hello so some of you may have heard
about the leaked Google memo that is
been circulating virally around the
internet for the last couple of days
that was written by James d'amour who
was fired for last night and calling of
his reached out to me and put us
together and so I'm going to talk to
James today about exactly what happened
and why and perhaps what should be done
about it
so all so that's what we're going to do
with the interview I had with him which
finished at about 3 o'clock on Tuesday
August 8 follows immediately after this
introduction hi everybody I'm speaking
today with James d'amour and an
unidentified Google employee who wishes
to remain anonymous reasons that I think
are obvious and James last week put his
hand in a blender by circulating an
internal memo that I would say has
become somewhat infamous so James let's
start with let's start with a bit of
discussion about you tell us who you are
about your background about what you
were doing at Google I yes so I was
actually just you know I really
interested in science and psychology and
stuff and then I really liked puzzles
and that's how I got into Google
actually I did one there coding
competition they just recruited me out
of that and so at Google I was mostly
working on search and image and video
search in particular
so what's tell us about your educational
background a bit I guess so I just did
random science and math and undergrad
and I ended up with a degree I didn't
really know what I was going to do so I
started doing research at MIT
and then I went to a systems biology at
Harvard
I initially wanted to work with Markovic
she's really great in evolution and game
theory but then I started working on
other things so tell us a bit about
systems biology what what is that
exactly what kind of research were you
doing at MIT I yes a distance biology
has many different meanings but it's
generally just mathematical biology and
I guess seeing biological systems as a
whole rather than just individual
molecules and so I like looking at
population and so my interest in
evolution so why did that a viable
candidate and Google do you think uh I
think they just saw a smart guy that
could code fair enough now you've been
out three years is that correct but also
as new turned before that yeah so about
four years total sure how would you say
you performed as an employee you want
people being happy with you or if you
didn't together no I got promoted twice
my last review was the highest possible
superb which is the top few percentile
so I definitely wasn't based on
performance that they fired me and have
you enjoyed working at Google it should
be a good experience yeah I love Google
that's horrible part like I've always
been the biggest Google fanboy all like
I've never had an iPhone I always try to
convince my friends to use Android and
all these different things and yeah I
mean this just puts a sour taste in my
mouth okay so so you'd go to a good
educational backgrounds you were
interested in things that Google would
be interested in you're good coder
you've worked with them for a number of
years done an excellent job
you're pretty girl Google that's
basically the background yeah okay now
last week you wrote a memo which is
attracted a tremendous amount of
attention and then that memo
you made a number of claims and the
claims were and please correct me if
I've got this for not summarizing this
property you were attempting to describe
reasons why there might why a lack of
gender parity might exist within Google
for example and with an engine
engineering or broadly and also in
occupations more broadly and yeah you
laid out a very elaborated document and
I reviewed it and as far as I can tell
your opinions are well supported by the
relevant psychological science and I
think what I'll do in the description of
this video when I link it is putting the
references so that people can decide for
themselves I want to put up a webpage
about gender differences in general but
I'll try to hit the highlights for this
particular document so why did you do
this
uh yeah so about a month and a half ago
I went to one of our diversity summits
all the unrecorded and super-secret and
they told me a lot of things that I
thought just were not right okay what I
mean unrecorded in super secret well
they were telling us about a lot of
these potentially illegal practices that
they've been doing to try to increase
diversity and what kind of practices
well basically treating people
differently based on what they're raised
or Dildar are a system yeah basically
oh I see and so and it was ultra secret
and unrecorded in what manner uh yes I
most meetings at Google I recorded
anyone at Google come watch it we're
trying to be really open about
everything except for this they don't
want any paper trail for any of these
things low-key
why because I think it's illegal and I
mean as some of the internal polls
showed there were a large percent of
people that agreed with me on the
document and so if everyone got to see
this stuff then you know they would
really
of bringing up some criticism yes a
large number of people in Google and a
very large number of well-informed
biological scientists we may also add so
I mean ask I was quite struck by your
document given that no it would have
been a decent document for a
well-informed psychologists research
psychologist too right but here's
somewhat of an outsider but you got that
you got the highlights accurate as far
as I'm concerned so okay so you went to
this diversity meeting and you weren't
happy with the sorts of things that you
were being told and with the practices
is that gold correct yeah and what would
I need to uh well so that and there's a
lot of ways in which they pressure
people to increase the diversity of
their team and you know there's no way
to do that besides actually choosing
someone based on their race or gender
right what do you mean I don't work
