This kind of stuff annoys me to no end. I think everyone realizes that Silicon Valley and the overall tech world has a diversity problem. There are aspects of o

This kind of stuff annoys me to no end. I think everyone realizes that Silicon Valley and the overall tech world has a diversity problem. There are aspects of our society that systematically under-develop and discourage minorities and women from following the path to becoming an engineer. It's a problem and it's one that our entire society needs to address. But do we have an "engineering-and-data-obsessed monoculture" problem? Hell no! We've got a whiny, non-tech contingent that is frustrated that engineers aren't willing to be high-level abstractions on top of computers problem, which is only a problem for those people who are shut out of guiding the direction of the tech industry by their lack of ability to actually do the things the tech industry does. The notion that we'd magically arrive at better decisions if we allowed more non-tech people to make those decisions is ludicrous and insulting. There's no reason to think that without the benefit of hindsight, those people would have made better decisions than were actually made. It's the same specious thinking that leads non-tech "idea" people to approach tech people and generously offer 5% of their sure-to-succeed company in exchange for the mere trifle of actually building it. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. Execution beats opinions every time. People who are actually capable of doing the work don't give seats at the table just because "diversity." There's no reason to allow a PR person, like the one discussed in this article, to have outsized influence at a tech company. Engineers seek out engineering-focused cultures because they want a greater degree of autonomy in their work and they want to have a larger influence on the success of their company. Changing that would just mean that the best engineers would choose to work elsewhere, even starting their own companies if need be. That's why we have engineering-focused cultures...because these companies need people that can actually do the work. They've proven that it's not hard to find the non-technical talent, so there's no need to put as much emphasis on that when it comes to the culture and leadership of the company. The one exception to that that proves the point is the current demand for enterprise tech salespeople. We're reaching a point where that talent is in just as high a demand as technical people. And to the companies that need enterprise tech sales, the cultures are adapting to value those employees alongside engineers. But when I read articles like this one from the NYT, it just feels naive and entitled. If you want to be involved in determining the direction of the tech industry, provide a reason and a value proposition based in reality or your going to be ignored.