4 ms·

For those providing the excuse of culture - culture is something strongly valued in the Bay Area, and it's one of the biggest weaknesses. Diversity brings so m

by Steeeve 10y ago

For those providing the excuse of culture - culture is something strongly valued in the Bay Area, and it's one of the biggest weaknesses. Diversity brings so much more to the table than people who can drink a beer together. Diversity in age and experience brings different problem solving techniques and instincts to the table. Put together a group of young single males of the same ethnic background and you will probably get a group of people who don't mind working all night long together six nights a week. Put together a group of people in different age brackets, different educational backgrounds, and different cultural backgrounds and you have a group of people who won't have to work all night long together in order to solve problems and get things done. Don't stagnate. Evolve. We can all do a better job of opening up.

devmunchies 10y ago
I find that the bay area and Seattle (my home) value the wrong kind of diversity. Its the unimportant stuff like skin color and gender that everyone means when talking about diversity. The diversity that matters (diversity of thought and experience) is not the major area of focus for some reason.
- rifung 10y ago
  > I find that the bay area and Seattle (my home) value the wrong kind of diversity. Its the unimportant stuff like skin color and gender that everyone means when talking about diversity. The diversity that matters (diversity of thought and experience) is not the major area of focus for some reason. Why do you say that it's unimportant? I can see how you could argue that it's not the only thing that matters and that too much focus is being placed on it, but it is still important for people who are of a gender or race to feel valued, included, and like they are treated equally. Otherwise, they won't be as open to sharing their ideas.
  - dsfyu404ed 10y ago
    The computer doesn't care what color fingers are hitting the keyboard. Diversity of thought is the goal in the workplace (unless you've got some other diversity metric you need to hit for regulatory reasons). If you've got a group that's very homogeneous except for skin color and gender you're not gonna get much diversity of thought.
    - a_t48 10y ago
      I'd argue that the difference in background that generally comes from a different skin color will help a lot with being heterogenous.
    - ehnto 10y ago
      You are conflating the goal of gender and race diversity with the goal of having a diverse set of minds. They are both important points of diversity but their goals and means are entirely different discussions.
  - devmunchies 10y ago
    But wouldn't ignoring gender and race show that you are valuing everybody equally? Its a Chinese finger trap. You have to ignore race to have better race relations. If you try to nurture race relations, it causes rifts. I have the same viewpoint as Morgan Freeman on this subject. He said to get rid of racism, you have to "Stop talking about it. I’m going to stop calling you a white man, and I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man"
- GuiA 10y ago
  Diversity of experience is directly correlated to diversity in skin color, gender, socio economic status, age, nationality, etc. You can say that there is "diversity of thought" in a group of white males who all went to ivy leagues because one says he's a libertarian and the other a neo marxist, but that's kinda missing the point.
  - devmunchies 10y ago
    Why can't these white males be diverse? Let me expand your example... > You can say that there is "diversity of thought" in a group of white males who all went to ivy leagues because one worked in the gaming industry in the UK and the other ran his own web company from his laptop as he travelled the United States... You can still have a diverse workforce if you ignore race and gender. If diversity of thought, gender, and race are in fact correlated as you say, then if you ignore race/gender and try to get the most interesting people, you'll naturally have a that pizza pie as a side-effect, except you won't be racist or sexist about it. I filter resumes and do interviewing, and I don't care if you are black, asian, white, male, female or whatever. I just want to see how interesting/diverse of a experiences you've had.
