James Damore, the ex-Google software engineer who was terminated by the company on Monday after his internal memo criticizing the tech giant’s diversity initiatives went viral and ended up on the Internet, says that the upper management shamed and smeared him, but only after the document was posted online and became a subject of media scrutiny. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Mr. Damore said that he’s disappointed with the latest turn of events, adding that he “loved Google” long before joining the Mountain View, California-based firm. Despite the fact that his memo was created and shared internally a month ago, no one from the company’s management warned him about possible repercussions of sharing it more widely, he said.
Mr. Damore also responded to the criticism directed at him by YouTube Chief Executive Officer Susan Wojcicki who on Wednesday said that his memo was hurtful and would have been criticized even more widely if he used the same arguments to attempt explaining the lack of minority workers in the tech industry. According to him, that argument is “a false analogy” and an attempt to smear him without actively trying to discuss the issue. In the original memo, Mr. Damore claimed that certain biological differences between men and women can largely be used to explain the fact that women are underrepresented in the tech segment, a notion that many of his colleagues labeled as misleading and outright discriminatory, while he claimed he has pro-diversity stances and only wants to see Google approach the issue in a more sensible manner.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai also criticized the contents of the document and stated that the company will continue working on maintaining an inclusive work culture, and a similar sentiment was previously expressed by the firm’s new Vice President of Diversity Danielle Brown. In an email sent to Googlers on Sunday, Ms. Brown said that the company’s employees should feel safe expressing their opinions so long as those beliefs aren’t in violation of Google’s Code of Conduct and federal laws on equal employment, which was the basis used for firing Mr. Damore who now said he’s considering taking legal action against Alphabet’s subsidiary. The controversy followed shortly after Google recorded a major win in its dispute with the U.S. Department of Labor that accused it of systematically underpaying women.