It’s not some utilitarian effort to achieve the company’s hiring goals most efficiently. Lots of people just want to exclude their political enemies.
This seems like a surprising and implausible hypothesis, because if it were true, I would have expected them to not make a job offer in the first place, rather than make and rescind an offer.
You’re a lot less likely to overlook who your first order political enemies are, when hiring people, than you are to overlook second order effects like “will other people find this guy offensive and not want to work for us?” It could still be a dodge, but I expect it to be a dodge that is compatible with them making the initial offer.
Furthermore, why did they cite this tame exchange, instead of the much more conventionally offensive stuff that Richard supports.
I signed the offer a few days later, then soon afterwards I messaged Jesse about my politics curriculum. … Jesse noted some controversial aspects of the curriculum, then set up a meeting with me, him, and Dan. … I had a long conversation with Jesse and Dan, and later a long conversation with Geoffrey. In the latter I learned that, although the decision was prompted by me sending them my curriculum, Geoffrey in particular was more concerned about my tweets.
So, they hadn’t read the curriculum, and then they did. At that point they learned where Ngo stands and changed their minds. If they had seen the curriculum beforehand then yeah they wouldn’t have made the offer in the first place. I’m sure they would have preferred that. No mystery here. Perhaps in the future they’ll do deeper political vetting before making offers.
why did they cite this tame exchange, instead of the much more conventionally offensive stuff that Richard supports
That’s not what happened. In the quote from Ngo’s OP above, Hoogland explicitly cites the “much more conventionally offensive stuff” as the reason. My read of “although the decision was prompted by me sending them my curriculum, Geoffrey in particular was more concerned about my tweets” is that probably Irving didn’t read Ngo’s Twitter until after they saw the curriculum and flagged the political concern.
This seems like a surprising and implausible hypothesis, because if it were true, I would have expected them to not make a job offer in the first place, rather than make and rescind an offer.
You’re a lot less likely to overlook who your first order political enemies are, when hiring people, than you are to overlook second order effects like “will other people find this guy offensive and not want to work for us?” It could still be a dodge, but I expect it to be a dodge that is compatible with them making the initial offer.
Furthermore, why did they cite this tame exchange, instead of the much more conventionally offensive stuff that Richard supports.
What’s implausible about the story in the OP?
So, they hadn’t read the curriculum, and then they did. At that point they learned where Ngo stands and changed their minds. If they had seen the curriculum beforehand then yeah they wouldn’t have made the offer in the first place. I’m sure they would have preferred that. No mystery here. Perhaps in the future they’ll do deeper political vetting before making offers.
That’s not what happened. In the quote from Ngo’s OP above, Hoogland explicitly cites the “much more conventionally offensive stuff” as the reason. My read of “although the decision was prompted by me sending them my curriculum, Geoffrey in particular was more concerned about my tweets” is that probably Irving didn’t read Ngo’s Twitter until after they saw the curriculum and flagged the political concern.