In this episode, we talk to James Damore, a former Google employee who wrote a controversial memo about the company's lack of diversity and white male privilege. We talk about his journey to writing the memo, why he wrote it, and why he thinks the company needs to do something about it. We also talk about why Google should be doing more to improve their diversity and representation in their hiring practices, and how they need to fix their sexism and racism problem. We also get into why the company should hire more women and minorities, and what it means to be a good ally in the fight against racism and sexism in the workplace, as well as how they should fix their own sexism problem, and whether or not they are racist and sexist in general. This episode was produced and edited by Alex Blumberg and Sarah Abdurrahman. Music by Zapsplat and Mark Phillips. Art: Mackenzie Moore Music: Hayden Coplen Editor: Will Witwer Additional editing by Ben Koppel Mixing: Jeff Perla Editing: Matthew Boll Cover art by Ian McKellen Theme music by Haley Shaw Logo by Jeff Kaale (credited to Jeff Perlan and Christian Blanchard Thank you for the intro and outro music by Matt Knott (c) , and our theme song by Ian McLeod ( ) & the rest of the music used in this episode was written and produced by Bobby Lord ( ) and our ad music was produced by Jeff McElroy ( ) , and a very special thanks to the excellent work of Bobby Lord ( ) of the band, and the music was done by our band, The Good Vibez ( ) for this episode is . and the rest is by is , and by ) and , edited by , a very talented of , our thanks to ) and our band thanks to our good friend, for the beatboxing, , which is . . & , & was edited by my friend in this week's cover art is and this is ? and also , they are on , we are , thanks , , and ) , thank you , also @ , this is my own writing and .
00:00:53.000Now, for people who don't know the story, let's give them the short version of it.
00:00:58.000You were working at Google, and what prompted you to write this memo?
00:01:03.000They would have these company-wide meetings where they just push a lot of this diversity stuff, and some of it was kind of weird, so I decided to go to these secret meetings, sort of, that were about 100 people, completely unrecorded, and they would talk about some of the things that they're doing.
00:01:21.000And it would really contradict what they're saying publicly, where, oh no, we're not changing any of our hiring practices for these candidates.
00:01:29.000And they said, yeah, we basically are making it easier for some candidates to get in.
00:01:35.000And I voiced some concerns, but people just shamed me and was like, no, you're wrong.
00:02:08.000They kept looking at it, but just never said anything.
00:02:11.000And, you know, I would send it to random people that I knew, and half the people would be like, yes, exactly, this is what I've been thinking.
00:02:19.000And the other half would maybe disagree with some points, but it would never be, you know, emotional outbursts or anything.
00:02:26.000It would just be like, oh, are you sure that this is actually happening?
00:02:29.000It's like, yes, because, you know, I've actually been to these unrecorded meetings.
00:02:59.000I mean, if you don't have all your bases covered, two black women, two Asian men, if you don't have all your bases covered, you can get pretty roundly criticized as not being diverse or being possibly racist.
00:03:11.000And when you do that, you're kind of fucked.
00:03:13.000Yeah, so Google definitely has a huge target on its back.
00:03:17.000And so there are people that want to complain that, oh, Google is not diverse, therefore it's racist and sexist.
00:03:35.000There's obviously some sexism happening.
00:03:38.000And so a lot of their stuff is, oh, we need to fix this because, you know, all this sexism is bad.
00:03:44.000And obviously, if you disagree with sexism, that's, of course, bad.
00:03:49.000And I obviously don't want there to be any sexism, but I just don't think that that's the sole cause of this disparity in representation.
00:04:01.000Yeah, it seems like in the interest of promoting an image of diversity, they're willing to bypass science and the truth and the reality of culture, the reality of human biology and evolutionary psychology.
00:04:16.000There's just so much that they're willing to look past to get to this one thing, which seems to be like There's a really important thing in today's society that you want to promote an image of diversity.
00:06:18.000That's a very recent redefinition of the term racism, but it's very slippery and very dangerous because you could see it as promoting, in fact, exonerating racism towards other ethnicities or towards white people or towards people that you feel like are in a privileged class.
00:06:38.000You can get away with it because it's no big deal because they're the ones who are racist.
00:06:41.000Even if it's not even that person, if it's people who look like them that have lived for centuries, Like, somehow or another, you're a guilty person.
00:07:13.000There were clear reasons, at least in my mind, that That's not as simple as they're making it out to be, and that there are some differences, and that could explain some of the issues that women are facing.
00:07:27.000And so a lot of these women issues in tech, I feel, are actually not really gender issues, they're just Women, on average, are more cooperative, for example, and so they may find it harder to lean in in the corporate world,
00:07:53.000It's not that there's a ton of sexism.
00:07:56.000It's maybe that male typical behavior is rewarded.
00:08:01.000Just as, you know, competitiveness is rewarded in a lot of corporate world, but it's not that we're just, oh, you're a woman, therefore you're obviously bad at coding.
00:08:42.000Yeah, although some people will twist that and say that because a lot of it is just they try to fit their ideology and they see one data point and they extrapolate.
00:08:50.000So they see these studies and it's true that these women are viewed as less likable, but they are seen as just as competent.
00:08:59.000And so their performance review isn't affected really by being assertive.
00:09:04.000It's just that socially they may not be as liked as much.
00:09:07.000Right, but that's got to be a factor in the way they behave, because for men, a ball-busting successful man is supposed to be, like, looked up to.
00:09:17.000Like, oh, this is the guy who's kicking ass in the corporate world.
00:09:22.000But if Jenny's ruthless, like, you don't want to be around her.
00:09:25.000You know, it's a weird, it's just, that's, I feel like, if there is a real bias with men, obviously I don't work in tech, but I would assume that that would be a real bias.
00:09:35.000Yeah, and I think some of the solution to that is just allowing people to be more cooperative.
00:09:41.000And actually, so for example, at Google, you're really rewarded for owning a particular project and seeing that one project go through.
00:09:50.000But if you're someone that can really help a lot of different people, and you're not necessarily the sole owner of any individual thing, but you provide a lot of value to the company, That isn't really seen as positive as someone that really drove the project alone.
00:10:35.000Now, the blowback from this has been very intriguing, you know, as an outsider, like, looking at it.
00:10:41.000When I first heard about it, you know, I thought, well, this mean, angry man must have written some things saying that women suck at tech, or they suck at this, and, you know, and people reacting to this blatant misogynistic tribe that I, or scribe that I, uh,
00:11:24.000Because some major publications republished it.
00:11:28.000Yeah, I think it was Gizmodo or Motherboard or something.
00:11:31.000Why the fuck would they do that without citations?
00:11:34.000It seems so unreasonable and so irresponsible.
00:11:38.000I think a lot of these companies just have a certain narrative that they're trying to push.
00:11:45.000I've tried to talk to a lot of these reporters and I'll give hour-long interviews with some of them and at the end they'll just write the same sort of article of like, oh yeah, he's just a misogynist.
00:12:00.000So I think even if I can convince the individual journalists, they are under pressure What a weird world we're in right now when it comes to that because I was looking for something that could be could be Like,
00:12:24.000The only thing that I could find, and this is a very mild criticism, is that you were saying, I believe you used the term neurotic, that women were more likely to be neurotic.
00:13:06.000I think it's just, I was too much into the, like, I've seen the word so often that I didn't really associate it with neurotic and the negative connotations.
00:13:17.000Well, I've seen a bunch of your conversations.
00:13:20.000I've listened to you talk to Ben Shapiro and a couple other folks.
00:13:24.000And, you know, your thought process is very reasonable and very well sorted out.
