The employee whose controversial memo that claimed that Google had an “ideological echo chamber” got fired by the company
James Damore, the engineer in discussion, emailed Bloomberg and said that he was fired for “perpetuating gender stereotypes”. Google did not release any comments at that time.
Before that, CEO Sundar Pichai sent a note to the employees in which he mentioned that part of the engineer’s memo violated the company’s Code of Conduct by supporting “harmful gender stereotypes”. Moreover, the memo suggested that women had biological issues that kept them from being as successful as their mail counterparts in the tech industry.
“To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK,” part of the CEO’s note, entitled “Our words matter,” reportedly read.
The memo was up for more than a few days and went viral, while also igniting an internet firestorm over the weekend. Moreover, it attracted both vehement support, as well as backlash.
The author started by mentioning that he valued “diversity and inclusion”, but that the matter asked for an “honest discussion” to truly solve the issue, instead of silencing the conservative voices, as he claimed.
“I’m simply stating that the 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,” he added
Furthermore, he went on and said that those differences also include the fact that women tended to be more social and artistic, which means that they could not take high pressure jobs, along with possessing traits such as neuroticism, higher anxiety and low tolerance to stress.
Pichai said that such views are not welcome in their work.
“The memo has clearly impacted our co-workers, some of whom are hurting and feel judged based on their gender,” he continued.
