Ah, the infamous Google memo. It’s a story that sadly isn’t going anywhere, despite seeming like something that really shouldn’t be an issue in 2018.
It all began in August of last year, when a Google employee named James Damore was fired for circulating an offensive (and, arguably, deeply inaccurate) memo that criticized the company for “lowering the bar.” Google’s bar-lowering crime, according to Damore? Pro-diversity policies and the encouragement of a more inclusive company culture for all.
Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, recently affirmed that he doesn’t regret firing the engineer. This is despite Damore’s current attempts to sue the company for apparently discriminating against him—for being white, male, and conservative.
It’s worth noting here that despite firing this particular white, male employee, they are by no means in short supply over at Google. Currently, around 69% of the company’s employees are male, and 56% are white—and those numbers increase dramatically in both technical and leadership roles.
The numbers are also fairly consistent across the tech industry as a whole in this country, which has for decades been dominated by white men—and kept equally talented women and people of color out. It happened in a thousand insidious ways, from overt discrimination to that pesky unconscious bias that’s really hard to shake. The result? An overarching reputation and culture within the industry that only continued to dissuade diverse candidates from applying.
Slowly but surely, the industry is changing, and that’s a phenomenally good thing for everyone. What people like Demore don’t seem to grasp is that diversity is not just about meeting quotas or overcoming an image problem—and it certainly doesn’t lower the bar. In fact, it benefits companies, employees, and customers alike, and there’s research-backed evidence to prove it.
Diverse companies tend to be more profitable and more likely to innovate and create new products and services—which, in the fast-moving world of tech, seems like a really desirable trait, doesn’t it? They’re also less susceptible to the kind of mistake-inviting groupthink that happens when homogenous teams live in an echo chamber, with no one to challenge their ingrained mindsets and inspire interesting, industry-changing new ideas.
Put simply, Damore is fighting a losing battle against a workforce that’s growing more heterogeneous—and growing stronger because of it.
At Liqui-Site, we’re big believers in diversity and social responsibility—as was our female founder, Kelly Campbell. We know that our diverse workforce is one of our greatest strengths, and we’re thrilled to have inquisitive, creative minds from many different backgrounds on our team. In our eyes, more diversity in tech can only be a good thing—and we can’t wait to see what the future brings.
To find out more about who we are or what we do, get in touch today.
