
How I wish Sundar Pichai had responded to James Damore's memo about diversity - curtis
http://curtisb.posthaven.com/how-i-wish-google-ceo-sundar-pichai-had-responded-to-james-damores-memo-about-diversity
======
danso
> _I have not yet made a decision about how to respond to James Damore 's memo
> about diversity at Google. I am going to wait for the outrage to subside,
> for the various members of the Twitter mob to lay down their metaphorical
> pitchforks and return to their homes...And this little bit of extra time
> will allow for hurt feelings and outrage to subside, and that will in turn
> allow us all to approach the issue with cooler heads and sounder judgment._

That last part in particular seems patronizing. It implies that people who
wanted Damore to be punished did/could not reach that conclusion if they had
exercised rational thinking and reasonable judgment. So the OP seems to be
begging the question here, because the memo he believes Google's CEO should
have written is the kind of memo the CEO would write if he thought the anti-
Damore crowd to be irrational and over-emotional.

~~~
flukus
> It implies that people who wanted Damore to be punished did/could not reach
> that conclusion if they had exercised rational thinking and reasonable
> judgment.

If one thing has become painfully obvious it's that most people calling for
his head did not read the memo at all (the evidence is in this thread). Others
only read it after the media had framed it how they want. Others
misinterpreted it, possibly intentionally. Others still think he deserved to
be fired because he CC'd it to the whole company.

That is not acting in a calm and rational manner.

~~~
danso
On what empirical basis is it "painfully obvious", without using circular
reasoning or omniscient mind-reading, that the people who support Damore _did_
read and properly interpret his memo, and did so without being irrationally
affected by preconditioned biases about the state or importance of workplace
diversity?

More importantly, why should we assume the Google folks at which "the buck
stops" made their punitive decision out of the same hysteria that purportedly
infects the anti-Damore crowd? Correlation does not equal causation.

~~~
flukus
> On what empirical basis is it "painfully obvious", without using circular
> reasoning or omniscient mind-reading, that the people who support Damore did
> read and properly interpret his memo, and did so without being irrationally
> affected by preconditioned biases about the state or importance of workplace
> diversity?

I never said they did, but they aren't calling for anyone's head either.

> More importantly, why should we assume the Google folks at which "the buck
> stops" made their punitive decision out of the same hysteria that
> purportedly infects the anti-Damore crowd?

Because their statements indicate that, here is what Sundar Pichai wrote:

> “To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less
> biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK.”

The memo does not contain any such suggestion, so the CEO either didn't read
it or read his own (or someone elses) interpretations into it.

~~~
yorwba
> I never said they did, but they aren't calling for anyone's head either.

[https://basicgestalt.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/press-f-for-
ja...](https://basicgestalt.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/press-f-for-james-damore-
the-only-set-of-balls-left-at-google/) does seem to try very hard to get a
meme going that displays Danielle Brown as pure evil.

> The memo does not contain any such suggestion, so the CEO either didn't read
> it or read his own (or someone elses) interpretations into it.

Actually, it does.

 _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._

which suggests that women are less able to handle stressful jobs. Of course
Damore's suggestion is to make jobs at Google less stressful, but if someone
wants to feel outraged at that, they absolutely can.

~~~
flukus
> Women on average are more prone to anxiety

This is a statement about women in general, a substantiated, cited and
refutable one. It is not a statement about his colleagues who (probably) have
a different distribution of traits than the general population. 40% of
Americans are obese, that doesn't mean 40% of your colleagues are, are be
surprised if the obesity rate of google is the same as the general population.

> Make tech and leadership less stressful. Google already partly does this
> with its many stress reduction courses and benefits.

This was a suggestion on how to make the population of google more
representative of the population in general.

~~~
AstralStorm
The main question is, why? Google attempts to be a company bringing innovative
solutions and making way more money than an average or median. Why should they
go for equalization? (Diversity is not the same as matching the average or
median.)

~~~
flukus
1\. Diversity has some inherent strengths, it's not a bad thing unless it's
forced. There are probably several other types of diversity that may help
google, people from blue collar backgrounds for instance.

2\. Google could theoretically double their employment pool and enjoy the side
effects of that, like lower wages. That's good for Google if it doesn't
backfire.

Edit - I love it when they go through your history and even down vote the
posts they agree with.

~~~
AstralStorm
Diversity is having variety, not having any specific degree of variety. As it
seems to be implemented with a quota on hiring and team restructuring, there
has to be a good reason behind any given number. As in actual research in the
environment. Basing said quota on general population rates is not sound.

It also says something about the company that he couldn't get this done or
believed it cannot be solved via internal processes.

------
mc32
He's not firing his buddy at a 15-person company.

