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good morning on Tuesday August 8 that's episode 263 of the 359 podcast in the house today we've got Roger King Ben Fox Ruben and special guest Brianne Garrett thank you so much welcome I know it took through the entire this is our intern she's got she's wrapping up our 10-week program this week exactly it took you know a half took us nine 1/2 weeks to get you on so I'm glad we finally have you want me to yeah about damn time sorry guys well I mean we did we did lose about a month's worth of shows whose fault was that supposed to me welcome time sock yep we're retitling the pod time so yeah this is got a kind of crack operation that we're working with here so we're gonna be talking about two topics Google obviously in the news for firing the engineer who released that that internal memo criticizing the company's diversity efforts and then we'll be talking about the HBO hack i've here a game of Thrones fan you might be interested in that obviously the script for that latest episode that just aired leaked a few days before the show and there's some there's some new news you know they're they're asking for a ransom now they've got they leaked a bit more information so up as always if you have any questions leave them in the comments section Brian will pick out the best and we'll get to them in 3 minutes and 59 seconds from 3 to welcome to the 359 I'm Roger Cheng I'm Ben Fox Raven and with us is intern Bri and Eric so more on Google News Google moved quickly and reportedly fired the author of an internal memo criticizing the company's diversity efforts the company was in a bit of a difficult position one hand it didn't want to look like it was squashing the admittedly unpopular opinions of one of its employees but also didn't want to condone the proliferation of falsehoods that women were biologically less suited to work in tech it's part of Silicon Valley's broader struggle to include more representation more diversity you know with women and minorities in particular but it's come a complicated position right there was a situation right then yeah yeah we talked about this before the podcast and I think at least the way that the author opens it seemed pretty well reasoned as far as that you know it sounded like this person was a conservative and said look conservative or other opinions really aren't being addressed or respected at Google it's kind of like a monoculture and we should allow diversity of opinions as law in as much as a diversity of other things as far as you know gender right from background and that all sounds pretty reasonable right unfortunately right biological yeah telezart takes a turn for the for the worst yeah I think he tends to go off track a little bit he talks about how you know women and men are biologically different and that's what he attributed to the fact that there's a huge gap in the tech world also saying that underrepresented people shouldn't be shouldn't have supported programs there's just a lot of negative in there and I think it puts Danielle Brown especially in a bad position you know she was recently just hired back in June yeah as the vp of diversity and clearly they're trying to foster kind of this inclusion within the company so it puts them in a position you know what do you do when this person is kind of tainting what they're trying to do a little bit right Brianne you've been researching while you've been here diversity issues yeah you've had an opportunity to speak with quite a few chief diversity officers and different major tech companies what have you been hearing from them what are some of the efforts that they're trying to do to create buy-in or or address some of these issues that have been percolating in the tech world for quite a few years now yeah I think Google and a lot of Silicon Valley to Silicon Valley tech companies have been saying that inclusion starts within the company that you know the biggest thing is that employees need to feel like they're included they need to foster a sense of you know everyone has these different opinions but we need to understand that everyone has an idea everyone has a contribution to the company in their own way regardless of their background their gender and so I think that Danielle brown was put in a very awkward position in this in this case because it's like what do we do when someone is kind of questioning other people of different backgrounds you know she's clearly clearly Google has been making strides towards improving their diversity in conclusion you know they just reached a diverse release a diversity report among other companies and so I think by doing anything other than firing him it's kind of taking steps back for them right so yeah from a practical level right like it's gonna be tough for this guy to have worked with other people now right his name's kind of tainted like what it might say yeah I mean just in terms of it within Google right like he kind of had to go because from a Productivity level like who was gonna work with this guy yeah I I would agree I think Google was kind of had their hands tied on this one but if I think a silver-lining potentially would be that if it does address the idea of providing a diversity of opinions even if they're unpopular to a certain extent maybe that's a good thing that may come out of those all right next up and we'll keep it quick the HBO hack drama continues to roll on as you know last month HBO was the victim of a hack which a hackers claimed that 1.5 terabytes of data was stolen including episodes of shows like Game of Thrones and dollars I know the latest development from last night the HBO received a or HBO received a disclosure of a month's worth of emails from one of its executives and also hackers released a video to HBO see Richard plepler demanding and sum of money which has been redacted or face having all that data get released I don't know what do you think what do I think yeah I hope they don't like and really even if they do release it to everyone don't watch the stuff yeah you know just wait you know be a good person Game