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> Certainly not at a big corporation where there should be enough of an employee pool to have it at least somewhat reflect the general population of the region.

> Certainly not at a big corporation where there should be enough of an employee pool to have it at least somewhat reflect the general population of the region. That is a drastic oversimplification. The employee pool can only hope to be reflective of the pool of those who seek employment at that company and are qualified. Which can only hope to be reflective of the employee marketplace for that industry at large. Which can only hope to be reflective of the pool of people who have the right education and experience. Which can only hope to be reflective of the people who graduated with the appropriate degree for which they're hiring (in most cases). Which can only hope to be reflective of the people who got accepted into those schools. Which can only hope to be reflective of those who chose that education/career path to begin with. Which can only hope to be reflective of the population that sought out things like math and science when in secondary school. Which only then can only hope to be reflective of the general population. At each step there is filtration. It's affected by people's upbringing, their role models, what advertising they were heavily exposed to as impressionable children, who their friends are, who their teachers were, whether computers were popular when they were going through school, the list goes on and on. The problem of under and over-representation in tech is a real one, but pretending that companies just need to somehow make up for all of this filtration, at the very very end of a literal lifetime-sized pipeline, is folly. Outreach needs to happen much, much, much sooner than that. At the end of the day, companies are at the mercy of who's in their hiring pool.

deleted 10y ago
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Frondo 10y ago
You're right, the problem is bigger than a company. It goes deep, society-deep. And I don't think anyone would say "poor black kids have a fair shake, right up until Oracle doesn't hire them". Of course not. Some groups get shafted from birth, by being born into poor communities, by being born into communities where the police split their heads for looking the way they do. You're right, it's not just on some tech company to fix societal racism. What I don't get is why people are always so goddamn defensive of companies and their hiring practices. "The problem lies elsewhere, don't blame the company!!" I mean, jesus, the status quo does not need any defense. It's already winning by default.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  > What I don't get is why people are always so goddamn defensive of companies and their hiring practices. "The problem lies elsewhere, don't blame the company!!" Because the problem actually does lie elsewhere. Being a corporation is not evidence of guilt.
- moduspol 10y ago
  > What I don't get is why people are always so goddamn defensive of companies and their hiring practices. "The problem lies elsewhere, don't blame the company!!" It's because we've been in roles in companies like these, dealt with diversity and hiring policies that seemed ineffective, counter-intuitive, and bureaucratic, yet there still always seems to be this cloud over us that assumes we're all secretly just racist. It feels like we already bend over backwards to try to hire diverse candidates and comply with policies that suggest / require that. I'm sure Google, Oracle, and Palantir certainly have them. Yet these lawsuits have these big bold headlines basically implying the companies' policies are racist based on (if you think other factors are much bigger causes) unreasonable assessments. When we see it happen to them, we know it can happen to us, and it's easy to get defensive.
  - michael_bluth 10y ago
    Well put, moduspol
  - Frondo 10y ago
    Guess what: EVERYONE IS SECRETLY RACIST. Everyone is carrying around unconscious biases in them. It's built into being human, so bullshit if you're about to say you're somehow immune. We're also all biased to think the status quo is the way things ought to be, so when we see a company that's mostly white folks hiring a few more minorities, suddenly MINORITIES ARE EVERYWHERE. Look, the problem isn't that you or I have unconscious biases. That's normal. That's human. The problem is that we insist we don't, we're doing everything right already, and there's nothing wrong. That's where the problem is. That's how this shitty status quo that has effectively locked minorities into a second-class life gets perpetuated.
jdavis703 10y ago
Since graduating college I've stayed continuously employeed at several different Bay Area tech startups, so I'm pretty sure I have at least decent technology skills. Yet I've been to several interviews where questions about race/ethnicity were brought up (and I failed to get offers from those companies that ask such questions). I can only imagine what it's like being a woman going for these positions. My point, a lot of the filters these companies put up are totally artificial. I even had a chance to ask a well known SV entrepreneur/investor about what VCs look for, and he said one of the things is "people who look like him." I appreciated his honesty, but it certainly seems like there is a lot of talent that is ignored because people and companies are using poor hueristics.
- zxcvb 10y ago
  What questions? I'm sure this is illegal.
- meanduck 10y ago
  I am sure this has been mentioned to death. But I always find this contradictory. Companies cannot be soley profit driven if at same time they artifically reducing supply of eligable candidates. That makes no business sense. So if companies are rejecting someone that means as whole (read net), they are expecting more bang for the buck.
  - sopooneo 10y ago
    Companies sell their employees to their investors. Pedigree and similarity sells.
  - ch4s3 10y ago
    Companies aren't magic market machines, they're run by fallible people who make lazy "gut" decisions all the time.
    - meanduck 10y ago
      And Oracle would be near bottom in such list. Oracle hire Indians because its cheaper not because of some altruism. At least until Indian Govt makes it artifically expensive.
mrgoldenbrown 10y ago
>The employee pool can only hope to be reflective of the pool of those who seek employment at that company and are qualified. This is a weak assumption to base the rest of your chain on. It falsely posits that the company isn't in control of who seeks employment there. In reality, the company controls where and how it advertises job openings and how it markets itself towards potential employees. When a startup advertises a hackathon with incentives of "hot women to serve you beverages", they can't claim to be helpless victims of an applicant pool devoid of female engineers. And while most examples of encouraging or discouraging certain demographics aren't as blatant as this egregious-and-yet-actually-happened example, there are plenty of subtler but very strong ways companies discourage women and minorities from applying.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Frondo 10y ago

