California Supreme Court: age bias case against Google can move forward
siliconvalley.com
siliconvalley.com
This goes back to my personal doctrine of trying to say exactly what I mean. I find that some people try to solve problems by saying things designed to get a person to do what they want, but without being direct about it. On more than one occasion I've observed this has led to hurt feelings where I think the direct approach -- just ask for what you want -- would not. For example, if your coworker bothers you while you are trying to work, "Hey, could we talk later? I am trying to work," would probably be received a lot better than, "Damn, dude, you talk a lot." This example is contrived but I have observed concrete cases not too different from this a number of times.
Anyway, hopefully no one reading this article is stressing out about not having a demographically appropriate workforce, because it seems very unlikely that alone will be enough to get you into trouble.
Perhaps, over here he simply encountered a few people with unresolved issues and got a raw deal because of it.
On the other hand, this happened when Google was relatively young an interesting question is, what happens in large organizations? When you hire people they tend to bring their baggage in them. So, now the question becomes how can a culture be created that allows people to transcend their prejudices?
I just don't know.
It's particularly common among my Microsoftie friends to refer to executive leadership. However, I've personally starting using the term "Crustacean" to refer to the dinosaurs who just refuse to go extinct.
Just because a person or idea is "old" does not make it somehow inherently negative.
If you have to comment on age to argue against something that isn't edible or lovable, then you really have no argument at all.
Yes, probably I loose some of my concentration and speed, multitasking capability etc as I get older but I feel to be able to see things better, have a better intuition, solve big problems quicker than before, by far (while taking longer to solve smaller problems, like algorithmic tests etc which require more concentration, but it could be also caused by the fact that I work too much and I'm simply too tired).
I don't think that performance and idea degradation seen in some older people is about physical age, but because perhaps of their particular personality, for example if they are prisoners of they experience at the point that they are unwilling to challenge them.
I'm not going to say here that there is a misunderstanding, that it's a social problem, that younger people also play their role into cutting off older people from their ideas and are part of this descending spiral. Because they are older professionals (I work with software engineers, but I guess it's similar in other tech fields) whose ideas are fossilized, which don't want to learn anything new, which don't have any stimula left, which work by inertia.
Those people are there, for real, and even if I have no idea which is the ratio of bright/inert older professionals, I wouldn't expect it be drastically different from the ratio of bright/dumb younger guys.
So the whole thing appears to me as a perfect place to abuse in both directions, discriminating good people and unfair accusing of discrimination. No idea how to solve it.
On the other hand I heard that google is happy to hire not-so-young people, so I'm not sure that their corporate culture is really orbiting around the "20 years old bright people" standard I read about around the blogosphere.
This is a wonderful, terrifying neologism that I haven't heard before. Has it entered common use yet?
Hmm... that's almost exactly the opposite of what I think of when I hear that term. To me it conjures up someone who is overly serious, doesn't have any fun, and doesn't want to let anyone else have fun either.
Hopefully the Google Wave crew is not reading this. (some sarcasm intended, if Google started laying off people for working on a project that ended up being eliminated then employees would be fearful to be placed on anything not established.)
Regarding this article, this was 6 to 8 years ago, and Google didn't have its 'persona' it has now. It was still a company struggling to gain market share and I would imagine they wanted developers that strived to push the boundaries of what the web could do. Reid very well could have not had that same goal, being an older generation who already had an ingrained idea of what the internet was and was unwilling to work towards a more dynamic internet. This is all my personal speculation based on personal assumptions, however.
signed entitled young white male
In practice, it's usually not difficult to come up with a legitimate reason to fire someone. For example, there is a whole industry of computer forensics consults who for a relatively small fee will "probe" (search the target's work computer and network logs for things that shouldn't be there) an employee to come up with a legitimate reason for firing them.
The factors that can't be considered are 'protected classes':
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class
So when a decision based on one of these classes could be alleged, employment changes/terminations can become riskier.
There's no right to continuing employment, or direct severance/buyout payments, as seems to be the case in some European jurisdictions. But when more of your employees wind up collecting state-administered unemployment compensation, your payments into that program escalate. (Anyone not fired for specific misdeeds is eligible for unemployment compensation, for a limited period, while actively seeking other work.)
However, the U.S. is also highly litigious in the civil courts. If you feel you've been wronged, there are a multitude of ways to bring up a lawsuit... and plenty of lawyers who would be willing to take your case (especially with "tens of millions of dollars" of denied stock options on the line).
Reason is that if a person is fired than you are a huge, rich target for a lawsuit. Each and every one of your employees is now a liability. Someone say an off-color joke or do something that can be even remotely considered discriminatory and you're on the hook. I've had colleagues get rightly fired for doing incredibly stupid things. They lawyer up and bring a suit about some manager being racist, sexist, or religious insensitivity. They know the company would rather pay a few thousand dollars than have to pay $500/hr for a lawyer.
If your company is viewed as discriminatory towards employees (doesn't matter what the facts are) you'll be paying more money to recover your reputation. So severance and settlements are much cheaper to the bottom line then trying to convince people of your story.
Definitely. Rob Pike and Ken Thompson are neither talented nor experienced.