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The one thing that he never explains is exactly what "diversity" he is looking for at Twitter. It seems that the only thing that matters to him is the color of

The one thing that he never explains is exactly what "diversity" he is looking for at Twitter. It seems that the only thing that matters to him is the color of the person's skin. In other words, an African-American MIT CS grad that grew up in Iowa is somehow going to come at problems differently than a white guy from the same town and school and with the same background. I wouldn't really call that diversity, that's just racism in that one man's view on a technical matter is somehow different because of his race. What they should look to do is recruit people who got to programming or designing through paths other than MIT or Stanford. Hire the guy that was a painter and then started building website UIs when he saw how those skills transferred. Hire the guy that graduated from the small state school and spent all of his free time web programming. That - at least to me - is the kind of diversity that comes at problems from various angles. The VP idea with names was stupid, but if I walked away from a job every time one guy had a stupid idea i'd be locked in a closet somewhere howling at the world's stupidity. My 2 cents. I got to get back in my closet.

jbob2000 11y ago
Yes. This. My company makes a point to hire out-of-field engineers. I'm a self-taught developer with a philosophy degree. My coworker has a degree in astrophysics. We have a linguist, a theater major, some people with diplomas, and a "dropout". Shooting for Diversity with a capital D is misguided.
- MBCook 11y ago
  At one point the author talks about the issue that the majority of Twitter hires come from just a handful of schools. I assume he (or she, don't remember the name) is looking for any kind of diversity, although their experience (and the chart posted) clearly talk about ethnic diversity, which may be what they have the most direct experience with.
MBCook 11y ago
Really? Less than 5% of staff are non-white and you're arguing he needs to explain what "diversity" is? Come on. At under 5% basically ANYTHING ELSE is diversity. Also, he does touch on this in the article. He says that Twitter relies heavily on a few schools for hiring so even if they get 'diverse' candidates from those schools they've still had a very similar experience compared to people from geographically diverse schools. That alone would add one form of diversity. He said he's seen this resulting in group think, and I can believe that. But really? You want people to define diversity in this situation? That seems like a 'no true scotsman' setup to me.
- uxp100 11y ago
  about 5% of staff are non-white, for a definition of white that includes hispanic and asian people.
  - serge2k 11y ago
    Cause not-black => white isn't a racist statement.
- bobcostas55 11y ago
  44% are non-white. There's a table with the numbers right in the article.
ksenzee 11y ago
In point of fact, an African-American guy and a white guy from the same neighborhood and school will have had different experiences growing up. For example, the white guy probably never had the cops called on him for wandering down a dark street wearing a hoodie. He probably also got more job interviews, if his name sounds white and his friend's doesn't. These experiences will have shaped the two men differently. That doesn't mean they'll give different answers to a question on how to traverse a linked list. But they'll give different answers on how to build a content moderation feature, how to prevent abuse, how to protect freedom of expression on the platform.
- mazerackham 11y ago
  Huge upvote here. As much as we would like to forget about race in America, the fact is: Race Matters. The way people look at you, talk to you (or ignore you), talk about you, extend invites, etc..that ALL changes with your race.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    Yes - I'm treated very differently from most of my coworkers on account of race. I could give lots of mildly interesting examples - it certainly means my dating life is very different. But how does it affect me on the job? I write quantitative software, and spend lots of time thinking about bayesian hierarchical models and multiple comparisons. You are suggesting I have some unique power. I'd really like to know how I can use this power.
    - ksenzee 11y ago
      If you're in the (to me, enviable) position of never building a user-facing feature in a piece of software -- if you purely get to think algorithms all day, and you never draw on any knowledge or experience you've gained outside a classroom or a book -- then who knows. Maybe it doesn't matter what life experiences you've had. I personally have never had a job like that. My interests, personality, experience, and wisdom gained outside of work have always made a difference to what I do.
muuh-gnu 11y ago
> what "diversity" he is looking for at Twitter. Because being explicit about how he wants race quotas might make him look racist, which would make it harder for him to use accusations of racism as a tool. The quest for "diversity" essentially is an implicit accusation of racism. It basically says "we're not as racially diverse as we would naturally be if racism wasnt rigging the race game". His goal is to take jobs from whites just because they are white and give them to blacks just because they are black, i.e. explicit racism. The twisted logic is basically that you have to fight racism with racism, but that racism-the-cure isnt really racism, and that only racism-the-cause is "true racism". It essentially boils down to the claims that only white people can be racists, that whites are inherently racists, and that any statistical imbalance in the percentage of blacks in a certain organisation and the percentage of blacks in the overall population is a product of white racism.
mazerackham 11y ago
Wow, trying to redefine racial diversity as racism. Having a different skin color makes a HUGE impact on the way you experience life, especially in America. Holding all other things equal, that alone will give you a different outlook on life, and likely different ideas too.
- muuh-gnu 11y ago
  > Wow, trying to redefine racial diversity as racism. If a diversity quota decides about you gettnig a job or not getting a job, then it is indistinguishable from a race quota, i.e. racism.
  - mazerackham 11y ago
    literally never discussed the idea of a quota in this particular thread, so you're jumping to conclusions here.
gotchange 11y ago
> that's just racism in that one man's view on a technical matter is somehow different because of his race. It's just ethocentrism or more specifically in his case Afro-centrism. Racism as a condemnation shouldn't be bandied about this lightly. The US media already devalued it and made it a joke by their excessive and irresponsible use of the term.

