Fired Google Employee Lashes Out: ‘Ideologically Driven And Intolerant Of Scientific Debate’
Amber Randall
The engineer Google fired over a diversity memo spoke out about the company in a Wall Street Journal essay on Friday, characterizing the work environment as an “intense echo chamber” that doesn’t allow for debate.
James Damore, author of the leaked memo, said his firing from the company demonstrated how Google has an “ideological echo chamber” that doesn’t allow for diversity of thought.
“My 10-page document set out what I considered a reasoned, well-researched, good-faith argument, but as I wrote, the viewpoint I was putting forward is generally suppressed at Google because of the company’s ‘ideological echo chamber,’” he wrote. “My firing neatly confirms that point. How did Google, the company that hires the smartest people in the world, become so ideologically driven and intolerant of scientific debate and reasoned argument?”
Damore argued in his op-ed that the company didn’t have a problem with the memo when it was first released; he was able to have reasonable discussions with his colleagues until the memo went viral and people began accusing him of misogyny.