8 ms·

FTFY: He needs to be replaced by a more qualified individual. It doesn't matter what gender they identify as.

dbnoch 9y ago
While I understand the sentiment... it DOES matter what gender they identify as. Uber's culture issues deal with sexism and harassment towards Women. You need a diverse group for the board and adding white males will not fix their issue.
- nawre 9y ago
  >You need a diverse group for the board and adding white males will not fix their issue. It was of paramount importance to mention skin colour here. I don't understand so-called progressives like you. Do you understand that just because you have a spectrum of skin colours, or genders, does not mean you have actual diversity. That socio-economic backgrounds weights a lot more than this, and that you can have a board of 100% {colour}+{gender} with very eclectic and innovative thinking. Taking a step back, there's always a common denominator you will be able to find between the members of an entity to proclaim that "there is no diversity because all those members share {common denominator}. This cult you dedicate to diversity is absurd. More than that, it is marketing (saving the appearances) posing a social justice. I hope the day "white males", whom you so very much enjoy denouncing as the root of all evil, becomes tired of this scapegoating never comes.
  - pgodzin 9y ago
    When it comes to board seats there's only one socio-economic background that matters.
- initstick 9y ago
  So how many ways do you cut the diversity pie? You've now introduced skin color on top of gender. You've also removed the slice that represents "white" (whatever that means) males. Is it your stance that the pie now only represents females? What about other groups of people, how about we slice it into socioeconomic pieces, age, hair color, weight, etc. The point is, your vision of diversity is just anti-white-male. You'll be satisfied until you find too many representatives of whatever arbitrary label you come up with next.
  - viraptor 9y ago
    It's more about breaking up a monoculture. You can't introduce a representation of every possible division of humankind. But that's an unrealistic extreme, just like having no representation is an extreme. At some point, working in a diverse environment you just start thinking about others more than before. Random example I've seen many times, but feel free to extrapolate to other positions/issues: If you have a group of native British developers of a web app, there's a good chance that any non-latin input will be either mishandled or rejected. Not because they hate other languages, but simply because that's not a problem they run into, or think about. Add one (for example) Greek dev, and the team will be quickly made aware of and learn about the locales and encoding issues. This will help the accessibility for all cultures, not just British and Greek. Exposure to enough people different than you makes you think about others more. Even if you don't work with every possible token representation of the difference.
pgodzin 9y ago
A woman with a perspective on the diversity and culture they need to create seems uniquely qualified for the role.
- toehead2000 9y ago
  Also maybe some knowledge of the transportation business!
- throwaway-1209 9y ago
  "Diversity hiring" is a double edged sword though. There's a stigma attached to it which is really hard to overcome even if you're good.
  - pgodzin 9y ago
    It's crazy that hiring a woman to be the second woman on a board is considered "diversity hiring" though. It's not a super minority that is being looked for to tout diversity, it's half the population! I'm sure there are women who are both utterly qualified AND can provide a perspective on the more inclusive culture they are trying to create.
    - throwaway-1209 9y ago
      Hiring a woman is not crazy in the least. Hiring a woman because she's a woman over a more qualified male candidate (or the other way around) is harmful. There are plenty of women who don't need such "help".
      - pgodzin 9y ago
        Not sure why we immediately need to jump to the trope that a more qualified male candidate would be passed over. You're treating a seat on the board as if were some sort of technical role with hard skills. It's not - it's a role to be a positive and influential voice within a company dealing with a toxic culture. Being a successful woman and having all the experiences and perspectives that come with that is literally part of their qualification for the position.
threeseed 9y ago
There is the theory. And there is the reality. The theory says it shouldn't matter who you are it should only be based on your professional ability. And in theory it wouldn't make a difference to the ability of a company to function whether the gender or racial mix was one sided or not. The reality is different. The reality is that having a uniform gender and race mix across a company causes all sorts of problems to the culture which in turn flows through to the companies actions and behaviours. And so if you want your company to be healthy you need to have at least some mix of men and women and races because the fact is that employees simply behave differently when there is a mix.
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
  How does this reality, this idea that companies are dysfunctional if gender and race are uniform, fit the data of the previous few thousand years of human progress? Has the world changed? Can groups of uniform gender-race people no longer act cordially to people who aren't same gender-race?
  - danhon 9y ago
    Hold the front page, groups of uniform gender-race people have acted cordially to people who aren't the same gender race for thousands of years? Citation needed.
    - aaron-lebo 9y ago
      I believe what he's saying is that without the action of individuals within certain groups, it would be impossible for those in groups without power to progress. If they were uniformly racist and sexist, then progress could not have been made. That's to say they are capable of it, not that it's ideal or that they were responsible solely for progress. Most abolitionists were not African-American.
  - obstinate 9y ago
    > Can groups of uniform gender-race people no longer act cordially to people who aren't same gender-race? "No longer?" At what point did they ever?
pheldagryph 9y ago
> FTFY: He needs to be replaced by a more qualified individual. It doesn't matter what gender they identify as. Given the politics of the situation, reasonable people might hear in this: "A woman should not be hired for this role." Imagine the optics of replacing a sexist old man with another sexist old man. Worth the risk to shareholder value?
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  Yeah, optics matter, but a reasonable person might take your comment as saying "optics matter more than merit". Your last sentence doesn't follow. Maybe you could replace a sexist old man with a man who isn't sexist?
  - dogecoinbase 9y ago
    Maybe you could replace a sexist old man with a man who isn't sexist? This is not testable. Move what you can measure.
    - aaron-lebo 9y ago
      Ok, so how do you test that a female hire isn't racist?
      - nemothekid 9y ago
        By not moving the goalposts.
  - pheldagryph 9y ago
    I would rejoinder with: the optics are the merit. These are only board members, after all.
- lefstathiou 9y ago
  "Another sexist old man"? Do you see the irony in your statement?
glasz 9y ago
no. the requirement is "woman". don't you get it?
notatoad 9y ago
If he were an engineer, you'd be right. But for a board seat, being a woman is exactly the sort of qualification that is needed at Uber right now.

