7 ms·

Asian woman who quit Google: 'The culture there is really discouraging'

23 points by elsewhen 9y ago

alexandercrohde 9y ago
Are these numbers atypical for the industry? I know google is facing a lawsuit, and am curious because I thought it was fairly common in engineering, law, finance, etc for a pretty drastic imbalance.
0xbear 9y ago
>> Several women who worked at the company and quit say their time at Google was often frustrating That's the overarching problem with being a member of the designated victim class: you can blame your misfortune on being a member of the class, rather than realize that 90% of people at Google aren't really having the time of their lives either. News flash: people do leave Google. If things were awesome for them, they wouldn't leave.
- ot 9y ago
  Non-members of the "designated victim class" can instead blame their misfortune on "reverse sexism" and "reverse racism" of diversity programs.
  - 0xbear 9y ago
    They sure can, but usually they attribute their misfortune to inadequate skill, which is mostly wrong as well. Mostly, irrepective of the skin color or gender, the cause of one's misfortune is not being pals with the right people. Ironically, people who count themselves as a part of the designated victim class are much less likely to recognize this universal pattern.
  - throw_aw_ay 9y ago
    But as we have seen - if they speak those thoughts out loud, they can face consequences.
throw_aw_ay 9y ago
There are a lot of Asians at Google, I don't think its a fair complaint about whiteness at all.
gedy 9y ago
> Men hold 75% of Google's leadership roles Well, I'm of 'leadership age' and when I was young, the only people I saw who were interested in computers were nerdy boys. We were mocked by jock guys and ignored by virtually all girls. So, to me it's a matter of focus. They had fun with romance and sex, we practiced computers. An imbalance seems expected given what I saw. Maybe that will change in time.
- zem 9y ago
  and what about nerdy girls who had neither athletics, romance or sex, and would have loved a computer? as npr[1] notes, when the home computer came out it was marketed heavily to boys; a generation of girls largely missed out on that step up. [1] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...
  - antod 9y ago
    I find that npr article on marketing being the reason for the drop in girls doing College CS overstates it and is a bit unconvincing. I took up computing during the 80s as a kid in a small country that had no real computer marketing (or even market) at all - that didn't stop it being a practically male only thing. Even amongst the wider population of boys, it was only a tiny percentage who got into computers. And while the Apple example in the article they used did have a boy as the focus, prominently sitting next to him in the class was a girl doing the same stuff and a 50/50 mix of other kids in the background. There wasn't a "computers are for boys" message in that ad. And image searches for 80s home computer ads don't really show it was all exclusively male targeted ads anyway* - there were a lot of those cliched ones marketed at the whole stereotypical family though. If anything they were overly optimistic in their depictions of gender ratios compared to actual interest in the market. * Except for the Italian ones - yikes
  - gedy 9y ago
    Yes where were they? :-) I honestly can't remember much computer marketing at all - any computer I could get a hold of was exciting. The Apple II in our class was mostly ignored except for about 2-3 boys, and even by the girls who were better students than the other kids.
Overtonwindow 9y ago
The quotes about Googles positive diversity examples reminds me of quotas in education. I wonder if we are moving towards a time when someone will not get hired because a particular quota is filled, or the whole company is subdivided into neat little diversity blocs. I.e. "Every Google team must be 50% female, and 20% Black, 20% Asian, 20% white..." Etc.
segregationist 9y ago
> Just 2% of its employees are black, 4% Hispanic, and 35% Asian. Since Asians are at most 4% of the US population, that means they're extremely overrepresented at Google (and other tech companies), by almost ten times their proportion of the population at large. Yet we still see articles like this one highlighting the Asianness of their subjects as if it amplifies their victim status, subtly blaming whites for the underrepresented blacks and Hispanics that overrepresented Asians have crowded out, and treats as legitimate their complaint that while indeed horribly overrepresented as employees at these companies, they aren't just as horribly overrepresented in executive positions. And the left still wonders why white racial identity politics and advocacy is now a thing.