    - GuiA 10y ago
      > I filter resumes and do interviewing, and I don't care if you are black, asian, white, male, female or whatever. I just want to see how interesting/diverse of a experiences you've had. And how do you judge "interesting/diverse experiences"? Presumably through your own extremely blind and biased filter (because really we all are). How diverse is your hiring committee?
      - devmunchies 10y ago
        Yes. We do all have biases, but I feel more comfortable judging what experiences seem interesting rather than which candidate has brown skin. It's racist.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >Diversity of experience is directly correlated to diversity in skin color, gender, socio economic status, age, nationality, etc. There's a very limited "diversity of experience" across skin color and gender given the same "socio economic status". A rich gay person can much more easily command and/or buy acceptance and tolerance even in the most extreme places (and historically tons of gay persons got off just fine in societies that otherwise frowned upon the poor gays). And usually the tech version of "diversity" only extends to people with the same experiences -- regarding age, education, aspirations, etc, regardless of nationality. An indian nerd colleague is OK, as long as they too lived and breathed Star Wars, Lego bricks, old NES consoles, and doesn't bring much in the way of his country's culture (except cute and inoffensive dietary and cosmetic differences) etc. >You can say that there is "diversity of thought" in a group of white males who all went to ivy leagues because one says he's a libertarian and the other a neo marxist, but that's kinda missing the point. So is saying there is "diversity of thought" to the kind of people that end up in VC as programmers -- regardless of their ethnicity or gender.
- lithos 10y ago
  I've always made fun of tech diversity when I've been on their campuses. Most of them all had the same problems, the same rearing, talk to same, same credential's, and acted the same. Even though it looks like a rainbow of culture, tech is the most similar multi-state/national workplace I've seen.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >I find that the bay area and Seattle (my home) value the wrong kind of diversity. Its the unimportant stuff like skin color and gender that everyone means when talking about diversity. Yeah, diversity usually just means people of different skin colors or sexual preferences, but with the same class background, education, aspirations, ideology, and everything else. Some people literally visit places like Peru or the Middle East and the only diversity they get is from talking to people just like them in those places (totally americanized pop culture afficionados, VC types who dream of SV, etc.). And then they think that "basically everybody on the planet thinks the say way and wants the same things" based on those very limited experiences. Whereas one would encounter much more actual diversity if they got to listen and understand the ideas of people in their own neighborhood, who might or might not be of another color.
- whack 10y ago
  Yes, I'm sure skin color and gender seem really "unimportant" when you don't have to worry about being discriminated against on that basis. People like Susan Fowler might feel otherwise though. Instead of trying to fight over race vs gender vs age vs income diversity, how about we accept that they are all important and we should strive to avoid bias on all fronts.
coldtea 10y ago
>For those providing the excuse of culture - culture is something strongly valued in the Bay Area, and it's one of the biggest weaknesses. Also when they say "culture" they just mean "an artificial BS bro- and nerd-bonding thing we made up and cringe-force it to everybody on the team".

