Google Employee's Anti-Diversity Manifesto Goes 'Internally Viral'

[Breh13]

:mjcup:

"It's not worth thinking about this as an isolated incident and instead a manifestation of what ails all of Silicon Valley."

At least eight Google employees tweeted Friday about a document that was circulated within the company calling for replacing Google's diversity initiatives with policies that encourage "ideological diversity" instead. The document, which is the personal opinion of one senior software engineer, was shared on a company mailing list but has since gone "internally viral," according to a Google employee who spoke with Motherboard.

Motherboard has not viewed the full document, but a screenshot we reviewed shows it's titled "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber." Descriptions of its contents were tweeted publicly by Google employees, and it was described in detail to me by a Google employee, who requested anonymity because of the company's notoriously strict confidentiality agreement. (A lawsuit against the company was filed in a San Francisco court last year over the company's "spying program" to prevent leaks.)

The person who wrote the document argued that the representation gap between men and women in software engineering persists because of biological differences between the two sexes, according to public tweets from Google employees. It also said Google should not offer programs for underrepresented racial or gender minorities, according to one of the employees I spoke to.

The 10-page Google Doc document was met with derision from a large majority of employees who saw and denounced its contents, according to the employee. But Jaana Dogan, a software engineer at Google, tweeted that some people at the company at least partially agreed with the author; one of our sources said the same. While the document itself contains the thoughts of just one Google employee, the context in which they were shared—Google is currently being investigated by the Department of Labor for its gender pay gap and Silicon Valley has been repeatedly exposed as a place that discriminates against women and people of color—as well as the private and public response from its workforce are important.

"The broader context of this is that this person is perhaps bolder than most of the people at Google who share his viewpoint—of thinking women are less qualified than men—to the point he was willing to publicly argue for it. But there are sadly more people like him," the employee who described the document's contents to me said.

At Google, "I feel like there's a lot of pushback from white dudes who genuinely feel like diversity is lowering the bar," a former engineering employee who wished to remain anonymous because they had signed a non-disclosure agreement told Motherboard.

Motherboard has independently confirmed with multiple Google employees that the document is being widely shared among many of the company's software engineering teams: "If I had to guess, almost every single woman in engineering has seen it," the current employee told Motherboard; a separate current employee told me it was being actively read by many employees. At several points on Friday night, the document was inaccessible because too many people were attempting to view it concurrently. Google did not respond to two requests for comment.

The document's author also wrote that employees with conservative political beliefs are discriminated against at Google and lamented about how "leftist" ideology is harmful. They argue that the company should have a more "open" culture where their viewpoint would be welcomed. The document said that improving racial and gender diversity is less important than making sure conservatives feel comfortable expressing themselves at work.

While the vast majority of Google employees did not support the document's arguments, some did. According to Dogan, who works on the company's Go programming language, the document's author was emboldened by some of the positive responses he got. "The author is now in contact with me explaining why he received *supportive* response," she tweeted. "If HR does nothing in this case, I will consider leaving this company for real for the first time in five years," she wrote in a threaded tweet.

"It's not worth thinking about this as an isolated incident and instead a manifestation of what ails all of Silicon Valley," the employee I spoke to who detailed the document's contents told me.

Google is currently wrapped up in a dispute with the Department of Labor over what an agency official testified are "systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce." Another official told The Guardian in April that it had discovered "compelling evidence of very significant discrimination against women in the most common positions at Google headquarters."

Google Employee's Anti-Diversity Manifesto Goes 'Internally Viral'

Be surprised brehs.

 

[Matt504]

no surprises here.

 

[FAH1223]

no surprises here.

:cacmjpls:

 

[Strapped]

Good ol boys club

 

[Althalucian]

I'm stunned.

 

[Uncle Hotep]

Hire on merit not on race or gender

 

[David_TheMan]

Not surprising at all.
Again this is a reason for black ownership or companies, not begging whites to hire and validate us.

 

[ExodusNirvana]

Snowflakes triggered for real

 

[Arianne Martell]

This is very workplace

 

[Larry Lambo]

Hire on merit not on race or gender

Most white hiring managers (especially white males) would never hire a black person if left to their own devices. There's enough qualified white candidates to fill damn near every professional position out there. They'll take a white man who on paper has 90% of the qualifications that a brother has, and just say it the white dude was the better "fit". I've heard people say stuff about black candidates like "I'm not sure if he'd fit in the culture" or "He's too advanced and would be bored in this role". They'll also go out of their way to make sure that white boy succeeds, and when they are pressured to hire a brother, they'll throw him under the bus and provide no support.

