Google has fired the employee behind that controversial diversity manifesto
The memo author said women are underrepresented in tech because of biological differences

Adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s Jena McGregor.
Over the weekend, a male software engineer at Google posted an internal memo, arguing that one reason women are underrepresented in tech and leadership is because of biological differences between men and women.
Late Monday night, news broke that the engineer was fired. A Google spokesman said the company does not comment on individual employees but did not dispute that the memo’s author was terminated.
Reuters identified the engineer, who told the news organization via email that he had been fired for “perpetuating gender stereotypes.” Before his firing, the employee said he had submitted a charge to the U.S. National Labor Relations Board. He is accusing Google upper management of trying to shame him into silence, Reuters reported.
In the memo, which sparked an explosive reaction on social media, the engineer asks Google to confront its left-leaning biases and insinuates programs in place to promote diversity are discriminatory and “bad for business.”
“We have extensive government and Google programs, fields of study, and legal and social norms to protect women, but when a man complains about a gender issue issue [sic] affecting men, he’s labelled as a misogynist and whiner,” the engineer says in the 10-page memo, titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber” and posted in full on Gizmodo. “Nearly every difference between men and women is interpreted as a form of women’s oppression.”
In a message to Google employees shortly after the memo went viral, Danielle Brown, the company’s new vice president of diversity, integrity and governance, said the memo “advanced incorrect assumptions about gender,” and that “diversity and inclusion are critical to our success as a company.”
But the author insisted others, including fellow Googlers, defended his remarks, leaving Google’s human resources shop between a rock and a hard place with how to respond.
Earlier on Monday, human resources experts said the situation was a volatile one that risked angering people on both sides.
“I’m glad when I woke up this morning I wasn’t the head of HR at Google,” said Brian Kropp, who leads the human resources consulting practice at CEB.
“If you think about the continuum of the workforce, you’ve got one end where people are going to say this person should be fired,” Kropp said, while on the other end, there appear to be employees who may agree with his remarks. “Whatever Google decides to do, they’re going to be potentially disappointing somebody along one of those groups or making them angry.”
If the memo author were still at the company, it would have made it harder for managers to assign him to collaborative work teams.
“He can think what he thinks, but he can’t say things like that in a workplace and not expect others to be uncomfortable with working with him,” said Jonathan Segal, a Philadelphia-based employment lawyer.
“It has been really toxic,” a Google employee told Recode. “It’s a microcosm of America.”
Patty McCord, the former head of human resources at Netflix, noted the idea that some Googlers agreed with the memo’s contents created a distraction.
“In the hallways, people are going to chatter about whose side are you on,” said McCord, who is now a consultant on leadership and culture issues. “It will drive a wedge even deeper into what they’re trying to do.”
Google’s response
After Brown’s initial response over the weekend, other leaders at Google addressed their employees:
- On Monday, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai sent an email to employees, stating that “portions of the memo violate our Code of Conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace.”
- Ari Balogh, vice president of engineering at Google, wrote in a statement that “sharing different perspectives is an important part of our culture,” but “one of the aspects of the post that troubled me deeply was the bias inherent in suggesting that most women, or men, feel or act a certain way. That is stereotyping, and it is harmful.”
Google was the first major tech company to publicly share its diversity statistics, a practice many companies followed, but growing those numbers has been slow, and the company faces a probe by the U.S. Department of Labor on its gender pay practices. It recently began an effort to boost its number of black engineers through a partnership with historically black colleges and universities.
Marianne Cooper, a sociologist at Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research, said the core of the memo’s argument appeared to be a misunderstanding that programs or initiatives that are intended to block bias are somehow facilitating discrimination instead. And it will now make it that much more imperative for Google to reiterate, communicate and act on its commitment to diversity, as a memo like this can only serve to confirm feelings women have about the discrimination they face. “It brings to life in a public clear way a feeling that more than one person agrees with this kind of thinking,” she said.
The important thing, said McCord, is that the company does something in response. “We can sensitivity train until hell freezes over,” she said. “But unless there’s consequences to it, it doesn’t matter.”
What the memo said
The memo was published on an internal network and was later obtained by Gizmodo. Here are some excerpts from the memo:
- The engineer was bothered by Google’s “echo chamber,” hence the title of the essay, noting that “when it comes to diversity and inclusion, Google’s left bias has created a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence.” The company should “stop alienating conservatives,” he wrote.
- He asked for more transparency when it comes to diversity practices, writing that the current programs alienate “non-progressives.”
- “We need to stop assuming that gender gaps imply sexism,” he writes. The author states that one reason women aren’t in more leadership roles is because they’re biologically different than men. Women have different personality traits, he said: On average, they have “higher anxiety” and a “lower stress tolerance” than men.
- Since “status is the primary metric that men are judged on,” they often find high paying, “less satisfying jobs.” Such positions “require long, stressful hours that may not be worth it if you want a balanced and fulfilling life,” he writes, later adding: “Unfortunately, as long as tech and leadership remain high status, lucrative careers, men may disproportionately want to be in them.”