23 points by elsewhen 9y ago

Are these numbers atypical for the industry? I know google is facing a lawsuit, and am curious because I thought it was fairly common in engineering, law, finance, etc for a pretty drastic imbalance.

0xbear 9y ago

>> Several women who worked at the company and quit say their time at Google was often frustrating That's the overarching problem with being a member of the designated victim class: you can blame your misfortune on being a member of the class, rather than realize that 90% of people at Google aren't really having the time of their lives either. News flash: people do leave Google. If things were awesome for them, they wouldn't leave.

ot 9y ago
Non-members of the "designated victim class" can instead blame their misfortune on "reverse sexism" and "reverse racism" of diversity programs.
- 0xbear 9y ago
  They sure can, but usually they attribute their misfortune to inadequate skill, which is mostly wrong as well. Mostly, irrepective of the skin color or gender, the cause of one's misfortune is not being pals with the right people. Ironically, people who count themselves as a part of the designated victim class are much less likely to recognize this universal pattern.
- throw_aw_ay 9y ago
  But as we have seen - if they speak those thoughts out loud, they can face consequences.

throw_aw_ay 9y ago

There are a lot of Asians at Google, I don't think its a fair complaint about whiteness at all.

gedy 9y ago

> Men hold 75% of Google's leadership roles Well, I'm of 'leadership age' and when I was young, the only people I saw who were interested in computers were nerdy boys. We were mocked by jock guys and ignored by virtually all girls. So, to me it's a matter of focus. They had fun with romance and sex, we practiced computers. An imbalance seems expected given what I saw. Maybe that will change in time.

zem 9y ago
and what about nerdy girls who had neither athletics, romance or sex, and would have loved a computer? as npr[1] notes, when the home computer came out it was marketed heavily to boys; a generation of girls largely missed out on that step up. [1] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...
- antod 9y ago
  I find that npr article on marketing being the reason for the drop in girls doing College CS overstates it and is a bit unconvincing. I took up computing during the 80s as a kid in a small country that had no real computer marketing (or even market) at all - that didn't stop it being a practically male only thing. Even amongst the wider population of boys, it was only a tiny percentage who got into computers. And while the Apple example in the article they used did have a boy as the focus, prominently sitting next to him in the class was a girl doing the same stuff and a 50/50 mix of other kids in the background. There wasn't a "computers are for boys" message in that ad. And image searches for 80s home computer ads don't really show it was all exclusively male targeted ads anyway* - there were a lot of those cliched ones marketed at the whole stereotypical family though. If anything they were overly optimistic in their depictions of gender ratios compared to actual interest in the market. * Except for the Italian ones - yikes
- gedy 9y ago
  Yes where were they? :-) I honestly can't remember much computer marketing at all - any computer I could get a hold of was exciting. The Apple II in our class was mostly ignored except for about 2-3 boys, and even by the girls who were better students than the other kids.

Overtonwindow 9y ago

The quotes about Googles positive diversity examples reminds me of quotas in education. I wonder if we are moving towards a time when someone will not get hired because a particular quota is filled, or the whole company is subdivided into neat little diversity blocs. I.e. "Every Google team must be 50% female, and 20% Black, 20% Asian, 20% white..." Etc.

segregationist 9y ago

> Just 2% of its employees are black, 4% Hispanic, and 35% Asian. Since Asians are at most 4% of the US population, that means they're extremely overrepresented at Google (and other tech companies), by almost ten times their proportion of the population at large. Yet we still see articles like this one highlighting the Asianness of their subjects as if it amplifies their victim status, subtly blaming whites for the underrepresented blacks and Hispanics that overrepresented Asians have crowded out, and treats as legitimate their complaint that while indeed horribly overrepresented as employees at these companies, they aren't just as horribly overrepresented in executive positions. And the left still wonders why white racial identity politics and advocacy is now a thing.