This is why we have diversity initiatives. It's difficult to argue "fit" and bulls**t reasons why someone else was the better person for the job. But you can look at your total numbers and if they don't reflect the demographics of the available talent pool, then something is wrong. White people argue against diversity issues because they don't believe they are racist, even on a subconscious level. They don't believe they have some inherent bias against black people and don't use every imaginable reason not to hire black people (specifically black men).

Diversity initiatives have the undertone that white people are inherently racist. Well, the truth is ugly at times.

 

[Althalucian]

Most white hiring managers (especially white males) would never hire a black person if left to their own devices. There's enough qualified white candidates to fill damn near every professional position out there. They'll take a white man who on paper has 90% of the qualifications that a brother has, and just say it the white dude was the better "fit". I've heard people say stuff about black candidates like "I'm not sure if he'd fit in the culture" or "He's too advanced and would be bored in this role". They'll also go out of their way to make sure that white boy succeeds, and when they are pressured to hire a brother, they'll throw him under the bus and provide no support.

This is why we have diversity initiatives. It's difficult to argue "fit" and bulls**t reasons why someone else was the better person for the job. But you can look at your total numbers and if they don't reflect the demographics of the available talent pool, then something is wrong. White people argue against diversity issues because they don't believe they are racist, even on a subconscious level. They don't believe they have some inherent bias against black people and don't use every imaginable reason not to hire black people (specifically black men).

Diversity initiatives have the undertone that white people are inherently racist. Well, the truth is ugly at times.

Don't you think it's a no-win situation though? Sure, diversity hires or affirmative action could help level out a racist society. However, do you think every white owned business is operated by racist people? That's to say - should we call all white people racist? Most? Half? Some?

Also, what happens if, say, black programmers aren't as interested in working for white owned companies or seek employment a bit differently than typical white programmers? The people working in the tech field at companies like Google or Apple might not reflect the same percentage of black programmers out there because maybe black programmers don't want to work for places that they might feel unwelcome in. Or maybe they want to do tech in their own communities. Besides, the argument that things have to reflect the demographic is a dangerous one. Should we stop Asian and Jewish people from being over-represented in a lot of roles?

To me, affirmative action and diversity hires is a dangerous double-edged sword. Yeah, I think it has done a lot of good, but it also undermines black people in ways that we are typically vulnerable.

 

[ADevilYouKhow]

You see the free market works!

 

[Larry Lambo]

Don't you think it's a no-win situation though? Sure, diversity hires or affirmative action could help level out a racist society. However, do you think every white owned business is operated by racist people? That's to say - should we call all white people racist? Most? Half? Some?

Also, what happens if, say, black programmers aren't as interested in working for white owned companies or seek employment a bit differently than typical white programmers? The people working in the tech field at companies like Google or Apple might not reflect the same percentage of black programmers out there because maybe black programmers don't want to work for places that they might feel unwelcome in. Or maybe they want to do tech in their own communities. Besides, the argument that things have to reflect the demographic is a dangerous one. Should we stop Asian and Jewish people from being over-represented in a lot of roles?

To me, affirmative action and diversity hires is a dangerous double-edged sword. Yeah, I think it has done a lot of good, but it also undermines black people in ways that we are typically vulnerable.

I don't think the majority of white people are card carrying members of the KKK, calling us ******s, and plotting our demise. But I do think most have a subconscious bias against us and will look past us when it comes to hiring in the professional fields. Companies like Google and Apple probably need to actively address this, with diversity initiatives because if not, then it will tilt towards that bias. Of course this should only be addressed in terms of hiring people who are clearly qualified for the position (I think it's not helpful at all to hire unqualified minorities, and even believe that doing so can be used as a tactic against us). But if this means those companies need to have programs with top tier HBCU's and public schools with a higher minority student population, then so be it. If they need to partner with minority professional organizations, then so be it.

As far as thing reflecting the talent base, that's what a corporation should want anyways. If you are truly aren't against hiring minorities, why would you want a company that has 99% white and Asian people, when 20% of the workforce in that field are black and latino. I understand that black people may prefer to work for black companies, but there aren't enough of them to make a major dent in the talent pool. In the corporate settings I've been in, there's been countless times where I'm the only black person out of 30-40-50 people. How can you look a scene like that and not notice something is wrong?