You're right, the problem is bigger than a company. It goes deep, society-deep. And I don't think anyone would say "poor black kids have a fair shake, right up until Oracle doesn't hire them". Of course not. Some groups get shafted from birth, by being born into poor communities, by being born into communities where the police split their heads for looking the way they do. You're right, it's not just on some tech company to fix societal racism. What I don't get is why people are always so goddamn defensive of companies and their hiring practices. "The problem lies elsewhere, don't blame the company!!" I mean, jesus, the status quo does not need any defense. It's already winning by default.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
AnthonyMouse 10y ago
> What I don't get is why people are always so goddamn defensive of companies and their hiring practices. "The problem lies elsewhere, don't blame the company!!" Because the problem actually does lie elsewhere. Being a corporation is not evidence of guilt.
moduspol 10y ago
> What I don't get is why people are always so goddamn defensive of companies and their hiring practices. "The problem lies elsewhere, don't blame the company!!" It's because we've been in roles in companies like these, dealt with diversity and hiring policies that seemed ineffective, counter-intuitive, and bureaucratic, yet there still always seems to be this cloud over us that assumes we're all secretly just racist. It feels like we already bend over backwards to try to hire diverse candidates and comply with policies that suggest / require that. I'm sure Google, Oracle, and Palantir certainly have them. Yet these lawsuits have these big bold headlines basically implying the companies' policies are racist based on (if you think other factors are much bigger causes) unreasonable assessments. When we see it happen to them, we know it can happen to us, and it's easy to get defensive.
- michael_bluth 10y ago
  Well put, moduspol
- Frondo 10y ago
  Guess what: EVERYONE IS SECRETLY RACIST. Everyone is carrying around unconscious biases in them. It's built into being human, so bullshit if you're about to say you're somehow immune. We're also all biased to think the status quo is the way things ought to be, so when we see a company that's mostly white folks hiring a few more minorities, suddenly MINORITIES ARE EVERYWHERE. Look, the problem isn't that you or I have unconscious biases. That's normal. That's human. The problem is that we insist we don't, we're doing everything right already, and there's nothing wrong. That's where the problem is. That's how this shitty status quo that has effectively locked minorities into a second-class life gets perpetuated.

jdavis703 10y ago

Since graduating college I've stayed continuously employeed at several different Bay Area tech startups, so I'm pretty sure I have at least decent technology skills. Yet I've been to several interviews where questions about race/ethnicity were brought up (and I failed to get offers from those companies that ask such questions). I can only imagine what it's like being a woman going for these positions. My point, a lot of the filters these companies put up are totally artificial. I even had a chance to ask a well known SV entrepreneur/investor about what VCs look for, and he said one of the things is "people who look like him." I appreciated his honesty, but it certainly seems like there is a lot of talent that is ignored because people and companies are using poor hueristics.

zxcvb 10y ago
What questions? I'm sure this is illegal.
meanduck 10y ago
I am sure this has been mentioned to death. But I always find this contradictory. Companies cannot be soley profit driven if at same time they artifically reducing supply of eligable candidates. That makes no business sense. So if companies are rejecting someone that means as whole (read net), they are expecting more bang for the buck.
- sopooneo 10y ago
  Companies sell their employees to their investors. Pedigree and similarity sells.
- ch4s3 10y ago
  Companies aren't magic market machines, they're run by fallible people who make lazy "gut" decisions all the time.
  - meanduck 10y ago
    And Oracle would be near bottom in such list. Oracle hire Indians because its cheaper not because of some altruism. At least until Indian Govt makes it artifically expensive.

mrgoldenbrown 10y ago

>The employee pool can only hope to be reflective of the pool of those who seek employment at that company and are qualified. This is a weak assumption to base the rest of your chain on. It falsely posits that the company isn't in control of who seeks employment there. In reality, the company controls where and how it advertises job openings and how it markets itself towards potential employees. When a startup advertises a hackathon with incentives of "hot women to serve you beverages", they can't claim to be helpless victims of an applicant pool devoid of female engineers. And while most examples of encouraging or discouraging certain demographics aren't as blatant as this egregious-and-yet-actually-happened example, there are plenty of subtler but very strong ways companies discourage women and minorities from applying.