“Given the current political climate in Silicon Valley, I think I would prefer to stay in hiding.”

That’s how one 29-year-old software engineer based in the San Francisco Bay Area feels about talking publicly about his political views in the wake of the firing of James Damore, the Google employee who authored a controversial 10-page manifesto about the company’s “ideological echo chamber”.

For conservatives like him in Silicon Valley, the reaction to the manifesto has confirmed the very issue the manifesto sought to highlight. As Damore put it: “Google’s left bias has created a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming its dissenters.”

The 10-page document, which was circulated on an internal forum at Google before being leaked to the public, has been described as “anti-diversity” and has triggered outrage for suggesting that women are less suited to certain roles in tech and leadership than men. The manifesto also argues that Google’s diversity programs unfairly discriminate against men to the point that when a man complains about a gender issue affecting him “he is labelled as a misogynist and whiner”.

Damore was fired on Monday after Google’s chief executive Sundar Pichai said that portions of his document “violate our code of conduct and cross the line by advancing gender stereotypes”.

“The message to conservatives is: if you dare step out of line and say something that is outside of the status quo of liberalism you can expect to be fired,” said Andrew Torba, the CEO of the social network Gab, which on Tuesday offered Damore a job.

We want to hire the Google employee who wrote this beautiful work of art. pic.twitter.com/oOIFwDTyzP — Gab (@getongab) August 5, 2017

Torba, who lived in San Francisco for a year in 2015, points out that in an internal survey responding to Damore’s memo, more than 36% of a small sample of Google staff (278 of 72,000) supported the document’s point of view.

This, in his opinion, is evidence that Google – a company founded on principles of free speech – should not have acted so rashly in firing Damore. “Why can’t people question culture without getting fired? It pushes people into silence and self-censorship,” he added.

People don't seem to realize that internal backlash against James Damore isn't universal. Attached survey is from a Google mailing list. pic.twitter.com/i0vwlnqno7 — Sonya 🌐 Mann (@sonyaellenmann) August 8, 2017

“This is one of the reasons I left [San Francisco] – because as a conservative, a Christian, and a Trump supporter I felt like I couldn’t speak freely without being shunned or attacked for having a different opinion,” he said, adding that he has many close friends who work at Facebook, Google and Twitter who share his point of view.

“They have the same fear that what happened to James will happen to them. It’s really frustrating to be surrounded by this groupthink and this pressure to fit into an ideology they don’t agree with.”

The 29-year-old software engineer, who didn’t want to be named (“I don’t want the livelihood of my family to be impacted by our beliefs”) said that although he doesn’t agree with everything in the manifesto, it contains some important points that warrant a discussion. He argued that Damore’s critics have failed to acknowledge the caveats the author included to frame the document as a launchpad for debate.

As a conservative, a Christian, and a Trump supporter, I couldn’t speak freely without being shunned Andrew Torba

“I’m not saying that diversity is bad, that Google or society is 100% fair, that we shouldn’t try to correct for existing biases, or that minorities have the same experience of those in the majority,” Damore said in his document. “My larger point is that we have an intolerance for ideas and evidence that don’t fit a certain ideology.”



The software engineer, who uses the Twitter handle @SkepticalTechie and identifies as a libertarian, said that a culture of fear and censorship is strengthening in Silicon Valley. “The fear for conservatives is that simply misspeaking or poorly representing a point of view could result in misinterpretation and ultimately career crucifixion,” he said.

Aaron Ginn, president of Lincoln Network, a Silicon Valley community of conservative techies, agreed. “It has a silencing effect. There should be room for people to express opinions about the way the company is using resources,” he said. “But people don’t want to be labelled, as James Damore was, a bigot, a sexist or a racist.”

Others felt as though the manifesto was flawed but had good intentions.

“He didn’t seem to be coming from some hateful place. He had proactive and pragmatic suggestions. Some of it seemed logical,” said Jeff Giesea, an entrepreneur and one of the organizers of the pro-Trump movement who describes himself as “leaning right” and “libertarian”.

The way the manifesto has been portrayed by the media as an “anti-diversity screed” is misleading, he argued, and has fuelled a reaction that’s both “hysterical and irrational”.

Instead of firing Damore, Google should have used the incident as a teaching moment, Giesea added. “This was a real opportunity to discuss issues of ideological diversity and the true meaning of tolerance. I would have like to have seen this lead to a town hall discussion. Instead, there was a witch-hunt,” he said.