****.

Again, leave your personal politics at the door. If the company is so beyond the pale, then works elsewhere. The world doesn't need this culture war bull**** in the workplace. It will cause issues like the guy at Google has and has given them bad publicity.

Biggest lickspittle on boardz

Manic Moran wrote: »

Without entirely endorsing the document (There are certainly some parts of it I personally would not stand behind), as a general concept, he has some points. I work in another Bay Area tech company, and there is no doubt that the overall culture (as opposed to individuals within it, though they are also) is left-leaning. Unusually, our customer demographic is actually conservative, and it has been cringeworthy watching some of the 'experts' attempting to understand the demographic they are focusing on. The concept of needing more intellectual diversity is not exactly a new one, example http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gad-saad/intellectual-diversity-on_b_6525538.html

As a rule, we generally keep politics out of the office. It's not an official policy, nobody has, to my knowledge, ever been chastised for the occasional Bernie sticker, or I saw a "I stand with standing rock" T-shirt on Friday. (Though the General Manager did have a sort of unofficial policy against doing anything in North Carolina). However, I am a little more centrist than most Bay Area folk. I'm not a trump-flag-waving MAGA follower, just on occasion I take positions which are not well-thought-of by the average San Franciscan. On the rare occasions that a topic of discussion comes up, I counsel myself to either just shut the hell up, or to choose my words with extreme care. I get the impression that my more left-leaning colleagues feel under less compunction to watch what they say, because they know they will receive general approval for their position. It's difficult to explain why I feel like any non-conformist opinions will be unwelcome, but after working here over 5 years, I'm fairly sure they are.

I can totally understand why you would do this, I've had to bite my lip a few times on matters where I held a reasonable but unpopular viewpoint. The mob cannot be shouted down, and they get very, very aggressive when they are called out. They operate on feelings, rather than logic.

But at the same time, isn't this how a bully operates? To create an atmosphere of fear and tension so that their authority won't be challenged. As Sun Tzu said, they highest level of fighting is not to fight at all. Terrorise your opponent psychologically so that they are completely dominated.

odyssey06

wes wrote: »

The world doesn't need this culture war bull**** in the workplace.

It's Google you need to tell that to though. The engineer guy didn't start the fire, he just shouted fire.

Smurfette principle

Biggest lickspittle on boardz wrote: »

I agree, the workplace is not the place for politics.

I agree, if people stopped bringing their personal life into their workplace then employers wouldn't be put in a position where being bias against someone they are interviewing for a new job for their political affiliation or sexual orientation or whatever might actually save them hassle in the long run. Simple fact is you are there to do a job so do your job and keep all your personal **** for at home where all your imaginary friend in your head are willing to construct you a soapbox to stand on.

Stuff like this annoys me especially the whole sense of entitlement people seem to think they have where they never think "Ok this is my job so I should leave my personal stuff at the front door and just get on with it" and instead think "HEY LOOK AT ME! I WANT TO BE HEARD AND IF I'M NOT HEARD THEN I'LL SUE FOR DISCRIMINATION" and I know from experience because I'm Transsexual and a contract software tester and I am pretty damn good at it but in some cases that doesn't matter because some people just won't hire me based on the actions of other Transsexuals in the past doing this exact same **** of going into a job and within days forcing their political agenda on others and then tarring us all with the same bloody brush and making finding a job just that little bit harder but in their heads they are doing us a favor because they never see the reality beyond the 2 foot circle where the world revolves around their own head.

super_furry

Biggest lickspittle on boardz wrote: »

And we're off!

Why bother providing intelligent counter-arguments when you can throw about the alt-right bogeyman label...

Oh I couldn't be remotely arsed getting involved in any kind of argument over nonsense like this - from any angle. People are so entrenched with this kind of stuff in their mindsets that no-one is ever going to win an argument and neither side are ever going to concede a point. Plus alt-right lads are weirdos.

odyssey06

super_furry wrote: »

Oh I couldn't be remotely arsed getting involved in any kind of argument over nonsense like this - from any angle. People are so entrenched with this kind of stuff in their mindsets that no-one is ever going to win an argument and neither side are ever going to concede a point. Plus alt-right lads are weirdos.

Despair not, if you cannot respond to someone's argument with intelligent responses, you can always call them names.

If you can't be remotely arsed getting involved in any kind of argument over nonsense, what are you remotely doing here???

wes

odyssey06 wrote: »

Tell that to Google. The engineer guy didn't start the fire, he just shouted fire.

Management can run there company how they see fit. An employee trying to start some culture war bull**** doesn't get to decide that.