should be precisely I more women or
underrepresented racial minorities guys
you know can I jump in yeah I am I
I would hesitate to say that that's a
hundred percent true across 100 percent
right so the organization that I'm in I
have not personally seen anything that I
would deem cross the line um you know I
personally believe that there are a good
amount of synergies to be found if you
can combine you know slightly different
ideologies into a room and that is the
thesis that some groups are working
towards obviously there's going to be a
distribution of how people follow the
rules and you know it's unfortunate to
hear that it's you know it could be that
some people fall to the wrong side of
that distribution but that certainly
wouldn't it would not apply to everybody
well yeah that's number one it's
certainly also distressing to hear that
there is acceptance of the idea that
diversity can be mapped on to race and
gender especially with regards to
performance because there's no evidence
for that whatsoever so okay so you
to this meeting and then you decided to
write this document and um how long had
you be working on it before he released
it yeah so I was doing it like
throughout my free time I and I just
wanted to clarify my thoughts on this
and I really just wanted to be proven
wrong because you know it's what I was
saying was right and something bad is
happening
and so yeah about a month ago I
submitted to feedback to that program
and you know I saw that people looked at
it but no one actually said anything -
butch lemon I basically said what I said
in the in the document and then I linked
to the document itself and so I actually
published this about a month ago and it
was only after it got viral and then
week two the news that Google started
caring okay so how did he go viral and
you know and how was it leaked uh yeah
so I there's a group at Google called
skeptics and so I was like okay maybe
they'll be able to prove me wrong some
way like they're skeptical about things
right
I wasn't naive like it and so I sent
them a message like okay what do you
think about this is Google in some sort
of echo chamber I'm eyeing an echo
chamber and you know then it just
exploded after that and you are internal
yet it was just spread throughout all of
Google do you and you know with the feat
was the skeptics group just started to
spread it around yeah and then there are
a lot of upper management that uh you
know specifically called it out and
started saying how farm full it is and
how is unacceptable this sort of
viewpoint is not allowed at Google yeah
what sort of you find exactly the idea
that there are differences between men
and women that actually might play a
role in in in the corporate world got
definite opinion that's not acceptable
yes same
well it can you know understandably it
is this these issues are tricky morally
and politically but the thing that was
disturbing to me about watching the
response to you is that as far as I can
tell there isn't anything that you said
in that paper first of all that is in
fact biased in a manner that should open
you up to the sorts of charges that have
been opened up against you or that
violates the scientific literature as it
currently stands so both of those are
rather distressing yeah and there's a
lot of misrepresentation by upper
management just to silence me I think
yes and why is that do you think like
why why is it that google couldn't
actually you think that google couldn't
promote and have an intelligent
discussion about this instead of well
first of all releasing but Danny I read
Danielle Browns response to you which I
thought was absolutely appalling
ill-informed and appalling and then they
fired you which seems to be like really
bad PR room but more importantly doesn't
actually deal with the issues at hand
you know they're basically saying
something like well what was the
rationale for firing you exactly what
was the excuse that was given so the
official case was that I was
perpetuating gender stereotypes that you
were perpetuating gender stereotypes
yeah and did they say anything else
about your performance or about anything
else that you'd done no there wasn't
that was the only reason and who fired
you technically it was my HR
representative and my director okay and
you ended deep do you have any idea on
whose orders they were acting or if this
was something that they conjured up
themselves or I'm sure it probably went
from higher up than that because and
this is a huge PR move so they we need
approval from right higher up right and
I think the CEO CEO actually made some
comments about the issue today which
I'll probably cut into this video as we
as I edited so yeah okay all right so
the first question
use how are you doing I'm doing okay I
there's a lot of messages that I'm
trying to sort through and just trying
to figure out what I should do now but
yeah you can give it some interesting
job offers as far as I feel yep I've
gotten at rising amount of the part yeah
well I suspect I'm sacked I'm virtually
certain that you have a majority view
point it's just that the people who hold
the alternative perspective which are
the radical social constructionist types
who exist in everything is a consequence
of socialization there are a little bit
more organized politically but they're
clearly wrong scientifically they're
wrong factually they're wrong ethically
for that matter so so you probably have
more support than you think and it will
be very interesting to see how that
turns out so so what do you think about
having written this or I mean now your
life is going to be turned upside down
and for quite a while I suspect I mean
so you put yourself out of line doing
this so what do you think about that it
it definitely sucks but at least I was
proven right
you know when what do you need my group
right well just that the whole culture
just tries to silence any dissenting
