According to latest information Google has about 28,000 people in R&D, about 17% of these are women.
As Google's CEO clearly said - he crossed a line when he caused almost 5,000 employees to wonder if they are treated equally and the company believes the can be as good as or better than other engineers because of their sex.
So - 1 idiot kid vs 5,000 engineers? It would have been stupid to keep this idiot around - there should be no problems with him thinking whatever he wants - but circulating a memo in the company that causes so many people the feel hurt? Who needs this none-sense?
Just think if Google was to support this idiot's right to the "facts" he kid got out of his rear-end and Facebook, Apple and all other companies would just come out with a call to show women they are more than welcome to come work for them. Losing just 20% of them is 1,000 engineers (not to mention the other 4,000 rightfully upset ones).
We do not want any idiots that make a lot of our engineers and programmers feel unhappy - seriously - your argument that it is hard to lose good engineers and developers is exactly why they had to get rid of his ass.