While I’m a spectator to this unfolding story and am reacting to a pretty cursory overview of what happened, this has the distinct feeling that Google thought they were moving in for a checkmate by, in their words, “accepting a resignation”, only to have it — very predictably? - blow up in their faces completely.
Even if Google is acting presenting the chain of events faithfully, their final move to jump on an opportunity to remove the researcher and call it resignation seems so aggressive and incongruous that from the outside it makes it seem like this conflict is rooted in a larger and more difficult relationship that they calculated was no longer in their interest.
I’m wondering if the cost benefit analysis is still looking that way on the inside, because this move and the attention it’s causing is so contrary to their stated goals that I have to wonder if Google is committed to those goals at all. Others must be wondering exactly the same thing.
> While I’m a spectator to this unfolding story and am reacting to a pretty cursory overview of what happened, this has the distinct feeling that Google thought they were moving in for a checkmate by, in their words, “accepting a resignation”, only to have it — very predictably? - blow up in their faces completely.
I wouldn't say this has blown up in their face. But to be honest, I've not seen that much drama about it than one post. Have I been missing something?
This seems a very solid move from Google. Someone tried to bully their way into getting information from Google they shouldn't give out. If you go to HR in confidence that confidence should be upheld. The fact someone had to go to HR for a peer review and the fact it was upheld states something.
If someone says "Do X or I'll quit" when you're not going to do X, it is a resigination and seems quite standard that they don't want such an active detractor within their company ranks.
I believe she basically sent an email to fellow employees basically telling them to stop working. That alone is a firable. That is completely nuts and unacceptable work place behaviour. The fact Google didn't fire her for that should speak volumes.
To me, from a HR point of view, this is completely the right move to make.
I believe she basically sent an email to fellow employees basically telling them to stop working. That alone is a firable. That is completely nuts and unacceptable work place behaviour. The fact Google didn't fire her for that should speak volumes.
This is little more than gossip unless you can point to something specific that people can judge for themselves. Saying “she basically did X” is a clever way to influence how people feel about her.
I’ll admit, I had negative thoughts till this thread. Now I’m not so sure. She’s definitely passionate, and one might say aggressive, but more and more people are saying that it’s extremely unusual for Google to demand a rejection for academic reasons rather than business concerns. Whether she was a good employee is kind of beside the point now.
> This is little more than gossip unless you can point to something specific that people can judge for themselves. Saying “she basically did X” is a clever way to influence how people feel about her.
That is totally not the same thing as telling your fellow employees to stop working. I like to think I’m a pretty reasonable fellow, but it’s hard to see that point of view.
I felt similarly to you yesterday. Now I’m not so sure. It sounds like she was criticizing company process and was frustrated not being able to have any impact on what she perceived were real problems to the integrity of the process. I can empathize with that feeling, and I’ve done some embarrassing or unprofessional things when I was younger and slightly less wiser in similar situations.
I dunno mate, people here are suddenly trying awfully hard to repeat their points about her personal behavior / paint her as an unprofessional loon. And that’s a pretty convenient distraction if her criticisms were true, wouldn’t you say?
Honestly, if a black woman was saying that DEI isn't working at a company, I believe her more than I believe management. Even with a reputation for blowing up at people.
I don't think that this the narriative here. The narriative is a black woman told people to stop working on DEI. The company begged people to carry on. She says it's not working so they should stop trying.
I think that's a fair concern. If Women and POC are being encouraged by a company to use their time at work on something that doesn't work, they're asking women and POC to sabotage their own careers by diverting their effort from accomplishments the company will actually reward them for, and only asking women and POC to do so.
How is saying "stop writing your documents because it doesn’t make a difference" "totally not the same thing as telling your fellow employees to stop working"? Assuming your fellow employees are writing those documents for their job, isn't telling them to stop doing that exactly the same thing?
She was saying that right now, even if you write such documents, your work essentially won't matter due to some perceived problem with the process. Or at least that's how I read it.
You're not wrong. But it's also the least charitable interpretation anyone could have. Why would anyone tell their coworkers "Stop working, go to McDonalds instead"? Nobody would do that, because that would be both unhelpful and dumb.
Now, maybe it's true that she was telling her coworkers to come play dota 2 with her for 8 hours on company time. But without far more context, we can't know. And there's almost zero additional information here.
