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It feels like these things become self-fulfilling prophecies, because of the way this issue is reported on. If "seven of nine technology companies, including Ap

It feels like these things become self-fulfilling prophecies, because of the way this issue is reported on. If "seven of nine technology companies, including Apple, Amazon.com and Microsoft, [disclosed] that data", would it be too much for an article to compare the unofficial Google numbers to that data? I'm not a big fan of large companies, I don't think they can win. Even if you have good numbers, that doesn't fit the narrative of "Silicon Valley has established itself as the boys’ club". Say for example, we applauded companies who are doing better, maybe even close to statistical significance, then you could say, "Hey, it's still not quite there yet, but it's close and we're doing better than others. Come work for us and help us make it right." And then that would be actionable advice, and companies would have a great reason to strive for this. But we'd also have to be honest about statistical error rates, and maybe some other stuff. I'll close on this, I've heard people say stupid and offensive shit when they're drunk, but never "Hey, let's pay women less", although I'm not an executive. So I feel like it isn't a common thought... unless you keep reading articles like this one.

manyxcxi 9y ago
I've hired plenty of people, and been in three times as many discussions of pay with everyone from the janitor to the CEO and I've never heard someone insinuate that we could pay less because the person is female, but I've heard people say "...and we get the bonus of having her be female to make our numbers look better..." before. Here's what I think a big driver is (you're going to have to walk down premise lane with me as I don't want to spend the time on citations ATM): Presuming that women are in general more agreeable than man in the workplace and that they don't fight as hard and as often for raises, I would expect an otherwise equal male counterpart that is more aggressive to have higher pay. Why? Because the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Every year when we did promotions we'd start out with a zero-sum raise pool. Let's say if everyone got exactly the same, they'd get 2%. But if I give Bob a raise of 4% I have to go 'take' that extra 2% from people or everyone. If I'm worried about Bob leaving, or he's asked for a raise and plead a good case, he's going to get it. If Alice or Charlie have been silent all year but have been doing an otherwise good job, they're going to get what's leftover- in general. There have been a number of cases where we idtenified someone silently kick major ass and threw money at them, but that I think it is because we had very conscientious managers that worked closely with their subordinates, unlike BigCo. I'm not even going to touch on all the other reasons that people have laid out as possible reasons why women tend to earn less. I think if you've got two people working well, doing the exact same job and producing the exact same outputs, they should be paid nearly equally, but we're humans and life is messy. Some people haggle better than others, some had a very low salary before that the new job used to baseline, etc. If you really want to maximize your salary at an given job, argue for every last penny coming in. All future raises (for the most part) will be based off that number and it will haunt you for your entire tenure at the company- most likely.
- michaelt 9y ago
  Every year when we did promotions we'd start out with a zero-sum raise pool. Well, there's your problem. If I'm an employee and I do some great work that brings the company an extra $X per annum, and I ask for a raise of $0.1X the company is welcome to take that out of the $X I made them. If the company decides to instead take the $0.1X from someplace else, that's their decision not mine - claiming raises are zero-sum is just bullshit to make people feel guilty about asking for a raise.
  - bedhead 9y ago
    Well, it's also a financial reality...
    - michaelt 9y ago
      If my efforts have made my employer an extra $X per annum, the financial reality is the company has an extra $X per annum. We can debate how that $X should be divided between workers, executives, creditors, shareholders and reinvestment. But there's no "financial reality" that means workers' share has to be zero. Every organisation has rules and budgets and procedures, but they're made by people and if they don't work right they can be fixed by people. It's not like the CEO received the budget from God on stone tablets on a mountain 2000 years ago. If I wanted to work in some calcified bureaucracy where rules were more important than outcomes and worker performance was irrelevant, I wouldn't be working in the private sector!
      - err4nt 9y ago
        Ultimately money is finite - no matter how much you have or how it's allocated. What if there literally isn't any more money left to be given by the time they're done giving raises?
        kthejoker2 9y ago
        You're missing their point entirely. If my efforts made the company an additional $10,000 per year above and beyond what they would have made, they can offer me a raise of up to $10,000 without affecting any one else's chances at bonuses or raises.

manyxcxi 9y ago

I've hired plenty of people, and been in three times as many discussions of pay with everyone from the janitor to the CEO and I've never heard someone insinuate that we could pay less because the person is female, but I've heard people say "...and we get the bonus of having her be female to make our numbers look better..." before. Here's what I think a big driver is (you're going to have to walk down premise lane with me as I don't want to spend the time on citations ATM): Presuming that women are in general more agreeable than man in the workplace and that they don't fight as hard and as often for raises, I would expect an otherwise equal male counterpart that is more aggressive to have higher pay. Why? Because the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Every year when we did promotions we'd start out with a zero-sum raise pool. Let's say if everyone got exactly the same, they'd get 2%. But if I give Bob a raise of 4% I have to go 'take' that extra 2% from people or everyone. If I'm worried about Bob leaving, or he's asked for a raise and plead a good case, he's going to get it. If Alice or Charlie have been silent all year but have been doing an otherwise good job, they're going to get what's leftover- in general. There have been a number of cases where we idtenified someone silently kick major ass and threw money at them, but that I think it is because we had very conscientious managers that worked closely with their subordinates, unlike BigCo. I'm not even going to touch on all the other reasons that people have laid out as possible reasons why women tend to earn less. I think if you've got two people working well, doing the exact same job and producing the exact same outputs, they should be paid nearly equally, but we're humans and life is messy. Some people haggle better than others, some had a very low salary before that the new job used to baseline, etc. If you really want to maximize your salary at an given job, argue for every last penny coming in. All future raises (for the most part) will be based off that number and it will haunt you for your entire tenure at the company- most likely.

michaelt 9y ago
Every year when we did promotions we'd start out with a zero-sum raise pool. Well, there's your problem. If I'm an employee and I do some great work that brings the company an extra $X per annum, and I ask for a raise of $0.1X the company is welcome to take that out of the $X I made them. If the company decides to instead take the $0.1X from someplace else, that's their decision not mine - claiming raises are zero-sum is just bullshit to make people feel guilty about asking for a raise.
- bedhead 9y ago
  Well, it's also a financial reality...
  - michaelt 9y ago
    If my efforts have made my employer an extra $X per annum, the financial reality is the company has an extra $X per annum. We can debate how that $X should be divided between workers, executives, creditors, shareholders and reinvestment. But there's no "financial reality" that means workers' share has to be zero. Every organisation has rules and budgets and procedures, but they're made by people and if they don't work right they can be fixed by people. It's not like the CEO received the budget from God on stone tablets on a mountain 2000 years ago. If I wanted to work in some calcified bureaucracy where rules were more important than outcomes and worker performance was irrelevant, I wouldn't be working in the private sector!
    - err4nt 9y ago
      Ultimately money is finite - no matter how much you have or how it's allocated. What if there literally isn't any more money left to be given by the time they're done giving raises?
      - kthejoker2 9y ago
        You're missing their point entirely. If my efforts made the company an additional $10,000 per year above and beyond what they would have made, they can offer me a raise of up to $10,000 without affecting any one else's chances at bonuses or raises.