Regardless of whether he made the right or wrong call, Pichai, could not for
one moment "be candid".

Whatever he said, or did, would become public and whatever he did as head of a
very large and well known consumer-facing company, would reverberate beyond
the company [and would be parsed for meaning and perh lawsuits]

The only wiggle room he had was to play it down a bit, maybe waffle and delay
till his team could formulate a more nuanced response.

Agree or disagree these sorts of things can turn into PR fiascos --perhaps
some of it their own doing because of how they market themselves --Walmart,
another consumer facing company, markets itself differently and would have
more wiggle room --probably lots more.

But no, a Google can't publish a "we screwed up" mea culpa style response that
a brash start-up can.

~~~
danso
Likewise, Google faces proportionally more negative publicity and backlash
when firing a disgruntled/outspoken employee, so we can't automatically assume
that the CEO's response was reflexive or capricious, rather than the "right"
\-- or somewhere on the continuum of least harmful decision.

But deciding to _wait_ is not _nothing_ nor a _neutral_ decision. People in
Silicon Valley of all places should know that.

~~~
mc32
I don't know. Bureaucracies are big and cumbersome and make it difficult for
things to pivot on a dime.

It takes time for companies like Google to settle on decisions --important
ones. People who work there would know (what's their joke 'deprecated, not
ready'?)

That they/he made such a swift decision is extraordinary --he could have
waited some time --it's not like they would suddenly have people huffing and
frothing with pitchforks at the ready inciting a rash decision.

I'm sure they have some prepared statements for these things. They could have
issued an interim prepared statement to stall a bit. Either way they lose
money. So it's about finding a least uncomfortable balance.

I mean, it's one guy --he said some controversial and not so controversial
things. It's not like someone jumped from the top of one of the buildings or
something. Or the stock plunged 40% in a matter of a week.

------
kelukelugames
I worked at Redfin previously and the CEO Glen was amazing at PR. He said "You
don't get to position yourself in the market. The market positions you." Then
he made a joke about how he wished he could make himself tall and good looking
just by claiming so. It's a self deprecating joke because he's not tall.

If someone writes they value diversity then it does not prove they do. It's a
persuasion tactic. The most obvious example is "I'm not racist, but..." Pay
attention to what comes after the "but".

~~~
brailsafe
That's the point. The sensationalist articles and quick reactions don't seem
to be paying much attention to what comes after the "but". Actually I'd say
there isn't a "but", rather a "here's a sensible approach to addressing and
thinking about this problem". If someone said "I'm not racist. I disagree with
people being discriminated against based on the color of their skin" would you
call them racist?

------
pcurve
Too wordy.

It would've been sufficient to stop at "I have not yet made a decision about
how to respond to James Damore's memo about diversity at Google. I am going to
wait for the outrage to subside".

------
rectang
During the 1960s in the US, it became culturally taboo to express explicit
racism. Perhaps we are undergoing a similar transition now.

------
axaxs
Absolutely agreed. Regardless of the outcome, I do wish this would have been a
turning point, a discussion, a 300 comment long back and forth from both sides
like we see on lkml at times.

Instead, it was a swift firing and attempt to sweep it under the rug. The fact
that people actually took off work because they were 'offended' probably
paints an even worse picture for reason in the Valley.

~~~
SamReidHughes
Not like it's exclusive to the valley. Like, you'll find it in NYC. I know a
girl who could get arrested and smile about it, but will have a meltdown if
you say that men and women aren't identically distributed populations of blank
slates.

For this reason I don't think all the people who stayed home were fake-
offended or scare-quote offended. Some just haven't hit certain developmental
milestones, of the sort where you can think about population distributions,
probabilities, or think about the universe without an evil genius rewriting
everything to fit your fractally wrong worldview.

~~~
siidooloo
So people who disagree with you "haven't hit certain developmental
milestones"?

~~~
axaxs
Because anyone who shuts down and screams in response to a well thought out
document, no matter how ridiculous, is not a well formed adult.

~~~
SamReidHughes
You know, I really don't think that's fair. You've got [The Document] -> [What
people read or misread from the document, what they infer in other's motives,
others' mental framework, etc] -> [Reaction].

I know if I thought everybody thought I was stupid because of my race, or
gender, or some other crap like that, because "Science," and they were forming
expectations by it and were wrong but there was nothing I could do about it...
it would really suck, and I might want to stay home. (It would be stupid to
stay home, because there's a perfectly good golf course across the street from
HQ, but I digress...) The magnitude of their reaction is very understandable.

------
sinorising
What happened to James Damore is no lynching- of any type. He made statements
that impact his relationship with his coworkers. If he doesn't like Google's
policies, QUIT. Get a job at a place Damore finds fit.

What the author is really saying is: I wish Sundar Pichai recognize \- That
being fired is humiliating (Empathy) \- That Damore is a "victim" (Diversity)
\- That the employer can fire anyone at anytime BUT you should discuss it with
each-other, tolerate, cooperate (Inclusion)

These are things even Damore himself wouldn't approve.

"...modern-day Internet lynching..." Lynching, a practice primarily used by
white men to terrorize black citizens

------
sinorising
White guy got fired for insulting female coworkers. Not the first time.