of Thrones fans are quite vicious - yeah all right for those stories and more check us out on Sina I'm Roger Cheng I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Brienne Garrett thanks for listening all right let's jump right into the chat we've got a lot of it's this is sensitive subject matter so we have to be as tactful as we can I think with this let's go with Kyle Dawson he's got a well thought out comment here this is cutting off Asians and white at the knees and force less qualified people on the rolls just because of their skin color we need blind enrollment not white intellectual guilt and nonsense now where do you think you're coming from what that one sir wait a minute I think the point is is that as we continue to talk about diversity you know out in public I like those tend to be comments on a lot of our diversity stories there are a lot of people that have that opinion and instead of you know going against the those arguments and saying look you're completely wrong I think ultimately you know certain levels of buy-in need to be created as instead of saying you're wrong stop talking about that right shut up like maybe I don't agree with this person completely I don't think I do but there has to be a way of like bringing more people to the table to actually explain why diversity is a good thing for your company why diversity is a good thing for you individually and your team I mean I think there needs to be a better understanding within these companies that you know the the idea of this whole blind hiring procedure that you know that race and all that stuff shouldn't matter par the prom is from an institutional perspective all these companies their hind processes are built upon inherent biases that are already in place right that that already kind of excludes for minorities and certain perspectives and you know what I've talked to I've talked to a lot of diversity you know experts well they they talk to the key benefit here you know it's not just about being politically correct in having you know a diverse workforce for the sake of diversity it's about getting different perspectives and you know a company thrives when it has different viewpoints because that's how ideas come from right and so when you start to get into that kind of like monoculture of like one opinion that's when it gets kind of dangerous that's when a couple gets complacent and so bran did you get a chance to talk to the chief diversity officers about that concept of buy-in is that something that they addressed or they're struggling with in any way yeah I think a lot of them said there's kind of two parts of the problem so hiring is one kind of sector so you hire these people you're doing the blind kind of enrollment process application process but once you are hiring these people how are you keeping them satisfied when they're actually hired so it's also about keeping them you know fostering exactly and fostering an environment of inclusion once they're actually within the company because just because they're hired doesn't mean they're gonna stay and doesn't mean they're gonna be yep yeah what was the other part of that getting recruiting and getting them into the company and the other part is keeping them happy once they're there and gave them sort of advancing their careers exactly yeah I'm having a hard time fishing for comments that I really think are good commentary and everyone's entitled to their opinion and I guess I'm just gonna go ahead and start sharing some Stanford says men and women are different even psychologically men like to deal with things women not so much they are more on the human interaction side I don't know if I agree with that yeah I respect your opinion I don't necessarily agree with like like certain concepts like that were what was addressed in the memo so I guess it's good that we're talking about it I mean like it's pretty clear that you know a lot of people in the tech world and outside the tech world have those types of positions and opinions and you know it's it's important to like have you know these types of conversation out in public as opposed to just ignoring them which is what we're not going to do here yeah no I mean it's it's it's superfans it's hard to be diplomatic in something like this because it's hard to keep your emotions aside of it but for sure I think yeah the guy got fired the guy who fired her you know like a lot of these opinions were you know considered against the code of conduct because essentially it's like waving away you know the justification for a lot of people Act although you know the eating that you know like which which does not sound appropriate I mean playing devil's afgan you know he says he's gonna seek legal action that you know that basically he was expressing his opinion about the workplace and he was fired for it I don't know maybe he has an issue in case there I know it's too bad because I don't think Google would actually be able to afford fighting it you know they're just like a small little startup so they don't have employers you're right you're really they're really in a lot of trouble here over there I could just sort of imagine that being an interesting legal question I totally agree and I think and if this does go the legal route which I imagine it will it will be very interesting to see you know where the First Amendment lands now do you think you'd go the legal route or do you think that Google will settle Google with the billions of billions of dollars that's tricky right I just I feel like you know it's kind of the lesser of two evils in this case when it comes to Google I think they would have gotten a lot more blacklash how they not fired him so personally I think they want the correct route especially given what they're trying to do with their diversity include iversity and inclusion so it's a lesser of two evils and I pick I think they picked the lesser of two evils in this case right and you know ultimately we probably will get sued for this I'm sure this guy is heard from quite a few lawyers oh yeah oh yeah and it's it's yeah it could end up being a pretty