Google defends itself as anger over anti-diversity manifesto intensifies

[midian182]

Silicon Valley doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to diverse workforces, but a Google employee’s leaked “manifesto” that slams the company’s efforts to hire more than just white males has been met with shock and anger.

Google admitted that the 10-page document, titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” was written by one of its software engineers. The company has denounced the work, which claims the lack of women in the tech industry is a matter of biology.

"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," it states.

The author goes on to say that men have a higher drive for status, and that women aren’t as interested in coding because they prefer jobs in “social or artistic areas.” Moreover, the document claims that because women have more “neuroticism,” they hold fewer “high stress jobs.”

“We need to stop assuming that gender gaps imply sexism,” states the manifesto, which Gizmodo has printed in full.

The writer also believes employees with conservative leanings have to “stay in the closet” to avoid discrimination. They say the company needs to be more “open” and let everyone voice their political views without fear of reprisals. There are also claims that Google is more concerned about improving diversity than allowing conservatives to express themselves.

“When it comes to diversity and inclusion, Google’s left bias has created a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence,” the author writes. “Conservatives tend to be higher in conscientiousness, which is required for much of the drudgery and maintenance work characteristic of a mature company.”

The leak comes as the Department of Labor continues to investigate Google over claims of “extreme” gender pay discrimination.

Many women in the tech industry have criticized the document on social media, calling for Google to take action.

The author should be fired by now. Otherwise DOL & the EEOC are going to eat Google's lunch. And everybody sues https://t.co/OigUWmcWUW

— Mikki Kendall (@Karnythia) August 5, 2017

That garbage fire of a document is trash and you are wonderful coworkers who I am extremely lucky to work with.

— Andrew Bonventre (@andybons) August 4, 2017

Google’s recently hired head of diversity, Danielle Brown, sent out an internal memo in response to the leak, which was obtained by Recode.

"Diversity and inclusion are a fundamental part of our values and the culture we continue to cultivate. We are unequivocal in our belief that diversity and inclusion are critical to our success as a company, and we'll continue to stand for that and be committed to it for the long haul," she wrote.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/70452-google-defends-itself-anger-over-anti-diversity-manifesto.html

 

[Theinsanegamer]

"The author goes on to say that men have a higher drive for status, and that women aren’t as interested in coding because they prefer jobs in “social or artistic areas.” Moreover, the document claims that because women have more “neuroticism,” they hold fewer “high stress jobs.”"

And....is that wrong? Very few women are interested in tech. Go to any CS major at any college, its mostly white men. It doesnt just seem that many women are not interested in technology, it is quite easy to prove simply based on class sizes. That is not google's problem. It is also true that more women then men prefer having a greater amount of social life in the social life/work life balance. Not necessarily wrong, just a different way of approaching life.

"Many women in the tech industry have criticized the document on social media, calling for Google to take action."

Inconvenient truths are inconvenient. Blame your fellow school-goers for choosing gender studies classes and art courses instead of a useful STEM degree.

"“When it comes to diversity and inclusion, Google’s left bias has created a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence,” the author writes. “Conservatives tend to be higher in conscientiousness, which is required for much of the drudgery and maintenance work characteristic of a mature company.”"

This has been the open secret of silicon valley for decades, that they are left leaning to a fault. And given how many left leaning silicon individuals went off after the election and have bent to every whim of internet SJWs and every ridiculous demand of forced inclusion and "diversity" and every pronoun under the sun, he may have a very good point on "conscientiousness"

the paper also goes into how "hiring based on diversity rather then technical ability is detrimental to the finished product" which is also absolutely true. Any project that hires on anything other then merit ends up falling short of expectations while simultaneously generating more drama.

Sadly, google will most likely cotow to the PC nature of outrage and end up tanking whatever department this guy was part of in an attempt to please everyone.

 

[Bubbajim]

The actual post is being so woefully misreported. The reaction and outcry perfectly demonstrate why the post needed to be written in the first place. It's a really interesting read, and the author clearly and patiently sets out his own agenda and ideas. There's also one line, the importance of which can't be overstated: "[on differences in characteristics between genders] Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions."

This is the fourth time I've seen this story being reported and no one has picked out that line. Everyone is so desperate to see oppression and various "isms" everywhere that they've ideologically blinded themselves to reality. It's so depressing.

 

[stewi0001]

The actual post is being so woefully misreported. The reaction and outcry perfectly demonstrate why the post needed to be written in the first place. It's a really interesting read, and the author clearly and patiently sets out his own agenda and ideas. There's also one line, the importance of which can't be overstated: "[on differences in characteristics between genders] Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions."

This is the fourth time I've seen this story being reported and no one has picked out that line. Everyone is so desperate to see oppression and various "isms" everywhere that they've ideologically blinded themselves to reality. It's so depressing.

People enjoy freaking out over everything on the internet no matter if it is the complete truth or a partial truth. More times it is the partial.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

The actual post is being so woefully misreported. The reaction and outcry perfectly demonstrate why the post needed to be written in the first place. It's a really interesting read, and the author clearly and patiently sets out his own agenda and ideas. There's also one line, the importance of which can't be overstated: "[on differences in characteristics between genders] Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions."