by Steeeve 10y ago

devmunchies 10y ago

I find that the bay area and Seattle (my home) value the wrong kind of diversity. Its the unimportant stuff like skin color and gender that everyone means when talking about diversity. The diversity that matters (diversity of thought and experience) is not the major area of focus for some reason.

rifung 10y ago
> I find that the bay area and Seattle (my home) value the wrong kind of diversity. Its the unimportant stuff like skin color and gender that everyone means when talking about diversity. The diversity that matters (diversity of thought and experience) is not the major area of focus for some reason. Why do you say that it's unimportant? I can see how you could argue that it's not the only thing that matters and that too much focus is being placed on it, but it is still important for people who are of a gender or race to feel valued, included, and like they are treated equally. Otherwise, they won't be as open to sharing their ideas.
- dsfyu404ed 10y ago
  The computer doesn't care what color fingers are hitting the keyboard. Diversity of thought is the goal in the workplace (unless you've got some other diversity metric you need to hit for regulatory reasons). If you've got a group that's very homogeneous except for skin color and gender you're not gonna get much diversity of thought.
  - a_t48 10y ago
    I'd argue that the difference in background that generally comes from a different skin color will help a lot with being heterogenous.
  - ehnto 10y ago
    You are conflating the goal of gender and race diversity with the goal of having a diverse set of minds. They are both important points of diversity but their goals and means are entirely different discussions.
- devmunchies 10y ago
  But wouldn't ignoring gender and race show that you are valuing everybody equally? Its a Chinese finger trap. You have to ignore race to have better race relations. If you try to nurture race relations, it causes rifts. I have the same viewpoint as Morgan Freeman on this subject. He said to get rid of racism, you have to "Stop talking about it. I’m going to stop calling you a white man, and I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man"
GuiA 10y ago
Diversity of experience is directly correlated to diversity in skin color, gender, socio economic status, age, nationality, etc. You can say that there is "diversity of thought" in a group of white males who all went to ivy leagues because one says he's a libertarian and the other a neo marxist, but that's kinda missing the point.
- devmunchies 10y ago
  Why can't these white males be diverse? Let me expand your example... > You can say that there is "diversity of thought" in a group of white males who all went to ivy leagues because one worked in the gaming industry in the UK and the other ran his own web company from his laptop as he travelled the United States... You can still have a diverse workforce if you ignore race and gender. If diversity of thought, gender, and race are in fact correlated as you say, then if you ignore race/gender and try to get the most interesting people, you'll naturally have a that pizza pie as a side-effect, except you won't be racist or sexist about it. I filter resumes and do interviewing, and I don't care if you are black, asian, white, male, female or whatever. I just want to see how interesting/diverse of a experiences you've had.
  - GuiA 10y ago
    > I filter resumes and do interviewing, and I don't care if you are black, asian, white, male, female or whatever. I just want to see how interesting/diverse of a experiences you've had. And how do you judge "interesting/diverse experiences"? Presumably through your own extremely blind and biased filter (because really we all are). How diverse is your hiring committee?
    - devmunchies 10y ago
      Yes. We do all have biases, but I feel more comfortable judging what experiences seem interesting rather than which candidate has brown skin. It's racist.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Diversity of experience is directly correlated to diversity in skin color, gender, socio economic status, age, nationality, etc. There's a very limited "diversity of experience" across skin color and gender given the same "socio economic status". A rich gay person can much more easily command and/or buy acceptance and tolerance even in the most extreme places (and historically tons of gay persons got off just fine in societies that otherwise frowned upon the poor gays). And usually the tech version of "diversity" only extends to people with the same experiences -- regarding age, education, aspirations, etc, regardless of nationality. An indian nerd colleague is OK, as long as they too lived and breathed Star Wars, Lego bricks, old NES consoles, and doesn't bring much in the way of his country's culture (except cute and inoffensive dietary and cosmetic differences) etc. >You can say that there is "diversity of thought" in a group of white males who all went to ivy leagues because one says he's a libertarian and the other a neo marxist, but that's kinda missing the point. So is saying there is "diversity of thought" to the kind of people that end up in VC as programmers -- regardless of their ethnicity or gender.
lithos 10y ago
I've always made fun of tech diversity when I've been on their campuses. Most of them all had the same problems, the same rearing, talk to same, same credential's, and acted the same. Even though it looks like a rainbow of culture, tech is the most similar multi-state/national workplace I've seen.
coldtea 10y ago
>I find that the bay area and Seattle (my home) value the wrong kind of diversity. Its the unimportant stuff like skin color and gender that everyone means when talking about diversity. Yeah, diversity usually just means people of different skin colors or sexual preferences, but with the same class background, education, aspirations, ideology, and everything else. Some people literally visit places like Peru or the Middle East and the only diversity they get is from talking to people just like them in those places (totally americanized pop culture afficionados, VC types who dream of SV, etc.). And then they think that "basically everybody on the planet thinks the say way and wants the same things" based on those very limited experiences. Whereas one would encounter much more actual diversity if they got to listen and understand the ideas of people in their own neighborhood, who might or might not be of another color.
whack 10y ago
Yes, I'm sure skin color and gender seem really "unimportant" when you don't have to worry about being discriminated against on that basis. People like Susan Fowler might feel otherwise though. Instead of trying to fight over race vs gender vs age vs income diversity, how about we accept that they are all important and we should strive to avoid bias on all fronts.

coldtea 10y ago

>For those providing the excuse of culture - culture is something strongly valued in the Bay Area, and it's one of the biggest weaknesses. Also when they say "culture" they just mean "an artificial BS bro- and nerd-bonding thing we made up and cringe-force it to everybody on the team".