Some people need to grow the hell up and understand that when you work for some one else, you are there to implement what they hire you for. Your personal politics is irrelevant.

super_furry

odyssey06 wrote: »

Despair not, if you cannot respond to someone's argument with intelligent responses, you can always call them names.

If you can't be remotely arsed getting involved in any kind of argument over nonsense, what are you remotely doing here???

Chilling out, killing time.

dav3

Google will do whatever makes Google the most amount of money. If those decisions upset some little alt-right fella sitting at his desk, they don't give a f*ck. If those decisions upset someone on the opposite end of the political spectrum, they don't give a f*ck. Their shareholders don't give a f*ck, their executives on big bonuses don't give a f*ck.
It's Google, an American company, land of the free, land of capitalism, land of we don't give a f*ck as long as the money keeps rolling in.

odyssey06

wes wrote: »

Management can run there company how they see fit. An employee trying to start some culture war bull**** doesn't get to decide that.
Some people need to grow the hell up and understand that when you work for some one else, you are there to implement what they hire you for. Your personal politics is irrelevant.

No they can't. That's why we have workplace legislation to protect employees' rights.
If they only want liberals, they should advertise as such, except they couldn't cos that would breach workplace legislation.

Last time I checked Google wasn't a political party.
You are there to implement the goods and services that they hire you for.
Their politics should be irrelevent.
If their CEO wants to promote a particular political view, that's what outside office hours are for, his personal time and personal resouces.

Do you think under "running their company how they see fit" should mean a company should be able to hire only Republicans, for example? Or white people? Or men only???

wes

odyssey06 wrote: »

No they can't. That's why we have workplace legislation to protect employees' rights.

Where did I say they can violate the law? They can do as they please otherwise, as long as there share holders are ok with it. So unless your management or a shareholder you don't have a say. It's not a democracy.

odyssey06 wrote: »

If they only want liberals, they should advertise as such, except they couldn't cos that would breach workplace legislation.

They want people to do the job they are hired for and not piss off there fellow employees with a personal political screed. Again, people need to grow up and realize when you work for some else you do the job your hired for.

If your discriminated against then by all means take them to court. I am against anyone violating employee rights, but this case isn't an example of that at all. Again, share holders and management get to decide how the company is run and not some random engineer. I doubt they would get very far with any judge.

odyssey06 wrote: »

Last time I checked Google wasn't a political party.
You are there to implement the goods and services that they hire you for.
Their politics should be irrelevent.
If their CEO wants to promote a particular political view, that's what outside office hours are for, his personal time and personal resouces.

Management can run the company as they see fit and as long as the share holders are on board and what they do makes than money, they won't care. If diversity programs make Google money, the they will do them. There are plenty of conservative companies in the US that push there politics as well. It's not a unique thing at all.

BTW, Google is being investigated for under paying female employees. So a diversity program is probably just a way to try and make themselves look good to the investigators. Some random engineer has now gone and probably messed that up due to there inability to act like an adult and do there job.

odyssey06 wrote: »

Do you think under "running their company how they see fit" should mean a company should be able to hire Republicans, for example?
Or white people? Or men only???

Now your talking bull**** as Google wasn't talking about not hiring anyone nor has anyone else on here. Seriously this is exactly the reason why stuff like this has bo business in the workplace as someone will fly off the handle and make up some garbage to argue against as opposed to dealing with reality.

Again never said anyone can violate the law.

Wombatman

odyssey06 wrote: »

No they can't. That's why we have workplace legislation to protect employees' rights.
If they only want liberals, they should advertise as such, except they couldn't cos that would breach workplace legislation.

Last time I checked Google wasn't a political party.
You are there to implement the goods and services that they hire you for.
Their politics should be irrelevent.
If their CEO wants to promote a particular political view, that's what outside office hours are for, his personal time and personal resouces.

Do you think under "running their company how they see fit" should mean a company should be able to hire only Republicans, for example? Or white people? Or men only???

This guys beef is ostensibly Google's affirmative action policy. That is Googles choice and it does not contravene employment law.

Biggest lickspittle on boardz

wes wrote: »

Then quit and get another job. How companies run there company is up to management. You have plenty of conservative companies in the US btw, who push for conservative laws etc. Singling out liberals is bull****.

Again, leave your personal politics at the door. If the company is so beyond the pale, then works elsewhere. The world doesn't need this culture war bull**** in the workplace. It will cause issues like the guy at Google has and has given them bad publicity.

Funnily enough, one of the 'outraged' Google employees is already throwing a tantrum and threatening to quit because someone broke the echo chamber. I trust you'll offer them the same advice?

https://twitter.com/rakyll/status/893287112732291072