It would be interesting to see what exactly Urs said about this guy, in what context, what this guy's personality is, etc. Being an "old fuddy-duddy," while without a settled meaning, I think basically is a way of saying that an old person is acting childish or unprofessional. If that's so, one easy way not to run afoul of the law is to say that the person acts childishly or unprofessionally. Of course, you should also document concrete examples of the same. For example, if the person in question frequently shoots down proposals in meetings by saying the moral equivalent of, "That's not how we did it back at Bell Labs," just say that. Also, saying the guy's ideas are "too old to matter" is a dick move IMO. If you want to abandon rational explanations for why you don't like someone's ideas, just say, "We're not going to do that, end of discussion." No need to get personal.
This goes back to my personal doctrine of trying to say exactly what I mean. I find that some people try to solve problems by saying things designed to get a person to do what they want, but without being direct about it. On more than one occasion I've observed this has led to hurt feelings where I think the direct approach -- just ask for what you want -- would not. For example, if your coworker bothers you while you are trying to work, "Hey, could we talk later? I am trying to work," would probably be received a lot better than, "Damn, dude, you talk a lot." This example is contrived but I have observed concrete cases not too different from this a number of times.
Anyway, hopefully no one reading this article is stressing out about not having a demographically appropriate workforce, because it seems very unlikely that alone will be enough to get you into trouble.
> Being an "old fuddy-duddy," while without a settled meaning, I think basically is a way of saying that an old person is acting childish or unprofessional
Hmm... that's almost exactly the opposite of what I think of when I hear that term. To me it conjures up someone who is overly serious, doesn't have any fun, and doesn't want to let anyone else have fun either.
It'd difficult for me to imagine anyone at Google (at least in that era) using the term "fuddy-duddy". None of the quotes sound like anything I ever heard or over-heard, which of course doesn't prove anything, but it's not the culture that I ever observed.
When things reach a lawsuit stage, they often take on a surreal air and become increasingly disconnected from what is likely to have happened in fact. Lawyers embellish, witnesses develop convenient memories, and those with a motive or agenda will tend to shade their testimony in ways that promote their case (on one side or the other), whether or not this conforms with exactly what might have happened. I don't mean by this that most people intentionally perjure themselves (they usually don't). I mean only that, once it all goes through the lawsuit grinder, what emerges may or may not be recognizable to those who actually went through the experience or who know the environment. Often, it isn't. Just a sad fact of life of what happens when people start fighting in the courts.
That might be the case, but another thing that might be at work over here is that people do have biases/prejudices that they are unwilling to expose in front of others. Someone smart enough can easily hide their real feelings on a subject in most situations, but as soon as they get annoyed, threatened or angry it starts to come tumbling out.
Perhaps, over here he simply encountered a few people with unresolved issues and got a raw deal because of it.
On the other hand, this happened when Google was relatively young an interesting question is, what happens in large organizations? When you hire people they tend to bring their baggage in them. So, now the question becomes how can a culture be created that allows people to transcend their prejudices?
It's hard for me to imagine anyone using the term who couldn't be called one himself. It's really old-fashioned language. "Dinosaur" or "old coot" are more what I'd imagine someone my age saying to communicate the same idea.
I don't know what your age is, but as a 20-something, I can confirm that "Dinosaur" is an extremely popular term for this in my circles.
It's particularly common among my Microsoftie friends to refer to executive leadership. However, I've personally starting using the term "Crustacean" to refer to the dinosaurs who just refuse to go extinct.
I don't understand what you're getting riled up about. It's obvious that the old ideas in question are meant to have been superseded or flat-out debunked (for example, the idea that black men can't marry white women is old in this sense, as is COBOL in this sense). I don't get mad that "green" (comes from young plants) is used to mean "inexperienced and unskillful." As long as they realize that doesn't mean any particular young person is that way, I don't see a problem worth getting mad over.
I completely agree with you, I also started to fear for my future as I'm entering in my 30ties, collecting experience and getting better and better every day.
Yes, probably I loose some of my concentration and speed, multitasking capability etc as I get older but I feel to be able to see things better, have a better intuition, solve big problems quicker than before, by far (while taking longer to solve smaller problems, like algorithmic tests etc which require more concentration, but it could be also caused by the fact that I work too much and I'm simply too tired).
I don't think that performance and idea degradation seen in some older people is about physical age, but because perhaps of their particular personality, for example if they are prisoners of they experience at the point that they are unwilling to challenge them.
I'm not going to say here that there is a misunderstanding, that it's a social problem, that younger people also play their role into cutting off older people from their ideas and are part of this descending spiral. Because they are older professionals (I work with software engineers, but I guess it's similar in other tech fields) whose ideas are fossilized, which don't want to learn anything new, which don't have any stimula left, which work by inertia.
Those people are there, for real, and even if I have no idea which is the ratio of bright/inert older professionals, I wouldn't expect it be drastically different from the ratio of bright/dumb younger guys.
So the whole thing appears to me as a perfect place to abuse in both directions, discriminating good people and unfair accusing of discrimination. No idea how to solve it.
On the other hand I heard that google is happy to hire not-so-young people, so I'm not sure that their corporate culture is really orbiting around the "20 years old bright people" standard I read about around the blogosphere.