While I understand the sentiment... it DOES matter what gender they identify as. Uber's culture issues deal with sexism and harassment towards Women. You need a diverse group for the board and adding white males will not fix their issue.

nawre 9y ago
>You need a diverse group for the board and adding white males will not fix their issue. It was of paramount importance to mention skin colour here. I don't understand so-called progressives like you. Do you understand that just because you have a spectrum of skin colours, or genders, does not mean you have actual diversity. That socio-economic backgrounds weights a lot more than this, and that you can have a board of 100% {colour}+{gender} with very eclectic and innovative thinking. Taking a step back, there's always a common denominator you will be able to find between the members of an entity to proclaim that "there is no diversity because all those members share {common denominator}. This cult you dedicate to diversity is absurd. More than that, it is marketing (saving the appearances) posing a social justice. I hope the day "white males", whom you so very much enjoy denouncing as the root of all evil, becomes tired of this scapegoating never comes.
- pgodzin 9y ago
  When it comes to board seats there's only one socio-economic background that matters.
initstick 9y ago
So how many ways do you cut the diversity pie? You've now introduced skin color on top of gender. You've also removed the slice that represents "white" (whatever that means) males. Is it your stance that the pie now only represents females? What about other groups of people, how about we slice it into socioeconomic pieces, age, hair color, weight, etc. The point is, your vision of diversity is just anti-white-male. You'll be satisfied until you find too many representatives of whatever arbitrary label you come up with next.
- viraptor 9y ago
  It's more about breaking up a monoculture. You can't introduce a representation of every possible division of humankind. But that's an unrealistic extreme, just like having no representation is an extreme. At some point, working in a diverse environment you just start thinking about others more than before. Random example I've seen many times, but feel free to extrapolate to other positions/issues: If you have a group of native British developers of a web app, there's a good chance that any non-latin input will be either mishandled or rejected. Not because they hate other languages, but simply because that's not a problem they run into, or think about. Add one (for example) Greek dev, and the team will be quickly made aware of and learn about the locales and encoding issues. This will help the accessibility for all cultures, not just British and Greek. Exposure to enough people different than you makes you think about others more. Even if you don't work with every possible token representation of the difference.

