[hpoe]

It seems to me like we have two different people arguing about 2 (maybe 3) completely different things when it comes to this Gebru situation.

1 - Google fired Gebru for trying to push a paper that presented google in a negative light. Doing so by creating special magic policies for her and then telling her she was fired. The concern in this case appears to be the fact that Google is suppressing criticism and ignoring it's own Ethics department and this is an example of morality being destroyed for profit.

2.- Gebru acted in an incredibly unprofessional manner following instruction to retract a paper, including posting charged complaints and accusations on an internal company mailing list as well as demanding to have revealed to her the identities of people that reviewed her paper and found it wanting. Those in this camp seem to generally accept that her firing was a result of unprofessional behavior from an employee that was disruptive to the organization. They then see that Google accepted her offer of having her demands met or working on an exit date as a reasonable business decision [See note], and see the subsequent drama as an attempt to draw attention to herself. Ultimately they see it as removing a toxic employee.

I don't really know what my point is but it seems in these comments we generally have 2 totally different discussions going on with one side lambasting the other for being ignorant, naive, or clueless.

Note: Also point of clarification that I don't see often asserted, it is SOP to remove a disgruntled employee's access to everything as quickly as possible after (or often before) termination in order to prevent them from using their access in a manner detrimental to the company.

[Analemma_]

I think the synthesis of both of these narratives goes like this:

Google had been wanting to get rid of Gebru for a while, for both good reasons (based on her emails and tweets she does indeed seem like an incredibly toxic personality and I sure wouldn't want to work anywhere near her) and bad (retaliation against the lawsuit she filed last year, which is both unlawful and incredibly unethical). They picked this paper as what must have seemed like a clean reason when she made the threat to resign, but taking her up on that threat has blown up in their face because everyone can see their supposed rationale doesn't hold water.

Taken as a whole, neither side looks particularly sympathetic, which makes it easy for partisans to latch onto the bad behavior of whomever they dislike.

[nmfisher]

It’s abundantly clear that Google was itching to get rid of her. They probably couldn’t believe her luck when she (stupidly) tried to bully them with not just a threat of resignation, but an actual statement of “I will resign on date XXX”.

I also don’t believe that Google would have done this for no reason (given her behaviour during the LeCunn incident) so I’m sympathetic towards Google’s conduct. If Gebru had simply come out and said “Google tried to censor my paper and so I was forced to resign”, I would be thinking very differently.

[jasonv]

She also claimed she was previously going to sue Google. She claimed it loudly and publicly. As long as we’re accounting...

[6gvONxR4sf7o]

I don’t believe anyone has claimed she said “I will resign on date XXX.” The wording I think she and Dean have said she used was “or I will work on a last date” or something. As in “or I’ll work on figuring out what my last date at google will be.”

[ergocoder]

It's incredibly entitled to think she would be the only person who gets to decide what the last day would be.

Either side can terminate the employment earlier.

I'd assume best intent that she would not go with something like "my last day is a year from now".

Why would if she leave immediately or 14 days later? If she didn't get to wrap up her work, then that's Google's loss.

To be honest, trying to spin this as Google firing her is very very strange. It's a non-issue, and she did throw an ultimatum.

[busterarm]

That's a commitment to resign. Many large companies have a policy of walking out a resigned employee immediately.

[dekhn]

That's not SOP at Google except in very limited circumstances. When I resigned, I told my manager and we negotiated an exit date 2 weeks after. I volunteered to give up my laptop early etc and not come into the office, but they really wanted me to finish up. People who steal or leak, however, could be terminated immediately and walked out by security. I guess also if you worked on a competitive product and changed to a competitor, they'd walk you out, too.

[busterarm]

And that just tells you how Google felt about this particular relationship.

It still doesn't translate to a firing.

[6gvONxR4sf7o]

I’m not arguing that she did or didn’t resign, just that she didn’t say “or my last date is the 10th” or anything else that clear.

[busterarm]

My point is that that's not necessary. It's a clear commitment to having an end date.

[roenxi]

> ...based on her emails and tweets she does indeed seem like an incredibly toxic personality and I sure wouldn't want to work anywhere near her...

I agree I wouldn't want her reporting to me, but is it really that hard to fire someone in California? From the outside Google management seems to endorse solidly left-leaning politics, so while anything is possible it seems unlikely that they objected to her views or activism. If they think she is toxic, it follows that they likely had actual reasons - and if there are actual reasons someone is a bad employee then they can be fired in my experience.

