Fractures in Silicon Valley's political culture widen

New York

THE culture wars that have consumed politics in the United States have landed on Silicon Valley's doorstep.

That became clear this week after Google on Monday fired a software engineer, James Damore, who had written an internal memo challenging the Internet company's diversity efforts. The firing set off a furious debate over Google's handling of the situation, with some accusing the company of silencing the engineer for speaking his mind. Supporters of women in tech praised Google. But for the Right, it became a potent symbol of the tech industry's intolerance of ideological diversity.

Silicon Valley's politics have long skewed left, with a free-markets philosophy and a dash of libertarianism. But that goes only so far, with recent episodes putting the tech industry under the microscope for how it penalises people for expressing dissenting opinions. Mr Damore's firing has plunged the US technology capital into some of the same debates that have engulfed the rest of the country.

Such fractures have been building in Silicon Valley for some time, reaching even into its highest echelons. The tensions became evident last year with the rise of Donald Trump, when a handful of people from the industry who publicly supported the then-presidential candidate faced blowback for their political decisions.

At Facebook, Peter Thiel, an investor and member of the social network's board of directors, was told he would receive a negative evaluation of his board performance for supporting Mr Trump by a peer, Reed Hastings, the chief executive of Netflix. And Palmer Luckey, a founder of Oculus VR, a virtual reality startup owned by Facebook, was pressured to leave the company after it was revealed that he secretly funded a pro-Trump organisation.

Scott Galloway, a professor of marketing at New York University's Stern School of Business, said Mr Damore's comments carried additional weight to people on either side of the political spectrum because he was an engineer at Google, one of the world's biggest technology companies.

Alongside other giants such as Facebook, Amazon and Apple, these companies "are seen as pillars of our society", Prof Galloway said. "Controversy and statements that emanate from these employees take on a different heft." The technology industry has long marched in lockstep on issues such as supporting immigration and diversity, even though their companies remain largely male, white and Asian. But last year's election of Mr Trump - with his broadsides against political correctness, his coarse language towards women and his actions to restrict immigration and deny climate change - seemed to threaten many of those ideals.

At the same time, his words may have made dissenters in the tech industry more comfortable about speaking out.

"Trump, in a sense, licensed people to express what some people would call politically incorrect thoughts," said Adam Galinsky, a professor at Columbia University's Business School. "Then there's the other force that a lot of Trump's policies go against the inclusive ideals these companies espouse."

At Google, chief executive Sundar Pichai said in an email on Monday that Mr Damore was fired for violations of the company's code of conduct, specifically his perpetuation of "harmful gender stereotypes" in the workplace. Mr Damore had argued that biological reasons might explain the under-representation of women in the tech industry, causing widespread outrage inside and outside Google. In his defence, he said he had a right to express himself and said he was considering legal action against Google for firing him.

His memo and dismissal transformed Mr Damore into a hero on right-wing news sites such as Breitbart, which has long criticised the political leanings of the tech industry.

One of the most outspoken supporters of Mr Trump in Silicon Valley has been Mr Thiel, a founder of PayPal, who has since faced derision from other people working in tech for his political stance. In a sign of how deep that ill feeling runs, Netflix's Mr Hastings warned Mr Thiel last August, a few weeks after Mr Trump had accepted the Republican nomination for US president, that he would face consequences for backing Mr Trump.

Mr Thiel, also one of the original investors in Facebook, had given a speech supporting Mr Trump at the Republican convention. In contrast, Mr Hastings, a supporter of Hillary Clinton, said earlier last year that Mr Trump, if elected, "would destroy much of what is great about America". Mr Hastings, the chairman of a committee that evaluates Facebook's board members, told Mr Thiel in an email dated Aug 14 that the advocacy would reflect badly on Mr Thiel during a review of Facebook directors scheduled for the next day.

"I see our board being about great judgment, particularly in unlikely disaster where we have to pick new leaders," Mr Hastings wrote in the email to Mr Thiel, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. "I'm so mystified by your endorsement of Trump for our President, that for me it moves from 'different judgment' to 'bad judgment.' Some diversity in views is healthy, but catastrophically bad judgment (in my view) is not what anyone wants in a fellow board member."

Mr Thiel and Mr Hastings declined to comment through their spokesmen. Both men remain on Facebook's board.

Another prominent Trump supporter affiliated with Facebook, Mr Luckey, did not last at the company. In September, The Daily Beast published a report saying that Mr Luckey had been secretly funding a pro-Trump political organisation called Nimble America. Subsequent reports and social media posts accused Mr Luckey of financing sexist and racist "memes", or viral Internet content.

Mr Luckey, whose company was acquired by Facebook for US$2 billion, said in a Facebook post that the stories misrepresented his views, though he apologised for the negative coverage it brought Oculus. (Indeed, there was little evidence that the organisation's activities went beyond a billboard in the Pittsburgh area that showed a cartoonish image of Mrs Clinton with the words "Too Big to Jail" beneath it.)

Mr Luckey, through mutual agreement with his employer, stayed away from the Oculus offices to let the controversy die down, according to three people with knowledge of the episode who asked for anonymity because of confidentiality agreements. In December, before returning briefly to the office, he told colleagues he was committed to staying at the company. But by the end of March, Oculus said he was no longer working there.

Some prominent Silicon Valley figures are concerned that there is too much political conformity in the tech industry. On a podcast in May, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen said he knew of only two Trump supporters in Silicon Valley - Mr Thiel and Mr Luckey. "What does it do to somebody when they feel like they literally can't express themselves?" said Mr Andreessen, a Facebook board member who backed Mrs Clinton last year. NYTIMES