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It immediately jumps out at me that "Team is diverse" has such a high bar. Is this the HN/San Fransisco bubble in action? In all of the interviews I've done as

It immediately jumps out at me that "Team is diverse" has such a high bar. Is this the HN/San Fransisco bubble in action? In all of the interviews I've done as both interviewer and interviewee, not once has "diversity" been mentioned. In fact, it's so strange that it feels oddly hostile to me. It's that weird. I can't fathom asking someone who's interviewing me: "Do you have enough latinos in your team?"

lettergram 9y ago
Diverse doesn't even really mean diverse. It's just an excuse to make people feel like they are inclusive, at least - that's the impression I have from those I speak to in SF. So yes, that's a mostly SF thing from my experince. It's also interesting that I'm usually considered not diverse (white guy in tech). However, what's interesting is that when we conduct surveys at work, in conferences, school, etc. I usually stick out like a sore thumb. Because I'm from a poor income bracket, in the midwest. Where most "diverse" people get scholarships for school, because I'm white I received next to none (besides for my research / grades). So what people mean isn't really "diverse" they mean, woman and / or other skin color (not even other culture). Diversity should include states IMO since the U.S. is easily diverse, perhaps not as much as Europe, but enough to be unique. How many people on your office have people from the Midwest or the south? It's actually rarer than I anticipated looking at the figures.
- mywittyname 9y ago
  > Where most "diverse" people get scholarships for school Most "diverse" people don't get scholarships either. These scholarships are either broad, but small (i.e., All Native American students get $500/semester) or generous but targeted (Native American Women Studying Electrical Engineering get $4000/semester). The latter can afford to be so generous because of the complete lack of candidates. But this attitude completely ignores the silent majority of these "diverse" groups that get nothing (or are actively screwed) while being chastised by the "I'm white so I get nothing crowd." I had several Asian friends in college that paid $40k+ a year for tuition at a shitty state school (which was $8k/yr for me). One was married to an American since his freshman year and started working a job in the US at the end of his sophomore year, yet, the university refused to give him the in-state tuition rates until his very last semester. He also graduated with a 3.9 GPA. His parents paid roughly $150,000 for the same education that I would have paid $32k for. Had he been a white American, he would have been eligible for an automatic academic scholarship (like I was).
  - beingmyself2 9y ago
    >Had he been a white American You mean "had he been an American citizen born in your state"? Race has nothing to do with this example. All out-of-state people regardless of color experience the same.
skndr 9y ago
Out of curiosity, what's the demographic makeup of your interviewees? I can see how someone might value diversity while feeling uncomfortable raising the point.
- sergiotapia 9y ago
  italian, french guy, latino girl, a few white guys, a super brown brasilian guy, etc. What you're implying is laughable to me, I wouldn't ask the question to anyone, regardless of their race.
  - skndr 9y ago
    Alternatively, the question is a proxy for: Are there people that look like me? Will my opinions be heard by others?
twoquestions 9y ago
I work at a place that's very not diverse, and the groupthink can be suffocating. It's not so much as having sufficient nonwhites on your team, it's more about having people with different ways of solving problems. In my experience, a lot of mid-level problems get solved by inviting over a low-level programmer and have them look at the problem for a bit, asking questions about it. Having a good distribution of perspectives is much more important than having a multi-ethnic hivemind.
rhizome 9y ago
I can't fathom asking someone who's interviewing me: "Do you have enough latinos in your team?" Who recommends asking this?!
lynnetye 9y ago
I also wondered if diversity would be more important among HN/San Francisco folks! Right now, I don't have sufficient data to say either way. I actually predicted "Actively Practices Inclusion" to be selected more frequently in the Bay Area, or at least California and New York, but this doesn't seem to be the case either. Re: interviews, you're right. It's not brought up very often. Since working on Key Values though for the last several months, I've learned that many women refuse to be the first female engineer at a company. While diversity isn't always visible, many people will simply look at the current team members and draw conclusions themselves.
a_c_s 9y ago
"How does your company think about diversity?" I asked this question in my most recent round and got a variety of answers, which I found illuminating. Some people were caught totally flat-footed and it wasn't a focus, others rattled off a variety of initiatives to address a variety of aspects.
bproven 9y ago
Diversity focus should maybe be on diverse backgrounds not diverse skin tones. But its probably easier to do the latter as a company so that you can quickly look progressive to everyone in the industry (PR reasons, etc).
Fire-Dragon-DoL 9y ago
The entire "diverse" idea to be on the list is terrible. In the company I work at (small, ~30), I didn't even notice we are extremely diverse (the skin color is mostly white, but every person comes from different countries/continents) until someone pointed out that we are. I just considered everyone "people", that's it? It's not being diverse that is nice, it's the fact that there is no racism that is nice. No racism = you won't notice you have different people in the team, it's just natural. That's how it should have been since the beginning.

