The rules are wrong
By: Sandra Faucett
Tags: Whistleblowing, Racial Justice, Misinformation, Women In Tech, Climate Change

Women are ushering in an age of “corporate disobedience” but getting fired for it. What should be done about it?

I knew what I was doing was against the rules. But he was smiling, so I knew it wasn’t wrong. The rules were wrong. — Arya Stark, GoT Sn7 Ep 6

I’ve been (finally) catching up on Game of Thrones when I got to this episode when the amazing Arya said these words to her sister Sansa about her father cheering her on in her secret archery practice. I’d applaud them any day, but just a few days prior to seeing it I’d read the news of Dr Timnit Gebru, a respected ethical AI researcher, being fired from her leadership role at Google. The news struck me unexpectedly and I’ve been trying to make sense of it ever since.

Dr Gebru was working on a paper (with others) about the shortcomings of AI as it exists today. Not least of these shortcomings include significant opportunity for racial and gender bias. As a gross oversimplification of what happened, Google, who stands to benefit greatly from advances in AI, didn’t want the paper published, and Dr Gebru protested. This was considered such an urgent issue for the company that Dr Gebru’s access to the corporate network and her employment were terminated while she was on vacation. The issue is complex and I encourage you to read the many articles and discussions about it happening in real time in the media and on Twitter.

This incident is important on its own but what struck me was that it came on the heels of another firing, this time from Facebook (where I work), of Sophie Zhang, a data scientist who was critical of the company’s lack of action to combat political misinformation globally. And that firing came just a few months after the firing from Amazon of Maren Costa (who I’ve known for many years) and Emily Cunningham, who stood up to the company on climate change and other issues. These incidents come, of course, after Susan Fowler blew the whistle on her and others’ sexual harassment at Uber in 2016, which ended up taking down the leadership there. And in the midst of Rebekah Jones’s home being raided by armed law enforcement in the wake of her firing from the State of Florida for refusing to alter the state’s COVID-19 data.

I am in awe of each of these women's bravery and dedication to their causes. But what strikes me about the first three incidents is that they chose to speak out about these issues, rather than having the issue happen directly to you and to be brave enough to speak up like Susan Fowler. And that they work for corporations, rather than for elected officials who we can hopefully vote out, like Rebekah Jones. I’m focused on these three incidents because of this, and because I think there is work we can do to change this narrative.

I do kinda wonder why this is happening now, but I believe we can chalk it up to the extraordinary circumstances of this year and the inordinate amount of gaslighting we’ve endured over the past few years. What I am most wondering about is why these huge, powerful tech companies found the need to try and silence these women? What was so threatening?

That all four are women is, I believe, no coincidence. That they were deemed “inconvenient” I have no doubt. For each, the stated reasons for firing “fit” neatly into the rhetoric of corporate policy and their human resources departments. Anyone who has had to navigate similar issues as a manager or individual can recognize the argument behind their terminations. As I followed Maren and Emily’s saga, I knew the policies they were violating were not different from similar policies at other tech corporations I’ve worked at, for example. But these women were also called whistleblowers or, in Dr Gebru’s case, were hired to work on the very issues they were ultimately fired for. Each of these corporations also have airtight processes in place to channel such concerns. But, those of us who have had to navigate such issues also know that these systems are not exactly in place to protect us as individuals. They exist to protect the organization, first and foremost. And, once a person is deemed a “problem” it is not hard to find a way to show them the door.

Still, the question remains: why were these women seen as so dangerous that these companies felt the need to get rid of them? They were all talented and well respected in their fields and communities. Maren Costa was a principal designer at Amazon who, I happen to know, was being groomed for even higher seniority not long before her ouster. Sophie Zhang was more junior and earlier in her career, but by all accounts respected by her peers and clearly in a position where her discipline of data science was of particular value and high visibility. Dr Gebru is a pioneer in her field, and her credentials and accomplishments are well documented. And the issues they were raising most would agree are important to address, no? Certainly a reasonable outlet for their passion regarding these issues, coupled with their considerable talents, could be arranged to the benefit of both. Or so you’d think.

I believe the reason lies in the double-edged sword of the very passionate (read: feminine) way in which they couched their positions, and their unabashedness in challenging and defying the powers that be (read: masculine) in their respective organizations.

These women each expressed their motivations in extremely personal terms. Maren Costa, after she was fired over Zoom, was asked by her son, who was in the next room during the call, if she had any regrets. She told him “No, I don’t. Not at all. I’m doing this for you.” Sophie Zhang wrote in the 6,600-word memo she posted on her last day of employment at Facebook that “I know that I have blood on my hands by now.” And Dr Gebru said in an email to her co-workers shortly before she was fired that she felt “constantly dehumanized” at Google. These are not abstract issues for these women. They are matters of life and death for them and their families and loved ones.