This is the fourth time I've seen this story being reported and no one has picked out that line. Everyone is so desperate to see oppression and various "isms" everywhere that they've ideologically blinded themselves to reality. It's so depressing.

You gotta be careful man, those SJWs will come out of the woodwork and accuse you of sexism, hatred, racism, harassment, bigotry, ece if you dare look further then surface level at something they have declared "wrongthink".

The REEEEEEE-ing from the far left if techspot actually dug into what the paper says about diversity and quota hiring being a bad thing would be deafening.

 

[bolski]

Funny how they say you have to be inclusive yet, they badger and pretty much make any one with a conservative view have to be quiet or else they face persecution. Yeah, that's REAL inclusive there.

 

[Reehahs]

Is the uproar caused by the same people who complain about gender ratio on military front lines?

 

[Uncle Al]

This topic is beyond beating the proverbial dead horse!

 

[Bubbajim]

Also I should add that the headline to this piece betrays the fact that the author didn't read the original post. The post was in no way anti-diversity, it was against discriminatory and divisive methods to try and enforce a particular type of diversity ideology. Read it if you're going to report on it.

 

[m4a4]

Oh, the irony of seeing the feminists react in the toxic way he said the left would. No attempt to fight his point, just trying to shame him with feelings and not facts.

 

[Kotters]

I honestly don't think it's fair to call it an "anti-diversity" memo.

 

[davislane1]

Also I should add that the headline to this piece betrays the fact that the author didn't read the original post. The post was in no way anti-diversity, it was against discriminatory and divisive methods to try and enforce a particular type of diversity ideology. Read it if you're going to report on it.

Rob is of the social justice left. He read it and this is how he interpreted it. See: all the other political articles he's had published on TS. Same pattern.

That said, this is going to have significant implications for Google moving forward. On the one hand, this is a perfect example of SJW infestation. The mere suggestion that men and women are different (scientifically supported, I might add) is enough to send the company into outrage and damage control mode. On the other, this demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that the antitrust suits against them have significant merit, which is huge.

It is safe to say at this point that Google may have peaked. If recent changes to YouTube (Google-owned) and Twitter (not Google-owned) are any indication, these companies are somewhere in the ballpark of two months away from being competitively Death Stared (jeopardized long-term because of engineered vulnerabilities).

 

[antiproduct]

Wow... a bunch of males, mostly white, defending the leaked article.... aaaaannnndddd that's the problem.

 

[wiyosaya]

Also I should add that the headline to this piece betrays the fact that the author didn't read the original post. The post was in no way anti-diversity, it was against discriminatory and divisive methods to try and enforce a particular type of diversity ideology. Read it if you're going to report on it.

Rob is of the social justice left. He read it and this is how he interpreted it. See: all the other political articles he's had published on TS. Same pattern.

That said, this is going to have significant implications for Google moving forward. On the one hand, this is a perfect example of SJW infestation. The mere suggestion that men and women are different (scientifically supported, I might add) is enough to send the company into outrage and damage control mode. On the other, this demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that the antitrust suits against them have significant merit, which is huge.

It is safe to say at this point that Google may have peaked. If recent changes to YouTube (Google-owned) and Twitter (not Google-owned) are any indication, these companies are somewhere in the ballpark of two months away from being competitively Death Stared (jeopardized long-term because of engineered vulnerabilities).

From someone who thinks that all Muslims are orcs out to get them, I fail to see the credibility of this post, and am not surprised in the attempt to discredit the original article.

 

[wiyosaya]

Wow... a bunch of males, mostly white, defending the leaked article.... aaaaannnndddd that's the problem.

You can say that again.

Pssst... don't remind them that the current AMD CEO is Lisa Su a woman easily far smarter than most of professionals who work in that realm and that the prior AMD CEO Rory Read was a man who had no clue that AMD is a technology company probably because he has no idea what technology is.

 

[Jamlad]

"It is also true that more women then men prefer having a greater amount of social life in the social life/work life balance. Not necessarily wrong, just a different way of approaching life.

People need to stop looking at this from the wrong angle. Everybody assumes it's easy at the top. It's not. People just see the prestige, the power, and the money but not 60h work weeks, the 3am calls from Bejing.

We shouldn't be asking why aren't there more women at the top because women are getting there, taking one look, and making the very sane and rational choice of walking away. We should be asking what the hell is wrong with the men that are at the top.

 

[Puiu]

The simplest way to explain the lack of women in IT is to actually go to an university and check how many women sign up for such classes.
When I was in college I can safely tell you that women were in the minority in IT classes. In the worst case, some places had 4 guys for each girl.

 

[erickmendes]

It's not an biological problem... It's a cultural probleam. Sexism is part of our patriarcal society, we raise boys to "man jobs" and girls to "woman jobs"... The companies need people that work with the tasks needed for the bussiness to run... If there's more man in enginering jobs, it's not companies' faulty, it's our society faulty.
Google can help as any other company (as part of the society) can, helping promoting gender equity in schools, yada yada yada...

