In Google’s Inner Circle, a Falling Number of Women

The following is an excerpt from an article in 

The New York Times
Thursday, August 23, 2012

In Google’s Inner Circle, a Falling Number of Women

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — At Google, data is king. Now the company is using data to figure out if it can anoint a few queens.

The company hopes its famous algorithms can solve one of the most vexing problems facing Silicon Valley: how to recruit and retain more women. Google has generally been considered a place where women have thrived, but it wants to figure out how to compete even more vigorously for the relatively few women working in technology.

Executives had been concerned that too many women dropped out in the interviewing process or were not promoted at the same rate as men, so they created algorithms to pinpoint exactly when the company lost women and to figure out how to keep them. Simple steps like making sure prospective hires meet other women during their interviews and extending maternity leaves seem to be producing results — at least among the rank and file.

Still, senior women at the company are losing ground. Since Larry Page became chief executive and reorganized Google last year, women have been pushed out of his inner circle and passed over for promotions. They include Marissa Mayer, who left last month to run Yahoo after being sidelined at Google.

“There was a point at Google when the cadre of women leadership was pretty strong,” said a former Google executive who would speak only anonymously to preserve business relationships. “That has changed.”

The valley’s longtime image as unwelcoming to women became a topic of conversation recently when Ellen Pao, a junior partner in the venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, filed a sexual discrimination suit against her employer. And it persists even though more women than ever are leading or in top positions at technology companies — including Yahoo, I.B.M., Hewlett-Packard, Xerox and Facebook.

Ms. Mayer, 37, was the first woman to be an engineer at Google and ran its most profitable business, search, for years. But in 2010, she was given a new assignment that many at Google considered a demotion, and then Mr. Page removed her from his committee of close advisers.

That committee shrank from about 15 people, four of whom were women, under Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s previous chief executive, to 11 with just one woman, under Mr. Page.

Also removed from the L Team, for Larry Page, were Rachel Whetstone, who oversees communications, and Shona Brown, who oversaw business operations and now leads Google.org, the company’s philanthropic arm, a lower-profile job. Only one woman remains — Susan Wojcicki, who oversees advertising. Several men were also removed in the shuffle.

Of the seven people Mr. Page appointed to lead product areas when he reorganized the company last year, just one, Ms. Wojcicki, was a woman.

People familiar with Mr. Page’s management style and the company’s reorganization said gender played no role in his decisions.

“Larry focused on certain products, and the people who happened to lead those products and became his direct reports were men,” said Laszlo Bock, who oversees people operations at Google.

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