interesting legal argument yes as far as like you do you do have a right to say whatever opinions that you do want to say but you know in in a workplace environment directly related to code of conduct right where does that land so yeah well where's that line exactly is that the code of conduct is that as you said a thorny issue there is a really great discussion going on in the chat right now between Stanford and blue in project Stanford latest comment was I also think why there's more white males it's because for every one minority member applying there are ten from over-represented pool it's not so much a deliberate bias there's an interesting perspective right and the memo addresses you know matter of you know some some of these you know gaps or differences might not have a direct relation to you know sexism or discrimination and that's also another argument to at least discuss the counter I'll give it to that is there probably an equal number women and men in Silicon Valley and you don't sag you know even though it doesn't look like that right yeah I don't know but like in terms of companies like the companies the rep the breakdown doesn't represent the population base I want to give a quick shout out to Matthew dacher hey this is definitely a topic that's then possible to sum up in four minutes he is not kidding yeah I tried I also want to shout out imagine saggy who is exemplifying exactly what was running through my head through this it's there's so many generalizations individuals are individuals recruiting women and people of color maybe harder because of numbers but doesn't mean that they are less qualified it's a cop out of laziness I love that line yeah I kind of blame a lot of things of laziness personally professionally you know yeah I'm just want to say thank you to everybody for keeping it pretty civil in the chat and it's an easy place to get uncivil and it's neither shout-out to our community here at CNET in the 359 totally like we should constantly impressed and surprised but like the cordial comments like the lack controls about that yeah the lack control they just kind of yeah yeah definitely not the usual case right where the actual discussion can happen so yeah absolutely I agree with you Bryan and thank you very much for everybody watching the show yeah imagine soggy says hi Ben oh well bromance developing oh wait we can't assume he's a man or woman that's true romance of some sort then oh don't tell my wife all right so we could talk about this forever and always and that would probably get us nowhere uh-huh let's just bring a little levity back in and I am not as been well-established on this show a game of Thrones water so it's now for you guys feeling throughout all of this are you emotionally destroyed that's a hack yes sport Oh let's start did you see the legally gonna do spoiler alerts here yes sir alert if you want to well yeah that last episode was kind of amazing right and I wouldn't really well the thing of it is the episode itself didn't leak it was just an outline of the episode or like the script I did not pursue it and so no neither did I did you watch it by the way I have yet to see a single episode I just have I guess we shouldn't talk to my thank you for not leaving me alone that's not truth but yeah I I will watch it too but I probably will forget so you can even go ahead and do some spoilers no no no I would just say like I think if I had gone out as I'm sure some fans didn't like read the script I would have had a much inferior experience watching the show like knowing what was to come there were can you imagine like that one fight sequence would have devolved into just one line dragon provided an emphasis no but I think it would have ruined the experience right like I don't think it would have been just like is why I didn't even make an attack and I know there are episodes of ballers which I also watched starring Dwayne Johnson I did not pursue those episodes I am one I wouldn't recommend anyone do just principal principal hey they wore Charlie's episodes yeah rollers shut up bad for the 1% hey it's a lot it's a lot larger than 1% actually it's just probably Game of Thrones fans are super vocal and they're they're just rabid so that's why it seems like there are a lot more of us which I had a nickel for every time somebody said you haven't seen Game of Thrones and it's just like I'm not doing it intentionally have nothing against to him I'm just lazy I don't pay attention yes I got all goes back to laziness I get about 10 minutes in doing is like what's going on already you need a pen and paper and you take note yeah first and there's why it's endearing I get that first season was really tough to get the first couple of episodes cuz you're like everyone has all these names using a myriad of characters and right and once you get to know them they all get you know murder that's not a secret everyone dies all right we should probably wrap it up soon yeah yeah who's asking about the forthcoming studio tour we are working on it yeah I heard you guys requests loud and clear it can't it's it's kind of falling on the backburner just because there's a lot coming up I got another to Samsung event on the horizon yeah we got to crank out other stuff but I am talking the Beecham in San Francisco and there's definite interest it could be fun we hope to get that to you guys soon thanks for bugging Brian about yeah yeah we've got we've got a really busy fall coming up between note or a road trip series is still going on and then we've got i phone in september so very interested to see what that looks like same here that's I'm like debating between buying that gsa versus waiting for the pixel to I know this is serious 1% problem okay first of all problem what was the problem first world problem yeah you're not kidding oh geez all right bring it home run all right if you like to anything you saw or heard here check us out on CNET our podcast is also available in iTunes tune in stitcher SoundCloud Google Play and it's all right it's all right see y'all tomorrow thank you bran for joining us thank you yeah you