It may not be any different. In any case, and irrespective of this specific case or how anyone might feel about it, I think it's probably a good idea to be critical of claims like bad cultural fit when coming from corporate execs. Yes, there are some people who are unable to act in a way that most would agree is a professional manner, and indeed these people are toxic and pretty much impossible to work with, however, I have a strong suspicion that bad "cultural fit" in many cases is probably just an instance of bias and essentially a weasel term to make it acceptable to only want to hire people of specific demographics.
At this point I really wish tech would just abandon this whole "culture" thing were the company hopes to be a center of social activity and just go back to being a place people work and get a paycheck in return.
I feel like this is a "keep the politics out of everyday life" thing.
Ultimately if you're working together, then personal differences come into play (just like they do in other sphere of life). There are ways of professionalising environments, of course
I think once you reach "people management" itself, then its basically in the job description that this sort of stuff matters.
Bad press and complaints aren't sufficient conditions for legal firing.
e.g. Employee reports OSHA violation. Company gets bad press for workplace conditions. Company can't fire employee for reporting unsafe work conditions.
You cannot prove either ways on whether James was right or wrong, because his memo was a scattering of everything. But, his idea proves to be a serious obstacle for fellow google engineers especially women to collaborate with him. This is good enough reason for Google to fire him.
Companies fire people for lack of cultural fit. How is this any different?