Many of us would agree that the issues these women are fighting for are important, and indeed the companies they worked for had made pledges or statements supporting these same causes. Many of us would, in fact, say that these issues are urgent, especially in the context of this year. These women expressed just how urgent they are to them, as women, as mothers and as conscientious people watching what they felt was unconscionable neglect or inaction by the companies they worked for. They made clear that what the companies were doing was not nearly enough for them, their families, and their communities, and that they saw through what seemed like lip service to these most critical issues. They each showed that they would stop at nothing to fight for what they believe in. But rather than harness that energy and passion into real progress and corporate leadership in these areas, in each case these companies saw it as a threat.

So what to do? I have some thoughts. At the risk of being obvious, I’ll start with how women are perceived and treated within organizations like these:

Hire and listen to the women in your org and make them leaders . For all three of these companies women are in the minority within the employee base and even less women are managers or executives (for both Amazon and Google management/executive numbers hover around one quarter). All have made improvements recently and have pledged to do better, but the pace is glacial, and this is no longer acceptable. The only way to understand how to handle women willing to fight like this is to have equal or more representation in the higher ranks as well as in the rank-and-file. Make it a top priority to aggressively change this dynamic.

. For all three of these companies women are in the minority within the employee base and even less women are managers or executives (for both Amazon and Google management/executive numbers hover around one quarter). All have made improvements recently and have pledged to do better, but the pace is glacial, and this is no longer acceptable. The only way to understand how to handle women willing to fight like this is to have equal or more representation in the higher ranks as well as in the rank-and-file. Make it a top priority to aggressively change this dynamic. Stop treating outspoken women as toxic psychopaths who need to be “dealt with.” If you’re a woman in the working world who has ever spoken her mind, you have surely gotten feedback or heard whisperings about your abrasiveness or toxicity, or about how people are intimidated or even afraid of you. It can be a minefield to navigate, and it’s frustrating at best. If you go further and speak out loudly, continually, and higher up the leadership chain or even publicly about your concerns, and you’re a real problem. The cost of not speaking out is being talked over, mansplained to, and having your ideas co-opted. It’s unfair and needs to stop at the day-to-day level so we can normalize when and how women speak up and out and take strong opposing views to the status quo. In order to listen to women, we need to hear them regardless of the how and without putting such labels on them.

There’s also changes in the way we do business that can help here:

Humanize your data . Having worked in tech companies for most of my career, I know how important data is. It’s a good thing in general, but the data often does not tell the whole story. There can be gaps or data missing outright, but more importantly it all represents people, even the outliers. Much of the time the long tail represents issues that are relatively benign, like a set of people who can’t/don’t/won’t use a certain feature. Other times, like with what Sophie Zhang was working on, it affects who governs the citizenry of small republics. And in the case of Dr Gebru’s work, the way the data models are handled and their size have a significant impact on entire classifications of people. In between are people who are unable to take advantage of tools to the benefit of their own knowledge or for driving their small business. The importance of understanding the gravity of this kind of impact cannot be overstated. Make it a practice to incorporate humanity to go along with the data, and incorporate it into the decision-making process.

. Having worked in tech companies for most of my career, I know how important data is. It’s a good thing in general, but the data often does not tell the whole story. There can be gaps or data missing outright, but more importantly it all represents people, even the outliers. Much of the time the long tail represents issues that are relatively benign, like a set of people who can’t/don’t/won’t use a certain feature. Other times, like with what Sophie Zhang was working on, it affects who governs the citizenry of small republics. And in the case of Dr Gebru’s work, the way the data models are handled and their size have a significant impact on entire classifications of people. In between are people who are unable to take advantage of tools to the benefit of their own knowledge or for driving their small business. The importance of understanding the gravity of this kind of impact cannot be overstated. Make it a practice to incorporate humanity to go along with the data, and incorporate it into the decision-making process. Break out of the yearly and quarterly fiscal-cycle view. I worked for a few retailers during my career, and watched while future-looking plans and investments were scrapped as the result of missing expectations for the last quarter. These plans were often tech or innovation projects that are long-term bets. I felt this was short-sighted, but that is the way retail has always worked, quarter to quarter. Some retailers have been able to break out of this cycle and are surviving and moving forward because of it. For businesses that are less tied to the quarterly results, they are still tied to relatively short-term financial growth. Issues like climate change, racial injustice, or gender equality, however, do not follow these cycles. Changes regarding racial injustice, for example, have moved slowly over generations. Studies like this one show the effect of inaction on climate change over the next 80 years. Companies must be able to embrace a certain amount of abstraction regarding these issues and look at and talk about a longer-term cycle of investment, return on investment and even reductions in profits in order to address these issues effectively.

Finally, walk the talk, dammit. As I mentioned, many feel these issues are urgent, and recent events especially show just how urgent. As a corporation who makes statements or policies supporting work on these issues, you need to mean it. All of it. Lip service will not cut it.