
Ex-Google Employee's Memo Says Executives Shut Down Pro-Diversity Discussions - MBCook
https://gizmodo.com/ex-google-employees-memo-says-executives-shut-down-pro-1821996513
======
mc32
Google is in a tough spot with this.

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.

~~~
arduanika
> 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.

~~~
mc32
No one ever, ever talks about int'l workforce representation at Toyota or
Lexus or Huawei, or Samsung, or Kubota, or you know Petroleum from the ME.
Never. This is only brought up as a distraction from the fact that they are
overrepresented with respect to their numbers in America and as participants
in the American workforce.

Aside from that, it's no country's responsibility to provide gainful
employment to non-nationals.

~~~
thedevilslawyer
No one ever has, doesn't mean no one ever should.

~~~
mc32
Interesting... So, you know, you mean Google should hire representatively for
Texas, Florida, Indiana, etc., cuz you know, their workforce should represent
essentially "their customer base". And while they are at it, why not make them
hire representatively amongst conservatives and liberals?

------
siliconc0w
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.

~~~
calculusftw
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. ;)

------
40acres
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.

~~~
emcarey
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.

~~~
mankash666
Correlation isn't causation. I'm not saying that diversity is bad, but if the
most diverse of the fortune 500 did outperform others, diversity as a direct
cause of this is what I'd like to see evidence of. Many other factors might
have contributed to their better performance, one could attribute one of those
to be the cause?

~~~
T2_t2
Even further to that, what do these companies DO. I doubt that BHP Billiton -
or many petro-chemical companies - have a lot of diversity. I bet Wallmart
does - especially minority hires.

And what even is diversity? Google employs a lot of Indians - both in India
and the USA - and that helps diversity along all lines - racial, gender as
India doesn't have the same gender tech bias as the west. Is that AMERICAN
diversity? Using BS numbers, if US born employees are 90-10 men to women, but
overall it is 70-30, then the best means of increasing diversity could be more
foreign hires. Does that benefit who people are hoping it does?

I'm not for or against any position here, it is just that the history of
measures like this is to use euphemistic "statistics", aka "lying with
numbers". If companies can find a way to manipulate the numbers - consultants
instead of employees, inhousing female dominated positions etc - then this
will be easily doable. In fact, I think I might start a consultancy in just
that :)

------
gedy
Discussing politics and religion at work is always, always distracting and
divisive. Do it outside work hours please.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
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?

~~~
puzzle
Most of that is on mailing lists that nobody forces you to subscribe to.

~~~
Meekro
Damore's lawsuit included screenshots of a high-level manager boasting about
blacklisting employees who say the wrong thing about social justice. That
makes for a toxic environment, regardless of what mailing lists you happen to
be on.

~~~
prepend
I haven’t seen this reported, but seems really interesting to me. I just spend
five minutes googling trying to find the actual memo, but came up empty.

Sorry with such a dumb request, but if you have the link ready I would
appreciate it.

Edit:never mind, I tried some more using “screenshot” instead of “filing.” I
found them.

~~~
Meekro
Sorry, I should have been better about citing my sources. The manager who was
blacklisting people for their opinion of social justice was Paul Cowan, see
page 33 of Damore's lawsuit [1]. That section has many more examples of such
behavior, which should be enough to persuade you that it's a systemic problem.

This article[2] is also worth reading, it highlights a bunch of other shocking
tidbits from the lawsuit.

[1] [https://www.scribd.com/document/368688363/James-Damore-vs-
Go...](https://www.scribd.com/document/368688363/James-Damore-vs-Google-Class-
Action-Lawsuit)

[2] [http://thefederalist.com/2018/01/10/19-insane-tidbits-
james-...](http://thefederalist.com/2018/01/10/19-insane-tidbits-james-
damores-lawsuit-googles-office-environment/)

------
jancsika
> 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?

edit: clarification

~~~
totalZero
> 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.

~~~
supreme_sublime
To play a little devil's advocate, while he didn't specifically say this, I
think he was referring to police shootings.

Interestingly enough Walter Scott was killed less than a month after he posted
this. Someone I'd argue could be a bit of a martyr. While he had committed a
crime, it still wasn't justifiable in any sense. Of course, the offending
officer was also convicted to 20 years in prison.