00:13:30.000And another thing that I'm not hearing from anybody is how you wrote a whole page and a half describing all the different ways that women could be more involved in tech or you can encourage more women to tech.
00:13:43.000Like, this is not the work of a misogynist.
00:13:45.000This is the work of someone who's carefully considering an issue and looking at it from a very...
00:13:53.000And correct me if I'm wrong, but that you felt frustrated that you were looking at something that was, that people, the way they were approaching this, they weren't looking at it for what it was.
00:14:05.000They had kind of decided how they were going to describe it.
00:14:12.000And it wasn't really based on facts or reality and certainly not on science.
00:14:16.000And you sort of felt frustrated by this and you decided to try to interject with as much of the current science as you could that could possibly explain choices.
00:14:26.000Not why women are bad at it, not why they shouldn't be in it, which is what I kept reading.
00:14:33.000But more that why women choose to go into certain professions, what could be the impediment, and what we could do to maybe encourage more women to do it instead of doing this sort of blanket-style diversity where you're just like,
00:14:48.000oh, we need two of these, and we need two of those, which is what I seem to think that they were doing.
00:15:03.000There's a lot of censorship when it comes to these sort of conversations.
00:15:06.000They would rather look at me, who looks like a meathead, and look at you and go, oh, well, these fucking guys are just talking shit about women for an hour.
00:16:02.000You can't be racist towards white people.
00:16:03.000So what are the most egregious things, one of the most ridiculous things they were trying to push when you were at these classes or meetings?
00:16:11.000Besides the fact of just certain things in our hiring process that would favor certain people, which would create negative stereotypes for people just in general.
00:16:24.000One thing about stereotypes that they don't realize is that people will automatically create stereotypes no matter what, and it's based on their environment.
00:16:33.000And we see this with affirmative action too in academia, where if you create a sort of situation where portions of the population are performing differently, then you'll automatically create the stereotype that, oh,
00:16:48.000maybe all the Asians are smart and all of the other minorities aren't as smart in this college.
00:16:55.000Because you needed a 1600 to get in if you're Asian and you need lower otherwise.
00:17:03.000So you'll automatically create that stereotype and that's negative for everyone because it creates this tension between the groups and they self-segregate because of that.
00:17:13.000While if you just put everyone in the same level, then they'll just intermingle and it'll be great.
00:17:20.000So, you know, that has its negative consequences, and it may be illegal, which is what I was trying to say in my document.
00:17:34.000Once you think that, oh, all of this is because of sexism, and even though we can't really see overt signs of sexism, like, oh yeah, you're a woman, therefore you're bad, and no one is saying these sexist slurs or anything,
00:17:49.000then it must be some low-level bias that we all have.
00:17:53.000And that's why they're pushing all this unconscious bias and microaggressions and just increasing everyone's sensitivity to Oh, you said something that could be interpreted in this one weird way, and that might offend someone somewhere,
00:18:09.000therefore you should never say anything.
00:18:15.000Well, I think we would all agree that we would all be better off if we treated people nicer.
00:18:22.000If we didn't have racism, if we didn't have sexism, we just appreciated people for their qualities and just could be very objective about that.
00:18:34.000I would imagine when you're running a company as large as something like Google, you kind of have to put fires out before you even see smoke.
00:18:43.000The writing's on the wall when it comes to criticism today.
00:18:48.000And anything that people can point to, whether it's a percentage of women, a percentage of minorities, whatever it is, that they feel like is off.
00:18:59.000I mean, people will write articles about this.
00:19:14.000Yeah, and there have been reports of companies that'll have these diversity programs and then blackmail companies if they don't take them.
00:19:22.000So, say, you know, they'll start complaining because, you know, all of these companies are the same in that they have about, you know, 20 to 30 percent women.
00:19:31.000So they could do the same attack against anyone.
00:19:34.000And so they blackmail a company, say, oh, you need to do these certain programs, and if you don't, then we'll start doing external pressure on you.
00:19:44.000So who are the companies that are blackmailing them?
00:20:08.000But the secondhand story was that he would go into these groups and if anybody had said something, whatever reason they had to get into this company, they would go into this company and then they would charge them A tremendous amount of money to go in and create these diversity programs.
00:20:26.000And if they didn't do that, then they would shame the company and they would claim the company was racist.
00:20:32.000Jesse Jackson had this laundry list of things he wanted, like jumbo shrimp cocktail and all this crazy shit and limo rides.
00:20:39.000But really, it's been kind of documented.
00:20:47.000But that's where he got that moniker, race pimp.
00:20:51.000That what he was essentially doing was race pimping.
00:20:53.000And that he was going around and, you know, kind of threatening people that we will call you a racist, we will call your company racist, comply in this manner.
00:21:23.000Yeah, and that was sort of made public with all of this, where there were some people that just really pushed and started complaining a ton based on my document.
00:21:35.000They would email my HR, everyone up my management chain, and they'd write all these posts and try to coordinate people to really shame me.
00:21:44.000And then they started tweeting about it after, and that's how it leaked externally.
00:21:55.000Did anything make you go, hmm, I could have worded that better?
00:21:59.000Obviously the neuroticism, I could have worded that differently.
00:22:04.000The fact that I didn't talk about all the biases that are against women as much, but it was really that This was a Google internal document, and so we already have so much stuff about the potential biases against women,
00:22:21.000and this was just the other side of the story, the other perspective that wasn't being heard.
00:22:28.000I don't really know any criticism that was really, oh yeah, that was definitely, I should have done that.
00:22:41.000Man, so you had put this memo out there, and then the memo got leaked.
00:22:47.000And then once it got leaked, you got fired.
00:23:30.000Like I said, the only thing that I thought was even remotely derogatory was that one word or that one idea that women are more prone to neuroticism.
00:23:38.000Other than that, it just seemed to me to be evolutionary psychology.
00:23:41.000It seemed to be, like, a lot of stuff that has already been really well-researched.
00:23:46.000This is some pretty clear differences.
00:23:49.000And again, it's not all women or all men, but there's a tremendous amount of evidence that shows that males lean towards certain professions and females lean towards other professions.
00:24:01.000Yeah, and these are based on surveys of like half a million people.
00:24:04.000So people are saying, oh yeah, this is just one study that showed this.
00:24:08.000Like, no, it's many different studies across many different countries.
00:24:11.000And, you know, there have been even experiments that link this to just prenatal testosterone, which is pretty strong evidence that there's some biological link.
00:24:23.000Also, if you have a company like Google, which, by the way, before we go any further, I'm a big fan of Google.
00:24:39.000Every morning, I go to my phone and I check the Google News.
00:24:43.000I have a whole setup, but that's one of the first things I do.
00:24:45.000I check the news on my phone from Google.
00:24:47.000So it's not like I'm an anti-Google person, but if...
00:24:52.000If there wasn't some sort of evolutionary psychology reason or some sort of a prenatal testosterone reason or some biological reason why people were inclined to choose one profession over another, Google would have to be a fucking horrible company.
00:25:08.000If everything was even, if everybody was 50-50 and they're only hiring 20% women, that means they're monsters.
00:25:26.000Yeah, and that's why I feel like some people are shaming me, like, oh, this is such a bad thing to tell little girls that are interested in technology.
00:25:34.000When really, I think this is a much better view of the world, where just...
00:25:38.000Yeah, if you're interested in technology, great.
00:25:40.000There aren't as many women like you, but if you are, that's amazing.
00:25:44.000While the other side of the story is, oh no, even if you are, then you'll face all these challenges, and it'll just be an uphill battle against sexism, and you'll never be seen as good as a man.
00:25:57.000And that's not very encouraging to a lot of people.
