Internal Messages Show Some Googlers Supported Fired Engineer’s Manifesto

Recently fired Google engineer James Damore, author of the now-infamous 'antidiversity memo' that caused a firestorm both at Google and beyond, had a fairly easy time finding support from his coworkers. According to screenshots of discussions on Google's internal message forum, several employees agreed with the 10-page manifesto that cost Damore his job.

That memo, which Google employees first started tweeting about on Friday night and has since leaked in full (several times), attempts to make a case against the push for gender equality in tech and engineering, specifically because "men and women biologically differ in many ways." Damore argues that women are more likely to have innate biological traits that make them inferior engineers. For instance, Damore writes that women "have more ... neuroticism," which "may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs." (Googlegeist is the company's annual data-driven employee survey.)

Damore's memo brought a renewed focus to Silicon Valley's gender inequity, as well as the inevitable charges from conservative corners that Google was attempting to silence Damore simply for speaking his mind. But screenshots of Google's internal forums acquired by WIRED show that Damore found plenty of support from his coworkers. While it's hard to know how representative the views expressed below are of the company at large, they do illustrate that hostility toward Google's diversity efforts is not an isolated incident.

Damore further argued that people inherently want to protect women, which in turn creates a hostile environment for men: "As mentioned before, this likely evolved because males are biologically disposable and because women are generally more cooperative and agreeable than men. We have extensive government and Google programs, fields of study, and legal and social norms to protect women, but when a man complains about a gender issue issue [sic] affecting men, he’s labeled as a misogynist and whiner."

Google CEO Sundar Pichai disagreed. "To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK," Pichai wrote in a note to employees. He also said that parts of the memo actively violated Google's code of conduct by "advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace."

But the internal discussions that followed Damore's memo and its fallout show Google employees both embracing and advancing its views. Damore himself indicated that his former coworkers had reached out privately to express "their gratitude for bringing up these very important issues." Others chimed in publicly as well.

Yesterday evening, after Damore had been fired, one employee even posted a link to alt-right troll (and possible Trump administration adviser) Chuck Johnson's crowdfunding site, WeSearchr, where a crowdfunding campaign for Damore had already popped up.

"Personally, I'm not at all surprised to see this," says Kelly Ellis, a former Google software engineer who has previously spoken out about sexual harassment at the company. "Those guys like to pretend that they're silenced and afraid, but they're not."

Damore's treatise invited derision internally as well. At one point on Friday, on a thread titled "Why the focus on sex instead of race?," a Google employee noted that "the paper is striking at a lot of people’s values. But I think it’s failing to bite an important bullet, failing to follow its ideas to their inevitable conclusion." Then, in an apparent attempt to highlight the absurdity of Damore's case, the employee asks, "Does the author think we should be more willing to consider essentialist explanations for the company’s racial makeup?"

Damore, however, seems to have missed the question's sardonic framing.

Rather than dismiss race science out of hand, Damore responds that he doesn't "know as much about racial issues" as he does about "gender ones." He goes on to claim, "Also, women and men have repeatedly been shown to have biologically driven differences in population level distributions of traits so it’s much easier to understand some of the forces (and their solution) behind the gender gap."

Eventually, Damore takes offense as he catches on: "I’ve been told by multiple people that you’re trying to bait me into saying something to get me fired and that you’ve done it before. This is perhaps the least Googley thing I’ve heard anyone do, please stop.”

Later, in what appears to be a group for libertarian-leaning Google employees, Damore asked for feedback, noting that his own libertarianism "influenced a lot of the document."

One employee, apparently referring to this poll, wrote in response:

I put almost agree on go/pc-considered-harmful-poll. I thought it needed way more citations. Also, I would have left off anything about “marxism”. You could have made the same points about diversity/psychological safety without them. Adding them in just made the doc seem political. Although, I don’t think either would have changed the reaction.

My biggest concern is the number of people who don’t understand how distribution differences aren’t stereotypes and can’t be applied to individuals. It’s basic statistical logic. Regardless of wether [sic] or not there are differences and if they are biological or cultural, this is just a blatant logical fallacy.

For example, men’s average height is higher than women’s average height. You would never just assume a woman can’t be taller than 5’9”, but you would expect more men to be above 5’9”.

Apparently sympathetic to Damore's concerns, another employee tried to appeal to those who might be less inclined to agree.

Of all the images shared with WIRED, this was the only one that made a direct comparison to the 2016 presidential election. "Let's take a step back," the Googler wrote, "and look at what is actually making everyone in Google upset on this thread and in general since the start of the 2016 election season." He went on to describe how the apparent uniformity of thought at Google led people like Damore to feel "like they are being forcibly dragged into [sic] ideological indoctrination chamber." He goes on:

For example, there is broad consensus in all American companies that everyone should be treated the same regardless of race and gender and that sexual harassment or other mistreatment of employees should not be tolerated. But I do not think there is consensus on the following things, which are treated as obvious and noncontroversial at Google.

1. Different recruitment/hiring process for employees on color of their skin

2. Open stereotyping of employees by race and gender on internal sites without public outcry that makes such instances rare over time

3. Weekly public (though thankfully anonymous) shaming of employees for misdeeds as slight as anachronistic use of “guys” for a mixed gender group

4. Frequent references to documents that stigmatize open disagreement with a a rage [sic] of positions

5. Call for employees to give each other hugs at an all hands meeting because the wrong candidate won a presidential election in the country, following by a mass mailing on how to help your kids deal with grief due to the same occurrence

We could go on, or start a centithread on any of these subjects. I understand that these things feel normal and necessary to many holding strong progressive values, especially coming from colleges which are largely run along these norms today. Many feel that the country suffered a huge setback in 2016 and sick to use [sic] other venues, including workspaces with largely sympathetic employee base, to advance their values forward. Google as shining light in the sea of darkness right?

But then, what do you propose to do about Googlers who are well within general norms of the country, and many other businesses like IBM, Oracle or whatever - but who do not agree with progressive consensus which is currently in effect in our internal discourse? This consensus, while pretty strong, is also often overstated. During the election season, progressives have been very active at Google, including (sadly I think) draconian responses to anyone who disagreed with their core ideas. Now that passions are subsiding, we can see from polls like the recent one that Googlers have widely varying opinions on go/pc-considered-harmful.

The internal debate also played out on Google's internal meme generator, Memegen. A considerable number of the images shared with WIRED showed employees expressing concern not for the document itself but for the fact that employees were leaking content from Google's aggressively private internal discussions.

A few of the memes expressed dismay at both Damore's document and the fact that he found it appropriate to share on a company forum. Many more, however, appeared to signal solidarity with the now fired Googler.

Again, this represents only a sampling of the various discussions happening within Google right now; it's hard to say how broadly they apply at the company. Still, taken together with a survey of Google employees showing that a significant percentage of employees polled agree with Damore's memo, Google appears to have a vocal contingent of employees who not only dismiss the company's diversity efforts but now appear to be emboldened in their views.

We've reached out to Google for comment on how it intends to approach the internal discussion around Damore's firing and will update if and when we hear back. In the meantime, if you know anything about the current goings on at Google, you can let us know by email here, or through SecureDrop here.