As The Daily Wire reported earlier today, on Thursday embattled Google CEO Sundar Pichai felt compelled to cancel a company-wide town hall about the firing of James Damore and the company’s “diversity” policies after Google employees expressed “safety” concerns about potentially being “outed” online by right-wingers. In his email announcement, Pichai made the claim that the “vast majority” of Googlers are “very supportive of our decision” to fire Damore. But a poll of Googlers suggests Pichai doesn’t know his employees as well as he thinks he does.
“Over the past two days, I have had the chance to meet with so many people here, and I have read each of your emails carefully,” Pichai told employees an email Thursday. “The vast majority of you are very supportive of our decision. A small percentage of you wish we would do more. And some are worried that you cannot speak out at work freely. All of your voices and opinions matter … and I want to hear them.”
But as Business Insider pointed out a day before, a survey conducted by Blind smacks down Pichai’s claim of strong approval for his decision. No only are employees across Silicon Valley “deeply divided” over Google’s decision to fire an employee for voicing dissent on the company’s “diversity” policies, a majority of the Google employees surveyed say they oppose the CEO’s decision:
When Blind asked its users if they thought Google should have fired Damore, over 4,000 from different companies weighed in.
Perhaps most pertinently, 441 Google employees responded. Of them, more than half — 56% to be precise — said they didn’t think it was right for the company to fire Damore.
Are Googlers more likely to be honest on an anonymous poll or speaking to the people that just fired one of their colleagues for offering an honest critique of the company’s practices? Yeah, I’m siding with Blind’s 56% over Pichai’s “vast majority” all day long.
As for the rest of the over 4,000 Silicon Valley employees surveyed, results were mixed, but only Lyft employees got anywhere close to being something you could describe as a “vast” majority who support Google (65 – 35). Uber employees, by the way, were the most likely to say it was “wrong” of Google to fire Damore (64 – 36). Here is the chart via Blind:
One person who definitely disagrees with the firing is Damore himself, who’s filed a formal complaint with the National Labor Relations Board and said he would “likely be pursuing legal action” against his former employer.
H/T Hank Berrien