00:25:59.000Well, it's also not, it's not necessarily accurate.
00:26:02.000I mean, you're kind of like bending the truth to meet your narrative, you know, where instead we should maybe look at, like, what are the differences between men and women?
00:26:12.000But that's the thing, like, people don't want to even accept.
00:26:15.000There's a trend today to not accept biological differences between the sexes.
00:27:56.000I wouldn't want to work with them in an office.
00:27:58.000I mean, if I was a woman, I would think that would be the worst place to work is in an office with men, especially if I was attractive and I was just around a bunch of goons or staring at my butt and just saying stupid shit.
00:28:09.000I mean, I think, like, in general, there's an issue with men and women working together because a lot of men are gross, you know?
00:28:15.000I mean, it's not all of us, obviously, but, I mean, just if I want to be honest about it, I would say that, man, I think women probably have to deal with a lot of shit.
00:28:24.000But is that the reason why only 20% of them are in tech?
00:28:29.000Because that's not the case with all jobs when women and women work together.
00:28:32.000And I think men are gross across the board.
00:29:09.000Here's another good thing about Google, because I don't want to trash on Google, and the good thing about tech companies in general.
00:29:14.000I feel like we are in a way better position that tech companies are leaning way left.
00:29:22.000I think we're in a way better position socially that tech companies are being extremely concerned about diversity.
00:29:28.000Because you just don't feel that in a lot of companies where they're about the hard line.
00:29:33.000They're about the bottom line, making money, kicking ass, taking names, pushing the company ahead, and they're about infinite growth.
00:29:41.000This is not what I see from tech companies.
00:29:44.000What I see from tech companies is extreme caution when it comes to social issues and this extreme desire to be thought of as being very diverse, very fair, very liberal.
00:29:59.000And I also think When I think, at least, about the smartest people in the world or the most innovative people in the world today, I almost always think about tech.
00:30:09.000Because I think about, like, if you looked at the human organism, We're good to go.
00:30:36.000Those people are oftentimes very left-wing and very liberal.
00:30:40.000So I like the fact that Google has this as a thought process.
00:30:44.000I just wish that it was Unbiased in its determinations when it comes to biases.
00:30:54.000Yeah, so I agree that being progressive isn't necessarily a bad thing.
00:30:59.000It is great that Google has this don't be evil motto and they've decided, oh yeah, we get a ton of ad revenue, therefore we can do a ton of random stuff.
00:32:15.000Like these hidden unconscious biases where you have to examine yourself.
00:32:19.000Don't just look at overt actions and see whether or not those actions are racist.
00:32:23.000You have to actually examine all your thoughts and try to find racist thoughts because they are in there whether you want to believe it or not.
00:32:31.000Like, oh Jesus, this is a goddamn ghost hunt.
00:32:36.000It's like, again, even though I'm a white man, I really feel like it's leaning better that we're shitting on white men than, you know, if it was the other way.
00:32:49.000If we were shitting on minorities, I mean, it would be very disturbing if an enormous company like Google was going, well, let's just be honest, Puerto Ricans are lazy.
00:33:09.000You're saying something fucking crazy and racist.
00:33:12.000I know you don't think it's crazy and racist because you're trying so hard to not be racist towards minorities that you're looking at what's a temporary majority.
00:33:20.000I mean, white people are only a majority for another decade, right?
00:34:35.000And at some point, people will just see, no, these people aren't actually that.
00:34:40.000And, you know, they've just created a bubble of...
00:34:44.000Words that they say and it just keeps getting more and more extreme and at some point it'll just shatter Like an economic bubble, but I but that's very dangerous because it opens a door to competition to Google Like someone who's more rational and I think that's unfortunate for Google to like to be supporting these ridiculous ideas I read this one article where this woman was calling you a misogynist.
00:35:08.000And it was like, she was being really brutal.
00:35:21.000So I read your memo and then I read this article about your memo.
00:35:24.000I'm like, this is like an angry person that has just decided that this is the focus of all the woes of the world is James and I'm gonna shit on James and that the misogynists of the world like James are the reason why women can't excel in tech.
00:35:42.000Yeah, and I think part of it is that there's just an asymmetry, so there's no punishment for writing this really angry letter that says how misogynist I am.
00:35:54.000Negative to me and anyone else that has similar viewpoints So there really needs to be some sort of retribution maybe for People that just so openly are so negative about you could just get away with it Yeah, and then no one questions it.
00:36:10.000That's really part of the problem It's like people are so looking for things to be racist that when someone cries racism if you debate it at all like well, how is he racist?
00:37:26.000Back then, during the McCarthy era, if you started reading communist newsletters or you started going to a meeting, what is this all about?
00:37:36.000You could get shamed, run out of Hollywood, and it was a giant issue.
00:37:40.000People were ratting on people, and they were doing it for the same reasons.
00:37:43.000They did not want to be lumped in with this group, so they would immediately turn people in.
00:37:49.000It was a scary time where people were looking for the communists.
00:37:52.000Everyone is looking for the dirty red scare.
00:37:54.000They're going to come and infiltrate our world.
00:37:57.000It's very similar because it's a mindset.
00:38:02.000This mindset of not looking at things objectively but having everything boxed into these very convenient packages.
00:38:11.000And this is one of them, that diversity is of the utmost importance and that anything that does not challenge that idea or anything that does not support that idea, rather, is racist.
00:38:22.000Yeah, and that was sort of what I was trying to say when I said demoralize diversity, because, you know, we've just put it on such a pedestal and we've stopped looking at the costs and benefits of it.
00:38:33.000And we've just started looking for villains, you know, all the racists, and we just want to punish those villains and label anyone that disagrees with any of the precepts of diversity as some sort of evil person.
00:38:48.000Well, it's just a foolish approach, especially the approach of making Asian people get higher scores.
00:39:20.000I mean, and they're a minority, which is even weirder, but it's somehow or another that one is like, we let that one slide.
00:39:27.000Because we know they don't complain, and they kick ass, and they go and study hard.
00:39:31.000So for some reason, we, like, let that one slip.
00:39:35.000Yeah, and a lot of this has some really nefarious history where the beginnings of just, you know, we used to just have tests and then that would be how you got into Harvard, for example, and whoever has the highest score would get in.
00:39:50.000But then they saw, oh, there's too many Jewish people getting in.
00:39:55.000And so they started adding all this, oh, let's look at your extracurriculars and let's make it more subjective on who we get in.
00:40:04.000And that way they could discriminate against Jewish people, really.
00:40:28.000Well, whatever it means, the end result is what's significant.
00:40:32.000We're not stopping other people from taking these tests, right?
00:40:36.000If you get a disproportionate amount of European Jews, there should be some sort of study, and there has been, but there should be some sort of studies as to what is it culturally.
00:43:37.000You can't do that same sort of approach that you're doing with academics or with industry.
00:43:42.000You can't do that approach when it comes to athletics.
00:43:46.000I'm not suggesting that the whole world is a sport, but when it comes to things like scores and keeping people out and letting people in and trying to get more people of a certain color or ethnicity in,
00:44:05.000You know, you're doing some slippery work, man.
00:44:07.000You know, it gets real weird when you start doing that.
00:44:09.000Yeah, it's all about leveling the outcomes of people.
00:44:14.000And there's this scary Kurt Vonnegut short story where, you know, if you're really smart, then you'll have to wear headphones that just beep all the time.
00:44:24.000If you're beautiful, you'll have to wear a mask in the future.
00:44:27.000If you're strong, you'll have to have all these weights on you.
00:45:08.000I mean, I guess with a company, is to try to figure out how to manage all of these unfair aspects of being a biological entity in a civilization.
