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Because "society" is made up of (among others) companies, and Google is a large company. The way things change in a society is when the members of society start

Because "society" is made up of (among others) companies, and Google is a large company. The way things change in a society is when the members of society start to change them. If a company with the weight and power of Google feel something is wrong and isn't doing their damnedest to try to fix it, then it won't change. Now, from the linked piece, it's unclear exactly what has been proposed, so I'm not offering an opinion about whether it's a good idea or not -- merely answering the question in the general. For the record, I'm broadly sympathetic to the notion that fixing diversity starts rather a bit upstream from internal Google-policies.

manfredo 8y ago
The thing is, though, all companies are drawing from the same talent pool. Google hiring an above average number of diverse applicants doesn't raise the percentage of diverse tech workers. Those diverse tech workers came from somewhere. Google's act of hiring them in turn reduced another company's pool of diverse workers. Or if they came from a university, it reduces the number of diverse candidates that other companies can pick from. Ultimately the total diversity of tech is dictated by the individual decisions of people when they choose their field.
- thelock85 8y ago
  > Ultimately the total diversity of tech is dictated by the individual decisions of people when they choose their field. I might add that the total diversity of tech is dictated by the individual opportunities to make a decision, though I generally get your point.
- stormbrew 8y ago
  The industry is not a closed system. People can leave or join it at any point in their careers, and they may (read: do) do so because they can't find jobs or the jobs they do find are hostile to them.
  - manfredo 8y ago
    Unemployment in tech is exceedingly low, and there have been more openings than workers for a while. And the latter point is essentially the other side of the same coin as compared to the point that I'm making: it's whether prior people join or leave the system as a whole that ultimately dictates diversity. I agree that tech isn't a closed system. But moving diverse candidates from one part of the system to another does not actually increase diversity. Getting people into the system does that.
    - stormbrew 8y ago
      That there are more openings than workers does not mean that every potential worker experiences the same hireability. The entire issue here is that hiring biases towards a certain type of person and against another. A woman may struggle to find a job while an equally qualified man does not. The woman may exit the industry. She does not become part of the 'pool' unless she stays. This is how pushing for diversity in hiring can expand the pool of available workers, and how a company hiring marginalized people can be doing something other than cannibalizing other hirers (because those other employers are not bothering).
      - manfredo 8y ago
        > A woman may struggle to find a job while an equally qualified man does not. The woman may exit the industry. She does not become part of the 'pool' unless she stays. No, she joins the pool the moment she starts and she leaves the pool when she leaves. If a company wants to keep people from leaving the pool, then the company should focus on reducing attrition. Hiring more diverse candidates doesn't necessarily reduce attrition. Remember Uber had 23% of it's workforce women at one point, it didn't help their environment.
        mseebach 8y ago
        When it comes to considering the working environment, I think it's informative to consider investment banking: a field infamous for pretty much all sorts of toxicity. Yet, it doesn't suffer from any particular gender diversity problems. That's not to say that we should be OK with an abusive environment, or that we shouldn't always strive to make the environment better for everyone. It's just unlikely to be a key causal driver of low diversity in tech.
- guitarbill 8y ago
  Not quite. The question is how do you choose the most qualified candidates? As an example, a lot of emphasis is put on CS degrees. But if you've been in hiring, they aren't an indicator of how good someone is going to be, and interviewing candidates is hard. I can teach people who can think logically how to program. What I can't teach is having the guts to do the right thing, diligence, curiousness, willingness to learn, etc. I work for a big tech company; it is very hard to bring in people without CS degrees because of the interview process. Weirdly enough, the only place I've seen this happen is IBM, where they had a written exam based on logic questions, not programming questions (although the two are clearly related, and one was about scheduling/threading, it could be solved by somebody without knowledge of the terminology). I have never seen numbers that indicate hiring CS majors is more cost effective, better, etc, and most job ads happily say "CS or related", but then the interview just doesn't reflect that. Maybe it is slightly easier to pick from a pool of people who have prior experience, but it's lazy. I think we can do better.
  - manfredo 8y ago
    "Enter the field" doesn't just mean majoring in CS. It broadly refers to everyone working in tech. The point remains, if only 20% of people in tech are diverse, then Google hiring 25 or 30% doesn't change overall diversity. It just means some other companies will have less than 20%.
    - guitarbill 8y ago
      > "Enter the field" doesn't just mean majoring in CS. It broadly refers to everyone working in tech. That's exactly what you get though, if you have interview processes that select for CS capabilities (which are not the only useful capabilities for a dev to have).
- mseebach 8y ago
  Hence, my sympathy for the idea that the real fix lies upstream: in order to get more women and minorities into tech, more members of these groups need to choose to study the relevant degrees in college. There are reasonable points to be made about the visibility of role models from these groups, but nothing much will happen to diversity hiring until the pool itself is more diverse.
rdtsc 8y ago
> If a company with the weight and power of Google feel something is wrong and isn't doing their damnedest to try to fix it, then it won't change. Great point. If any company is in position to spend resources and have an effect on society, Google is definitely one of them. And of course it is a great goal. However they need to spell that out in plain and simple language and not hide it between the lines or say they are doing it because (as the article quotes) it would otherwise "make it difficult for the company to hire and retain workers, posing a long-term risk to its ability to innovate". If innovation and ability to retain was directly tied to diversity each business unit down the lowest level would eventually figure it out in a few years. There would be no need for diversity chairs, advocates, executive positions. These groups would go out, seek, hire and accordingly compensate people just like they seek, hire and accordingly compensate experts in those fields.

