[saas_co_de]

This can definitely be the case. There are lots of sh--ty white male programmers working in the industry.

I have met plenty of white men who have masters level CS education, have worked for Google and other top name companies, and can't produce a line of useful working code to save their lives.

The reasons why corporations frequently hire people who don't actually produce anything are varied and complex, but it happens, a lot.

If someone is incompetent and also happens to be from a minority group then everyone starts complaining about how they are a "diversity hire" but with incompetent white males they just shrug and go "that's the way it is." In other words, it is so common with white males that no one even notices.

[dotnetisnotdead]

>If someone is incompetent and also happens to be from a minority group then everyone starts complaining about how they are a "diversity hire" but with incompetent white males they just shrug and go "that's the way it is." In other words, it is so common with white males that no one even notices.

You could be right this is definitely a possibility. I did not intend to suggest that all white male programmers are awesome, certainly not the case.

[wpietri]

And I'd add that there's evidence (and plenty of anecdote) that the men who most object to diversity are not so good at what they do. Which makes sense; they are the ones who have the most to lose from an increased talent pool. [1]

Personally, I'd be very interested to see Damore's code. We already know that he lied about both a PhD and being a chess master. [2] I would not be shocked at all to find out that he's not good at programming.

[1] http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjourna...

[2] https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/18271/is-james-dam...

[gizmo686]

From the complaint:

"23. Damore was diligent and loyal, and received substantial praise for the quality of his work. Damore received the highest possible rating twice, including in his most recent performance review, and consistently received high performance ratings, placing him in the top few percentile of Google employees. Throughout the course of his employment with Google, Damore received approximately eight performance bonuses, the most recent of which was approximately 20% of his annual salary. Damore also received stock bonuses from the Google amounting to approximately $150,000 per year.

24. Damore was never disciplined or suspended during his entire tenure at Google.

25. Based on Damore’s excellent work, Damore was promoted to Senior Software Engineer in or around January 2017—just eight months before his unlawful termination by Google."

[flukus]

Sounds like he was pretty good, but I wonder about this part:

> Damore received the highest possible rating twice, including in his most recent performance review, and consistently received high performance

How are these ratings done, by the team/manager or externally? IME when it's done by the same team then reviews are more about politics than performance.

[Idontknowmyuser]

so let me get this staright: when Damore is being rated politics have an effect on ratings and promotions

when Damore speaks out against politics affecting hiring and promotion, he is wrong

I'm fascinated how one can reconcile both beliefs

[flukus]

Sorry that was terribly worded, I meant politics/political in the personal sense, who's friends with who, etc.

[wpietri]

Yes, I'm sure Damore claims he was excellent. But claims of excellence do not correlate perfectly with actual excellence. And neither do promotion packets; I'm sure we've all worked with somebody who did better on paper than was justified.

So I'd still like to see his code. And talk with some of his coworkers.

[smsm42]

You're just mining for something by now. It is clear that you implication that Damore was a sore loser that covered his lack of performance by blaming diversity has no connection to reality. Damore had performance completely satisfactory by Google's standards, and achieved significant praise from his peers, so whatever would be your evaluation of it, he was not in a loser position, had no reason to be sore for anything and had no reason to blame diversity for anything related to performance or its perception by others. Time to leave this horse, it's dead.

[wpietri]

The guy appears to have lied about a PhD and being a chess master. So it's entirely reasonable for me to be skeptical of his claims in a lawsuit that he was an A+++ top performer. And even if those claims are correct, I still would like to look at his code and hear from his coworkers. He wouldn't be the first person to get promoted beyond his actual accomplishments.

Also, sweeping assertions like "had no reason" assume facts not in evidence. We mainly don't know what happened at Google. Or why he didn't complete his PhD. We have only heard his side of the story, and only part of that.

[smsm42]

It's OK to be skeptical. But when evidence is presented that it's not the case, and you are doubling down by denying it, it's not being skeptical anymore. It's refusing to accept the facts since they don't fit your preconceptions.

> We mainly don't know what happened at Google.

We don't, beyond public evidence (including one in the lawsuit and outside). But that evidence we do have, and it does not align with your presumption that Damore was poor performer, unless you accept a completely invented premise that all his peers in Google somehow colluded to fake his reviews and performance evaluations, but he was still unhappy and decided to push the diversity angle to achieve... I don't know what, getting fired from a job where everybody, according to you, were going out of the way to make him happy? I don't think this is a workable hypothesis, and certainly not one that bears minimal skeptical scrutiny.

You can't be called "skeptical" if you only mistrust evidence which does not fit your preconception, but accept and even invent one that fits one. That's not skepticism, that's agenda.

[Goladus]

> We already know that he lied about a PhD

No, he did not lie about this. You are lying about it. His linkedin listed him as having been part of a PhD program and people took it to mean he had a PhD. There is absolutely no evidence he ever intended to mislead anyone about this.

So, please stop spreading lies.