00:45:18.000And I don't think Google's doing the right job by firing you for promoting science.
00:45:38.000Because he's not saying that women can't do it.
00:45:41.000He's not saying they wouldn't be better at it.
00:45:42.000He's simply using science and citations to describe many of the issues that probably led to people choosing what they choose to do for a career.
00:49:11.000Some people choose to get their bodies tattooed.
00:49:14.000Some people choose to do all sorts of strange things.
00:49:17.000I don't know why they do what they do, but it's interesting to study them.
00:49:22.000And it seems to me that all you were doing was talking about your own personal frustration with this very narrow-minded approach to diversity.
00:50:41.000You know, questioning some of their viewpoints and like the narrative at Google, that's being a jerk.
00:50:48.000So white people are open game, essentially.
00:50:51.000Like if someone is questioning you about something and you happen to be a white person, they're going to get away with far more?
00:50:58.000Yeah, they try to invoke this a lot, too, in these programs where you're encouraged when you ask a question or something, you say, as a white male, this is what I feel.
00:51:41.000I'm like, okay, let's read this fucking thing one more time.
00:51:44.000I don't think you promoted any stereotypes.
00:51:46.000You were talking with citations about science.
00:51:51.000And that's where this whole thing really confused the shit out of me.
00:51:56.000Have you had many people, like, has there been like a 50-50 sort of reaction?
00:52:02.000Like 50% of the people were like me, kind of confused about this, and then 50% of the people were just knee-jerk calling you some sort of a sexist or a Nazi?
00:52:11.000Yeah, so at Google, they had an internal poll with about 800 people, and about 40% of people agreed.
00:52:37.000And that result is the maximum amount of diversity.
00:52:41.000And I feel like If that's your result, if that's what you're looking for, shouldn't the result be, let's just not discriminate, just be open and just try to get the best people?
00:52:53.000Wouldn't that be the best way to do it?
00:52:55.000And then if we run into problems, like, you know, we've tried to do this best people thing, but all we have is Asians.
00:53:00.000So even suggesting that we should go to some meritocracy thing, that's a microaggression.
00:53:57.000But I think at least now some people can see it for what it is.
00:54:02.000Well, I think what you're seeing is that there's a fear of retribution.
00:54:07.000And that's one of the reasons why people are towing the line, is that they're worried about these hyper-aggressive people that are coming out against people that don't toe the line.
00:54:17.000They're, you know, like you're saying, shaming you.
00:54:19.000And that's a disturbing aspect of human nature that I don't think should ever be reinforced.
00:54:27.000And I think It's hard to call those things out individually because collectively as a group, if this group of diversity-minded folks, left-wing-minded social justice warrior types are attacking you, you feel very isolated and there's not a lot of support.
00:56:27.000You're at the fucking tip of the spear, buddy.
00:56:31.000I'm really afraid that I'm actually just polarizing the issue even more and separating people because it's really shown that The stereotypes are real in some ways.
00:56:45.000There are some really extreme people on the left and really extreme people on the right, maybe.
00:56:50.000And we really need to bridge it and say, okay, let's actually have a discussion.
00:56:57.000Let's talk about what's actually happening.
00:57:00.000And nothing is really off the table in this discussion, but that's not happening.
00:57:05.000And Google itself, from what I've heard, they've just been doubling down on the diversity stuff, and they haven't addressed any of the political discrimination.
00:57:14.000Well, I think you're right, and I think that has to be your motivation for writing that thing.
00:57:19.000I mean, that was a very well-thought-out memo, and I don't think someone who Wanted to separate people would have written that the way it seemed to me as an outsider with not no dog in the fight.
00:57:35.000I was looking I was like oh this guy is probably like frustrated at what he sees these sort of social justice warrior tactics and these aren't logical and that this is not rational and like maybe my breakdown of this situation scientifically evolutionary psychology studies and all these different Random factors that may have contributed to women choosing these careers.
00:58:02.000Maybe people aren't aware of this information.
00:58:03.000Yeah Yeah, I definitely have a bias where I thought, you know, we could just sit down and discuss it rationally That's all I ever wanted was sit down and discuss it with them.
00:58:13.000Yeah, but I really underestimated that sort of group based emotions that were behind this and That's scary.
00:59:37.000You know, the idea that all black people are responsible for the woes of society, and that none of it has to do with the fact that they were captured hundreds of years ago and brought over here as slaves, and that they're lesser as human beings, that's a disgusting, ridiculous proposition.
00:59:50.000And the people that think that way are fools, right?
01:03:33.000So if you are essentially in charge of the distribution of more knowledge than arguably anything else on Earth, I mean, that's a big statement, but I think you might be able to...
01:03:48.000You might be able to actually say that and be pretty honest.
01:03:52.000I think Google is responsible for distributing more information than any group on Earth.
01:04:58.000I am surprised that they never, you know, when they fired me, had me try to sign something to say, oh, yeah, you know, just here's some non-disclosure agreement or something.
01:05:39.000Because a lot of the initial stuff was all negative because it was coming out of the people that were tweeting about it.
01:05:45.000And then they saw that, oh yeah, it's really not this one-sided.
01:05:50.000And a lot of the things that may happen in a case is there's a lot of discovery into what the internals of Google are happening.
01:05:59.000I don't think they want that to happen because...
01:06:02.000We'll actually see that, oh yes, maybe there was this illegal discrimination happening.
01:06:06.000Now, what is illegal about the discrimination that they're employing?
01:06:10.000And I'm not a lawyer, so I can't say, but at least according to our own policies, we said it's illegal to use someone's protected status or their sex or a race in employment-critical situations,
01:06:26.000like when they're getting hired, when they're trying to be matched to a manager or to a team, and when we're choosing who to promote But it is happening in a lot of these places.
01:07:14.000But they don't think about it that way because they're promoting diversity by doing that.
01:07:19.000Yeah, it's kind of weird how they cited some of the same parts of the Code of Conduct where, oh yes, every employee should do their utmost of reducing bias and harassment and legal discrimination, when really my document was about eliminating the bias against conservatives and the harassment against them and the legal discrimination that we're doing in multiple parts of our pipeline.
01:07:44.000There's no room for conservatives today, sir.
01:08:16.000I obviously believe that there's places where the government should be, but just my internal leaning in philosophy is more like that.
01:08:26.000Yeah, I think socially I lean more left, like socially, in terms of like...
01:08:32.000Welfare and things along those lines and, you know, obviously this protected status is driving me crazy.
01:08:39.000This thing that Trump's doing with children that were born in this country or born in other countries and then brought over here as children and then they're talking about deporting them.
01:08:50.000The hard right version of that is despicable.
01:08:53.000These people that I see online, why didn't they apply for citizenship?
01:08:56.000Oh, who knows, maybe because they're fucking 13. You know, like were you out there applying for citizenship if you were 13?
01:09:02.000No, I mean when you're 13 years old you're playing games and hanging out with your friends and then you find out you were born in Guatemala and you're like what?
01:09:09.000Like you have to go back to Guatemala.
01:09:14.000I lean way left when it comes to those kind of things gay rights and things like You know, social programs for disenfranchised people and disenfranchised communities.
01:09:26.000If I want my tax dollars to go to anything, I want it to go to making people's lives easier.
01:09:31.000Whether it's socialized medicine or whatever we could do to make people have an easier path to success and to not have them so burdened down by their environment and their circumstances.
01:09:45.000That, I think, is our responsibility as human beings to try to...
01:09:49.000I don't want to say even the playing field, because there's never going to be an even playing field, but to give people opportunity.
