You're implying that "culture" so defined doesn't actually affect the work process. But what if it does? What if exclusive, unfair selection of employees actual

You're implying that "culture" so defined doesn't actually affect the work process. But what if it does? What if exclusive, unfair selection of employees actually induces them to work harder or more efficiently? I don't believe this[1], and if it were true, it wouldn't make the situation much better. But the alternate hypothesis is that all of these companies are leaving money on the table. These companies like to play on the idea that people should enjoy their jobs, which is obviously ridiculous because it's work, but if you can fool people into believing it, you can get them to work overtime and you profit. If letting your employees be casually racist means you get 15% more work out of them at the cost of 15% of your hiring pool it's a win because you save on labor costs. A necessary presupposition of the exercise is that the employees can be swayed by appeals to tribal psychology -- support the team (company) -- which is also the basis of racism. It sounds stupid when I say "letting your employees be casually racist" but if I substitute "only hire League of Legends players" it's obvious what's going on. It just so happens that the culture associated with many forms of entertainment techies enjoy is toxic to minorities and tends to be less black/Latino and more white/Asian than America as a whole. And all these things are tied together in the patchwork of culture. The utility of this sort of cultural Tom Sawyering extends beyond tech; it's crucial to the armed forces, for example, but appealing to minorities had more upsides for the financial backers in that case, and the military has more control over the culture it instills in soldiers, whereas Google et al ride the wave of contemporary US nerd affectations. [1] - okay, why not? There may be some culturally homogenous workplaces but it's not the norm in my experience. The lack of black people at tech companies probably is also related to the fact that they're in cities with fewer black people and depend heavily on referrals for hiring. But referrals depend on friendships which goes back to that culture of entertainment for nerds I was talking about.