    ====

PS I know because I actually saw the linkedin profile before he edited it. It did not say he had a PhD. It clearly listed that he was in the program for 2 years, which any person reasonably familiar with PhD programs would immediately suspect meant that he had not finished. And indeed, I followed up by looking up what publications he had, and while his name was on a couple of papers he had clearly not published a dissertation. So, to anyone who wasn't deliberately looking to discredit him for malicious or self-interested reasons, as Business Insider's Natasha Tiku almost certainly was, would not have been fooled for a second by his profile nor would they have believed that Damore intended to fool them.

Note the business insider article you linked uses these weasel words:

James Damore, the fired Google engineer who wrote the now-infamous memo on diversity at the company, has removed mention of PhD studies in biology from his LinkedIn profile.

The removal comes after Wired writer Nitasha Tiku confirmed with Harvard that Damore has not completed his PhD.

He then goes on to call out the "Right-wing argument" appealing to his credibility because he had a PhD.

If you read carefully, you'll see that they frame as if it was this embarassing thing that they'd shamed him into doing, to encourage lazy, non-critical readers to reach the same conclusion that you did, while using the technically correct words to avoid defamation liability. But, careful analysis of the facts shows that I am correct. He did not lie about the PhD, others either lied on his behalf without his knowledge; or were confused by careless/overly-optimistic reading of the LinkedIn profile.

[wpietri]

I saw the LinkedIn profile too; I looked him up when the story first broke. I saw it and said, "Damn, a PhD in systems biology, he should know better than this." People who don't finish their PhDs either a) don't list the PhD, just leaving it as a Master's, or b) are explicit that they don't have the PhD. (E.g., "ABD in Systems Biology.)

So at the very best, his resume was misleading because he was incompetent at putting together a resume. That doesn't jibe with the theory that he's so very brilliant. The fact that he quickly edited it when called out confirms even he saw it as misleading; that he didn't comment or apologize suggests it was not a simple mistake.

Ah, and now that I go look for images, it did not list him as being part of a PhD *program". it just said "PhD, Systems Biology" under education:

http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/598b0f3776084a30198...

I'm glad to hear you weren't misled by that thanks to your expertise, but there's no denying that is misleading to a general-audience reader.

[smsm42]

So your argument goes like this:

1. Damore truthfully specified he's a PhD student

2. You (I assume innocently) and others (some innocently, some maliciously) misconstrued this as a claim that he has a PhD degree

3. Despite Linkedin information being completely true and whole error being contained in your bad reading alone, you and others called Damore a liar.

4. Damore removed that true information to avoid further confusion

5. You construe it as a proof that Damore was a liar, since if he removed completely truthful information that some people misread and used it against him, he must have intended to mislead from the start, and that's why he specified his PhD student status exactly as it truly was.

6. This also proves Damore was incompetent, since he wrote his Linkedin page in a way that a hostile or inattentive reader was able to misunderstand his page where it suited his preexisting notions, which would never happen if Damore was any good at writing Linkedin pages, as it is known that well-written (or merely competently written) Linkedin page is impossible to misread or misinterpret, no matter how much you try.

7. This is further proven by the image, since Linkedin design and forms do not allow to distinguish incomplete PhD study in progress from a finished one and display merely a length of the study but not the completion status, clearly Damore intended to mislead by using the only options available in the Linkedin interface.

This sounds like extremely tortured logic aimed at arriving at predetermined conclusion that Damore is a bad person. Looks like you're continuing to mine for something that explains why Damore is a bad person (failing at the premise he's a bad programmer above), to avoid addressing what he said on merits - since if he's a bad person, he can't be right on merits, obviously, no bad person has ever said anything true.

Note, you don't have to address it if you don't want to, but if you do, personal attack is not the best way to go, even if a very common one.

[wpietri]

That is not my argument.

My argument is that if in LinkedIn's education section you list a school and a degree -- which he did -- people take that to mean you have the degree. Ergo, he falsely claimed to have a degree he didn't.

Could that be an accident? Might it just be incompetence? Maybe. But given that he also falsely claimed on his resume to be a chess master, I think the simple explanation is that he lied about both.

That he then quickly removed things when called out with neither explanation nor apology fits in with the "lies to make himself look good" narrative. A person who had made an innocent error generally feels bad about the error and says so.

Your thing about LinkedIn form design seems to be pure fiction. I just checked: you can enter any text you like, including no text at all. People without a degree don't have to put a degree in. I spent an entire 3 minutes looking at examples, and people fill in all sorts of things, including "PhD Candidate" and "PhD Student (incomplete)" to make it clear they are not claiming the degree.

This is not a personal attack; this is me pointing out facts of his behavior and reasonable inferences.

[Goladus]

A person who had made an innocent error generally feels bad about the error and says so.

That's what he did! That is, that's what he did when someone finally got around to asking him about it in an environment where he trusted that he'd be given time to say his side in an unedited manner, which does not include any of the hit pieces you have linked. I believe it's mentioned in his interview with Jordan Peterson, which is the first public interview he gave.

