Yonatan Zunger

Consider the Medium piece she cites: https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3… Point #1: "I’m not going to spend any length of time on (1); if anyone wishes to provide details as to how nearly every statement about gender in that entire document is actively incorrect,¹ and flies directly in the face of all research done in the field for decades, they should go for it. But I am neither a biologist, a psychologist, nor a sociologist, so I’ll leave that to someone else." In other words: "I have no relevant expertise, but I just know it's wrong." We would never tolerate that from "the opposing side." I can point you to other articles that do the same. This is the rallying point for a lot of people, and it's the wrong place to take a stand. It's worth pointing out.

This is definitely the best response to the memo that I've read. He clearly says which parts of the "manifesto" are an acceptable expression of opinion in the workplace and which aren't. I am very relieved that he didn't jump on the bashing bandwagon and dismissed the memo as a whole just because it contained some questionable and inappropriate parts. This makes it very credible that he's actually read the whole thing and thought about it. Something that I miss dearly with 99% of the other discussion contributers (e.g. [1] which is IMO just hate speech of a worse kind than the memo it responds to). I really thought I wouldn't write this but kudos and thanks to Sundar for such a balanced and well thought-out response. [1] https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3…

I saw your last submission ( https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/trial-balloon-for-a-coup-e024990891d… ) and thought it was quite interesting (being from a South American country, that m.o. is quite standard). My guess, following CaliforniaKarl, is that a some users are really intent on flagging everything anti-Trump, and others want to flag everything that is not in their own bubble, which is why every politics post gets banned here. A shame, as I would have liked to see the perspective of HN users on this topic (and not just the perspective of the 3 users required to flag a post)

These early social influences are a very significant part of the whole diversity/discrimination story and of what the diversity policies are trying to solve. The best ways to improve diversity and fix gender biases are still ‘debatable’. But speaking about the ‘memo’, this particular document is incorrect to the level it doesn’t deserve the debate. Despite the author claimed he created it “all in the name of open discussion”, he mainly created a hostile environment for his coworkers, which is unacceptable (and the fact he didn’t even understand that doesn’t excuse him). I agree with this comment on the ‘memo’ story, which is by far the most sane one: https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3… Men are underrepresented in certain professions for sure (and it is a part of the diversity problem), but the current discussion is about underrepresentation in tech, and white men are definitely not the main subject to it (so I don't see any double standards here).

Women are sick of being 'women in tech'. Being 'women speakers' at cons. They just want to be judged on their merits. Quotas are a check balance FOR quality not instead of. That you are finding and eliminating barriers to the best candidates in the hiring process because if you were doing it properly then there would be a balanced hire reflective of society at large. There should be no need for the quotas because as we all know there is no scientific evidence of any gender-based aptitude advantage. However it is evident from the numbers and in the wrongheaded attitudes of some people that there is some considerable adhesion to outdated, backward stereotypes. Yonatan Zunger also ex-Googler explains the diversity policy when he replied to the memo: https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3… I concur with him 100% and find it extremely frustrating that these old prejudices persist among otherwise intelligent people.

Thanks for the article, but it is far from a substantive rebuttal, at best I would call it an opinion piece, with its "proof" based on logical errors and assumptions. > There's a "chicken or the egg" question that needs to come with every assessment of behaviors of groups vs societal expectations and pressures on those groups. People in power, like yourself presumably (despite your insistence of having "no particular horse in the race) will always pretend that things are the way they are because of divine or otherwise pre-determined reasons. It's silly that people who consider themselves so rational are unable to comprehend how obvious this is. You are mistaking your imagination for reality. You cannot read my mind. Regardless, you are the one advocating social engineering, not me, the onus is (or should be) on you to prove sexism is the cause of gender imbalances at companies. If sexism is so rampant, why is it so difficult to produce any evidence, and why is the "evidence" so commonly produced the equivalent of "bro-culture" conspiracy theories. That this is considered "evidence" only further illustrates how differently the human mind can perceive reality. > Also lol @ programs for underrepresented groups “increase race and gender tensions”. Get fucked, dude. What does this refer to? And please refrain from profanity and personal insults. If you have the moral high ground, as you seem to believe, no need to use filthy words and personal insults, your superior…

The best explanation of why he was going to be fired and why that was the right thing to do (that I read) came from Yonatan Zunger, who had recently left a Human Resources position at Google; especially his third point, in the following post on Medium: https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3… In many way, it was not an unfamiliar sort of rant for the internet, and I was struck by the author's earnestness and apparent sincerity. It's possible that I make too many allowances for behaviour, and it's possible that I'm easily mislead. I thought his ideas were not in any way useful, or actionable, even had he been correct; That the ideas were poorly expressed, and full of such fringe 'truths' as are derived, insincerely, from cherry-picked science in order to be sold as snake-oil cures for the cognitive dissonance of the conservative and vulnerable; That the expression of these ideas was immensely foolish, especially appearing in the context of what I took to have been his initial intent, an appeal of tolerance of diverse viewpoints at Google. However, I'm always most disturbed by vitriol online when it's in service of beliefs that I share. It makes me deeply uneasy.