pgodzin 9y ago

A woman with a perspective on the diversity and culture they need to create seems uniquely qualified for the role.

toehead2000 9y ago
Also maybe some knowledge of the transportation business!
throwaway-1209 9y ago
"Diversity hiring" is a double edged sword though. There's a stigma attached to it which is really hard to overcome even if you're good.
- pgodzin 9y ago
  It's crazy that hiring a woman to be the second woman on a board is considered "diversity hiring" though. It's not a super minority that is being looked for to tout diversity, it's half the population! I'm sure there are women who are both utterly qualified AND can provide a perspective on the more inclusive culture they are trying to create.
  - throwaway-1209 9y ago
    Hiring a woman is not crazy in the least. Hiring a woman because she's a woman over a more qualified male candidate (or the other way around) is harmful. There are plenty of women who don't need such "help".
    - pgodzin 9y ago
      Not sure why we immediately need to jump to the trope that a more qualified male candidate would be passed over. You're treating a seat on the board as if were some sort of technical role with hard skills. It's not - it's a role to be a positive and influential voice within a company dealing with a toxic culture. Being a successful woman and having all the experiences and perspectives that come with that is literally part of their qualification for the position.

threeseed 9y ago

There is the theory. And there is the reality. The theory says it shouldn't matter who you are it should only be based on your professional ability. And in theory it wouldn't make a difference to the ability of a company to function whether the gender or racial mix was one sided or not. The reality is different. The reality is that having a uniform gender and race mix across a company causes all sorts of problems to the culture which in turn flows through to the companies actions and behaviours. And so if you want your company to be healthy you need to have at least some mix of men and women and races because the fact is that employees simply behave differently when there is a mix.

TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
How does this reality, this idea that companies are dysfunctional if gender and race are uniform, fit the data of the previous few thousand years of human progress? Has the world changed? Can groups of uniform gender-race people no longer act cordially to people who aren't same gender-race?
- danhon 9y ago
  Hold the front page, groups of uniform gender-race people have acted cordially to people who aren't the same gender race for thousands of years? Citation needed.
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    I believe what he's saying is that without the action of individuals within certain groups, it would be impossible for those in groups without power to progress. If they were uniformly racist and sexist, then progress could not have been made. That's to say they are capable of it, not that it's ideal or that they were responsible solely for progress. Most abolitionists were not African-American.
- obstinate 9y ago
  > Can groups of uniform gender-race people no longer act cordially to people who aren't same gender-race? "No longer?" At what point did they ever?

pheldagryph 9y ago

> FTFY: He needs to be replaced by a more qualified individual. It doesn't matter what gender they identify as. Given the politics of the situation, reasonable people might hear in this: "A woman should not be hired for this role." Imagine the optics of replacing a sexist old man with another sexist old man. Worth the risk to shareholder value?

aaron-lebo 9y ago
Yeah, optics matter, but a reasonable person might take your comment as saying "optics matter more than merit". Your last sentence doesn't follow. Maybe you could replace a sexist old man with a man who isn't sexist?
- dogecoinbase 9y ago
  Maybe you could replace a sexist old man with a man who isn't sexist? This is not testable. Move what you can measure.
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    Ok, so how do you test that a female hire isn't racist?
    - nemothekid 9y ago
      By not moving the goalposts.
- pheldagryph 9y ago
  I would rejoinder with: the optics are the merit. These are only board members, after all.
lefstathiou 9y ago
"Another sexist old man"? Do you see the irony in your statement?

glasz 9y ago

no. the requirement is "woman". don't you get it?

notatoad 9y ago

If he were an engineer, you'd be right. But for a board seat, being a woman is exactly the sort of qualification that is needed at Uber right now.