Google Memo: Fired Employee Speaks Out [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN1vEfqHGro

by Red_Tarsius • 9 years ago

68 31 9 years ago

Please forgive me for being crass, but it's so stressful to have to watch a 45 minute video just to not have someone lie to me about it tomorrow.

quotemstr• 9 years ago

But serious respect for 1) understanding that, and 2) choosing to be well-informed. I'm incredibly disappointed with the number of people these days who denounce people, books, docs, movies, and even whole groups of people without having any direct experience or even caring to become well-informed enough to form an independent opinion.

techer2• 9 years ago

"Anyone who thinks Google needs more Somalis and trannys vs more right-wing view points is just lying and full of themselves." 130 likes

I only lasted five minutes.

cart31cd• 9 years ago

FYI anyone reading this, the quote above is from some youtube comment, not the actual interview.

teamhappy2• 9 years ago

You're quoting a comment, right? Or is that from the video itself?

techer2• 9 years ago

A comment. Quite sad I have to specify! But fair enough

w4tson• 9 years ago

Had two attempts at watching that but the arguments are so bad and the views so biased I just bailed.

Maybe i'll write my open white paper,throw together some thinly veiled arguments, sprinkle some graphs and draw the conclusion that conservatives are total dickheads?

Not all you understand. Just biologically speaking. I'm not saying they are. I'm actually very pro conservative. But they are dicks right? I just want a debate in the open about some the evidence I can't be arsed to write. Maybe?

thanksgiving• 9 years ago

We can agree that someone is a dick but still seek to address valid concerns.

I'm surprised to see "feminists" supporting management. We are at war with management for equal pay. It doesn't matter how or where I was recruited, equal work should mean equal pay. Management is never your friend.

Google, put your money where your mouth is. Make salary and bonus information public.

chrisco255• 9 years ago

The funny thing is that conservatives wouldn't bat an eye. They would just give it back to you and move on with their lives. Conservatives are quite used to liberal elitism. They get it all the time from Hollywood and Academia.

ElmntOfSurprise• 9 years ago

Yeah, writing about how conservatives are the worst? You'd probably have to get in line.

mvindahl2• 9 years ago

This DaMore guy doesn't have a lot of political savvyness.

First off, I think his manifesto contained more nuance than has been attributed to it. I agreed with some points and disagreed with others. I think the length was a bit excessive but it's not the kind of thing that would make me raise an eyebrow. Still, by publishing to to the entire company, he was openly challenging the views of his employer and forcing them to respond in spades. It was a move with no real upside but plenty of potential downsides.

Now, with half of Twitter eager to write him off as an alt-right douchebag, what does he do? Yup, gives an interview on an alt-right YouTube channel. This is a brilliant coup for Peter Molyneux but for DaMore there is absolutely no upside to being associated with those guys.

Thing is, I don't think DaMore is a bad person. I think he is earnestly trying to understand the current diversity fad and to spark a debate around its causes and effects. But he has quickly turned himself into a pawn in everyone else's game.

senectus1• 9 years ago

yeah. agreed. that video was painful on a lot of levels.

Shad0w59• 9 years ago

Great for Peter Molyneux, his best work since Fable, Black & White and Dungeon Keeper.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

mvindahl2• 9 years ago

Heh .. my bad, Stefan Molyneux of course.

Red_Tarsius2• 9 years ago

Stefan's old videos were much better. He's not alt-right, I don't know what's gotten into him. He might be a victim of his own brand, choosing to cater to his new audience at the expense of integrity. I was extremely disappointed to find out that he denies climate change.

I agree with you. Journalists and reporters are going to circle around DaMore like vultures. They only love the drama and don't give a damn about the debate.

zo13• 9 years ago

I've been following Stefan for quite a few years, even back when he was doing pod-casts from his car. He doesn't strike me as having changed much for the sake of pandering to his audience. Though he does sometimes tend be over the top and theatrical for entertainment's sake.

If anything, I believe he's in a bit of a tough situation. After valuing arguments and facts so much, he can't help but follow the facts wherever they may lead.

dvfjsdhgfv3• 9 years ago

I'd love to hear what Damore says, but the Molyneux hijacks the video and is talking non-stop in such an irritating way it's difficult to listen to. If someone could cut Molyneux out of it, I think the video would me more watchable - and 10 times shorter.

danso• 9 years ago

My thoughts exactly. I don't think Damore is necessarily a bad person. Not everyone who opposes his memo came into their own belief systems a priori. But those people are more cognizant of their own blind spots/igonorance and don't attend to push a manifesto onto their entire company message board.

heisenbit• 9 years ago

His lack of political savyness is mind-boggling but then he was hired not for that.