01:10:13.000And it would be nice if more of us were charitable in that regard.
01:10:18.000You know, and some people think that that charity should be a personal issue and that we should all just do it, you know, as part of our community and our society.
01:10:27.000But maybe the argument is that our government should be a part of our community.
01:10:32.000And that we should think about it that way.
01:10:33.000Instead of thinking of it as this overlord that decides and designates where our money should go, then maybe we should have some more say in it.
01:10:41.000It should be some sort of a more kind approach.
01:10:49.000So in that sense, I lean pretty far left.
01:12:56.000There is some real arguments to be made, and I think Elon Musk, who is of course a part of this automated car revolution, and he's creating these trucks that they're going to start using to haul things,
01:13:14.000and they're going to be automated, and it's going to remove a lot of jobs, and they're starting to talk about universal basic income as a real solution to that.
01:13:39.000If you start working, then you'll lose all of it.
01:13:41.000While universal basic income can be made such that you start working and then you'll lose a little bit, but it's never an actual incentive to not work.
01:13:59.000So then you could go pursue a dream, which I think would be wonderful.
01:14:02.000I mean, look, if there's anything that our tax dollars should be going towards, it's creating less losers.
01:14:08.000Less people who feel disenfranchised by the system.
01:14:11.000You know, if you can pay X amount of tax dollars but live in an exponentially more safe and friendly and happy environment, I think most people would be leaning towards that.
01:14:52.000You know, We want women to succeed in these positions so badly that a woman CEO can become a superstar like that lady from that blood testing company that turned out to be all bullshit.
01:17:57.000It addressed a lot of things and it's unfortunate that there was that one part that is getting so much attention when really it pointed out a lot of problems in our culture and a lot of suggestions for how to fix things and it seems like none of that is really gaining traction.
01:18:26.000In some ways, though, it has made it even more dangerous to bring these up.
01:18:30.000At least, you know, it's sort of empowered some people to at least understand some of the issues.
01:18:37.000And hopefully, these things will get brought up.
01:18:41.000But right now, it's sort of a toxic topic to bring up at Google, at least.
01:18:46.000Do you think that it's toxic in the short term, but in the long term it'll inspire a more reasoned, balanced conversation once the dust is settled?
01:19:37.000And, you know, a lot of this, what I was doing was a conservative effort between multiple people that, you know, trying to improve the workplace and actually, you know, whistleblow on some of the illegal practices.
01:19:52.000Did you save emails where people were shaming people for being white or shaming people for having implicit bias because they were white or harassing people?
01:20:02.000Yeah, a lot of people have been doing this.
01:20:04.000There's some underground efforts within Google to at least document some of this because while they may not be the majority, they're sort of a silent coalition within Google that's sort of upset about a lot of this.
01:21:26.000So I think this is a lot of what's happening, too, where people just assume, okay, because you believe, say, in traditional values and you think that marriage is an important thing, and I think that there is evidence that bringing up people in a two-parent household,
01:21:46.000whether or not it's You know, the same sex or different sex.
01:22:16.000Well, I think anytime you silence discussion based on your own personal ideas of what should and shouldn't be debated, I think becomes an issue.
01:22:29.000I mean, you could disagree with someone.
01:22:32.000And that's a very complicated issue when it comes to whether or not Two parents are more beneficial to a child than one, because obviously there's a lot of reasons why people break up.
01:22:45.000You know, you don't want to encourage people to be in toxic relationships and then show the child that, you know, this is the framework for a loving relationship.
01:22:52.000People that scream at each other and whatever horrible shit they do to each other.
01:22:56.000That gets super complicated and very, very personal, right?
01:22:59.000Yeah, it's definitely a touchy subject.
01:24:38.000You even see it in some of their internal studies where they were trying to show how racist or sexist Google was and how worse women have it.
01:24:48.000So they were looking at the code review process where you can submit code to be reviewed and then someone has to approve it before it goes into the code base.
01:24:56.000And they were looking at, okay, if a woman's the author of it, how many comments do they get on this review?
01:25:03.000And if they got more comments, then that would mean that their work is more scrutinized.
01:25:08.000But if they got fewer comments, then they were just ignored.
01:26:00.000There's definitely, and I went in a little bit in this in the document, too, where if you have a company that's too progressively run, then it'll be sort of this, you know, everyone's equal and no hierarchy and all chaos and constantly changing,
01:26:19.000while, you know, the opposite of a really conservative company where there's a lot of hierarchy, decisions are made from the top, which may not be, you know, very easy to change things.
01:26:30.000So, like, Google is definitely more of the former, where there is a lot of chaos, and there's multiple teams working on the same thing, and it's just, this is how we have multiple products that end up doing the same thing, and we have to deprecate some.
01:28:31.000I would put my phone aside and bring it to the top technologist and go, listen, we've got to go over this because that would be giant, dude.
01:28:39.000If you found out they were spying on you, is there anything in your contract that allows them to spy on you?
01:28:44.000There's some random things where, yeah, they can basically just spy on you completely.
01:29:23.000They reserved the right to nuke your personal phone?
01:29:26.000Now, this corporate phone, are you allowed to use it for, like, say, if you go on a date, or you want to buy a movie ticket or something, are you allowed to use that phone for that?
01:30:15.000They're rightfully paranoid about some things, but sometimes you don't want to give one entity too much power.
01:30:24.000Yeah, my friend who worked for Google was very upset at this whole China thing.
01:30:29.000Because essentially she was saying they have to agree to censorship, China's censorship, and that the only alternative is to let China steal all of what Google's doing and make a fake Google.
01:30:41.000Because that's what they were doing, apparently.
01:30:42.000They had to make sure that they didn't allow that.
01:30:45.000And then to do that, they had to have certain things, like Tiananmen Square, you couldn't search for that.
01:30:50.000There was a lot of weird shit that they would have to censor.
01:30:54.000Any dissent of the government and Gets very slippery, right?
01:31:00.000I mean, like, you're anti-diverse or you're pro-diversity, but you're also supporting that?
01:32:33.000And I don't envy any of the people that work there in management that are sort of responsible for putting out, you know, an infinite number of forest fires all around them all the time.
01:32:44.000Social, economic, you know, dealing with different cultures.
01:32:50.000It doesn't seem like it would be an easy gig.
01:32:54.000And one of the worries that they have now, too, is even though they have a large market share for Search, they see Search as sort of a gateway to the world.
01:33:05.000And they don't necessarily have a huge market share for that because Facebook and Twitter are also ways to get to the world's information.
01:33:14.000And a lot of Facebook is just a walled garden where Google can't really get into that.
01:33:22.000And on your phone, you spend most of your time on Facebook or something and not necessarily just doing random Google searches.
01:34:09.000So this is a random tangent, but I worked on image search and they also see that even though there isn't a huge competitor for image search, there's Instagram and Pinterest, which are very similar things.
01:34:22.000And we do our demographic research and we really look into why people are using these products.
01:34:28.000And we see that the majority of the users are women.
01:35:11.000Now they're getting into trying to de-bias machine learning.
01:35:17.000So if they do see any things that the machine learning has learned, the statistical anomalies or just trends in the data, then they'll try to remove that.
01:36:50.000You're not like the type of person I think would go out of their way to promote some sort of a quote-unquote harmful stereotype, gender stereotype.
01:39:10.000Your old name, you know, and then like when a woman gets married and then like all her name is is when her son gets locked out of his bank account and needs to know, Mom, what was your old name?
01:39:21.000Like in terms of like how to access his account with a password.
01:39:25.000Yeah, I mean, yeah, it'd be nice if everybody just kept their own fucking name.
