6 ms·

The biggest issue that I see is how much startup founders justify the idea that they need to hire and promote people that they 'would want to hang out with', ak

by kedean 11y ago

The biggest issue that I see is how much startup founders justify the idea that they need to hire and promote people that they 'would want to hang out with', aka the people they would want to be friends with outside of work. This leads to an extremely homogenous workforce with almost no diversity, because people generally are attracted to those who look and act like them. Guys usually don't see women and internally think 'I want to be friends with that person', white people don't generally see a black guy and think 'I want to be friends with them'. Now obviously this isn't universal, plenty of cross-group friendships exist, tons in fact, but they are usually formed by the people being forced together (work, neighbors, school). When hiring based on first impressions, though, this becomes a huge problem.

nicksergeant 11y ago
This is probably a side effect of startup founders not actually having lives outside of work.
- exelius 11y ago
  Self-selecting for this type of employee is also a problem. I can understand doing this for the first few months when you're trying to bootstrap, but long-term if your business model can't scale without people working 12-14 hour days, your business model doesn't scale. We all read articles on HN and HBR saying that more hours != more work, but we still hire for it anyway. I know most founders are just looking for passionate people who fit with their team, and it can be hard to build a team when one of your team members has to leave every day at 3:30 to pick their kids up from school. But we should at least try to be better.
Cshelton 11y ago
Well first off, when I meet and like people and therefore come to the conclusion I want to be friends with them, it has nothing to do with race or gender. I'm a white male, may of my friends are female, black, Indian, Asian, Hispanic... and I think, at least in the younger generation (teens - ~ 35 years old) this is generally the case. Unless their parents enforced some crazy ideals in the poor child. For the record, most of my best friends have been girls of different races. Second, I view partnerships in business as a marriage. It is CRITICAL that I like the person, or it simply will not work. Has NOTHING to do with race or gender. This is something you simply cannot just generalize across people. Also, having diversity for the sake of diversity is the wrong way to look at things. Yes, you can be diverse with an all white male team. People come from different backgrounds, different parts of the world, etc. Diversity should not just mean race and gender, that's ignorant and really consist of people just spitting out political correctness.
- twiceaday 11y ago
  This is a case where two blatant truths are hard to swallow together. 1. People define themselves via their career and their hobbies and these are often correlated with certain races and genders. This gives rise to a kind of social-gravity that attracts those type of people more than others. 2. People prefer to work with friends. Taken together you can have highly homogenous companies that were built from the group up without a single racist or sexist thought. So its not as simple as "I'm definitely NOT a racist."
  - Cshelton 11y ago
    So what I fail to understand is that, if those two reasons are why we end up with these homogeneous companies, why is that a problem? If the field your company is in is something that is predominately an Asian culture thing along with being mostly appealing to males, why is it bad that your company may consist of mostly Asian males? To me, those would be the ones who understand their target market the most and can relate to their customers. Even a company that has a very diversified customer base may be be made up of mostly Asian Males, and there is nothing wrong with that. I think it's wrong to see a company that isn't "diversified" in the way this article puts it, and think it needs to change. The sheep of political correctness have made too much of an impact on people and for some reason today it's wrong to take any stance that disagrees with the popular opinion. If I want to start a company with all white females, I should be able to. Is it the best for the company, probably not, but that shouldn't matter. Yes I know employer discrimination laws makes this illegal, it's just an example. If my company sold products to west Texas oil men, guess what, I can't have anybody wearing a turban. That is just the ugly truth. We are human. People will not like other people just because they are different, by appearance and culturally. Hiding this truth behind a veil of ignorance does not solve anything. It seems most people today lie to themselves to stay politically correct in the public eye. Yet they know their own believe is different. Section 8 housing has seen this problem. People want to live next to similar people, both wealth, status, cultural, etc. When they declare a property section 8 in a neighborhood like that, the neighborhood's property values decline and people move. If my company had a strong culture full of people with similar ideas and views, and I forcefully put people in for the sake of "diversity", I would most likely create tension among some employees and possibly lose productivity, cohesiveness, or talent. Sorry for the rant, I guess my TLDR is: Don't think you have to be diverse (racially and gender wise) for the sake of being diverse and public opinion. We are human, don't hide what you believe and don't sacrifice your morals to be politically correct. I should never have to defend myself by saying "I'm definitely NOT a racist." for who I employee or choose to spend my time with. To clarify though, I do not have a company full of Asian Males or any other dominant race or gender combination, it was just an example.
mc32 11y ago
Yes, to be sure, that attitude is a non starter. It sounds very collegiate, but in the wrong way. If taken seriously it not only has the potential to act as a bad filter, but also has the potential to homogenize --which is probably good to some extent organizationally, buy bad if you look at it from an outside of work perspective. You're hammering the squeaky nail. It's like the Borg. All the diverse (skin, culture and otherwise) people meld into one very emotionally homogenous system where the non conformers are labeled as uncooperative non-players.
striking 11y ago
> Guys usually don't see women and internally think 'I want to be friends with that person' > white people don't generally see a black guy and think 'I want to be friends with them'. Is this scientifically proven? I highly suspect these statements. I personally have not become friends with any women by force, and I most definitely have wanted to be friends with people of a race that is different than mine. Not because of gender or race. Just because they were funny or interesting. Obviously my anecdote counts for very little, but I find it hard to believe that "generally" people suck at being friends across races or genders. I believe it's possible that some people can experience that, but I highly disagree that it is a general, chronic phenomenon; I think making blanket statements on race or gender outside of the strictly biological+physical ones is very shaky ground.
ritchiea 11y ago
My favorite example of this is Max Levchin in Founders at Work bragging that they didn't hire a great engineering candidate because he said outside of work he likes to "shoot hoops." According to Levchin it might have been okay to play basketball but saying "hoops" made it immediately clear this guy was a bad culture fit. How can anyone read that and find Levchin's reasoning compelling? He doesn't have any sort of knowledge of casual basketball as a hobby and is making a value judgment on the word choice of the candidate based on Levchin's own inexperience with the hobby culture the candidate lives in. It's basically running up a flag that says if you think someone is remotely different from you don't hire that person. Yet I've heard the opposite from some people, that this is a great move by Levchin. Jessice Livingston included this in her book of advice from founders! This is why there's no diversity in SV.

