Google CEO Sundar Pichai has one of the most important meetings of his career this afternoon. Later today, Pichai will lead an all-hands meeting that could come to define his leadership of the Alphabet, Inc. (NASDAQ:$GOOGL) unit.
After 13 years of service at Google, and two years into his tenure in the top post, Pichai will now have to calm, and unite, a workforce that has been divided over the firing of former senior engineer James Danmore.
Danmore, who worked for Google for three and a half years, was fired after composing a controversial memo that criticized the company’s diversity-building efforts. The 10-page long memo also contained a number of sexist remarks.
Even though Pichai credited Danmore for bringing up important issues, he still made the decision to fire him. This should not come as a surprise, as the memo has been so radioactive it has divided the ranks of top executives who report to the Google CEO.
Not only has Pichai elevated the discussion to a company-wide forum, he also cut short his planned vacation for the meeting. This is a clear indication that he is taking the decision to fire one worker out of tens of thousands very seriously.
How will the meeting pan out? Well, according to Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat, all-hands meetings at the company tend to be brutally frank. And whether or not cutting short his time off is worth it will all depend on how well he can unite the company later today.
Overall, if you’re interested in online media investing, the results of this afternoon’s meeting is definitely something you are going to want to follow up on.
Featured Image: twitter