01:39:29.000Yeah, but then what do you do to the kids?
01:41:09.000It's a fucking ridiculous proposition.
01:41:11.000And if you're, whether you're male or female that makes a lot of money and the spouse doesn't, then you run into this very weird situation, you know?
01:43:09.000It's like a myth, quote-unquote myth, from the 70s and 80s, but there also isn't the amount of time, if you got married in the last 10 years, to say you're going to get divorced in 20 more years.
01:43:20.000I would like to know the actual hard data with the United States of America, because culturally it gets weird when you look across the different countries, but what about the United States of America?
01:43:29.000What are the percentage of people who get married who wind up getting divorced?
01:44:49.000Researchers have found that typical marriages still have a 50% chance of lasting.
01:44:55.000That means you have a 50% chance of not lasting.
01:44:58.000But that's just assuming you look at every single marriage, but if you look at the first marriage, then maybe you have a 70% chance of never getting a divorce.
01:45:11.000So you factor it in when people are in the second, third, and fourth marriage, like those Elizabeth Taylor type folks have nine or ten marriages?
01:45:22.000So it might have reduced because people are just getting married later.
01:45:26.000So they're choosing rather than just, oh, I got pregnant when I was young, or I didn't have anything else to do, so I got married.
01:45:46.000Just other things that they're saying factor in, like cohabitating has become less stigmatized, so not living together but not getting married is another thing that's happening.
01:45:54.000Okay, people don't look to marriage to shore up an unstable relationship.
01:45:58.000Marriage rates have been declining for years.
01:46:00.000So less people get married, but the percentage is still pretty much.
01:46:03.000You also don't have to get married when you have a kid right now.
01:48:41.000Do you feel like your name has been besmirched?
01:48:45.000Uh, definitely, you know, I just went to a party with my friends and, you know, some of them I was much closer to and I had already talked to about this.
01:51:19.000You find unique people that are cool in all sorts of groups.
01:51:24.000Once you start aligning yourself with one of these groups and if you ever go against any of their principles and they're constantly changing and getting more extreme, then you'll eventually get ostracized and maybe that's what happened.
01:51:40.000That's a big issue with the left, sure.
01:51:44.000But I don't think that's as much of an issue with the conservative right, you know, with like rational conservatives, not like racists and like full right-wing nuts.
01:51:54.000But, you know, I think what people just want, they want harmony, I think, overall.
01:52:02.000They want to succeed and they want harmony, which sometimes are mutually exclusive.
01:52:07.000A lot of people just don't acknowledge that most people are normal and they just want to live their life.
01:52:15.000And even though they might have voted for Trump or something, they're not some evil person.
01:52:21.000They're not the KKK, which I've met a lot of people in Silicon Valley that basically equate voting for Trump and being in the KKK. Yeah.
01:52:35.000And, you know, if you're going to build products that are for the entire world, then you really need to understand other people.
01:52:43.000Especially, you know, a lot of the world is actually more conservative than...
01:52:48.000I mean, Europe may be more liberal than the U.S. in some ways, but a lot of Asia and Africa and South America is more conservative than we are.
01:52:59.000So, We need to at least understand what's happening and what their worldview is.
01:53:05.000Yeah, the idea that everyone who voted for Trump is in the KKK is so crazy.
01:53:09.000But it's convenient to demonize the other.
01:53:15.000We love to look at groups and just block ourselves off and this is us and we're on the right and these people on the other side, they're incorrect and It's a real, normal, common tendency that human beings have that we should be very,
01:53:32.000We have these convenient blinders that we put on whenever we're engaging in any sort of ideological discussions where our belief systems might be challenged.
01:53:40.000We dig our heels in and, like, this is it.
01:53:44.000I think you see a lot of that with the left, with this whole, like, you cannot be progressive enough.
01:53:48.000It's like they're getting wackier and wackier with it.
01:54:22.000And then when they do engage with someone who has a differing opinion, then it becomes a, in quotes, game again.
01:54:29.000It's trying to win rather than trying to understand what this person sees and what they think and what is your philosophy, how are you approaching this, and trying to be really open-minded about it.
01:54:41.000I see this even in myself when I'm talking to someone and maybe they're a feminist or extreme in some way.
01:54:49.000I'll discuss them and I'll immediately just stereotype them as someone that's even more extreme.
01:54:54.000And I'll read into their words of, oh, you said that means that you mean this.
01:55:00.000And even though, you know, maybe it's important to at least show what the extreme outcome would be, and therefore we can't just take this on principle, but, you know, everyone does it, and it's really hard to not do it.
01:55:17.000It's one of the reasons why I think long-form conversations are so important.
01:55:22.000And how often do you ever sit down like this with someone and talk for a couple hours with just you and the person talking, not looking at your phone, not checking the TV, not...
01:55:35.000I think this is one of the only ways we could really work out ideas, especially when you're talking to someone that might have a differing opinion, but they also might be intelligent, and you might be able to sort it out.
01:55:46.000Like, let me parse out what your thoughts are and see where I differ and how you got to where you got.
01:55:52.000Maybe I'll have a better understanding of your philosophy.
01:55:56.000But there's a lot of people that don't even have a philosophy.
01:55:58.000It sounds good, so they just go with this predetermined pattern that's easy to follow, you know?
01:56:05.000As a left-wing progressive, I feel this.
01:56:08.000I mean, I've heard people say that before.
01:56:10.000Like, as a Democrat, I've always felt like, oh, as a Democrat.
01:56:30.000There's just so many variables, so many styles of human.
01:56:34.000There's just so many different things that we have to work through together and to try to To try to do that based on patterns that other people have established and that you cannot break.
01:56:47.000That's one of the reasons why it's so ruthless to say that all white people have some implicit biases that they may not even be aware of.
01:56:58.000This unintended racism flavors all conversations.
01:57:03.000You're just poisoning this conversation.
01:57:05.000You're poisoning this conversation with this fucking fishing line.
01:57:18.000Yeah, and there's no solution for some of those, too, where, you know, you just say there's some boogeyman type thing that's controlling all this, and there's some conspiracy that we can't really see, and we can't point out specific examples, but it's ever-present,
01:57:44.000And so it's hard to, at least for me, to understand some of this more collective thinking and social conformity, which I've never been a fan of.
01:57:56.000Do you think it was a good idea to write that memo?
01:57:59.000Like if you had to go back again, if you were in front of your computer and you're ready to press send, would you?
01:58:05.000Maybe I would wait for my year-end bonus.
01:58:13.000I mean, I think I would have pushed harder, even harder on the diversity programs.
01:58:17.000Although I met with them personally and I kept pinging them and I sent so many emails to them just trying to have a discussion about this.
01:58:26.000And I went through multiple other programs and sent this document, this exact document to them.
01:58:32.000So it's really unclear what I could have done differently.
01:58:37.000For example, I didn't know so much about the underground conservative network before all of this.
01:58:47.000There's attempts to connect them between companies, but there's so much verification that you need to go through to be able to join one of these.
01:59:08.000This happens a lot where they'll try to join a group, act as if they're one of them, and then just record what's happening and then expose them.
01:59:25.000Well, I mean, think of what we've said.
01:59:27.000Well, not you, but me, joking around in this conversation.
01:59:30.000You could clearly take something I've said out of context and make it look like I'm a monster.
01:59:35.000But if you're in an email and you're complaining about some sort of diversity program...
01:59:41.000Yeah, like what they often do is they will find someone that they disagree with and then they'll scour through their entire history at Google and all the emails that they've sent and try to look for some way to blacklist them or show that this person is evil,
02:00:03.000Supposedly, this is happening in other companies too, and they even have these automated scripts to try to find these negative things on people that they don't like.