by kedean 11y ago

nicksergeant 11y ago

This is probably a side effect of startup founders not actually having lives outside of work.

exelius 11y ago
Self-selecting for this type of employee is also a problem. I can understand doing this for the first few months when you're trying to bootstrap, but long-term if your business model can't scale without people working 12-14 hour days, your business model doesn't scale. We all read articles on HN and HBR saying that more hours != more work, but we still hire for it anyway. I know most founders are just looking for passionate people who fit with their team, and it can be hard to build a team when one of your team members has to leave every day at 3:30 to pick their kids up from school. But we should at least try to be better.

Cshelton 11y ago

Well first off, when I meet and like people and therefore come to the conclusion I want to be friends with them, it has nothing to do with race or gender. I'm a white male, may of my friends are female, black, Indian, Asian, Hispanic... and I think, at least in the younger generation (teens - ~ 35 years old) this is generally the case. Unless their parents enforced some crazy ideals in the poor child. For the record, most of my best friends have been girls of different races. Second, I view partnerships in business as a marriage. It is CRITICAL that I like the person, or it simply will not work. Has NOTHING to do with race or gender. This is something you simply cannot just generalize across people. Also, having diversity for the sake of diversity is the wrong way to look at things. Yes, you can be diverse with an all white male team. People come from different backgrounds, different parts of the world, etc. Diversity should not just mean race and gender, that's ignorant and really consist of people just spitting out political correctness.

