A Googler's Would-Be Manifesto Reveals Tech's Rotten Core

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

One person (i think) condemns a company!!!!! REALLY  DJF

> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] A Googler's Would-Be Manifesto Reveals Tech's Rotten Core
> Date: August 6, 2017 at 12:27:12 PM EDT
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> A Googler's Would-Be Manifesto Reveals Tech's Rotten Core
> Office culture is only part of the problem.
> By IAN BOGOST
> Aug 6 2017
> <https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/why-is-tech-so-awful/536052/>
>
> An anonymous Google software engineer’s 10-page fulmination against workplace diversity was leaked from internal 
> company communications systems, including an internal version of Google+, the company’s social network, and another 
> service that Gizmodo, which published the full memo, called an “internal meme network.”
>
> “I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to 
> biological causes,” the Googler writes, “and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation 
> of women in tech and leadership.”
>
> The memo has drawn rage and dismay since its appearance Saturday, when it was first reported by Motherboard. It 
> seemed to dash hopes that much progress has been made in unraveling the systemic conditions that produce and 
> perpetuate inequity in the technology industry. That includes increasing the distribution of women and minorities in 
> technical jobs, equalizing pay, breaking the glass ceiling, and improving the quality of life in workplaces that 
> sometimes resemble frat houses more than businesses.
>
> These reactions to the screed are sound, but they risk missing a larger problem: The kind of computing systems that 
> get made and used by people outside the industry, and with serious consequences, are a direct byproduct of the gross 
> machismo of computing writ large. More women and minorities are needed in computing because the world would be better 
> for their contributions—and because it might be much worse without them.
>
> * * *
>
> Workplace equity has become a more visible issue in general, but it has reached fever pitch in the technology sector, 
> especially with respect to women. When the former Uber engineer Susan Fowler published an explosive accusation of 
> sexism at that company earlier this year, people took notice. When combined with a series of other scandals, not to 
> mention with Uber’s longstanding, dubious behavior toward drivers and municipalities, the company was forced to act. 
> CEO Travis Kalanick was ousted (although he remains on the board, where he retains substantial control).
>
> Given the context, it’s reasonable to sneer at the anonymous Googler’s simple grievances against workplace diversity. 
> Supposedly natural differences between men and women make them suited for different kinds of work, he argues. Failure 
> to accept this condition casts the result as inequality, he contends, and then as oppression. Seeking to correct for 
> it amounts to discrimination. Rejecting these premises constitutes bias, or stymies open discourse. The Googler does 
> not reject the idea of increasing diversity in some way. However, he laments what he considers discriminatory 
> practices instituted to accomplish those goals, among them hiring methods designed to increase the diversity of 
> candidate pools and training or mentoring efforts meant to better support under-represented groups.
>
> Efforts like these are necessary in the first place because diversity is so bad in the technology industry to begin 
> with. Google publishes a diversity report, which reveals that the company’s workforce is currently comprised of 31 
> percent women, with 20 percent working in technical fields. Those numbers are roughly on par with the tech sector as 
> a whole, where about a quarter of workers are women.
>
> Racial and ethnic diversity are even worse—and so invisible that they barely register as a problem for the anonymous 
> Googler. I was chatting about the memo with my Georgia Tech colleague Charles Isbell, who is Executive Associate Dean 
> of the College of Computing and the only black tenure-track faculty member among over 80 in this top-ten ranking 
> program.
>
> “Nothing about why black and Hispanic men aren’t software engineers?” he asked me after reading the letter, 
> paraphrasing another black computer scientist, Duke’s Jeffrey R.N. Forbes. “Did I glaze over that bit?” Isbell knows 
> that Google’s meager distribution of women  far outshines its terrible racial diversity. Only 2 percent of all U.S. 
> Googlers are black, and only 4 percent are Hispanic. In tech-oriented positions, the numbers fall to 1 percent and 3 
> percent, respectively. (Unlike the gender data, which is global, the ethnic diversity data is for the U.S. only.)
>
> [snip]
>
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