Google is in turmoil over a viral manifesto suggesting women are biologically less tech-y

Google banner at a LGBT march in Germany
(Image credit: John MacDougall/AFP/Getty Images)

Danielle Brown started as Google's new vice president of diversity, integrity, and governance last month, and she "had hoped to take another week or so to get the lay of the land before introducing myself to you all," she wrote Google employees over the weekend. Instead, she felt compelled to weigh in on an internal manifesto by a male senior software engineer that went "internally viral," as a Google employee put it to Motherboard, then externally viral when Gizmodo published the entire 10-page document on Saturday.

The document, titled "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber," begins: "I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don't endorse using stereotypes." In the rest of the document, the author — whose name isn't being widely shared — earnestly argues that "Google's left bias" has led to an overemphasis on gender and racial discrimination, and stifled "viewpoint diversity" through shaming conservatives. He shows great interest in promoting a culture of "psychological safety" and warns that Google's emphasis on "political correctness" is leading to "encroaching extremist and authoritarian policies," by which he seems to mean affirmative action.

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.