Btw plenty of us ex Googlers think Jeff Dean's reputation was enhanced still further by that move. Gebru was acting in crazy ways, she really should have been fired much earlier, but taking the opportunity when she so helpfully presented it seems like a no brainer. Sad that the rest of Google lacks that approach.
I agree, she should have been fired earlier. However, she was just promoted, which meant she must have had several quarters of excellent perf.
I think one thing that would be truly excellent, but won't happen, would be to have Megan Kacholia defend herself by explaining her actions to the wider Google community. In particular:
Why was Megan, a person with effectively no research experience, a VP in Google Research and making decisions about research papers being withdrawn? Her lack of experience in the area seems to have led to an exacerbation of tensions.
Why did Megan convert an offer to have a discussion about a resignation into an interpretation that Timnit resigned voluntarily, coupled with an accelerated departure (immediate, with termination of all Google services)?
Why was Megan pushing so hard to have the paper withdrawn, given that the paper wouldn't be that impactful on Google's reputation, made some useful (if obvious and a bit overstated) points, and wasn't being published in a prominent venue?
To Jeff and Megan: to what extent did Jeff support Megan's decision to fire Timnit over a refusal to withdraw a paper, or did his support come after learning Megan had fired Timnit? To what extent did Timnit's previous tweets calling out her employees and mentioning confidential Google Research activities play a role in her firing? Was her discouraging email really a reasonable justification for accelerating her termination?
My guess about all of this is that Megan and Jeff decided to fire timnit when timnit posted several negative tweets attacking Jeff and google Research, and used the paper and the email (and vague offer to resign) to justify the firing and they didn't think through the implications of firing a twitterati like Timnit in a roughshod manner. This seems most consistent with all the evidence I've seen.
The moment an employee says "Do this or I quit", and the company refuses to "do this", then the company is correct in assuming that the "I quit" part will apply.
Gebru said "do this or I resign". The company accepted her resignation. She then attempted to "unresign" by claiming her statement she would resign wasn't an actual resignation. Clearly you support this kind of meritless word games from her.
As for Megan, why is a non engineer running YouTube? Why did someone at lightweight as Gebru end up being paid as a researcher at all given that her research had no real validity? Why was she allowed to behave in such toxic ways for so long? Google is neck deep in identity politics, that's why.
