What happened to Cory?

Actually I think Cory was in the wrong. And the managers actually did everything correctly. They even talked with him, they didn't even fired him. They just clearly stated that the topic was closed and that he shouldn't have raised it because there was always a negative discussion about the topic which actually led to "performance" problems of certain groups within google.

actually a workplace should be your workplace, not your political debate site.

yes free speech is important. yes it's bad if people discriminate. but did he had other choices than just raising the topic again, in a "google" public forum? yes he could! but he did not, he could've mailed his HR guys or talked with his manager. or both.

but raising the same topic again and again and the same disucssion occurs with no end in sight, is always a bad idea (regardless of the topic).

p.s. i go to work because i love programming and not because i can raise political discusissons over and over again with my co-workers.

Sounds like Urs et. al. were less concerned with shutting down pro-diversity speech than they were with Cory's tone, which they seem to believe per se was causing division. Cory didn't seem to be self-aware enough to understand that.

Since the external links are private, it's hard to know if we're comparing apples to oranges; but it's informative to contrast the reaction to Damore's single memo with this fellow's repeated, willful flouting of his superiors' requests to moderate his tone and stop posting long enough for the topic to calm down. It seems like they gave Cory a lot of second chances and leeway.

Current US law about workplace safety proscribes a certain type of professionalism. The kind that says, "We can have a heated discussion on how text based web search works, but not anything else." There are other ways to be professional, but those seem to be difficult to operate usefully in multiperson US companies, and this way isn't bad.

I think it's appropriate to ignore whether a co-worker thinks the moon landing was faked, or what sports team they like, or if those idiots they heard about in the news are a big deal or no deal at all. That's simply not what the workplace is for. To the extent those discussions happen, I view it as a partially-voluntary leaking of their personal lives. Nothing to condemn or engage in, just politely ignore it until your lunch finishes in the microwave. The idea that people would want to express any views in some type of organized way inside their employer's organization makes little sense to me -- I find it unprofessional but not outrageous or anything.

I think it's clear whether something is an on-topic professional comment. All discussion of news stories is a 'no' unless it is e.g. a new regulation on the industry or their customers that was just announced.

I don't mean to sound dismissive or anything, but Cory who? There's very little context in the link about what this was or who it was.

The entire thing is a great case of cultural challenges. From one hand, you’d like to encourage open discussion about everything. Because innovation and out of the box thinking. On the other, discussing some ideas leads to conflict. A culture of free ideas is one of the best ways to attract talent, restricting it will commercially detrimental. So is loosing talent over conflict like this. It is a leadership challenge. A very complex one. But one that does not seem to be handled with a ton of grace. Maybe because there is no good solution

Cory is lacking in self-awareness.