That lends some credence to the retaliation theory. If they can't expel her for good reasons, grab the first half-baked opportunity.

[metabagel]

Employment in California is “at will”, meaning that absent extenuating circumstances (such as a written contract) either the employee or the employer can terminate the relationship at any time, without cause. So, it’s not hard to terminate someone in California, but nonetheless employers are hesitant to terminate employees without cause, probably for fear of being sued.

I think it has to do with lawsuits being highly visible whereas underperforming employees are sort of an invisible cost. So, the risk assessment focuses on the rare but highly visible occurrence rather than the ongoing cost of continuing to employ someone who isn’t productive.

Just guessing. I don’t really understand this phenomenon.

[metabagel]

What makes it even more perplexing for me is that most companies require you to sign an arbitration agreement, which significantly reduces both the cost of a legal conflict as well as the risk of an extreme verdict being rendered.

And yet, my perception is that companies often resist terminating problem or unproductive employees due to the perceived risk of being sued.

Discriminating against a member of a protected class is against the law, so perhaps they are worried about being accused of that?

[pseingatl]

It is illegal to fire someone based on race-based considerations.

[busterarm]

Google can afford lawyers and PR to deal with an employment lawsuit but a lot of smaller companies don't feel like they can.

I had an experience once where a toxic, delusional, pathological liar of an employee was hired and started making up wild accusations about their coworkers on day 1. They then proceeded to do no work and had their role at the company progressively minimized so that they could have satisfactory performance for how little they were doing (and couldn't do much damage). There was no way the company was going to fire them and thankfully after a couple of years they decided to quit, despite making their entire team miserable that whole time.

[pseingatl]

The solution to dealing with such a person is a transfer, TDY for successive three month periods around the country (including Alaska in the winter), requiring reimbursement of hotel bills (i.e., no cash advance). You'll find the disgruntled employee resigns quickly, usually after the first safari.

[StavrosK]

I mostly agree, but on the other hand, if you were Google and wanted to fire Gebru, how would you do it? It's not like there's a better alternative, just firing her normally would probably have been worse.

[seles]

I couldn't find any reference to the lawsuit last year, could you provide some more information / link about it?

[vfclists]

What exactly does toxic mean if she has the sympathy of her coworkers?

Toxic to management, embarrassing to her line managers or toxic to the colleagues she co-produces her work with?

Was she toxic to the company's profits, toxic to the company's profits, or both?

[bpodgursky]

She has the (public) sympathy (of some fraction) of her direct (subordinate) team.

You can have the loyalty of a couple of close coworkers and still be toxic for the company as a whole, if you don't have professional interactions with other teams, or with your own managers.

[jasonwatkinspdx]

Last I saw the internal petition supporting her was at above 1,200.

Stereotyping is doing a lot of work here, driving people's assumptions about Gebru.

[concreteblock]

There are significant incentives for anyone critical of Gebru to remain (publicly) silent.

1. If someone is to sign a petition for Gebru, what could they lose?

2. If someone were to speak out, under their name, against Gebru, what could they lose?

3. If someone is neutral on the issue and a pro Gebru petition gets passed around asking for support, what is the path of least resistance?

See also https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_t...

[6gvONxR4sf7o]

I mean, there’s no counter petition (nor should there be) so it’s pretty tough to know whether those 1,200+ are representative.

Where I work, if someone is ousted, people might talk about the person’s toxicity or whatever got them fired one on one or in small groups, in a pretty off the record kind of way.

I’d bet the people who agree with the petition think it’s representative and the people who disagree think it’s not representative (“people are generally like me” is a reasonable prior).

[that_guy_iain]

For me, it's the fact it seems Google was quite willing to keep her around and keep allowing her be so toxic people felt they had to go to HR and anonymously give feedback and that they didn't just fire her straight away for publishing a paper they didn't like.

[pseingatl]

RE: the above: I see that HR has weighed in.

[panny]

Point 1 sounds a bit like the Hundred Flowers Campaign. Mao invited critics to openly express opinions on how to improve the communist party, then one year later, rounded up those who did under the Anti-Rightist Campaign for persecution and executions.

[hpoe]

I think there is a little bit of a difference between a prominent researcher being let go from Google and a revolutionary dictator performing a genocidal purge of people on suspicion of disloyalty.

[thu2111]

Well, Damore was fired after being explicitly invited to give feedback. Probably anyone at Google who agrees with the firing is going to keep their head down because why risk being chopped like Damore was?