[mlthoughts2018]

You are correct. She attached an ultimatum threatening to resign to demands about the identities and circumstances of a paper review, and Google called the bluff.

Gebru’s behavior seems wildly inappropriate, and my take on the actual research article is that it was indeed very weak, sanctimonious and legitimately deserving of the rejection for approval to publish externally until it had been edited significantly.

Writing a workplace letter in which you tell your coworkers to stop working is just unacceptable in this circumstance. If Google had fired her, it would be 1000% the right move, but they didn’t, they just accepted her bluff resignation, and that is totally on her.

Here were some of my thoughts on the actual publication,

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25314824