Two.

Some of you may have heard about leaked Google memo that has Bean circulating virally around the Internet for the last couple of days that was written by James Dim or who was fired for it last night.

And, uh, 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 oh, so that's what we're going to do it.

The interview I had with him, which finished at about three o'clock on Tuesday, August 8th, follows immediately after this introduction.

Hi, everybody.

I'm speaking today with James Dim or and unidentified Google employee who wishes to remain anonymous, reasons that I think are obvious on James last week put his hand in a blender bye, 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 and about what you were doing at Google, all right?

Yes.

So I 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.

When their coding competitions.

They just recruited me out of that on DDE.

So I Google.

I was mostly working on a search and imagine video surgeon particular.

So what's tell us about your educational background a bit?

Uh, yes.

Ah, I just did a 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 I started doing research at M I T.

And then I went Thio Assistance Biology at Harvard.

I initially wanted to work with Martin.

Go back.

He's really great in evolution and game theory, but, uh, then I started working on other things.

So tell us a bit about systems biology.

What is that exactly?

What kind of research were you doing in my team?

I yes, ah, distance biology has many different meanings, but it's Jerry, definitely just mathematical biology, and I guess seeing biological systems as a whole rather than just individual molecules.

And so I like looking at populations, and so my interest in evolution.

So why did that make you are viable, candidate and Google.

You think, uh, I think they just saw a smart guy that could code.

Sure enough.

Now you've been there three years.

Is that correct?

But also as an intern before that.

Yeah, So about four years total.

And so how would you say you've performed as an employee of people being happy with you?

Or have you been traveler?

No.

I got promoted twice.

My last review was the highest possibles to per, which is the top few percent off.

So I definitely wasn't based on performance that they fired me.

Have you enjoyed working at Google?

Is it being a good experience?

Yeah.

I love Google.

That's horrible part.

Like I've always been the biggest Google and ally all.

Like I've never had an iPhone.

I've always tried to convince my friends to use android and all these different things.

And yeah, this just puts a sour taste in my mouth.

Okay, so So you've got a good educational background.

You were interested in things that Google would be interested in.

Your good coder.

You've worked with them for a number of years.

Done an excellent job on your pretty pro Google.

That's basically the back room.

Yeah.

Okay.

Now, last week you wrote a memo which has attracted a tremendous moment attention.

And in that memo, you you made a number of claims, and the claims were and please correct me.

If I got this from non summarizing this property, you were attempting to describe reasons why they might.

Why a lack of genuine parody might exist within Google, for example, with an engine engineering or broadly, but also in occupations for fraud.

And, yeah, you laid out a very elaborated Darkman, 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 Web page about gender differences in general, but I'll try to hit the highlights for this particular document.

So why did you do this?

Yes.

Ah, About a month and 1/2 ago, I went to one of our diversity summits, all of it one recorded and super secret.

And they told me a lot of things that I thought just were not right.

Okay.

What?

Having un recorded in super secret?

Well, I mean, 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.

Where's Boulder?

Are racism?

Yeah, basically.

I see.

And so?

And it was ultra secret and un recorded.

In what manner?

Uh, yes.

Ah, most meetings at Google.

I recorded anyone.

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.

Okay?

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 and they would really bring up some criticisms, Yeah, a large number of people in Google and a very large number of well informed biological scientists were so I mean, I was quite struck by your document, given that no, it would have been a decent document for a well informed psychologist research psycho used to write, but he was somewhat of an outsider.

But you've got the 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 both correct?

Yeah.

And what?

I mean, tool?

Uh, close of it.

I mean, 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?

I don't know.

Precisely, uh, I am MME.

Or women or underrepresented racial minorities, you know?

Can I jump in here?

I am.

I would hesitate to say that that's 100% true across 100% right?

So the organization that I'm in, I have not personally seen anything that I would deem cross the line.

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 on dhe.

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 would not apply to everybody.

But it is certain that it's certainly also distressing to hear that there is acceptance of the idea that diversity can be mapped onto race and gender, especially with regards to performance, because there's no evidence for that whatsoever.

So okay, so you went to this meeting and then you decided to right this documented How long have you been working on it?

Before he released it?

Uh, yes.

Oh, 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 if what I was saying was right, then something bad is happening.

And so yet about a month ago, I submit to feed back to that program, and, you know, I saw that people looked at it, but no one actually said anything.

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 I got viral and then leaked to the news that Google started carrying.

Okay, so how did it go?

Viral in And do you know and how was it leaked?

Yeah.

So there is a group that Google called skeptics.

And so I was like, Okay, maybe they'll be ableto prove me wrong in some way.

Like they're skeptical about things, right?

I was naive like us.

And so I sent him a message like, OK, what do you think about this?

Is Google in some sort of echo chamber?

I'm buying a necro chamber, and and then it just exploded after that.

And they are internal.

Yes, it was just a scratch her out, all of you.

And, you know, I wasn't the one that wasn't the skeptics group that started to spread it around.

Yeah, And then there were a lot of upper management that, uh, you know, specifically called it out and started saying how harmful it is and how is unacceptable.

This sort of viewpoint is not allowed a Google.

Yeah.

What sort of viewpoint?

Exactly?

The idea that there were differences between men and women that actually might play a role in in, In, In In the in the corporate world That that's a 1,000,000,000.

That's not acceptable.

Yeah, it seems so.

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 could tell, there isn't anything that you said in that paper.

First of all, that is, in fact, biased in a matter 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 air rather distressing.

Yeah, and there's a lot of misrepresentation by upper management just to silence, May I think?

Yes.

And why is that, Do you think?

Why?

Why is it that Google couldn't actually Do you think that Google couldn't have come out and have an intelligent discussion about this instead of well, first of all, releasing like Danny.

I read Danielle Brown's response to you, which I thought was absolutely appalling, ill informed and the flowing.

And then they fired you.

Which seems to be like, really bad PR move.

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 excuse was that I was perpetuating gender stereotypes that you're perpetuating gender stereotypes?

And did they say anything else about your performance or about anything else that you had done?

No, there was.

That was the only reason.

And who fired you?

Technically, it was my HR representative and my director.

Okay.

And you and you, do you have any idea on whose orders they were acting?

Or if this was something that they conjured up themselves or I I'm sure it probably went from higher up than that because I misses a huge P R move so they would 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 is, how are you doing?

I'm doing okay.

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've been given some interesting job offers.

Is Forest.

Yeah, I've got a surprising amount of support.

Yeah, well, I suspect in fact, I'm virtually certain that you have a majority viewpoint.

It's just that the people who hold the alternative perspectives, which are the radical social constructionists types who insist that everything is a consequence of socialization there, a little bit more organized politically.

But they're clearly wrong, scientifically that wrong, Factually.

They're wrong, ethically for that.

So So you 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?

Are 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 on the line doing this.

So what do you think about that?

Okay, it definitely sucks, but I At least I was proven right.

You know, when?

What do you mean by proven right?

Well, just that Behold, uh, 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 When the University of Toronto decided to no and attempt to shut me down after I made my videos, I thought, Well, that just proves my point because, I mean, I made the videos saying, Well, I don't like the climate that's developing, and it's making it very difficult to have conversations about certain things and your examples even more egregious, I think, because you know why at least objected to a piece of legislation that in principle would have been a benefit to unidentifiable group.