Survey Finds Strong Majority Of Google Employees Oppose James Damore Firing

Blind, an anonymous corporate networking app, surveyed its users from over 4,000 different companies on their thoughts regarding Google’s firing of software engineer James Damore, according to Business Insider. At Google, 56 percent of the 441 employees surveyed opposed their company’s decision to fire Damore.

Blind also reported employee opinions across other tech companies, which seem to support the fired software engineer.

A majority of Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon employees surveyed also opposed Google’s decision by margins of 57-43, 56-44, and 54-46, respectively. Nearly two-thirds of Uber’s employees surveyed also opposed the choice to terminate Damore.

Lyft, LinkedIn, and Apple, however, all favored Google’s decision by margins of 65-35, 53-47, and 51-49, respectively.

The survey only accounted for the opinions of employees who are Blind users. While not scientific, the survey does give an idea of the mood across Silicon Valley.

Thursday's town hall meeting was intended to allow Pichai to address employee questions about James Damore’s polarizing missive and his subsequent dismissal. But in a companywide email sent less than 45 minutes before the meeting was to start, Pichai said he had canceled it because proposed questions submitted by Google employees had "appeared externally" and some employees feared for their safety if they were " 'outed publicly' for asking a question."

"TL;DR Sorry for the late notice but we are going to cancel today’s Town Hall," Pichai wrote. The abrupt cancelation is unusual for Google, which prides itself on being transparent with employees but has generally been able to keep internal divisions within its walls.

Earlier Thursday, WIRED reported that Google employees had submitted more than 520 questions for the planned session, some critical of Damore's reasoning and conclusions, and others expressing concern that he had been fired for speaking his mind. More than 5,000 Google employees had used an internal tool to rank the questions they most wanted Pichai to answer.