twiceaday 11y ago
This is a case where two blatant truths are hard to swallow together. 1. People define themselves via their career and their hobbies and these are often correlated with certain races and genders. This gives rise to a kind of social-gravity that attracts those type of people more than others. 2. People prefer to work with friends. Taken together you can have highly homogenous companies that were built from the group up without a single racist or sexist thought. So its not as simple as "I'm definitely NOT a racist."
- Cshelton 11y ago
  So what I fail to understand is that, if those two reasons are why we end up with these homogeneous companies, why is that a problem? If the field your company is in is something that is predominately an Asian culture thing along with being mostly appealing to males, why is it bad that your company may consist of mostly Asian males? To me, those would be the ones who understand their target market the most and can relate to their customers. Even a company that has a very diversified customer base may be be made up of mostly Asian Males, and there is nothing wrong with that. I think it's wrong to see a company that isn't "diversified" in the way this article puts it, and think it needs to change. The sheep of political correctness have made too much of an impact on people and for some reason today it's wrong to take any stance that disagrees with the popular opinion. If I want to start a company with all white females, I should be able to. Is it the best for the company, probably not, but that shouldn't matter. Yes I know employer discrimination laws makes this illegal, it's just an example. If my company sold products to west Texas oil men, guess what, I can't have anybody wearing a turban. That is just the ugly truth. We are human. People will not like other people just because they are different, by appearance and culturally. Hiding this truth behind a veil of ignorance does not solve anything. It seems most people today lie to themselves to stay politically correct in the public eye. Yet they know their own believe is different. Section 8 housing has seen this problem. People want to live next to similar people, both wealth, status, cultural, etc. When they declare a property section 8 in a neighborhood like that, the neighborhood's property values decline and people move. If my company had a strong culture full of people with similar ideas and views, and I forcefully put people in for the sake of "diversity", I would most likely create tension among some employees and possibly lose productivity, cohesiveness, or talent. Sorry for the rant, I guess my TLDR is: Don't think you have to be diverse (racially and gender wise) for the sake of being diverse and public opinion. We are human, don't hide what you believe and don't sacrifice your morals to be politically correct. I should never have to defend myself by saying "I'm definitely NOT a racist." for who I employee or choose to spend my time with. To clarify though, I do not have a company full of Asian Males or any other dominant race or gender combination, it was just an example.

mc32 11y ago

Yes, to be sure, that attitude is a non starter. It sounds very collegiate, but in the wrong way. If taken seriously it not only has the potential to act as a bad filter, but also has the potential to homogenize --which is probably good to some extent organizationally, buy bad if you look at it from an outside of work perspective. You're hammering the squeaky nail. It's like the Borg. All the diverse (skin, culture and otherwise) people meld into one very emotionally homogenous system where the non conformers are labeled as uncooperative non-players.

striking 11y ago

> Guys usually don't see women and internally think 'I want to be friends with that person' > white people don't generally see a black guy and think 'I want to be friends with them'. Is this scientifically proven? I highly suspect these statements. I personally have not become friends with any women by force, and I most definitely have wanted to be friends with people of a race that is different than mine. Not because of gender or race. Just because they were funny or interesting. Obviously my anecdote counts for very little, but I find it hard to believe that "generally" people suck at being friends across races or genders. I believe it's possible that some people can experience that, but I highly disagree that it is a general, chronic phenomenon; I think making blanket statements on race or gender outside of the strictly biological+physical ones is very shaky ground.

ritchiea 11y ago

My favorite example of this is Max Levchin in Founders at Work bragging that they didn't hire a great engineering candidate because he said outside of work he likes to "shoot hoops." According to Levchin it might have been okay to play basketball but saying "hoops" made it immediately clear this guy was a bad culture fit. How can anyone read that and find Levchin's reasoning compelling? He doesn't have any sort of knowledge of casual basketball as a hobby and is making a value judgment on the word choice of the candidate based on Levchin's own inexperience with the hobby culture the candidate lives in. It's basically running up a flag that says if you think someone is remotely different from you don't hire that person. Yet I've heard the opposite from some people, that this is a great move by Levchin. Jessice Livingston included this in her book of advice from founders! This is why there's no diversity in SV.