Think about how you'd want to be judged. Would you want someone to take a single sentence, stripped of context, and parade it around as if you'd said something you didn't? I wouldn't.
Listen, yesterday I was in complete agreement with you and the other commenter. I felt like she might have been an entitled employee, spreading drama wherever she went, and that Google had been generous to humor her for as long as they did. But today I'm (un)surprised to find myself feeling like I was being a judgmental ass based on very little information.
Her actions seemed crazy, but now that the dust has settled, it seems like her heart was probably in the right place, and that Jeff was giving her an exceptionally hard time for unclear reasons. Her reaction reminds me very much of how I acted at the breaking point. It gets exhausting to try to work around someone who is determined to stand in your way.
You'd be correct to say that I'm guilty of the same thing in reverse: I'm extrapolating far in the other direction, inventing all kinds of plausible-sounding stories about bully managers and such. But it doesn't feel like mental gymnastics to read her comment as "I am extremely frustrated and disappointed that writing these papers seems not to matter whatsoever, and we should probably take a hard look at whether we're having any effect."
That boils right down to "stop writing your documents because it doesn't make a difference," just offensively curt. And yes, phrasing does matter, but people keep saying she said X when it sounds like she said Y.
If somebody used HR as the mechanism to communicate feedback on the scientific rigor of research I was leading I would also find that concerning and objectionable. Human Resources is not peer review.
Honestly, if someone had to use HR to give feedback on anything, I would be more concerned as to why they couldn't say it directly to me.
HR wouldn't have made the final decision here, it seems other departments did. HR was just how someone felt it was safe to communicate that feedback, which for me is a major issue in a workplace.
I think there's a place for HR to help somebody give feedback about social or work-style issues. If somebody has a track record of getting defensive with face-to-face feedback it might be useful to have a manager present as a mediator and go through a formal process.
That's just not the same as giving scientific feedback in the review process for research and shouldn't be in the way there.
I think you're missing the massive point that someone thought that doing it in a non-anonymous way would have resulted in retribution. That is not defensive, it's offensive. You seem to be missing the fact that the woman seems quite happy to try and bury people over seemed transgressions.
Someone thought they HAD to goto HR to provide the feedback because no other way was safe. If you want to act about the scientifc review process, that should never happen and when it does there should be serious action taken.
What if you were the sort of person with a very public history of suing your employer? Could you understand then why they might be very formal when dealing with you, especially when needing to deliver news you'd likely not be a fan of?
I don't really see how that's relevant to the specific issue of scientific rigor, and in this case is a strangely one-sided issue. as Dr. Gebru pointed out, soon after she took steps towards legal action against google (I don't think a suit was actually filed) she was also given an award by Google for her work and performance.
Also, it's strange to be giving google so much benefit of the doubt here. On the same day this happened the NLRB filed two formal complaints against google for retaliatory firing practices. If any participant in this drama has a known record of retaliatory and unfair labor practices, it is google, as documented by the federal government's extremely detailed complaint.
> If someone says "Do X or I'll quit" when you're not going to do X, it is a resigination
I mean, whether or not this stands up legally isn't worth discussing but I don't think this is typically how an ultimatum goes. Rather it's more along the lines of "this or I'll quit", "okay, we're not doing this", "right, I quit". It's not called calling your bluff for nothing.
I agree that her email to the Brain group makes her position at google almost untenable, but that's a separate question. However, it might make her choose not to fight them on the resignation.
> However, it might make her choose not to fight them on the resignation.
How can she fight? Just curious, the US is almost completely an at will employment. Fighting to get your name dirted that you didn't resign but were fired, seems odd. Google seems to saving face for her if anything.
> How can she fight? Just curious, the US is almost completely an at will employment.
Even with a contract? I know little enough about US labour laws, although I'm pretty sure it's not at-will all over. Where I am (not the US) you can sue for unfair dismissal.
> Fighting to get your name dirted that you didn't resign but were fired, seems odd.
Yeah, I agree if there's a good chance if the resignation stands. However if she could get a court to say she was unfairly dismissed it might be a different case, as it would help her case that Google have acted unfairly towards her. None of this publicity is going to help her future employment potential generally but may help in niche circles that she might be aiming for.