 

[Oshyan]

It's not an biological problem... It's a cultural probleam. Sexism is part of our patriarcal society, we raise boys to "man jobs" and girls to "woman jobs"... The companies need people that work with the tasks needed for the bussiness to run... If there's more man in enginering jobs, it's not companies' faulty, it's our society faulty.
Google can help as any other company (as part of the society) can, helping promoting gender equity in schools, yada yada yada...

Came here just to say this and glad to see someone already did. Put another way: the observation of current reality is not a mandate of how things "should be" or that something "is natural". The justification of present gender-based differentiation by looking at biological and psychological factors is post-hoc. People are looking for evidence to fit the conclusion they've already come to. Our culture creates our reality and, if we work consciously to change culture, that means we can change our reality through culture shift.

Sure, it's hard to pursue such big potential changes without knowing whether there truly is a biological basis for the difference in gender participation by career (we don't have baseline "neutral" data, only that from existing cultures), but it should be easy to agree that treating people equally and allowing them to make their own unbiased, uncoerced decisions is the ideal to strive for. Otherwise we're just deciding that we are more comfortable upholding existing cultural norms than actually providing a level playing field.

 

[erickmendes]

Girls can be good in math, boys can be good writers, everybody is just people, with different skillsets that our parents and society around us help develop the way they see fit...

It's really hilarious. We live in a so called 'modern society', but what global information access really gave us was the capacity of being judged by more people than really matters (if really matters in the end), spreading even further judments that really have no real basis, about things that really is not of everybody bussiness, creating a world that's all eyes and fingers, where no real value is built, as one friend of mine put, "We spent more time than sentiments in actual relationships".
We spent more time as indivdual worrying ourselves about other peoples judment, and as a society we spent more efforts spreading and embracing values that is not really ours, but that are endorsed by the global majority about what is right, forgiving that different cultures have different dinamics, making different things working at different levels in one place than in another...

Biology is halfway there, our perhaps even less. Culture is what make you what you are.
We should think more on what make us what we are: 24/7 online culture, instagram, facebook, image culture, the lack of lonileness that is making us alone everytime, even when we are around people, put simple, our culture is becoming an mess... And that's only the new things that we are putting ourselves thru without much consideration.
Add to that the legacy culture load our parents gace us (how we grow our children.

Not having enough woman in tech industry is just one aspect of how we move as a society. There's so much more needing consideration for so long time...

There I go... long text.

@Oshyan
I have an 11 months old boy, but I plan to have a girl too, and I plan to raise them so they can develop the skill they want (be they good on it or not), whatever it be.

 

[alexnode]

Don't be trolls, I hired a few developers 9 months ago and I struggled to find a woman, 1 woman in 10 men, but we needed a woman since we wanted a female insight ... after a couple of months we found a woman who is one of our best developers now. I still believe that the whole issue is related with how we raise girls and boys, during the early years.

 

[calmac12000]

Came here just to say this and glad to see someone already did. Put another way: the observation of current reality is not a mandate of how things "should be" or that something "is natural". The justification of present gender-based differentiation by looking at biological and psychological factors is post-hoc. People are looking for evidence to fit the conclusion they've already come to. Our culture creates our reality and, if we work consciously to change culture, that means we can change our reality through culture shift.

Sure, it's hard to pursue such big potential changes without knowing whether there truly is a biological basis for the difference in gender participation by career (we don't have baseline "neutral" data, only that from existing cultures), but it should be easy to agree that treating people equally and allowing them to make their own unbiased, uncoerced decisions is the ideal to strive for. Otherwise we're just deciding that we are more comfortable upholding existing cultural norms than actually providing a level playing field.

Agree entirely, unless it is been claimed that the entire IT sector represents a hitherto unknown sector of human activity which overturns all our understanding of who humans interact.Then, there is absolutely no basis for asserting that the difference in gender composition is contingent on 'natural' factors.

 

[jtveg]

Don't be trolls, I hired a few developers 9 months ago and I struggled to find a woman, 1 woman in 10 men, but we needed a woman since we wanted a female insight ... after a couple of months we found a woman who is one of our best developers now. I still believe that the whole issue is related with how we raise girls and boys, during the early years.

Yet many studies have shown that even as babies girls tend towards dolls and boys tend towards tools and toy cars.

 

[jtveg]

Wow... a bunch of males, mostly white, defending the leaked article.... aaaaannnndddd that's the problem.

I wonder how many women read "Techspot"

 

[JamesSWD]

Funny how they say you have to be inclusive yet, they badger and pretty much make any one with a conservative view have to be quiet or else they face persecution. Yeah, that's REAL inclusive there.

Exactly...in Google's official response from their diversity chief Daniel (LOL), she slams this guy's memo and won't even link to it...then goes on to pander to the SJW philosophy of 'diversity, inclusiveness, open mindedness' and other BS. The usual doublespeak and hate from their kind.