The Glaring Flaw in James Damore's Memo on Bias ("Google's Ideological Echo Chamber")

James Damore, Ex-Google Engineer

James Damore was terminated from Google on August 7, 2017 after publishing his July, 2017 memo about bias at Google titled "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber -how bias clouds our thinking about diversity and inclusion".

I have some experience with publishing famous (infamous?) letters -just preceding my departure from another major SF area technology company -Oracle.

Mr. Damore's memo provoked many comments, thoughts and reactions -as any discussion about bias and inclusion should. American society remains deeply divided and until we can have respectful discussions on issues where we sharply disagree -there may be law, regulation and enforcement however if there is not a conceptual understanding of the fundamental issue we will never heal our divide.

Mr. Damore understands the controversy his memo creates and prefaces it with a section near the beginning. When making many of  the assumptions -he provides evidence and a compelling case to support his perspective.

Nevertheless -the reason I find his argument to be seriously flawed is it makes an assumption that all opportunity, gender/race constructs and other attributes in American society in general are equal. My experience with both women and men over nearly 40 years in the technology industry is that when women are in engineering or leadership roles they are often stronger and more resilient than their male counterparts because they have had to overcome gender-based bias and societal convention.

From a race perspective consider the African American experience in our society. Often people in technology are insulated from being precluded from voting, having to sit at the back of a bus, not being allowed into diners, and treated as less of a person than another purely on the basis of the color of skin. And while we think about this in terms of American history -it's not history -it's the brutal reality many face today not knowing if their child is going to suffer the consequence of violence on the streets or at the hands of the very people who are paid to protect society. If you believe that affirmative action programs have fully addressed racial injustice in America -I urge you to play the game of Monopoly with a few friends.

You can travel around the board -however you, specifically are not allowed to own property your first twenty times around the board. After those twenty times around the board you receive some advantage -perhaps to recognize this unjust history -you are allowed to purchase any property that still exists at 10% off. The issue is after generations of inequality -the game has already been decided and you have been crushed under the weight of vast wealth disparity. I know this greatly oversimplifies the experience -however it is a simple example of a corrective behavior having minor impact after generations of injustice does not address root cause.

From Rebecca Onion's Slate Article

Back to considering gender, a quick review of any article such as Rebecca Onion's Slate article “Unclaimed Treasures of Science” would have provided new and important input into Damore's perspective and perhaps corrected or evolved his analysis which is misinformed and misguided. When you begin to try to solve a complex multi-term mathematical equation and you begin with a deeply flawed assumption -the outcome is wrong.

It's also a very important reason we must teach real history in school -so future generations can make their own mistakes -not repeat the brutal mistakes of past generations based upon faulty or missing knowledge. We must fully teach history -what we've gotten right and what we've gotten wrong for the benefit of the future.

The initial reaction to attack or embrace Damore's memo however causes many to miss a very important point. We do need the space in our society to have thoughtful and respectful discourse about areas of passionate disagreement. Government intervention to address inequity and injustice in our system will remain important until we can have such difficult conversations free from judgement, fear and retribution. Damore talks about this as "Psychological Safety". If Damore had an environment where these issues and people's generational experiences could be shared in a non-threatening manner -Damore certainly has the intellectual capacity (and hopefully the empathy) to adjust his perspective.