He clearly made a mistake in how he said things not in what he said. The latter is more winded than necessary and nuanced than many give him credit - a draft collection of thoughts for internal discussion in a small group of non judgemental friends. One political problem he clearly ignored is that it hit a company embroiled in wage discrimination lawsuits.

Whether the company overreacted probably will be decided in court - details matter and we do not have all of them e.g. how common is it that employees mail the whole company.

dfraser9922• 9 years ago

His lack of political savyness is mind-boggling but then he was hired not for that.

No... I can see something of me (from 20 years ago) in him. Engineer (or is he even a 'real' one given his degree?), male, mid-20s... I don't find his lack of understanding exactly how "political" people and society actually are (and predominantly so, to the detriment of capital T-truth) to be unexpected. People can be, and tend to be, willfully manipulative, and it takes some life experience to get a handle on that knowledge.

In my mid-20s, I was a government contractor working on a large DoD project. Some impromptu hallway meeting with the bigwig PM running the whole thing led me to going blahblah with him explaining how easy it might be to do something he'd dreamt up the day before. I was just being an engineer who didn't understand social systems very well. So a few hours later, I get sort of chewed out by various PMs on our side as this 'idea' which was not in the contract and not in scope was now in scope... Part of the learning experience of how business actually works, and building things (hell, everything) is secondary to profit. The actual engineering part is secondary to organizational related bullshit - always.

Basically, I think engineers need more exposure to the humanities and stuff like this might not happen. That is another essay entirely, explaining how STEM subjects became excessively important since the 60s, to the detriment of society. The stereotypical engineer does not understand social systems very well, I certainly didn't. But at this point in my life, I think understanding them is far more important than knowing a bunch of tech that will generally be obsolete in a few years; understanding how insane Western society is in some respects has become easy.

I didn't read all of his manifesto, it was tedious and I understand enough social psych et al already... There is a balance that needs to struck and all the ideologues on both sides don't care for things to be in balance.

Everything else in the parent comment, I agree with. Now I read that female Google employees may be suing re: the wage gap etc. Hmmm... I actually blew off two attempts from Google years ago to interview me :) I didn't want to go through their stupid interview process and had already had enough of large badly managed orgs (i.e. the DoD). The pay would have been nice though (a joke!)

dvfjsdhgfv3• 9 years ago

it hit a company embroiled in wage discrimination lawsuits.

And this is the main reason he was fired, and also the reason Google never addressed the merits of the memo, just discarded it in a very general terms. Having the relevant data, they would be able choose some arguments against, but they never will.

zo13• 9 years ago

He made a mistake thinking that actual diversity in opinion is accepted. This is nothing but a witch hunt because people don't like his viewpoints, or think his viewpoints may "offend" protected groups.

It's bullying plain and simple, which I absolutely abhor. And I won't entirely fault Google for it. In this case they're just a proxy through which certain politically powerful groups exert control over those that dare dissent. They're in a tough position in-between the whole debate. And as accepted, they've chosen the historically-accepted solution to this problem: Pander to the offended. Nuance or fact are irrelevant.

Like one of the other posters mentioned, this will only embolden and give ammunition to the other side. I.e. the one that is bullied by this action. When we can't have reasonable debate on touchy topics, you only breed resentment. It will blow up eventually.

dvfjsdhgfv3• 9 years ago

I've just found the gist of it.

You can save yourselves the pain of watching the whole thing and just go to the summary:

https://youtu.be/TN1vEfqHGro?t=1758

I believe it's the most important part of the video and also a link that you can send to people who think they know better what the author of the memo meant.

abhimanyurawat• 9 years ago

Having a different view and representing it, but wrong thing at a very wrong time. So lesson learnt is keep everything to yourself and only say what peoole wants to hear ( Once again a different view).

dandare• 9 years ago

The saddest thing for me is that this will add tons of ammunition to all kinds of sexists, racists and extremists. Damore made several well sourced arguments that you are welcome to disagree with. But instead of discussion, counter arguments and "embracing diversity" he was silenced and probably illegally sacked. This will strengthen the position of all kind of haters and populists and if you think it's not a big deal go and check who is your president.

manigandham• 9 years ago

James Damore also spoke with Jordan Peterson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agU-mHFcXdw

Google Memo: Fired Employee Speaks Out [video]

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