This morning, there were front-page posts about this on the New York Times, Washington Post, Wired, Google, BBC, and Financial Times. It's being covered pretty widely.
I don’t think you’re incorrect on any particular point.
Just anecdotally, I don’t think a man sending a “do x or I’ll quit” email would be met with the same response. I think issues of race and gender are playing a role here, and that’s a shame, because while firing (accepting this resignation) of this researcher might make short term business sense, it seems like it does harm to Google’s long term credibility in trying to engage with reducing the barriers faced by (among others) women and people of color.
It’s a shame there wasn’t a pathway to keeping the dialogue going, for example by getting in touch with her and letting her know that some things she was asking for wouldn’t work, but that you could work with her to accomplish her goals in some other way.
From my privileged outside point of view, that seems like it could have been a more humane response which could have disarmed the conflict. I think opportunities to pursue options like that are de-emphasized when management are put in an all or nothing position.
> I don’t think a man sending a “do x or I’ll quit” email would be met with the same response.
Ugh, this is a bit infuriating to me. I think there are a ton of parallels in this whole situation to the James Damore memo issue, and IIRC Damore was fired pretty quickly: Google employee sends out an email to a wide distribution, and while that email may make some valid points, the overall tone of the post guarantees it to be a net negative to the company, and then when the employee is let go, they bitch and moan about how there is some sort of conspiracy in the company against them.
I believe firing Damore was the right decision and I believe Google was right to accept Gebru's resignation.
I think that Google viewed her as a ticking time bomb, so they might as well detonate it early to try to contain explosion. She had threatened to sue Google in the past and was most likely gathering even more ammunition for her lawyers.
Edit: I'm not sure what this tweet is referencing, but it's an indicator of her attitude towards her superiors, I can see why they would want to let go of her.
You might be on to something. The paper doesn't seem too controversial or especially amazing, the objections seem minor (some citations and updates), maybe it's just a pretext. Could be about a lawsuit.
I don't see what else they should have done? This researcher made some ultimatum. As part of it, she said if Google refused, she would set a date to leave the company. Google obviously did not concede to her demand, and obviously didn't think it beneficial to let her be a thorn any longer, so took her up on her offer.
Seriously, I'm kinda a little wondering how people expect that when someone makes an extremely demanding ultimatum that includes challenging the rights of other people in the company, and the company declines to agree to that ultimatum, that we should be shocked that the person doesn't get to dictate all of the details around their resignation.
What I get most from this whole discussion is the extremely nauseating level of entitlement from some employees at Google.
If I storm into my manager's office and demand a set of conditions, or else I resign on some date, and my manager says "Well, fine, we accept your resignation, but it's effective immediately" I don't really have a problem with my manager calling it a resignation.
Did it blow up in Google's face? A bunch of perpetually angry people on Twitter are angry. So what? Google's actual operations are affected not only tiny bit by this episode. Outrage has no power.
Social media is not real life. Every company, Google included, needs to simply ignore social media outrage and focus on their mission instead.
Internet outrage only has power because companies give it power. Angry words and hit pieces from biased media do nothing on their own. If you don't let them make you afraid, you have no reason to be afraid of them. The internet screamed at Coinbase after the company showed their internal activists the door, but Coinbase is doing just fine. See? Nothing to be afraid of. Just get rid of troublemakers.
One thing that is missing here is the demands the said researcher had brought up to the leadership. Didn't see either party bring it up in their side of story.
This sums it up almost perfectly. The only thing I would add is that things like these tend to have a pattern. If a single person speaks up and you have multiple others claiming similar treatment, it significantly increases the likelihood of the workplace being hostile to such persons.
Also: Googles bar for hiring is extremely high. For multiple senior engineers/managers to corroborate this description is rather damning.
Even if Google is acting presenting the chain of events faithfully, their final move to jump on an opportunity to remove the researcher and call it resignation seems so aggressive and incongruous that from the outside it makes it seem like this conflict is rooted in a larger and more difficult relationship that they calculated was no longer in their interest.
I’m wondering if the cost benefit analysis is still looking that way on the inside, because this move and the attention it’s causing is so contrary to their stated goals that I have to wonder if Google is committed to those goals at all. Others must be wondering exactly the same thing.