Google quietly axed its Women Techmakers program—along with years of community content—via a two-sentence email that read like a breakup text from 2012.
Google’s decision to offload Women Techmakers to an external nonprofit wasn’t announced with fanfare, a heartfelt video, or even a LinkedIn post with a crying emoji. Nope—just an email so terse it could’ve been drafted by an AI trained on corporate HR memos and microwave instruction manuals.
Members woke up to find their hard work—videos, event archives, panel discussions—gone faster than free snacks in a Google office during crunch time. “It’s like someone deleted my entire professional legacy while I was busy debugging code,” said Sherry Yang, a Google engineering manager in Canada, probably while side-eyeing her “Don’t Be Evil” mug.
The program, launched in 2012 to boost visibility and community for women in tech, had become a lifeline for many navigating the male-dominated tech seas. Now, it’s been outsourced to Technovation, a well-meaning org that’s apparently expanding from teaching kids to code to comforting heartbroken tech professionals.
Google claims it’s still funding the transition, which is reassuring—if you enjoy watching your favorite show get “rebooted” by a network that clearly doesn’t understand the original plot. Technovation promises access to “global tech leaders,” though insiders note that “Google” may now appear on that list with an asterisk and a footnote.
Ambassadors reported dwindling support for months—no travel funds, no invites, just the digital equivalent of being seated at the kids’ table during Thanksgiving. “We were included in name only,” said Vassiliki Dalakiari, summing up the vibe like a Greek tragedy meets a corporate offsite.
The final blow? A silent deletion of years of content. LinkedIn posts? Poof. YouTube panels? Gone. It’s as if Google hit “Ctrl+Z” on a decade of progress. One member described her emotions as “somewhere between devastation and rage”—a mood best paired with strong coffee and a strongly worded tweet.
Ironically, this all unfolds as tech giants scramble to comply with shifting political winds. Apparently, supporting women in tech is now as risky as wearing socks with sandals in Silicon Valley. Sociologist Donald Tomaskovic-Devey dryly noted that companies now “fear the Trump administration more than they fear their own HR departments.”
Google declined to comment—adding a poetic layer of silence to a story already steeped in it. Meanwhile, Technovation vows to carry the torch, though many wonder if a smaller nonprofit can light the same fire without Google’s billion-dollar lighter.
Still, as one data scientist posted: “When your commitment to equality ends with an email, you might want to check your ‘sent’ folder—and your values.”
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