‘I don’t regret’ firing man who wrote anti-diversity memo: Google CEO Sundar Pichai

Indian-born Google CEO Sundar Pichai has said he does not regret firing James Damore, a former employee who was ousted from the company last year for criticising the tech giant for its diversity policy

Indian-born Google CEO Sundar Pichai has said he does not regret firing James Damore, a former employee who was ousted from the company last year for criticising the tech giant for its diversity policy.

Chennai-born Sundar Pichai studied engineering at IIT-Kharagpur and then went to Stanford in the US. (AFP File Photo)

When asked about Google’s decision to fire Damore during an interview with MSNBC, Pichai said. “I don’t regret it. It was the right decision”.

“The last thing we do when we make decisions like this is look at it with a political lens,” Pichai told the TV show hosts late on Friday.

Damore, who was ousted for writing a 10-page anti-diversity memo last year, filed a class-action lawsuit against Google this month, claiming that it discriminates against white men.

Damore, in his lawsuit filed in a California court, said that Google “ostracised, belittled and punished” him and a fellow plaintiff.

He added that he and others who share his views at Google long have been “singled out, mistreated, and systematically punished and terminated from Google, in violation of their legal rights”.

The former Google employee also wrote an op-ed titled “Why I Was Fired by Google” in the Wall Street Journal in August last year.

Pichai had earlier described Damore’s memo as “offensive”.