------
skybrian
Link to the doc: [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4347486-What-
Happene...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4347486-What-Happened-to-
Cory-at-Google.html)

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
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?

~~~
skybrian
Because people like discussing things, plus dogfooding.

There was a time when a company could create an internal mailing list called
"politics" without worrying too much.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
That was a long time ago.

------
prepend
“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.

------
petraeus
Pathetic attempt of another white hetro male trying to demonize diversity in a
shallow and transparent attempt at retaining white privilege through the
world.

------
SiVal
"...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?

~~~
dang
> ALL CAPS added by me

Please don't. It breaks the site guidelines:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](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.

~~~
peoplewindow
I know there's this convenient meta-rule that says we can't discuss the rules,
but this site really needs to scrap the concept of an "ideological rant". It
pre-supposes the existence of non-ideological moderators and posters, a false
assumption, which means it is only ever applied in one direction - there are
lots of far more ranty and ideological things posted here which are left well
alone, because they agree with the increasingly rather odd Silicon Valley (but
not rest of America) social norms.

The OP posted interesting insights from his time in a small totalitarian
state. He also drew comparisons to the writing style of Gizmodo. This sort of
post has value to me, even if it might not be right, because it makes me think
about new topics and existing topics in new ways. It merits further discussion
and analysis, not downvoting, flagging, and being ticked off by moderators for
being "ideological".

But this is one instance of a wider issue, that moderation and flagging in
discussions of Google's diversity-related woes is often wildly inconsistent
for no apparent reason. Slashdot associates adjectives with votes and
moderation decisions, something maybe HN could use. I now routinely expand
hidden posts and have showdead switched on because the ratio of useful and
well written flagged posts to genuine spam or nonsense is so unbalanced.
There's hardly any genuine spam or trolling here.

Other examples - there's a post further up by calculusftw that's dead for no
apparent reason, as the post itself seems calm, well written and to present a
reasonable point of view that is repeated by other posts elsewhere. Another
post by nodesocket compares the management styles of Google vs other bay area
tech firms and claims differing management style is related to the internal
culture - it is both flagged and dead, again for no apparent reason.

~~~
dang
The concept is valuable because it identifies a predator species that kills
the intellectual curiosity HN exists for. This is independent of the content
of the rant. If an army tramples your garden, it doesn't matter whether they
led with their left feet or right, or what color the uniforms were.

You're thinking about this in terms of specific comments and political views,
while for us it is a systemic problem of how to run a large, anonymous
internet forum that doesn't self-destruct. These are two different
perspectives. That gap is why people make the mistake of feeling certain that
we're secretly biased in favor of $X, where $X has nothing to do with us but
is rather the inversion of their own ideological side. All sides think this,
leading to many contradictory-yet-somehow-all-the-same charges of
manipulation. I presume it is the same cognitive bias that makes sports fans
'know' that the refs are secretly against their team.

Often people throw in seemingly factual statements like you did here: "because
they agree with the increasingly rather odd Silicon Valley...". A statement
like that is simply invented. You don't know it; you can't know it; nor can
you point to any statement showing it. It just feels like it's true. Meanwhile
opposite people say opposite things, feeling just the same way that you do.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16098840](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16098840)
is typical.

There's an incongruence between saying that HN is filled with quality
discussion ("hardly any genuine spam or trolling") and that the mods are
biased censors (Soviet-style! adds your sibling commenter) stamping out good
discussion. That would hardly be quality-enhancing behavior. The assumption
that if only we would stop doing what we do, HN would get better, is magical
thinking. If HN is any good, how did it get good to begin with? How could it
stay any good, if the moderators are so repellent?

Re dead comments, there are lots of reasons why that happens. Sometimes it's
software that we've written based on past patterns of abuse; sometimes it's
user flags, etc. These methods are indispensable but imperfect, which is why
we created the 'vouch' feature for community members to rescue dead comments
that shouldn't be dead. Anyone with karma > 30 can click a comment's timestamp
to go to its page, then click 'vouch'. This way, instead of interpreting it as
censorship and complaining about the refs, you and your fellow community
members can simply reverse it. How Soviet is that!

------
JoelQ
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.

------
fortylove
How do we feel about this?

~~~
dang
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