manfredo 8y ago

The thing is, though, all companies are drawing from the same talent pool. Google hiring an above average number of diverse applicants doesn't raise the percentage of diverse tech workers. Those diverse tech workers came from somewhere. Google's act of hiring them in turn reduced another company's pool of diverse workers. Or if they came from a university, it reduces the number of diverse candidates that other companies can pick from. Ultimately the total diversity of tech is dictated by the individual decisions of people when they choose their field.

thelock85 8y ago
> Ultimately the total diversity of tech is dictated by the individual decisions of people when they choose their field. I might add that the total diversity of tech is dictated by the individual opportunities to make a decision, though I generally get your point.
stormbrew 8y ago
The industry is not a closed system. People can leave or join it at any point in their careers, and they may (read: do) do so because they can't find jobs or the jobs they do find are hostile to them.
- manfredo 8y ago
  Unemployment in tech is exceedingly low, and there have been more openings than workers for a while. And the latter point is essentially the other side of the same coin as compared to the point that I'm making: it's whether prior people join or leave the system as a whole that ultimately dictates diversity. I agree that tech isn't a closed system. But moving diverse candidates from one part of the system to another does not actually increase diversity. Getting people into the system does that.
  - stormbrew 8y ago
    That there are more openings than workers does not mean that every potential worker experiences the same hireability. The entire issue here is that hiring biases towards a certain type of person and against another. A woman may struggle to find a job while an equally qualified man does not. The woman may exit the industry. She does not become part of the 'pool' unless she stays. This is how pushing for diversity in hiring can expand the pool of available workers, and how a company hiring marginalized people can be doing something other than cannibalizing other hirers (because those other employers are not bothering).
    - manfredo 8y ago
      > A woman may struggle to find a job while an equally qualified man does not. The woman may exit the industry. She does not become part of the 'pool' unless she stays. No, she joins the pool the moment she starts and she leaves the pool when she leaves. If a company wants to keep people from leaving the pool, then the company should focus on reducing attrition. Hiring more diverse candidates doesn't necessarily reduce attrition. Remember Uber had 23% of it's workforce women at one point, it didn't help their environment.
      - mseebach 8y ago
        When it comes to considering the working environment, I think it's informative to consider investment banking: a field infamous for pretty much all sorts of toxicity. Yet, it doesn't suffer from any particular gender diversity problems. That's not to say that we should be OK with an abusive environment, or that we shouldn't always strive to make the environment better for everyone. It's just unlikely to be a key causal driver of low diversity in tech.
guitarbill 8y ago
Not quite. The question is how do you choose the most qualified candidates? As an example, a lot of emphasis is put on CS degrees. But if you've been in hiring, they aren't an indicator of how good someone is going to be, and interviewing candidates is hard. I can teach people who can think logically how to program. What I can't teach is having the guts to do the right thing, diligence, curiousness, willingness to learn, etc. I work for a big tech company; it is very hard to bring in people without CS degrees because of the interview process. Weirdly enough, the only place I've seen this happen is IBM, where they had a written exam based on logic questions, not programming questions (although the two are clearly related, and one was about scheduling/threading, it could be solved by somebody without knowledge of the terminology). I have never seen numbers that indicate hiring CS majors is more cost effective, better, etc, and most job ads happily say "CS or related", but then the interview just doesn't reflect that. Maybe it is slightly easier to pick from a pool of people who have prior experience, but it's lazy. I think we can do better.
- manfredo 8y ago
  "Enter the field" doesn't just mean majoring in CS. It broadly refers to everyone working in tech. The point remains, if only 20% of people in tech are diverse, then Google hiring 25 or 30% doesn't change overall diversity. It just means some other companies will have less than 20%.
  - guitarbill 8y ago
    > "Enter the field" doesn't just mean majoring in CS. It broadly refers to everyone working in tech. That's exactly what you get though, if you have interview processes that select for CS capabilities (which are not the only useful capabilities for a dev to have).
mseebach 8y ago
Hence, my sympathy for the idea that the real fix lies upstream: in order to get more women and minorities into tech, more members of these groups need to choose to study the relevant degrees in college. There are reasonable points to be made about the visibility of role models from these groups, but nothing much will happen to diversity hiring until the pool itself is more diverse.

rdtsc 8y ago

> If a company with the weight and power of Google feel something is wrong and isn't doing their damnedest to try to fix it, then it won't change. Great point. If any company is in position to spend resources and have an effect on society, Google is definitely one of them. And of course it is a great goal. However they need to spell that out in plain and simple language and not hide it between the lines or say they are doing it because (as the article quotes) it would otherwise "make it difficult for the company to hire and retain workers, posing a long-term risk to its ability to innovate". If innovation and ability to retain was directly tied to diversity each business unit down the lowest level would eventually figure it out in a few years. There would be no need for diversity chairs, advocates, executive positions. These groups would go out, seek, hire and accordingly compensate people just like they seek, hire and accordingly compensate experts in those fields.