To call out Jeanine and only Jeanine in language this harsh feels wrong. From my recollection and from what I have heard from people still working there, she is par for the course.
Also I am almost never the person to bring this kind of thing up but ... there aren't a lot of other black women in leadership at Google. Makes this targeted attack feel worse.
Unless I misunderstood the author she was his manager. It is not like he chose some random "black woman in leadership at Google" to attack.
My rule of thumb: unless given an obvious reason not to, assume good faith on the part of individuals.
Ultimately we're discussing assuming someone is a racist because they said something negative about a person of a different race. That assumption is also a racial stereotype.
The dickishness/meanness of singling someone out by name in a public article on the Internet, which is what the comment here was primarily about.
And then the second level, which the commenter deliberately downplayed as a minor second point (but people here jumped on it...) that said person is a minority, so it makes one extra-suspicious about motives.
So I'm not sure where you got this "acting like race is about everything" point, because that wasn't in the comment.
Given it's an unusual situation, people are reflecting on what makes this allegedly incompetent VP different from other incompetent VPs who aren't called out like this?
It's good to have good faith, but it's also good to understand that good faith individuals also suffer from blindspots and unconscious biases.
Hypothetically if there is a set of leaders, directors, and VPs, that all seem equally incompetent, but you call out only one, what might be the reason for it? It could be random. It could be because they were this person's actual direct manager. It coudl be because they're genuinely the one that are the most incompetent of the lot. But it could also be that they're the one perceived to be the most incompetent of the lot. Why? Does them being a woman or black factor into it? Who knows. Not even OP might.
It's not helpful to jump to racism at a moment's notice. It's not helpful to use race as a shield from criticism. But it's also not helpful to pretend that racism doesn't exist, even unconsciously within folks that would otherwise believe they don't have a prejudiced bone in their body.
In conclusion, people shouldn't ACCUSE, and other people shouldn't get DEFENSIVE. It's OK to discuss. I thought Throwaway did a decent job of not accusing. Many responses got too defensive tho.
But I reject that "pretending racism doesn't exist" is a good description of objections like mine above.
In my view it's just as fair to say that taking your position means pretending that racism exists in all interactions between people of different races, and must be contended with before other matters.
Unconscious racism is a thing, yet I question the utility of bringing it up when you have no actual evidence that OP is affected by unconscious racism. He might just hate women too, right? Can't rule that out.
People in positions of power, particularly those in-charge of others, should be taking it on a responsibility and duty; like any other person, sometimes they do a shit job, and I think managers (unless they've committed sexual assault or something) often get exempted from criticism, while any failures ironically tend to be shoveled onto individuals as replaceable units. How many people out there have managers that end being directly responsible for burning them down and out, causing problems in their family lives, and otherwise cultivating an environment that makes the task of getting work done all but impossible?
Isn't that exactly the job of an org executive? To hire and align competent senior leadership ?
I don't think he is criticizing her in particular as much as the archetype that she represents. She is a person who has never had a coding job & spent her early career quite far from the people who write code. I can't for the life of me figure out why you would put someone like that in charge of google-dev relations. That's a premier-IC-turned-leader position if I've ever seen one.
No wonder she doesn't have a strategy. That's a terrible match for a hire.
One possibility is that the person who put her in that position has an incentive for Flutter/Dart to fail.
Btw, it's very funny to see projects, which were predestined to fail, because they send their shittiest, and somehow they became better, and slowly more important than the executives star projects. There are meetings in such cases (I was part of such projects and meetings, several times), after almost everybody should be fired immediately, if you want anything good for the company. But of course, most of the employees of large, and old companies don't care anymore about products, or their respective companies.
This seems likely. Google makes 90% or some very high percent of their money from ads. I doubt there is any focus on on comparatively small side projects
I dare say we’ve all been in some rooms we didn’t really deserve to be in, wouldn’t you?
Are people of specific races to be put beyond criticism?
He could have made the point by writing "I had this terrible boss who had no idea about anything and...", her name is irrelevant to demonstrate the issue of decline at Google.
I understand authors frustration, I've experienced the same in the past but could not voice this beyond just some close friends and coworkers (who knew it already anyway), for fear of repercussions. I've since left but of course this person remains, and from what I hear is still as bad.
Outsiders might join that organization unaware of this. Others working with those teams might not know this and can get burned by it.
Was this particular call out justified? I don't know. But I don't think it is inherently bad.
I agree completely with the article, but naming someone publicly makes the author seem like they are living in a bubble. Ie in their world the head of their org is a public figure, but hardly anyone knows what Flutter is let alone the org structure.
It's not a monolith organization. Google re-structured as a conglomerate (Alphabet). They're critiquing culture/values.
Further, if they were to single out Flutter, wouldn't the target be evident?
If not her, then likely someone she managed: https://twitter.com/timsneath/status/1727192477264974273
Reverse racism is just racism.
I find that hard to believe.
Also seemed out of tone with the rest of the article, which I agreed with the substance of and enjoyed reading.