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> His hypothesis implies that personality differences mean a smaller percentage of women will be interested in and/or qualified for a Google job than men, but t

> His hypothesis implies that personality differences mean a smaller percentage of women will be interested in and/or qualified for a Google job than men, but that doesn’t mean any of the women at Google fall below the “qualified” threshold. I think its fair to say that not everyone shares that view. This is probably the key to controversy in my mind. You could read it that way. However, you can choose to interpret the sections about 'Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate' and 'Alienating conservatives is both non-inclusive and generally bad business because conservatives tend to be higher in conscientiousness, which is required for much of the drudgery and maintenance work characteristic of a mature company.' as 'some people we're hiring don't cut it, we should hire more white men'. That's not what it says. You don't have to interpret it that way. ...but clearly a lot of people did. My advice? Stop defending it. You can talk about these issues without this memo. Forget the memo. The memo was stupid and misguided. Releasing it internally at work was unreservedly stupid. ...but what's done is done. Do you want to spend the next year talking about the memo, and the specifics of 'did it or did it not technically say such and such', or the actual issues he was trying to raise?

imron 9y ago
> 'Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate' Imagine you have 100 people applying for 10 positions, and the demographic breakdown of applicants (based on current trends in tech) is 20 women and 80 men. Let's also say that being male or female doesn't give you any special aptitude, and that the aptitude of all candidates regardless of gender follows a normal distribution along a bell-curve. Because of that and because of Google's standards, let's say that only 25% of all candidates have the skills and qualifications necessary to work at Google, which breaks down to 5 women and 20 men. Once again assuming a normal distribution with neither men nor women over or underrepresented in skill level, then without any sort of correcting for diversity, candidates would need to be in the top 10% of all candidates to receive a job offer (10 / 100). , this is 2 women and 8 men, leaving us with a false negative rate (i.e. people skilled enough to work at Google but who get declined) of 3 women and 12 men. But with an eye for diversity, Google decides to hire all the qualified women (5), with the remaining positions taken by men, so 5 and 5, a 50/50 split. Each of the candidates is qualified and capable of working for Google, but the false negative rate for women has been reduced from 3 to 0. This is what he meant by an effectively lowered bar by decreasing the false negative rate. The women now only need to be in the top 25% of all women candidates, whereas the men need to be in the top 6.25% of male candidates. There's nothing false or wrong about that statement, it's just maths that happens as a result of the diverse hiring practices skewing the distribution of candidates, with the bar being 'effectively' lowered for the diverse candidates from top 10% to top 25%. This has the unfortunate side effect that over time, if you are taking the top 6.25% from the non-diverse group (men in this case), but the top 25% from the other group then the non-diverse group will eventually have on average more high-performers (which affects things like salaries, promotions and more). It's not to say that men are better, just that the hiring practices have been structured to select men from a higher performing percentage of the population. You would get the same results in favor of women if you were only selecting the top 6.25% of women vs the top 25% of men.
- kybernetikos 9y ago
  If the fact that the applicant population is slanted towards a particular gender means (or is caused by the fact) that it is harder for the other gender in that field, then the smaller population will in fact be better on average than the larger, because it will have taken them more motivation, determination, work and ability to win over others just to get them to where they are. At least, this seems like the most likely explanation for the fact that individuals in the much smaller group of female startup founders outperform the male startup founders that has been reported in a number of places. e.g. > For growing start-ups, those with female founders almost universally outperformed their male-only counterparts. The fastest-growing companies at 200%+ growth, are 75% more likely to have a female founder. https://www.tinypulse.com/startup-culture-report https://www.tinypulse.com/startup-culture-report > Once again assuming a normal distribution with neither men nor women over or underrepresented in skill level This is probably wrong, and if your hiring practices assume it in a scenario where it is harder for one gender to even make it to the applicant stage then they are unfairly discriminatory.
  - imron 9y ago
    > means that it is harder for the other gender in that field, then the smaller population will in fact be better on average than the larger, because it will have taken them more motivation, determination, work and ability to win over others just to get them to where they are. Do you have any studies or statistics to back you up or is this just what you believe? Also, how does it account for males that come from a poor/under-privileged backgrounds that also requires them to have more motivation, determination, work and ability to win over others and get where they are? > The fastest-growing companies at 200%+ growth, are 75% more likely to have a female founder. Revenue growth is meaningless without any sort of revenue numbers to compare it against - compare growing revenues from $5,000/year to $15,000/year (200% growth) with growing from $10,000,000 to $20,000,000 (100% growth). As a corollary to your point though, how many women founders are there in unicorns? Unfortunately not that many: http://swaay.com/todays-unicorn-companies-where-are-the-women/ http://swaay.com/todays-unicorn-companies-where-are-the-wome... Would such companies be more or less successful with female founders, I don't know, but I suspect gender doesn't really play much of a role, in much the same way I suspect that gender of founders doesn't play much of a role in revenue growth. > This is probably wrong, So you think that there is difference in ability based on gender?
kobeya 9y ago
He specifically said 'decreasing the false negative rate', not 'increasing the false positive rate.' That is explicitly worded (he could have been more succinct) to imply that all people hired by Google are good enough to work at Google. He is saying that IF you are already good enough to work at Google, then your odds if you are from a protected minority group are better than if you are not. You are right that people interpreted that sentence differently, but those interpretations were wrong.
- shadowmint 9y ago
  yeah, ok... but I mean, really, do you care what he said? I mean, do you really care if people misinterpreted it? Is that what is important here? What someone did or didn't mean when they did or didn't say something? I honestly couldn't care less if they were 'wrong' interpretations. I mean, really, honestly, I don't give the slightest damn about this guy or what he says or thinks. Really. I don't know him, I don't care. ...but maybe the issues he's raised are worth talking about? maybe? I'm not sure. ...but that's certainly more interesting than digging over this document and what he may or may not have meant. Forget what he said. Think on your own for a second. Do you think that diversity programs necessarily result in lower quality candidates filling some roles, even if the program only forces a quota into the interview process? Do you think that's a bad thing, that it has tangible negative outcomes for businesses? How do you propose to address the issues around this stuff, or is diversity something you don't think is worth having? Forget the darn document and have an opinion of your own for goodness sake (and be prepared to defend it and talk about).
  - kobeya 9y ago
    Yes it is critically important what he said. He got fired, very publicly, from Google for what he said, or at least an interpretation of what he said. This probably killed his career in tech, if not generally, assuming he doesn't win a wrongful termination settlement. I think it matters a LOT if the reason he got fired was for a hysterical mob justice over a misinterpretation of something he didn't actually say. That is in fact the core issue over outrage -- that someone can get fired over making what is an objectively true mathematical argument. That has chilling effects.

