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From the outside (Portland, OR) looking in, it seems like SV not only has a diversity of race issue (which I DO believe can drive different thoughts, look at a
by 40acres 8y ago
From the outside (Portland, OR) looking in, it seems like SV not only has a diversity of race issue (which I DO believe can drive different thoughts, look at a map of where most black Americans live -- spoiler alert: it's the south, I wonder how many folks in SV grew up in the south) but also a diversity of industry problem.
I grew up in New York, which has a pretty big tech sector, but also has fashion, finance, publishing as major industries as well. There are folks who work for the big tech companies in New York who have also worked on Wall Street and I think that helps to prevent monoculture from growing out of control.
- dmode 8y agoOf all the things you can blame, diversity of race is not. SV is majority Indians and Asians in engineering roles. Of course it could do better to have more white, black and Hispanic engineers
- asabjorn 8y agoYou are correct. It is very hard to be different in the wrong ways in the Bay Area, and the social sanctions against being different affect all aspects of your life including loosing friends and jobs. What is the wrong way of thinking is largely defined by people that seem to believe they know the truth and will do anything including lying about how you are different to further their agenda.
- adgasf 8y agoExamples?
- will_brown 8y agoSorry, you’re just not a good fit for the company culture.
- throwaway5250 8y agoRead Exhibit B of the Damore lawsuit. It's a virtual catalog of this sort of thing.
- s73v3r_ 8y agoNo, it's not. The Damore case is a textbook example of someone who thinks they're the smartest person in the room, and how "I can't be bigoted/misogynistic, cause science!" despite the fact that much of the quoted science was debunked, or his use of it was wildly out of what those that actually wrote the papers he quoted meant.
- dx87 8y agoLook at the lawsuit, not just the paper he wrote. He provides evidence of managers colluding to prevent conservative employees from getting promoted, examples of employees booing when the number of white male managers is listed, etc.
- throwaway5250 8y agoI'm not discussing what Damore wrote here. Everything in Exhibit B was written by Google employees. Everyone should read it.
- mcguire 8y agohttps://www.scribd.com/document/368688363/James-Damore-vs-Google-Class-Action-Lawsuit https://www.scribd.com/document/368688363/James-Damore-vs-Go... Search for "Exhibit B". P.S. From which I learn that many Googlers have far too much time on their hands. Or need to go for a walk or something.
- dx87 8y agoYou can look at the lawsuits filed by James Damore and others that provides evidence of managers at Google sharing an internal blacklist of politically conservative employees so they can collude to keep them from advancing in the company.
- mrfredward 8y agoI searched "Exhibit B Damore lawsuit," and the first link is dead because it belonged to a subreddit that got banned. Of course, I can guess by the subreddit title alone, "sjwhate", that reddit had sound reasons for the ban. Nevertheless, I'm ticked to see the thing I'm looking for get censored by the monoculture.
- cwzwarich 8y ago> It is very hard to be different in the wrong ways in the Bay Area, and the social sanctions against being different affect all aspects of your life including loosing friends and jobs. Is there actually a uniform definition of the "wrong way"? I doubt circumstances are the same for someone in SV who is originally from the Midwest and someone who is from Andhra Pradesh.
- asabjorn 8y agoThere have for a few decades been a progressive activist sub-culture in the bay area, mostly springing out of berkeley social science departments, and they seem through brute force and bullying tactics to define what is "rightspeak" as what furthers their activist agenda. Their agenda is to fight for their in-group. If you look you'll notice what is defined as the in-group not changing much, while what is defined as the target for change does change and expand over time. The goal seems to be to have their in-group win at whatever cost necessary. https://quillette.com/2018/10/11/do-advocacy-groups-belong-in-academia/ https://quillette.com/2018/10/11/do-advocacy-groups-belong-i...
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago>It is very hard to be different in the wrong ways in the Bay Area Nobody blinks twice if you dye your hair blue, wear flip flops to the office, commute on a unicycle and microdose LSD. God help you if you put a mossy oak patterned lunch box in the break room fridge because from then on you're redneck white trash.
- electricslpnsld 8y ago> I wonder how many folks in SV grew up in the south A reasonable number, actually. Hell, Apple is run by southerners (Tim Cook is from Alabama). I happen to work with a number of folks from North Carolina and Virginia.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoThat's like going to a town meeting in 1630 and saying "ok, everyone who's a witch raise your hand." A few people will admit to being from cities in the south. Nobody is going to admit to being from the rural south.
- nostrademons 8y agoNot really true; I've got three friends from the rural South here, and one from the farm belt. They don't make any big secret about where they're from.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago> it's the south, I wonder how many folks in SV grew up in the south If we look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_African-American_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_African... and sort by population, many of the states with the largest number of black Americans aren't in the south anymore (though they are large states, so don't rank as much percentage wise). But having lived in the midwest, south, and west, and living in places with many black Americans (Vicksburg, Toledo) at that, the south has a very poor handle on diversity in general. Self segregation is very common even when integration has been mandated.
- sudosteph 8y agoI'm not sure how you got that read on the situation. Georgia is top, and then if you add together FL, TX, NC, MS, the south is still the population-center (and arguably the current cultural center, via ATL) of black people in the US. Add in the fact that we're seeing trends of migration of more black people back to south (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Great_Migration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Great_Migration ) and there's no escaping the fact that companies which exclude the south are effectively excluding many black people, including some of the most educated ones (Lookup the states with the most HBCUs, they're all in the South). The south is a big place though, and those places you named are not typical of the places that are growing now (ie, "New South" cities). Charlotte is my home town, and if you look at maps comparing the degrees of segregation there, vs places like Philadelphia, there's no competition. There's one expensive neighborhood area with mostly white peope, but on average people in CLT are FAR more likely to live in diverse neighborhoods than people in most other cities. Add in the fact that southern cities (including Charlotte) have historically practiced school busing for diversity, and you'll find that the handle on diversity in many Southern metros is actually pretty good. Check it out yourself. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/segregation-us-cities/?utm_term=.6844fafbce67 https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/segreg...