jbob2000 11y ago

Yes. This. My company makes a point to hire out-of-field engineers. I'm a self-taught developer with a philosophy degree. My coworker has a degree in astrophysics. We have a linguist, a theater major, some people with diplomas, and a "dropout". Shooting for Diversity with a capital D is misguided.

MBCook 11y ago
At one point the author talks about the issue that the majority of Twitter hires come from just a handful of schools. I assume he (or she, don't remember the name) is looking for any kind of diversity, although their experience (and the chart posted) clearly talk about ethnic diversity, which may be what they have the most direct experience with.

MBCook 11y ago

Really? Less than 5% of staff are non-white and you're arguing he needs to explain what "diversity" is? Come on. At under 5% basically ANYTHING ELSE is diversity. Also, he does touch on this in the article. He says that Twitter relies heavily on a few schools for hiring so even if they get 'diverse' candidates from those schools they've still had a very similar experience compared to people from geographically diverse schools. That alone would add one form of diversity. He said he's seen this resulting in group think, and I can believe that. But really? You want people to define diversity in this situation? That seems like a 'no true scotsman' setup to me.

uxp100 11y ago
about 5% of staff are non-white, for a definition of white that includes hispanic and asian people.
- serge2k 11y ago
  Cause not-black => white isn't a racist statement.
bobcostas55 11y ago
44% are non-white. There's a table with the numbers right in the article.

ksenzee 11y ago

In point of fact, an African-American guy and a white guy from the same neighborhood and school will have had different experiences growing up. For example, the white guy probably never had the cops called on him for wandering down a dark street wearing a hoodie. He probably also got more job interviews, if his name sounds white and his friend's doesn't. These experiences will have shaped the two men differently. That doesn't mean they'll give different answers to a question on how to traverse a linked list. But they'll give different answers on how to build a content moderation feature, how to prevent abuse, how to protect freedom of expression on the platform.

mazerackham 11y ago
Huge upvote here. As much as we would like to forget about race in America, the fact is: Race Matters. The way people look at you, talk to you (or ignore you), talk about you, extend invites, etc..that ALL changes with your race.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Yes - I'm treated very differently from most of my coworkers on account of race. I could give lots of mildly interesting examples - it certainly means my dating life is very different. But how does it affect me on the job? I write quantitative software, and spend lots of time thinking about bayesian hierarchical models and multiple comparisons. You are suggesting I have some unique power. I'd really like to know how I can use this power.
  - ksenzee 11y ago
    If you're in the (to me, enviable) position of never building a user-facing feature in a piece of software -- if you purely get to think algorithms all day, and you never draw on any knowledge or experience you've gained outside a classroom or a book -- then who knows. Maybe it doesn't matter what life experiences you've had. I personally have never had a job like that. My interests, personality, experience, and wisdom gained outside of work have always made a difference to what I do.

muuh-gnu 11y ago

> what "diversity" he is looking for at Twitter. Because being explicit about how he wants race quotas might make him look racist, which would make it harder for him to use accusations of racism as a tool. The quest for "diversity" essentially is an implicit accusation of racism. It basically says "we're not as racially diverse as we would naturally be if racism wasnt rigging the race game". His goal is to take jobs from whites just because they are white and give them to blacks just because they are black, i.e. explicit racism. The twisted logic is basically that you have to fight racism with racism, but that racism-the-cure isnt really racism, and that only racism-the-cause is "true racism". It essentially boils down to the claims that only white people can be racists, that whites are inherently racists, and that any statistical imbalance in the percentage of blacks in a certain organisation and the percentage of blacks in the overall population is a product of white racism.

mazerackham 11y ago

Wow, trying to redefine racial diversity as racism. Having a different skin color makes a HUGE impact on the way you experience life, especially in America. Holding all other things equal, that alone will give you a different outlook on life, and likely different ideas too.

muuh-gnu 11y ago
> Wow, trying to redefine racial diversity as racism. If a diversity quota decides about you gettnig a job or not getting a job, then it is indistinguishable from a race quota, i.e. racism.
- mazerackham 11y ago
  literally never discussed the idea of a quota in this particular thread, so you're jumping to conclusions here.

gotchange 11y ago

> that's just racism in that one man's view on a technical matter is somehow different because of his race. It's just ethocentrism or more specifically in his case Afro-centrism. Racism as a condemnation shouldn't be bandied about this lightly. The US media already devalued it and made it a joke by their excessive and irresponsible use of the term.