imron 9y ago

> 'Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate' Imagine you have 100 people applying for 10 positions, and the demographic breakdown of applicants (based on current trends in tech) is 20 women and 80 men. Let's also say that being male or female doesn't give you any special aptitude, and that the aptitude of all candidates regardless of gender follows a normal distribution along a bell-curve. Because of that and because of Google's standards, let's say that only 25% of all candidates have the skills and qualifications necessary to work at Google, which breaks down to 5 women and 20 men. Once again assuming a normal distribution with neither men nor women over or underrepresented in skill level, then without any sort of correcting for diversity, candidates would need to be in the top 10% of all candidates to receive a job offer (10 / 100). , this is 2 women and 8 men, leaving us with a false negative rate (i.e. people skilled enough to work at Google but who get declined) of 3 women and 12 men. But with an eye for diversity, Google decides to hire all the qualified women (5), with the remaining positions taken by men, so 5 and 5, a 50/50 split. Each of the candidates is qualified and capable of working for Google, but the false negative rate for women has been reduced from 3 to 0. This is what he meant by an effectively lowered bar by decreasing the false negative rate. The women now only need to be in the top 25% of all women candidates, whereas the men need to be in the top 6.25% of male candidates. There's nothing false or wrong about that statement, it's just maths that happens as a result of the diverse hiring practices skewing the distribution of candidates, with the bar being 'effectively' lowered for the diverse candidates from top 10% to top 25%. This has the unfortunate side effect that over time, if you are taking the top 6.25% from the non-diverse group (men in this case), but the top 25% from the other group then the non-diverse group will eventually have on average more high-performers (which affects things like salaries, promotions and more). It's not to say that men are better, just that the hiring practices have been structured to select men from a higher performing percentage of the population. You would get the same results in favor of women if you were only selecting the top 6.25% of women vs the top 25% of men.