lettergram 9y ago

Diverse doesn't even really mean diverse. It's just an excuse to make people feel like they are inclusive, at least - that's the impression I have from those I speak to in SF. So yes, that's a mostly SF thing from my experince. It's also interesting that I'm usually considered not diverse (white guy in tech). However, what's interesting is that when we conduct surveys at work, in conferences, school, etc. I usually stick out like a sore thumb. Because I'm from a poor income bracket, in the midwest. Where most "diverse" people get scholarships for school, because I'm white I received next to none (besides for my research / grades). So what people mean isn't really "diverse" they mean, woman and / or other skin color (not even other culture). Diversity should include states IMO since the U.S. is easily diverse, perhaps not as much as Europe, but enough to be unique. How many people on your office have people from the Midwest or the south? It's actually rarer than I anticipated looking at the figures.

mywittyname 9y ago
> Where most "diverse" people get scholarships for school Most "diverse" people don't get scholarships either. These scholarships are either broad, but small (i.e., All Native American students get $500/semester) or generous but targeted (Native American Women Studying Electrical Engineering get $4000/semester). The latter can afford to be so generous because of the complete lack of candidates. But this attitude completely ignores the silent majority of these "diverse" groups that get nothing (or are actively screwed) while being chastised by the "I'm white so I get nothing crowd." I had several Asian friends in college that paid $40k+ a year for tuition at a shitty state school (which was $8k/yr for me). One was married to an American since his freshman year and started working a job in the US at the end of his sophomore year, yet, the university refused to give him the in-state tuition rates until his very last semester. He also graduated with a 3.9 GPA. His parents paid roughly $150,000 for the same education that I would have paid $32k for. Had he been a white American, he would have been eligible for an automatic academic scholarship (like I was).
- beingmyself2 9y ago
  >Had he been a white American You mean "had he been an American citizen born in your state"? Race has nothing to do with this example. All out-of-state people regardless of color experience the same.

skndr 9y ago

Out of curiosity, what's the demographic makeup of your interviewees? I can see how someone might value diversity while feeling uncomfortable raising the point.

sergiotapia 9y ago
italian, french guy, latino girl, a few white guys, a super brown brasilian guy, etc. What you're implying is laughable to me, I wouldn't ask the question to anyone, regardless of their race.
- skndr 9y ago
  Alternatively, the question is a proxy for: Are there people that look like me? Will my opinions be heard by others?

twoquestions 9y ago

I work at a place that's very not diverse, and the groupthink can be suffocating. It's not so much as having sufficient nonwhites on your team, it's more about having people with different ways of solving problems. In my experience, a lot of mid-level problems get solved by inviting over a low-level programmer and have them look at the problem for a bit, asking questions about it. Having a good distribution of perspectives is much more important than having a multi-ethnic hivemind.

rhizome 9y ago

I can't fathom asking someone who's interviewing me: "Do you have enough latinos in your team?" Who recommends asking this?!

lynnetye 9y ago

I also wondered if diversity would be more important among HN/San Francisco folks! Right now, I don't have sufficient data to say either way. I actually predicted "Actively Practices Inclusion" to be selected more frequently in the Bay Area, or at least California and New York, but this doesn't seem to be the case either. Re: interviews, you're right. It's not brought up very often. Since working on Key Values though for the last several months, I've learned that many women refuse to be the first female engineer at a company. While diversity isn't always visible, many people will simply look at the current team members and draw conclusions themselves.

a_c_s 9y ago

"How does your company think about diversity?" I asked this question in my most recent round and got a variety of answers, which I found illuminating. Some people were caught totally flat-footed and it wasn't a focus, others rattled off a variety of initiatives to address a variety of aspects.

bproven 9y ago

Diversity focus should maybe be on diverse backgrounds not diverse skin tones. But its probably easier to do the latter as a company so that you can quickly look progressive to everyone in the industry (PR reasons, etc).

Fire-Dragon-DoL 9y ago

The entire "diverse" idea to be on the list is terrible. In the company I work at (small, ~30), I didn't even notice we are extremely diverse (the skin color is mostly white, but every person comes from different countries/continents) until someone pointed out that we are. I just considered everyone "people", that's it? It's not being diverse that is nice, it's the fact that there is no racism that is nice. No racism = you won't notice you have different people in the team, it's just natural. That's how it should have been since the beginning.