Google loves a good pedigree.
James Damore, the developer at the center of the huge anti-diversity manifesto controversy that got him fired from Google, is an educated person with a solid academic pedigree. According to his LinkedIn profile, he holds a BS in Molecular Biology, Physics and Chemistry from the University of Illinois and a Master in System Biology from Harvard.
After a couple of short internship with Princeton and Harvard, he spent over one year as Research Scientist at MIT. Google likes academic backgrounds like James’, and he landed a four months internship with the company. I am not sure where James learned computer science fundamentals, but he knew enough to get a Software Engineer job a few months after his internship ended. He stayed employed for three years and nine months until he got fired for his anti-diversity manifesto. Or, more accurately, for offending a significant part of Google employees at creating chaos. ...