5 ms·

Obviously it's not bad in and of itself, it's just an additional layer of homogeneity that a prospective teammate will consider before applying. The 90+ hour w

Obviously it's not bad in and of itself, it's just an additional layer of homogeneity that a prospective teammate will consider before applying. The 90+ hour workweeks are already a big red flag to anyone with a spouse and/or children. It's hard to get along at work when everyone else is comfortable contributing in ways that you can't match directly. No one wants to be the odd man out in a high pressure work environment. Edit: Fwiw I am also a white 20something male! I have always worked in relatively diverse environments and I have enjoyed it and would look for the same in my next employer.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
I have always worked in relatively diverse environments and I have enjoyed it and would look for the same in my next employer. My current company had no diversity until I joined (the founder and employee #1 even went to the same school), but it never struck me as being worth thinking about. I'm honestly curious, what benefits do you get from a company with ethnic diversity?
- rdl 16y ago
  Racial and ethnic diversity really seem like non issues...they are pretty superficial differences within a work environment. Age, children, and sex are a little more relevant, and even those are pretty minor and only loosely correlated with traits relevant in a work environment. Bringing a windows guy into a unix shop, or hiring a sales guy too early at a product development stage startup, or hiring a stupid or lazy person would be real diversity of a bad kind. Good diversity is bringing in people with domain expertise outside your core specialty, like having a font and calligraphy aficionado on your os team. Superficial diversity is really overvalued.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    I've often found cliquishness when there's, say, five people, of which four are from the same age/sex/ethnic/cultural/etc. background, and the fifth is from something different. It's worse when the four are from a quite narrow background of similarity, like four guys of the same age/race/major/etc. from Stanford, or four immigrants from the same country.
    - rdl 16y ago
      If you put it that way I sort of agree, although I think Americanized ethnicity or race is much less dominant as a trait than other traits.
  - _pius 16y ago
    Racial and ethnic diversity really seem like non issues...they are pretty superficial differences within a work environment. Superficial diversity is really overvalued. And very undervalued by people in the majority ...
    - rdl 16y ago
      For the past 12 years I have often been either the only American in a group, or the only white guy, or the only person who went to a top-tier tech school. I've been in groups that have been totally multicultural, or groups where one other ethnicity or race predominated. (admittedly, everything has been at most 30% female). I really haven't observed ethnicity or race as a primary factor in team dynamics. Even first language, assuming people have a minimal level of fluency, hasn't been a major factor; even with my minimal French, I've ended up hanging out with French video gamers and sci fi fans (all 3 of them at a big base; they spoke maybe 100 words of English) vs. a bunch of other Americans. Volitional things like the kind of music you like, the job you do, your hobbies, etc. are really a much bigger factor, at least in my limited experience, than race or ethnicity.
jacoblyles 16y ago
In an 100 person office, racial and sexual homogeneity would be creepy. In a 3 person office, who cares?

yummyfajitas 16y ago

I have always worked in relatively diverse environments and I have enjoyed it and would look for the same in my next employer. My current company had no diversity until I joined (the founder and employee #1 even went to the same school), but it never struck me as being worth thinking about. I'm honestly curious, what benefits do you get from a company with ethnic diversity?

rdl 16y ago
Racial and ethnic diversity really seem like non issues...they are pretty superficial differences within a work environment. Age, children, and sex are a little more relevant, and even those are pretty minor and only loosely correlated with traits relevant in a work environment. Bringing a windows guy into a unix shop, or hiring a sales guy too early at a product development stage startup, or hiring a stupid or lazy person would be real diversity of a bad kind. Good diversity is bringing in people with domain expertise outside your core specialty, like having a font and calligraphy aficionado on your os team. Superficial diversity is really overvalued.
- _delirium 16y ago
  I've often found cliquishness when there's, say, five people, of which four are from the same age/sex/ethnic/cultural/etc. background, and the fifth is from something different. It's worse when the four are from a quite narrow background of similarity, like four guys of the same age/race/major/etc. from Stanford, or four immigrants from the same country.
  - rdl 16y ago
    If you put it that way I sort of agree, although I think Americanized ethnicity or race is much less dominant as a trait than other traits.
- _pius 16y ago
  Racial and ethnic diversity really seem like non issues...they are pretty superficial differences within a work environment. Superficial diversity is really overvalued. And very undervalued by people in the majority ...
  - rdl 16y ago
    For the past 12 years I have often been either the only American in a group, or the only white guy, or the only person who went to a top-tier tech school. I've been in groups that have been totally multicultural, or groups where one other ethnicity or race predominated. (admittedly, everything has been at most 30% female). I really haven't observed ethnicity or race as a primary factor in team dynamics. Even first language, assuming people have a minimal level of fluency, hasn't been a major factor; even with my minimal French, I've ended up hanging out with French video gamers and sci fi fans (all 3 of them at a big base; they spoke maybe 100 words of English) vs. a bunch of other Americans. Volitional things like the kind of music you like, the job you do, your hobbies, etc. are really a much bigger factor, at least in my limited experience, than race or ethnicity.

jacoblyles 16y ago

In an 100 person office, racial and sexual homogeneity would be creepy. In a 3 person office, who cares?