Again you are blaming him for your own error.

This is not a personal attack; this is me pointing out facts of his behavior and reasonable inferences.

First, it is absolutely a personal attack. You're attacking his character and coding ability, which are not relevant to the topic. Ok, technically, you're passively suggesting it via speculative commentary but it amounts to the same thing.

Second, your inferences aren't reasonable, and they're unreasonable in exactly the manner that one would predict based on consumption of inflammatory and deliberately misleading propaganda aimed primarily at smearing Damore. For example, you inferred that he "didn't say anything or apologize," apparently relying on entirely on hostile bloggers to convey that message to you on his behalf. Remember that until this blew up, he was a private individual. He has no platform of his own and no way to offer any response that your chosen sources did not provide to you. So it is completely and utterly unreasonable to hold him accountable in such a way.

Furthermore, the fixation with LinkedIn is unreasonable. LinkedIn profiles are notoriously unreliable and many are neglected and incomplete, since many members are not actively seeking employment (yet retain membership for the social networking). If you had looked at Damore's whole profile rather than just the image, it was clear that not much effort had been put into it. This is consistent with his story that he had not been actively seeking employment when Google offered him an interview based on his Chess playing.

Which brings us to the chess issue. And yes, it seems that Damore stated on his resume that he's a FIDE Master, a term of art that it seems clear that he misused. Specifically he wrote "FIDE Master in Chess (>99th Percentile)". Other claims about chess-playing on his resume seem to check out as far as I can tell[0][1]. So yes, it's an interesting question why does he say that on his resume. I have not found an explanation, but can certainly think of others not mentioned in that stackexchange link, such as he misunderstood proper use of the term. Obviously a mistake, one that shouldn't be made, but nothing like the dishonesty you're accusing him of, especially when you give him no opportunity to explain himself.

Meanwhile, in this obsession with minor errors in an inexperienced young person's first resume or linkedin profile(errors that are easily cleared-up in a phone interview if you actually care), you are apparently giving a pass to someone who anonymously leaked a co-workers' fair and well-reasoned internal posting to outrage media to encourage hit pieces and start a witch hunt. ... which ultimately resulted in the employer being hit with a ton of negative press and a high-profile lawsuit.

So, no, your inferences are not remotely reasonable or appropriate by my estimation.

[0] http://www.uschess.org/results/2003/nya/?page=WINNERS&xsecti...

[1] I don't know what "Board 1 and Conference Champion" means, and "Rise of Nations" is a PC strategy game.

[smsm42]

> My argument is that if in LinkedIn's education section you list a school and a degree -- which he did -- people take that to mean you have the degree. Ergo, he falsely claimed to have a degree he didn't

People that read that are wrong (at least sometimes), since Linkedin shows degrees-in-progress and completed degrees the same way. Not ideal interface, for sure, but that's what it is. People that do not know that make mistakes. It's their mistake.

> Could that be an accident? Might it just be incompetence? Maybe.

Surely, it may be incompetence - not understanding how Linkedin profile works. But it's not Damore's incompetence.

> That he then quickly removed things when called out with neither explanation nor apology

If people misunderstood what was on his Linkedin page, and undeservedly called him a liar and attacked him for that, and he removed the controversial item despite it being true - I think demanding apology from him for you misunderstanding him and falsely calling him a liar is taking the entitlement thing too far. If somebody owes an apology, it's people who called him a liar despite him publishing completely true information - but of course I do not hold by breath for that.

> fits in with the "lies to make himself look good" narrative.

Surely it fits your narrative. The problem is it is not true.

> A person who had made an innocent error generally feels bad about the error and says so.

Nobody owes you feeling bad for telling the truth and you misunderstanding him. It would be nice if people who did the misunderstanding felt bad and did not blame others for their mistake, but I recognize this is not how the Internet works. If you misunderstood something, it's other guy who should be feeling bad for not working harder to prevent any chance of you making a mistake. The other guy is always responsible, he's clearly either a liar or an idiot for letting you to misunderstand him.

> Your thing about LinkedIn form design seems to be pure fiction. I just checked: you can enter any text you like, including no text at all.

That misunderstanding thing happened to you again. I haven't said you cannot enter free text in Linkedin. I said the form does not have completion status for education. Yes, you can hack around that by adding various text to a degree program name or any other field. If Damore knew in advance there would be a mob of hostile attackers scrutinizing everything he ever did under a microscope to find even a tiniest flaw and blow it up out of proportion, he would probably do it too. But he just wrote true facts about his educational record, without thinking about being extra defensive and using tools given to him by Linkedin. Linkedin provides tools to set beginning and end time for educational record, and program name, but does not have a setting for "incomplete" or "in progress" status.

> This is not a personal attack; this is me pointing out facts of his behavior and reasonable inferences.

You "reasonable inferences" - which, as far as blaming others for your misunderstanding goes are not reasonable at all - are what is the personal attack, since they seek to impugn Damore's character without addressing his actual arguments. That's the definition of personal attack.