> then it shouldn't then fire a guy just because he makes an argument other people don't like He didn't "make an argument other people didn't like". An argument other people might not like could be "guys, I think everything in Google3 sucks and we should rewrite everything in Elixir." This was way beyond that. I'll refer you to this article, because Yonatan puts it in way better terms than I ever could: https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3… > Otherwise you are just ceding the company to cry-bullies While I was at Alphabet we dealt with plenty of cry-bullies, mostly in the form of conservative-leaning folk who thought they should be allowed to say whatever they pleased because "freedom of speech." Most of these self-styled Constitutional Scholars didn't realize that freedom of speech only applies to the government, not your employer. None got fired, as far as I can tell. > Google should fire the employees who responded with personal invective against a fellow Googler. And yet, this guy who is openly telling the world he doesn't trust females to be as interested as he is in the job should be applauded? Not sure I follow. > He is against discriminating against gender and wants the same hiring and recruiting process regardless of gender. Which is a completely specious claim to make, considering he most likely doesn't know the distribution of gender and ethnicity in the resumes the company receives and he's most likely not…

Fortunately, Yonatan (who was in fact the main engineer working on Google+) reposted it to Medium: https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/how-the-price-of-paint-is-set-in-the… After he wrote it I pointed out most historical barns in many parts of the US are white, using whitewash (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitewash) which doesn't really change the conclusion of the article, which itself is a masterclass in explaining the root cause of metallicity in the universe.

Yonatan Zunger, a principle eng at Google and twitter, said how wrong Damore was and that: "a good number of the people you [Damore] might have to work with may simply punch you in the face" https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3… I have no idea why this guy Yonatan is still allowed to work anywhere.

What do you think of Yonatan Zunger's proposed fix, to verify facts and not people? So @sistersofmercy might get a Verified Badge saying "Religious Institute, Ireland", and @tsomofficial might get a Verified Badge saying "Musical Group, UK". He wrote this in response to the Jason Kessler kerfuffle, well before the "factcheckUK" stunt, but it would have actually solved that too! Imagine seeing the username "factcheckUK" with the Verified Badge "Conservative and Unionist Party, UK 🇬🇧". https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/the-hard-lessons-of-blue-checkmarks-…

Another good article in a similar vein: "Asking the Right Questions About AI" https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/asking-the-right-questions-about-ai-… HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16286676

Yonatan Zunger also had this to say about the memo [1]. > at this point, I could not in good conscience assign anyone to work with you [...] a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face [...] You have just created a textbook hostile workplace environment. TL;DR - Yeah I mean, violence against you is totally justified because of what you said -- but if there is violence, it's your fault. Nothing in Damore's memo justifies violence as a response. Zunger just stops short of advocating a violent response. I don't think he's someone I'd ever want to work for, or pay heed to. 1 - https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3…

On the other hand, I liked this argument that checkmarks should verify facts about people, not just their names: https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/the-hard-lessons-of-blue-checkmarks-…

Thanks for summarizing. I suggest you reread #3 and note the use of language like "suggest", "consistent with" and "perceived". Authors use language like this because its really hard to make definitive statements in this area. In addition, its really hard to quantify the size of the effect and how much is due to nature vs. nurture. Furthermore, I'm relatively certain the authors are not experts on software engineering. As you have likely seen at this point, you could also claim that higher empathy actually should incline people to the job (see, e.g. https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3…

I don't think you've thought this through. Maybe read the article and other informed commentary such as this ex-Googler: https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3…

> Mostly, it seems, scientists agree with the "facts" he states that arent' google specific Really? Yonatan Zunger[1] seems to disagree with you. [1] https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3…

If you haven't read this post by Yonatan Zunger (former Googler) that deals with this specific situation, then I suggest you do: https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3… It makes the clear case that this employee went beyond opinion and created a harmful situation for himself and his colleagues.

This is a really good one, in my view: https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3… I agree - the discussion around this topic is very frustrating (more frustrating to me than the actual content of the manifesto by far), and everyone's trying to make it so black and white. I think the current top comment has it right; it makes good points (there are statistical differences in traits across genders), it makes bad points (the wage gap...just doesn't work like that), and it contains some really bad non-sequitur conclusions (measure how a person leads on the outputs of their team, not how "assertive" or "technical" they are).

It's worse than that. Ex-Googler Zunger is being celebrated for refuting Damore's argument by advancing gender stereotypes suggesting women naturally possess skills essential to the engineering process. > All of these traits which the manifesto described as “female” are the core traits which make someone successful at engineering https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3… How is it ok to push a gender stereotype that is pro-female but not ok if the stereotype is pro-male?

Any one even remotely thinks that the memo was right should read this : https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3… There are some good points in the memo - like having training and support for men, but it was largely an exercise in casting doubt on the ability of certain subset of your co-workers to do their job.

https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3… - this qualifies for me

> And as for its impact on you: Do you understand that at this point, I could not in good conscience assign anyone to work with you? I certainly couldn’t assign any women to deal with this, a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face, and even if there were a group of like-minded individuals I could put you with, nobody would be able to collaborate with them. You have just created a textbook hostile workplace environment. https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3…

"If Galileo had said that people in Padua were ten feet tall, he would have been regarded as a harmless eccentric. Saying the earth orbited the sun was another matter. The church knew this would set people thinking." -- Paul Graham, What You Can't Say [1] "And worse than simply thinking these things or saying them in private, you’ve said them in a way that’s tried to legitimize this kind of thing across the company, causing other people to get up and say “wait, is that right?”" -- senior Google guy, in condemnation of the essay [2] [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html [2] https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3…

> Most negative reactions I have seen to the memo attempt to shame the author without engaging in any sort of rational counter or discourse. Likely because it's the same old pseudoscientific Gish Gallop of claims that've been addressed a thousand times before. https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3…

Related: Yonatan Zunger's response to this. [1] Yonatan has worked at Google for a long time, and was an incredibly respected through it. [1] https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3…

Yonatan Zunger, a (recently departed) distinguished engineer at Google, wrote a very good response: https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3…

Such drama! I am saying that manigandham's total separation between speech and action is incorrect. I think Gizmodo and Google and this guy are all welcome to keep publishing whatever they want to. I think everybody else should also feel free to exercise their freedom of speech and freedom of association in response to that speech and publication. I'll be interested to see how Google handles it, but there's a good case to be made for them firing him. See, e.g., this post from a senior recent ex-Googler: https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3…