02:01:14.000You know, I... People with different political ideologies see the world differently, and they have different biases.
02:01:23.000None of them are totally correct, but we need to be able to discuss things to show a more objective view of the world.
02:01:34.000Without a doubt, the fact that that is even up for debate, it's very strange.
02:01:40.000I mean, that's an ideological echo chamber.
02:01:43.000And that seems like For whatever reason, that seems like where tech is, and that's where technology companies seem to lean towards this very left-wing ideological echo chamber.
02:01:55.000Yeah, and I saw it a lot, too, on the comments of the document.
02:02:01.000Where I said, oh yeah, these are just biases.
02:02:04.000And no, they were like, no, the right is indoctrinated.
02:02:07.000They're just KKK. And they're anti-education.
02:02:19.000At least the way I see it, and not being a total conservative, I can't necessarily say, but it seems like they don't necessarily hate poor people or anything.
02:02:28.000They just think that these certain incentive structures are what's best for society, and it's not best to promote, or they think that some things will lead to laziness or something.
02:02:42.000Saying, oh yeah, these people are just horrible people.
02:02:45.000They actually want to help everyone and they think that these social norms and government programs may be hurting people.
02:02:53.000Yeah, I mean, there certainly are some people that are right-wing that think like that, and then there's some people that are right-wing that are really racist.
02:03:01.000And there's some people that are left-wing that are really racist, and they're really racist towards white people.
02:03:05.000I mean, there's white people that are racist towards white people.
02:03:08.000I mean, I've read so many fucking tweets from people that, you know, like, I follow a bunch of anti-social justice warrior accounts, and they'll find people that tweet, like, really horrible shit about white people that are white.
02:04:18.000It's enough people that just don't They have a sense of the importance of critical thinking skills, or are not used to objectively assessing ideas, and then they coalesce in these groups that are like-minded.
02:04:34.000And you can get that with racism, you can get that with sexism, you can get that with pretty much anything.
02:04:39.000You get these like-minded groups, they get together, and they have confirmation bias, and they get an ideological echo chamber, and they start reinforcing each other.
02:04:58.000And, I mean, it's really a shame, though, that this is happening even in, you know, the pursuit of knowledge in academia, where so many people have a certain worldview, like the social sciences have 90% of people lean left.
02:05:13.000And that can create its own confirmation biases, and especially when It's definitely bad in tech where 20% of people are women and they can feel alienated.
02:05:26.000But at least overt signs of sexism are seen as bad.
02:05:32.000But overt signs of discriminating against people based on their political orientation is seen as okay.
02:07:23.000It's probably a misogynist and they just march towards their meeting and we have to avoid the kind of thinking that led to someone thinking that it's okay to write the Google memo and then everyone like yes here here I want my year-end bonus.
02:08:39.000I think the trend is leaning towards more and more honest interpretation of facts and ideas.
02:08:44.000And then, you know, we'll be left with Some things that we have to look at that we can't just write off to sociology or write off to culture or write off to biases or sexism or racism.
02:08:56.000We're going to have to look at things for what they really are.
02:08:58.000And maybe we'll have a better understanding of why we behave the way we do, why we have the problems that we have.
02:09:06.000Part of the issue, though, is if someone controls access to information and they want a certain narrative to be told, then it'll really color what people see.
02:10:30.000If you look at it long term, over the long run, they have definitely taken a hit.
02:10:35.000And if someone forces them to sit down, I would love to sit down with the guy who said that you promote harmful gender stereotypes and go, let's go over this thing.
02:10:44.000Let's go over this thing step by step.
02:11:02.000There's no way around it if you're actually going off of what you wrote to somehow or another.
02:11:10.000I think it's not just dangerous to say it promotes harmful gender stereotypes, it's disingenuous.
02:11:17.000The reason why it's dangerous is because I could just read what that guy said and I would think that you're a creep and that's dangerous to you.
02:11:25.000It's dangerous towards the marketplace of free ideas.
02:11:30.000The marketplace of ideas, it's extremely important.
02:11:33.000And I would think that if anybody would know that, it would be the people that are involved in tech.
02:11:46.000Yeah, I mean, it's so related to all this microaggression, you know, speech is violence, and all ideas are harmful.
02:11:55.000And, of course, some ideas are harmful, but...
02:11:59.000It's only through openly discussing them can you actually dispel some of these things.
02:12:05.000By making them forbidden knowledge, that's only going to attract certain people.
02:12:10.000We even see this now where some of the YouTube videos that are in this purgatory type state where you can't really get to them, but if you know the URL, you can still find them.
02:12:59.000What I would ideally want is somehow changing their policies.
02:13:02.000But I don't really know how I, as an individual, can compel Google to do something like that.
02:13:08.000But I think at least some of the stuff like the blacklisting, where they have these people that compile these spreadsheets of names of people that are conservative or even libertarian.
02:13:21.000Oh, we're not going to work with them.
02:14:27.000So do you feel like they feel that they have some sort of a social responsibility to push progressive values because they're in this massive position of influence, and they feel like that's the right way to think, so they're going to go full steam ahead with that?
02:15:05.000Well, I get it, though, because I think it's a lot of the same things along the same lines that you were talking about when you were saying that you didn't, you know, like maybe you would have waited until you got your year-end bonus.
02:15:38.000That's a lot of people's decision making.
02:15:40.000I mean, that goes back to, you know, engineering civilization in the early days of Rome.
02:15:47.000I think there was writings about that, about getting people to commit to families and it's easier to control them when they have loved ones and, you know...
02:15:55.000And things that they enjoy and positions of power and status, that it's easier to get those people to give into your needs and desires.
02:16:05.000I mean, it's just engineering a civilization.
02:16:08.000It's one of the, like, getting people to perform and behave the way that you would like them to is a critical component of engineering any sort of a civilization.
02:16:19.000Google's essentially a civilization, if you look at it that way.
02:16:23.000I mean, internally, there's a community.
02:17:15.000You know, I mean, people have, interpersonal relationships are fucking gross and messy.
02:17:20.000And if men work with women and they feel like they can dominate them with aggression or with some sort of weird tactics that play on the agreeableness that females seem to have, you know, it's a problem.
02:17:33.000And I think by not looking at that, by not being honest about that, we do just as much of a disservice.
02:17:40.000I would say that there are men that are just as agreeable and just as much of a pushover, say.
02:17:47.000They also get shunned and pushed aside.
02:17:53.000And sometimes it's even worse for men that fit that stereotype or don't fit the typical male stereotype because there's negative consequences on both sides for not being masculine if you're a man or not being feminine enough if you're a woman.
02:18:09.000Yeah, like you're not allowed to just be yourself, right?
02:18:13.000You're better off if you fit into some sort of a classic narrative.
02:18:27.000Like what if they came to you with a settlement?
02:18:29.000Would you just take it and shut your mouth?
02:18:30.000I really want somehow for them to address it, but I don't know how to do that.
02:18:37.000Well, even if you lose in court, will they address it?
02:18:40.000They'll probably say, you know, although we support the court, we disagree with the rulings, and we still support gender equality, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
02:18:49.000Yeah, I mean, I think part of it is that there's currently an asymmetry, so maybe Google is acting in their best interest to act the way that they are because they think...
02:18:58.000That there's all these activists that are trying to attack Google that only if they don't fit this certain party line.
02:19:05.000Are there a lot of activists that are attacking Google in that regard?
02:19:08.000We even see that there's now a potential class action lawsuit against Google for gender pay disparity.
02:19:18.000And so, like, they just are looking for anything.