view and that we really need some more
objective way of looking at these things
yeah well I felt the same way with
University of Toronto decided to no
attempt to shut me down after I made my
videos I thought well that just proves
my point this is I mean I made the
videos saying well I don't like the
climate that's developing it's making it
very difficult to have conversations
about certain things and your examples
even more egregious I think because you
know I at least objected to a piece of
legislation that in principle would have
been a benefit to an identifiable group
let's say the irons gender group I don't
believe it is of any benefit to them but
you could make a case that it was but
you all you
as far as I can tell is review the
modern personality literature and the
literature on individual differences
relating to men and women and other
groups and there's actually not very
much opinion in your piece at all so
what that is is that it is not possible
to actually have a discussion about the
scientific literature on these issues
without putting yourself risk not to
hell of a thing for engineer because the
engineers and rely on the facts as far
as I can tell and one of the things I
like about engineers is that they tend
to stick very closely to the facts
they're not a very political group you
know generally speaking they're much
tactical yeah I don't know how they can
expect to silence
so many engineers and intelligent people
and to deny science like this yeah well
the question to is what are your
supporters within Google going to do
because you know I would say you're a
great warning man because you you showed
what happens you showed exactly what
happens if you have enough I don't know
what you call it curiosity and courage I
suppose but but mostly curiosity to lay
out what you think for discussion we
need to open this conversations you said
that you know you weren't jumping up and
down in existing you were right you were
trying to lay out what you understood
from doing the fair bit of reading and
and and make the case that see these
facts the facts about the differences
between men and women and employment
choice and payment and all that aren't
being discussed and they're not being
discussed I mean we know that example I
don't put this citation in the
description it's been very difficult for
the Swedes for example to flatten out
the gender distribution for engineers
and Sweden and it ended and in the
Scandinavian countries in general
despite their advanced social
engineering let's call it and they also
can't get male nurses you know I think
it's four out of five
in Scandinavia if I remember correct
they are female and the reverse number
our our engineers are male and you know
that seems to be associated with this
quite well founded scientific
observation that women tilt towards
interesting people and men tilt towards
interesting things and that that's
associated with testosterone exposure in
utero this is a science you know an
attack isn't anybody beating and
ideological drum because most of the
people I would say that most of the
people who are publishing this would
have been even happier had it turned out
the other way you know the findings
actually run contrary to their biases
because academia is generally full of
people whose biases are laughs and now
and then you know scientific findings
emerge to dispute an ideological
proposition that's certainly the case
with role of biology versus society in
establishing gender differences so the
science is very credible it doesn't mean
it's completely beyond dispute but
that's not the point either because your
survey was actually pretty decent survey
of the current state of affairs with
regards to individual differences that
doesn't mean that right so okay so what
what are you buddy or what is your
family think moto this yeah they
definitely support me but they don't
really know what I should do from here
they don't want me to you know just go
to a ton of news corporations and do all
these interviews and stuff and because
they just want to twist whatever I say
towards their agenda to it's it's not
really clear what I should be doing yeah
well there's certainly no shortage of
people that want to talk to you I mean
I've been contacted by four or five
journalists who would like to speak with
you we can talk about that afterwards I
could let you know who they are but um
yeah well you've got a you've got a
conundrum on your hands no I mean you're
Europe you're a very straightforward
person
and you're obviously not grinding any
axe at least not in any obvious way so
mice
missions are that talking to the right
people could be of substantial use to
you but I guess it also depends on what
it is that you want me that's something
we can talk about now you you you
rattled up the cages of a fair good as
people and a fairly large organization
interestingly enough just on the heels
of Google and YouTube's announcement
about the new free speech restrictions
on on YouTube you know and their
incorporation of NGOs into that
censorship process so it's been quite a
week for Google I would say so you've
opened up this can of worms what is it
so imagine if you're looking six months
down the road and say and things happen
that we're good because of what you did
what is it that you would like to have
happen uh at the very least I want
because I do still care about Google I
want some conversation if we had and for
the ideologues to not just have their
way but yeah I still don't have a clear
vision on how exactly this will happen
you know how how this can spread farther
than just Google well you spend farther
than just Google that's for sure yeah
you know I mean I would say my
experience is with the press is that the
first thing that happens that will
happen is that you'll get jumped on by
people who call you the sorts of
epithets
that would be appropriate if you were a
bad guy and you should just shut up and
go away