Google CEO defends firing employee for 'sexist memo'

Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who fired an employee in August for allegedly "perpetuating gender stereotypes", said he doesn't regret his decision.

However, Pichai, in a live conversation with journalists, said that he was taken aback that it was misconstrued to be a politically motivated event, The Verge reported.

"The decision to fire James Damore was about ensuring that women at Google felt like the company was committed to creating a welcoming environment. I regret that people misunderstand that we may have made this for a political belief one way or another", he said.

In August last year, Damore was fired for allegedly creating gender stereotypes through a memo that claimed women may be biologically less suited to engineering and programming jobs in the tech industry.

"To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK", Pichai had said in a statement.

However, Damore, in his defence, filed a lawsuit against the company accusing it of "discriminating against white male conservatives".