Google reveals that 48 employees dismissed for sexual harassment

SAN FRANCISCO – Google has announced the dismissal of 48 employees for sexual harassment in the past two years and dismissed them without severance pay, a few hours after the announcement of an article that it allegedly protected executives male faced with accusations of sexual misconduct the company.

Thursday's surprise announcement came in an e-mail sent to Google employees by CEO Sundar Pichai. This was a direct response to a New York Times report that the company had fired the manager in charge of his Android software for sexual misconduct in 2014 and paid him generously for his departure.

A spokesman for Andy Rubin, the former head of Android, said he had left on his own and that he had never been informed of no charge of sexual misconduct. Rubin acknowledges having consensual sex with Google employees who have not reported to him, thus meeting the limits set by Google's policy at the time, according to spokesman Sam Singer.

The Times' story was based on unidentified people and court documents, including some that had been registered as part of an ongoing divorce between Rubin and his wife. The Times said Google was also protecting two other leaders accused of sexual misconduct, expelling one with severance pay while retaining another.

In his email, Pichai said that Google had adopted stricter rules in 2015. These rules require all senior vice presidents and vice-presidents of Google to disclose any relationship with an employee, even if they do not do not work in the same department or they have another potential conflict. .

Although Pichai did not directly address the allegations against Rubin and other leaders, he acknowledged that the Times' story was "hard to read" and did not dispute it.

In an apparent attempt to reassure employees that things had changed since Rubin's departure, Mr. Pichai stated that 13 of the 48 employees fired by Google for violating the company's sexual harassment policy were either executives superiors, or leaders. Pichai wrote that none of these 13 people had received severance pay.

"We are truly committed to providing a safe and inclusive workplace," Pichai wrote.

Despite Pichai's assurances, the revelations about sexual harassment are a setback for a 20-year-old company that adopted early on its slogan "Do not Be Evil" and now adopts "doing what's right" as its umbrella credo of his holding company, Alphabet Inc.

The bombs are also another disturbing example of a Silicon Valley culture that for decades has relied heavily on male engineers, some of whom still behave like boys from the fraternity who attend a party organized at the university.

The phenomenon led to the publication this year of "Brotopia: The Boys Club of Silicon Valley", a book by Emily Chang that delves into the story of women who claim to have been sexually harassed by tech companies and venture capital companies.

The allegations of sexual misconduct also led to the resignation of venture capitalists and executives and led to an ongoing overhaul of Uber.

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Uber conducted an internal investigation following public complaints from a former engineer and stated that it created an environment conducive to widespread sexual harassment.

The problems faced by Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick have been forced to resign by investors as CEO amid a host of other problems. At one point, Uber hired the former Google engineer, Amit Singhal, and then asked him to resign last year after discovering that he had not revealed that he was not there. he had been charged with sexual misconduct at Google.