Google stated the reason for his firing ... they are ok with voicing of opinions but by trying to push that angle that women are inferior at computers in effect he made himself a liability at work since I'm going to take a wild guess here and say other women work at Google, and how exactly would many of them feel working with/alongside him going forward?

Working at a corporation is not a green light to get up on a soap box, if you have made yourself a liability in making others uncomfortable at work, that's a problem. Politics can be chosen and can be left outside the office, a person's gender is a little more difficult to put aside.

Also the science on this is hardly conclusive, which is another problem with it. There are other studies that point out there isn't much/any difference in the male/female brain, so why should women at his work have to be branded under studies wherein he believes they are inferior at their job by virtue of their sex? And why is he so threatened by outreach towards women anyway? What if the next great innovator/design in his field turns out to be a woman? Why should they stop outreach because it makes him uncomfortable? If it's something that doesn't take at all, it will be borne out in time, why don't we wait and see how a more inclusive environment works out.

Pretty sure women are a driving force in the usage of the most popular modern computer, which is the smartphone ... hell my fiance taught herself to photo edit, video edit on her iPhone and knows that thing inside out, whereas 10-15 years ago the "conventional computer logic" would be that personal computing assistants in your pocket should be mainly for businessmen, and those silly women will never get the hang of this new internet era. Well how wrong did that line of thinking turn out to be?

I agree with the memo and google firing him proves at least part of his points about the company.

Reverse discrimination is still discrimination.  If women and men (this can also be applied to different races different races) are in fact equal on most/all accounts, why should a woman be hired over a man if she has fewer qualifications, just because the company is trying to fill some ridiculous diversity qouta?  Why is him getting the job any less important than her getting the job?  He has mouths to feed, as well.  And more than likely, at least one of them is a female. 

Having diversity quotas does not allow you to get the best personnel for the job.  A good example of that is Bioware and the mess that was the Andromeda launch.  They were more worried about filling diversity quotas that they hired people who admited they either didn't have much experience and/or hadn't programmed in years.  And they paid for it in money and time spent on basically remaking assets and animations.  Of course, the damage was already done and the game sold poorly and was discounted shortly after release.

Read most of the memo. It's a well written piece that most importantly calls for

1) discussion and debate
2) to address the gender gap in a civilised way

To summarise, the guy applied science and what he got in return was an ass kicking.

The reason for the ass kicking I think is Google doesn't want the hassle of dealing with the consequences of being called sexist, supporting someone who might be seen to be sexist, dealing with Internet trolls, the media who would make a mountain of a molehill.

It's a shame because it seems we live in times where an honest discussion to try make things better is seen to be more harmful than ignoring the issues that men and women face.

The most qualified person should always get the job... period. If that means all women, all whites, all blacks or all gays working within a company, so be it. 

The memo was very balanced in my opinion and didn't say anything that could be considered hate speech. What I find shocking is that you can get fired or attacked these days merely for suggesting that men and women are different and have different interests. Politicians have tried for years now to get more women into STEM and computer science and it doesn't work. Even in feminist countries like Sweden, women are - on average - a lot less interested in these things than men.

And what's the problem with that? Diversity means people are different, not all people are the same. We should respect people for who they are and not try to make everyone the same. What's so progressive or fair or, hell, liberal about men and women being represented 50/50 in... well, everything? That sounds an awful lot like communism to me. Let people be free and make their own choices and don't discriminate against diversity of thought. Men like women because women are different. And women like men because men are different. It's like the most basic aspect of the human experience.
Heck, it's especially companies like Google that should embrace sexual differences. The whole concept of modern computing is based on the work of Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage and it's such a beautiful tale of the many ways women and men compliment each other.

Prety much. My hope for Western society continues to dwindle when I hear about things like this, and I can't help but think we're just screwed. At this point, a part of me actually wishes that stubby guy in North Korea just puts us out of our misery..

(Just kidding and being overly dramatic peoples :P)

If he got fired over what is very sensible memo on how to not reverse discriminate, then I guess we don't need goverments for 1984 to eventually happen.

Based on your post, it is obvious you didn't read the memo, but still felt compelled to put in your two cents.

He NEVER said women are inferior - those are YOUR words.  Why would you say such things when the memo does not?

He in no way is "threatened" by outreach, he actually states ways he believes they could encourage women to WANT to be engineers in the memo.

Regardless, it apparent your "ling of thinking" is to critique something you didn't even read.  Your ignorance is showing.

So read the memo.

He haven't said woman or other ethinics are inferior. He said that interest and capabilities of gender and race have distribution curves and there is a lot os overlaping, but still on average there is a difference. And that could partially explain why woman are less INTERESTED (not capable) in the field.

Then he says that discriminating on the hiring to fill the quota could hurt the company bottomline when subverting the grades of candidates based on gender or race.

And gone to say that several of the programs to increase diversity are sexist and racist and doesn't take the needs of the individuals... he explain that some trait we think are more common to women and can be bad for her carreer may be present in some men as well and not in some women, so that program should be open to whoever wants to enter and improve him/herself.

The full memo is about how to improve diversity in positive non-discriminatory way and talk about the subject instead of censorship. What he got is the confirmation that both isn't allowed on Google since he got fired for it.

Nope they aren't. The memo didn't in any stance said women are inferior, it said they are different and have different interest ON AVERAGE. Have you really read the 10 pages?

It's discrimination and it's illegal. Also you can't prove the hire of that person would have 10x more impact than the other guy that have better skills.

The left is indeed pro racism and sexism as long as it is against white and straight males. Same information talking negative about a black, woman or gay will be shot down, if it's against a white, strainght men it will be endorsed as reality and they will also say there is no reverse prejudice (yes there isn't, it is always prejudice, but they think someone white cis and male can't be a victm of this because there isn't intistucionalized prejudice against them and also historically they are favored).