I think this is actually bad for older job seekers no matter what the outcome is, just because of awareness. The next time a skilled but borderline elder candidate applies to a younger company, the company will probably have a higher chance to pass on the candidate.
Cribbing from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Reid_(computer_scientist)), he's five years away from the traditional US retirement age of 65, and he was a director level executive at DEC. I imagine he played the money game long enough at DEC that he's in fine shape, even without his teaching income.
"Google asserted in court documents that Reid was fired because the program he headed was being eliminated and because of poor performance."
Hopefully the Google Wave crew is not reading this. (some sarcasm intended, if Google started laying off people for working on a project that ended up being eliminated then employees would be fearful to be placed on anything not established.)
Specifically regarding Wave, all the information from Google states that they loved it, and will most likely continue using it internally, which they did for months before it was announced. The technology they developed to build the product is also being slowly integrated into their existing products (GIS's redesign seems like it took some of the ideas of wave) as well as being available for integration in new products.
Regarding this article, this was 6 to 8 years ago, and Google didn't have its 'persona' it has now. It was still a company struggling to gain market share and I would imagine they wanted developers that strived to push the boundaries of what the web could do. Reid very well could have not had that same goal, being an older generation who already had an ingrained idea of what the internet was and was unwilling to work towards a more dynamic internet. This is all my personal speculation based on personal assumptions, however.
Obviously any kind of discrimination sucks, but I have a hard time getting worked up over age discrimination. It is not like sex or race where you are hampered from the start and never have a chance to show your potential. Everyone is young then gets old. Systematic age discrimination just creates a market opportunity for businesses willing to hire old people. You could say the same opportunity exists in the sex and race cases, but they have the potential to be self-fulfilling prejudices--people locked out of the workforce from the start--whereas the age one doesnt really perpetuate itself.
This case is interesting to me, because I've always been under impression that in USA you can hire and fire whomever you want. Which is not the case here in Europe, where workers are protected like endangered species if they're on permanent contract.
At will employment[1] gives you a lot of freedom when it comes to hiring and firing, but, there are some restrictions[2]. For example, you can't fire all the women in your organization just because you don't want any women working for you.
In practice, it's usually not difficult to come up with a legitimate reason to fire someone. For example, there is a whole industry of computer forensics consults who for a relatively small fee will "probe" (search the target's work computer and network logs for things that shouldn't be there) an employee to come up with a legitimate reason for firing them.
It's circumstantial really. If your a small company than hiring and firing makes a lot of sense. Plus you don't have a lot of assets so you are a small target. Big companies on the other hand don't have that luxury. You don't get fired individually at a large company they wait until layoffs.
Reason is that if a person is fired than you are a huge, rich target for a lawsuit. Each and every one of your employees is now a liability. Someone say an off-color joke or do something that can be even remotely considered discriminatory and you're on the hook. I've had colleagues get rightly fired for doing incredibly stupid things. They lawyer up and bring a suit about some manager being racist, sexist, or religious insensitivity. They know the company would rather pay a few thousand dollars than have to pay $500/hr for a lawyer.
If your company is viewed as discriminatory towards employees (doesn't matter what the facts are) you'll be paying more money to recover your reputation. So severance and settlements are much cheaper to the bottom line then trying to convince people of your story.
Generally speaking, U.S. States' regulations on how corporations can fire/hire employees favor the Corps.
However, the U.S. is also highly litigious in the civil courts. If you feel you've been wronged, there are a multitude of ways to bring up a lawsuit... and plenty of lawyers who would be willing to take your case (especially with "tens of millions of dollars" of denied stock options on the line).
In the USA, 'permanent' employees not covered by a union agreement are generally 'at will', which means the employment can begin and end for any reason, or no reason at all -- except for discriminatory reasons, based on certain characteristics listed in various laws.
The factors that can't be considered are 'protected classes':
So when a decision based on one of these classes could be alleged, employment changes/terminations can become riskier.
There's no right to continuing employment, or direct severance/buyout payments, as seems to be the case in some European jurisdictions. But when more of your employees wind up collecting state-administered unemployment compensation, your payments into that program escalate. (Anyone not fired for specific misdeeds is eligible for unemployment compensation, for a limited period, while actively seeking other work.)
I'm glad Google had the balls to fire this guy. Judging from the article, I was working with someone similar to this guy. He had a Phd and had been in the business many years. His code was terrible and he acted very childish. The company I was working for at the time did not fire him. He did subsequently leave which was a relief.
This goes back to my personal doctrine of trying to say exactly what I mean. I find that some people try to solve problems by saying things designed to get a person to do what they want, but without being direct about it. On more than one occasion I've observed this has led to hurt feelings where I think the direct approach -- just ask for what you want -- would not. For example, if your coworker bothers you while you are trying to work, "Hey, could we talk later? I am trying to work," would probably be received a lot better than, "Damn, dude, you talk a lot." This example is contrived but I have observed concrete cases not too different from this a number of times.
Anyway, hopefully no one reading this article is stressing out about not having a demographically appropriate workforce, because it seems very unlikely that alone will be enough to get you into trouble.