~~~
AstralStorm
It is not even a direct insult (general statement that recruitment bar was
lowered) and is a relatively verifiable statement within Google in many ways.

It is telling if a company does not want this looked into. It is a PR disaster
if true. Shareholders could see that as mismanagement by hiring inferior
employees. If it is false, then it will probably bring no extra glory.

------
tnone
I see the tolerant flagging brigade is here to push for a statement for
reason, compassion and holding corporations to account, which we all know are
their most deeply held values...

------
innocentoldguy
I agree with the content of this article. I have read James Demore's memo, and
found it to be an accurate depiction of the differences between the drives of
men and women. To pretend these things don't exist, and to burn people like
Damore at the stake for pointing out the obvious, is to embrace ignorance. In
my opinion, Sundar Pichai handled this poorly.

~~~
nocoder
Are there any peer reviewed scientific articles that prove those assertions. I
found James article vague on definition of terms and not quoting enough
research. Not to mention the fact that extrapolating from broad population
averages to a specific set of people who are not representative of the
population will make the evidence for the population inapplicable to the
sample in question. Having said that, I don't think firing and lynching was
the right response, it just encouraged extremists on all sides.

~~~
imron
> Not to mention the fact that extrapolating from broad population averages to
> a specific set of people who are not representative of the population will
> make the evidence for the population inapplicable to the sample in question

James had a chart showing and stating exactly that in the original memo! [0]

Gizmodo thoughtfully decided to exclude this chart when they made the memo
public.

0: [https://diversitymemo-static.s3-us-
west-2.amazonaws.com/popu...](https://diversitymemo-static.s3-us-
west-2.amazonaws.com/population-overlap_2x.png)

------
idibidiart
Sexism is not free speech. It's immoral and constitutes hate speech toward
more than half the population of this planet.

Libertarians who say any speech should be allowed do not relate to the fact
that what you say in words can and will be expressed by yourself and others in
their actions. Condescension towards --and unjust treatment of-- women, and
the feminine in general, is a consequence of the same sexist thoughts
expressed by Damore.

You can't be both for it and against it. Our speech and actions both originate
from our thoughts.

~~~
imron
I said it again in another comment, and I'll say it again here, the only
speech worth defending is speech that you don't agree with and/or find
offensive.

No-one tries to stop you from saying nice things that they already agree with.

~~~
idibidiart
That does not qualify as a logical argument. Just a random impulse. A random
impulse is not a logical argument. It's like saying the only act worth
defending is the one you find offending.

~~~
imron
It's not a random impulse at all.

At the individual level you have very little choice over who will try to
control your speech.

Maybe today it's someone who agrees with you, but maybe tomorrow it will be
someone who disagrees with you, and because you have limited control over that
it's better to make sure that you don't allow people to limit speech - even
speech you disagree with.

And this is why you have the ACLU defending Milo:
[https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/how-could-you-
represe...](https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/how-could-you-represent-
someone-milo-yiannopoulos)

~~~
idibidiart
@Google did not take away Damore's right to free speech. They fired him for
promoting his sexist thoughts b/c they're deeply offensive.

~~~
imron
I never claimed they did. If anything, they've given him a voice that he
didn't have before (so congratulations to whichever person at Google disagreed
with James and decided to leak the memo to Gizmodo. The law of unintended
consequences strikes again).

My comment was only in reference to your claim that 'sexism is not free
speech'.

Whatever you think of James and his memo, and whether it is sexist or not,
there is nothing in there that wouldn't be protected as free speech if it came
down to that.

~~~
idibidiart
Free speech is protected in that a person can share their thoughts. But my
point is that the consequences of free speech in the case of sexism should not
be free of punishment, i.e. no such thing as "free speech" when it comes to
sexism, racism, etc except in the limited sense that the speech is allowed to
happen. My point is that there should be consequences to sexist speech, which
is why I said it's not free speech. I think the confusion is the definition of
"free speech" I can say something racist or sexist or hateful but it does not
mean that I will not be punished for it.

~~~
AstralStorm
This not plain old sexist speech. This is a cogent argument that is supposed
to be disproven and not shouted down as sexist.

(Like some racist arguments were disproved reasonably well in the past.)