- seanmcdirmid 8y agoTo say California doesn't have many black people still isn't correct, it is in the top 5, and most of those people are concentrated in two regions (LA and Bay Area). New York is #2, and many of those are in the NYC area. And obviously, Detroit, Chicago, .... There are lots of places of diversity outside of the south. There is a huge difference between the south and the deep south (the other city I lived in was midwest near Detroit with different issues completely). Mississippi is going to have much larger problems than North Carolina or Georgia. Still, being forced into busing doesn't mean you have a leg up in handling diversity, it means quite the opposite actually. Places like Boston have had similar conflicts, but I guess I wouldn't call them peachy either.
- ummonk 8y agoI’m visiting Manhattan and coming to realize that the global citizens here are disconnected from the rest of America to an extent that even people in the SF Bay Area aren’t.
- airstrike 8y agoI'm not sure if you mean that in a positive or negative way. As someone who lives in Manhattan, I would love to know.
- ummonk 8y agoHonestly, I’m not sure how I feel about it. Probably trending negative. On the one hand it really feels great to experience a global capital where people from around the world have come together. On the other hand, this explains how the print media (centered in NYC) seems to have a lot of articles talking about American issues where journalists seem to be from another world. E.g. the belief that undocumented workers do jobs no one else would be willing to do.
- 40acres 8y agoCan you provide more info on what you mean?
- ummonk 8y agoSo both are diverse and have large foreign populations. But SV’s diversity largely comes from immigrants in search of the American Dream, most of whom tend to have affinity with the rest of America as well. Manhattan in contrast has a lot of global citizens who would have more affinity with other cosmopolitan cities like London and Paris than with the rest of America.
- francisofascii 8y agoThis is a huge generalization and a guess on what it means. If you are in tech, looking to live in the US from abroad, some really only consider moving to NYC or maybe SF, LA or DC. Then once in the US, you don't really ever get a feel for living anywhere else in America. Whereas US born citizens living in NY or SF probably grew up somewhere else, so they have more of a connection with the rest of America.
- nostrademons 8y ago"it seems like SV not only has a diversity of race issue" Asian, Pacific Islander, and Hispanic are races too y'know (well, technically Hispanic is a linguistic category). On that front SV is a lot more diverse than most American cities. Take a look at the San Jose race map and compare to Portland: https://goo.gl/images/gQsj9j https://goo.gl/images/gQsj9j https://goo.gl/images/HYkX13 https://goo.gl/images/HYkX13 Totally agree on the lack of industry diversity, though. SV = tech the same way that Detroit = autos, and it will likely go the same way once the tech industry is in the same place as the auto industry.
- 40acres 8y agoTrue, California in general is pretty diverse. I believe it's "majority-minority", but what about the folks who make up the "culture" of the valley? The workers, VCs, professors, etc. Based on the diversity reports from the big tech companies it seems like they are still lacking. Even when it comes to female engineers there is a lack of representation. I remember a twitter thread a few weeks ago that lamented the fact that activity trackers did not have a "pregnant mode" to account for the extra calories and (perhaps) lesser physical activity of pregnant women.
- tomnipotent 8y ago> Based on the diversity reports from the big tech companies it seems like they are still lacking. Lacking compared to what? When comparing to the diversity of the U.S. or even California, most tech companies way over-index.
- ThrowawayR2 8y ago> ...what about the folks who make up the "culture" of the valley? The workers, VCs, professors, etc. Based on the diversity reports from the big tech companies it seems like they are still lacking. How so? Asians and Indians are very well represented among those categories in SV and the other tech hubs as well.
- nilkn 8y agoWhat's the "correct" level of diversity, out of curiosity? The US is ~75% phenotypically white (including white Americans with Hispanic or Latin heritage) and about ~62% white of European descent.
- mr_tristan 8y agoKind of funny that the Portlander mentions racial diversity. Portland remains one of the whitest cities in the US. (https://priceonomics.com/how-diverse-is-your-city/ https://priceonomics.com/how-diverse-is-your-city/) (NOTE: I'm also a Portland-er.) The bay area actually is one of the _most_ diverse in the country, which does include San Jose: https://www.kqed.org/news/10435390/bay-area-cities-among-most-diverse-in-u-s https://www.kqed.org/news/10435390/bay-area-cities-among-mos... The issue isn't racial _diversity_, it's racial _inequality_: the economic gains made in the Bay Area aren't including everyone across the racial spectrum. (https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-urgency-to-achieve-an-inclusive-economy-in-the-bay-area/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-urgency-to-achieve-an...) (I do agree about the commercial diversity argument though, but that's mostly my own anecdotal experience.)
- 40acres 8y agoTotally agree about Portland, I'm aiming my critique more at the institutions that make up "silicon valley" rather than California as a whole though. Maybe that wasn't clear.
- mesozoic 8y agoCome to Portland, Oregon! The white guilt capital of the world!
- superkuh 8y agoMaybe we should stop trying to judge things by the color of skin? I don't know, it seems like a good idea. I think a pretty famous guy suggested it before.
- mbesto 8y ago> but also a diversity of industry problem Which is great for the market. Borrow all of the good ideas that SV has and bring them to markets that they are blind about. I see this as a huge opportunity.