Google responds to "hard" report on layoffs and harassment

By Brian Fung | Washington Post

Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google, said the company was "seriously serious" about allegations of sexual harassment and wrongdoing, in an internal memo sent to employees Thursday and obtained by the Washington Post.

According to Pichai, 48 people were fired from Google for allegations of sexual harassment in the past two years, including 13 or more senior executives.

"None of these people have received an exit package," he wrote in the memo co-signed by Eileen Naughton, vice president of person-related operations.

The note comes after The New York Times reported on Thursday that Google had paid Andy Rubin, the creator of the Android mobile operating system, $ 90 million after he left the company in 2014, following a claim by Sexual misconduct. According to the report, Google has also invested heavily in Rubin's next project, which also highlights two other cases in which the company appeared to be protecting employees accused of sexual harassment.

In his note, Pichai admitted that the Times' report was "hard to read." This revelation is the latest blow to a company – and an industry – that has been subject to a thorough public scrutiny of workplace culture.

For years, critics have argued that Silicon Valley startups are dominated by men and whites and that demographic dynamics subtly influence everything from minor office interactions to important product decisions.

Technology companies recognize that women and minorities are under-represented in the sector: in its own diversity report, Google said this year that men make up 75 percent of the company's executives and about 93 percent of the company's executives. Between them were whites and Asians.

The omnipresence of men in the technology industry has given birth to a stereotype of "breaker" that made the outbreak of notoriety in 2017, when a former employee of Uber said to have been a victim of sexual harassment then that society systematically ignored his complaints. The charges of misconduct resulted in months of investigations, policy changes and even the departure of its then managing director, Travis Kalanick.