Internal memo takes a swipe at Google’s diversity policy

Google is getting flak from its own employees over its diversity policy. According to a memo titled  ''Google's Ideological Echo Chamber'' that is circulating at Google, the diversity initiatives of the company are discriminatory, and attributes the gender gap at the company to the biological differences between men and women.

The writer notes in the memo: ''Women, on average, have more neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance). This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs.''

The 10-page manifesto is available online on Gizmodo and though the outrage on it is all over on social media and the internet, the writer, who according to many Googlers is a male engineer who has not been identified, is also getting much support.

The Mercury News reported yesterday that, a Google spokesman said an internal memo from Danielle Brown, the company's new VP of diversity, would serve as an official statement from the company. The memo was first published by Motherboard. The spokesman also referred to a post by another executive on Google+ that has been widely circulated.

Ari Barlogh, vice president of storage infrastructure products, according to his Crunchbase profile, reportedly said in an internal Google+ post: ''One of the aspects of the post that troubled me deeply was the bias inherent in suggesting that most women, or men, feel or act a certain way … Building an open, inclusive environment is core to who we are, and the right thing to do.

According to those who support the memo, it ''took serious guts to post that,'' Motherboard reported. One Google employee wrote, ''We need more people standing up against the insanity. Otherwise 'Diversity and Inclusion' which is essentially a pipeline from Women's and African Studies into Google, will ruin the company.''

In response, Danielle Brown, Google's newly-named vice president of diversity, integrity, and governance, wrote in a statement that the memo's contents do not represent values that Google ''endorses, promotes or encourages.''

''We are unequivocal in our belief that diversity and inclusion are critical to our success as a company, and we'll continue to stand for that and be committed to it for the long haul,'' she wrote.