kybernetikos 9y ago
If the fact that the applicant population is slanted towards a particular gender means (or is caused by the fact) that it is harder for the other gender in that field, then the smaller population will in fact be better on average than the larger, because it will have taken them more motivation, determination, work and ability to win over others just to get them to where they are. At least, this seems like the most likely explanation for the fact that individuals in the much smaller group of female startup founders outperform the male startup founders that has been reported in a number of places. e.g. > For growing start-ups, those with female founders almost universally outperformed their male-only counterparts. The fastest-growing companies at 200%+ growth, are 75% more likely to have a female founder. https://www.tinypulse.com/startup-culture-report https://www.tinypulse.com/startup-culture-report > Once again assuming a normal distribution with neither men nor women over or underrepresented in skill level This is probably wrong, and if your hiring practices assume it in a scenario where it is harder for one gender to even make it to the applicant stage then they are unfairly discriminatory.
- imron 9y ago
  > means that it is harder for the other gender in that field, then the smaller population will in fact be better on average than the larger, because it will have taken them more motivation, determination, work and ability to win over others just to get them to where they are. Do you have any studies or statistics to back you up or is this just what you believe? Also, how does it account for males that come from a poor/under-privileged backgrounds that also requires them to have more motivation, determination, work and ability to win over others and get where they are? > The fastest-growing companies at 200%+ growth, are 75% more likely to have a female founder. Revenue growth is meaningless without any sort of revenue numbers to compare it against - compare growing revenues from $5,000/year to $15,000/year (200% growth) with growing from $10,000,000 to $20,000,000 (100% growth). As a corollary to your point though, how many women founders are there in unicorns? Unfortunately not that many: http://swaay.com/todays-unicorn-companies-where-are-the-women/ http://swaay.com/todays-unicorn-companies-where-are-the-wome... Would such companies be more or less successful with female founders, I don't know, but I suspect gender doesn't really play much of a role, in much the same way I suspect that gender of founders doesn't play much of a role in revenue growth. > This is probably wrong, So you think that there is difference in ability based on gender?

kobeya 9y ago

He specifically said 'decreasing the false negative rate', not 'increasing the false positive rate.' That is explicitly worded (he could have been more succinct) to imply that all people hired by Google are good enough to work at Google. He is saying that IF you are already good enough to work at Google, then your odds if you are from a protected minority group are better than if you are not. You are right that people interpreted that sentence differently, but those interpretations were wrong.

shadowmint 9y ago
yeah, ok... but I mean, really, do you care what he said? I mean, do you really care if people misinterpreted it? Is that what is important here? What someone did or didn't mean when they did or didn't say something? I honestly couldn't care less if they were 'wrong' interpretations. I mean, really, honestly, I don't give the slightest damn about this guy or what he says or thinks. Really. I don't know him, I don't care. ...but maybe the issues he's raised are worth talking about? maybe? I'm not sure. ...but that's certainly more interesting than digging over this document and what he may or may not have meant. Forget what he said. Think on your own for a second. Do you think that diversity programs necessarily result in lower quality candidates filling some roles, even if the program only forces a quota into the interview process? Do you think that's a bad thing, that it has tangible negative outcomes for businesses? How do you propose to address the issues around this stuff, or is diversity something you don't think is worth having? Forget the darn document and have an opinion of your own for goodness sake (and be prepared to defend it and talk about).
- kobeya 9y ago
  Yes it is critically important what he said. He got fired, very publicly, from Google for what he said, or at least an interpretation of what he said. This probably killed his career in tech, if not generally, assuming he doesn't win a wrongful termination settlement. I think it matters a LOT if the reason he got fired was for a hysterical mob justice over a misinterpretation of something he didn't actually say. That is in fact the core issue over outrage -- that someone can get fired over making what is an objectively true mathematical argument. That has chilling effects.