02:19:21.000And if we say that, you know, if there's only incentive coming from one side, then they're only going to push farther and farther to that side.
02:19:30.000And this gender pay disparity, is this involving similar jobs?
02:19:36.000They claim that it's the same job, although at least when Google was doing their own internal analysis, which they've been doing for years, they show that there's no disparity once you control for performance.
02:20:23.000One thing is, I don't think that they really have Google's internal data, so there's no way for them to say whether or not it's based on performance.
02:20:51.000I mean, that's just, you're playing on human instincts when you seek out people that may have been employed for a possible inclusion in a class action lawsuit.
02:21:01.000That's not saying that they weren't wronged, because obviously I don't know.
02:21:04.000Several dozen came forward in a matter of weeks.
02:21:07.000That's a pretty high level of dissatisfaction, says James Feinberg.
02:21:12.000No, there's fucking thousands of people who've worked there, and a couple dozen came forward.
02:21:17.000That's not a high level of satisfaction.
02:21:18.000How many people have been employed at Google that are no longer employed?
02:21:22.000It's probably tens of thousands, right?
02:21:25.000Yeah, there's 70,000 people working there now.
02:21:28.000Okay, so for this guy to say that's a pretty high level of dissatisfaction when several dozen, let's say three dozen, let's go crazy, let's say it's 40 people, let's get nuts.
02:22:16.000And I don't know how an individual would know whether or not they're paid differently just based on their sex, right?
02:22:23.000Because there's so many variables at play.
02:22:25.000So you really have to look at the system as a whole...
02:22:29.000Because, I mean, there are definitely some men that are paid less than the women, too.
02:22:33.000When you control for performance, the problem is when you control for performance, if it turns out that men are being paid more, then you have to figure out some sort of a way to justify that.
02:22:42.000Or, you know, like, if men are being paid more when you control for performance, what is it that's causing the men to be paid more?
02:23:12.000Like, when Obama said that, he knows that that's not being honest.
02:23:16.000Because you're talking about completely different jobs, different choices.
02:23:20.000For people who don't know, okay, let's just break that down real quick.
02:23:22.000This thing, because people repeat it ad nauseum and it's just not true.
02:23:26.000The gender pay gap of 77 cents to a dollar that a male makes is based on the choices that people make as far as like what they do for a living.
02:23:35.000It's based on the amount of hours that they work.
02:23:43.000That's where you get 77 cents on average for the dollar that the male makes.
02:23:49.000What it implies, and this is where it's disingenuous, is that two people working side by side, doing the same job, and the male's getting $1 for the woman's $0.77.
02:23:59.000That's not what the gender pay gap actually means.
02:24:04.000If Google is actually, if someone is saying, if there's a lawsuit that's saying that a man and a woman are doing the exact same job with the exact same performance, and the woman is only getting 77 cents on the dollar, then you've got a real issue, right?
02:24:47.000Especially at Google, there was so much time that was just, you know, replying to email and doing some base level stuff, going to meetings.
02:24:55.000And then you only had a little bit that was actually creative and providing value to the company.
02:27:00.000Yeah, I'm still looking at, you know, what exactly I want to do because I never was, you know, coding wasn't the thing that I was doing my entire life.
02:28:40.000I think you took a bold choice and a bold stance to talk about something that's essentially taboo, but you did it with science, you know, and you did it...
02:28:51.000I think you did it in a very reasonable manner.
02:28:54.000And I'm shocked that the reaction has been as extreme as it's been.
02:29:15.000Yeah, I mean, I thought that, you know, the first, the intro, which talked about all these political biases and how our culture shames people that give a differing view, I thought that might have shown that, you know, maybe we shouldn't be doing that.
02:29:29.000But, you know, predicted exactly what happened to me.
02:29:33.000I think very few people actually read it.
02:29:41.000You know, the responses to it are very click-baity.
02:29:43.000And people go with whatever the titles of the articles that are criticizing you and just accept it as gospel.
02:29:51.000Yeah, I've gotten a lot of responses that were just, oh yeah, I saw it on Facebook, you know, some sexist memo.
02:29:58.000And, you know, it was only after they saw that so many times and they decided to read it that they finally were like, oh no, it's not that bad.
02:30:06.000Yeah, I urge people, if you have the time, just please just read it.
02:30:11.000Just go over it and try to figure out where it all went wrong.
02:30:36.000You know, people now are aware of this a lot more, and there may be platforms that emerge that are sort of, you know, alt-tech is what they're calling it, just alternative technology that's more open to just free speech.
02:30:49.000But unfortunately, they're currently just being labeled as white supremacist sites, and hopefully people can see through that.
02:31:02.000If they have the time to even look, that's the thing.
02:31:05.000It's just like they're taking everyone's word for everything.
02:31:09.000It's a very odd time, but there's enough people discussing it, and I think the response to your memo has been...
02:31:20.000It's been very enlightening for some people from a sort of a psychological standpoint.
02:31:26.000Like, what are the reactions that people have and why do they have these reactions?
02:31:30.000And what does it say about us as human beings that this is such a taboo subject that we can't even address the very real differences that we have as unique individuals, you know?
02:31:42.000Yeah, I'm at least happy that it didn't happen during college season, because then there would be protests and people burning my effigy or something.
02:31:58.000And they would demand that their school double down on diversity and just all these things.
02:32:06.000Yeah, a lot of virtue signaling going on.
02:32:10.000At least it's nice to see that some of the colleges have been standing up for it or against it and saying, no, you can't really just tell us what to do.
02:32:22.000We believe in knowledge and actually seeking the truth and not just criticizing people based on their political ideologies.
02:33:16.000I knew this kid who was a chess master, and it was a pool hall that I used to go to, and he used to play with this ex-con, and the ex-con learned how to do chess in prison in his head with no pieces, and him and this kid would just sit there and play chess back and forth with each other,
02:33:31.000and I'd be like, What are you guys doing?
02:33:51.000Differences and average between men and women is there are more men that just become obsessed with these systems.
02:33:58.000And so Magic the Gathering, the card game, was also something that I became super obsessed with.
02:34:03.000And so the way that people approach computers, too, is different.
02:34:08.000A lot of boys just approach the computer as a toy, and they become obsessed with tinkering with the computer, while a lot of girls see it as a tool for improving the world.
02:34:21.000And so they may not be interested in the computer as an end to itself.
02:34:27.000And so a lot of the education programs to get more women into tech are actually addressing that.
02:34:34.000But it's unclear because so much of coding is just writing server code, and this server is going to talk to this server, which is talking to that server, and it's totally unconnected to actual people.
02:34:49.000But that's why we actually see more women in front-end and user experience engineering positions, because it's more interactive with people.
02:35:00.000What are the numbers with women in chess?
02:36:38.000I mean, I'm sure there's a bunch of fashion things and aesthetic things and design things that women are really into that a lot of men don't give a fuck about.
02:36:49.000It's not a terrible thing that men aren't into design.
02:36:53.000There's not more men involved in interior design.
02:36:57.000And that's one of the unfortunate things, too, is that there's so much fighting to get more women into tech, but there's no fighting to get more men into nursing or any of these more female-dominated careers.
02:37:11.000Do you think that's also because of the financial rewards of tech?
02:37:17.000Nursing is a pretty capped salary, whereas if you can climb the corporate ladder as a CEO of some sort of a tech company, the rewards are substantial.
02:37:27.000Yeah, I think inevitably there will be more men attracted to high-paying jobs simply because they fight for status and money is how you gain status often.
02:37:38.000So that's partly why they see tech as a target.
02:37:42.000But it's not as if nursing is a bad job.