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Glad to hear Tesla is adding more women. I truly think women in leadership are a grossly underutilized resource. EDIT: Doubly so women of color. If anyone needs

Glad to hear Tesla is adding more women. I truly think women in leadership are a grossly underutilized resource. EDIT: Doubly so women of color. If anyone needs a different perspective, it’s Elon. I hope he listens.

Robotbeat 8y ago
Wow, huh, my comment was down-voted. My theory is that innate talent (if there is such a thing) is probably roughly evenly distributed among the sexes and races, so in fields which are dominated by white men, you're actually at an advantage if you manage to hire women and/or minorities as you are able to hire some of the very best humans effectively at an enormous discount (of course, if everyone did this, the discount would disappear and we'd have meritocratic equality, which is kind of what we want). Plus it increases the solution space you're able to efficiently explore due to a wider range of perspective and background. I have had several women bosses, and they're pretty much all great. We'll know when we've achieved gender equality when it's just as common to have a crappy female boss as a male boss. Oh, and folks suggesting we look at "objective" metrics alone... Well, there's no such thing. When hiring folks, there's an enormous amount of information that just can't be known at the time. You really do have to look at the outcome to judge how "objective" you're actually being, on net. . "Am I pretty much just hiring people who look like me?" There's two answers to that question: "Well, obviously people who look like me are naturally better than everyone else." Or, my perspective: "I'm probably missing something important so I should cast a wider net."
- erikpukinskis 8y ago
  I share your theory. Which points to a business opportunity creating diversity-friendly companies. The trouble is, the world is still sexist and racist. So while you’d end up with a more capable workforce, your company would also be disadvantaged at every turn. Your sales people would be looked over by clients, your bizdev reps would be disrespected by partners, etc. I think to exploit your insight profitably, you need to create an n-sided market of many companies all committed to diversity. That opens you to other attacks, like how the Black Panthers were infiltrated by the CIA for trying to build a black separatist economy. N-sided market problems are also really hard. Although I think this one can be solved with some clever software infrastructure. Once we start seeing some really capable “Ubers of Everything” these kinds of people plays become more feasible.
- belorn 8y ago
  > probably roughly evenly distributed among the sexes and races While some studies disagree, we can assume its true for the sake for discussion. > so in fields which are dominated by white men, you're actually at an advantage if you manage to hire women and/or minorities as you are able to hire some of the very best humans effectively at an enormous discount There is a logical error here. The assumption is that the missing non-white men in the evenly distributed population would not be working. Instead what we see in countries like Sweden is that people segregate, so you got the non-white men dominating some fields, and white men dominating other fields, and so forth. A field which is dominated by white men that want non-white men has to compete with fields that are dominated by non-white men. Similar, there is no discount to get white men into fields that are dominated by non-white men because they have to compete with fields that are dominated by white men. > if everyone did this, the discount would disappear and we'd have meritocratic equality Logical error #2. If everything was equal we would not see every field being exactly 50% men and women, with exact race distribution as proportional to the population. Randomness would still apply. Unless the population is infinitive you will get random variation.
justicezyx 8y ago
No, the person is valuable because it’s own independent thoughts leadership and vision etc. It has little to do with gender. Please do not pay attention to gender and potentially downplay woman’s own intellectual power.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Please do not pay attention to gender and potentially downplay woman’s own intellectual power. Right. Valuing people more or less depending on what chromosomes they have or how the flesh they have under their clothes is formed is wrong and dehumanizing. People should be valued by what they do and make, not by how they are born and raised. This is how you separate real social justice from embittered identitarians posing as "social justice" -- are they truly against valuing people on the basis of identity, or do they use and exploit such tribal impulses for their own ends?
  - retsibsi 8y ago
    > Valuing people more or less depending on what chromosomes they have or how the flesh they have under their clothes is formed is wrong and dehumanizing. People should be valued by what they do and make, not by how they are born and raised. This depends on context though, right? We all have our blind spots and our areas of unusual insight, and these are shaped partly by our life experience, which is shaped partly by our gender, race, economic background, etc. So if a group consists almost entirely of men (or women, or people who grew up rich, or whatever), it might genuinely have some avoidable blind spots and biases. Treating women as superior or inferior to men is dumb, but caring about gender balance can make good sense. [edit: the key point, which I didn't make explicit, is that this holds even if there was no significant bias in the hiring process that produced the imbalance. People who are great choices individually might not make the best team, if their strengths and weaknesses are correlated rather than complementary.]
    - justicezyx 8y ago
      No, you got things in reverse order. First, you make the determination that people should be assessed based on objective metrics. Second, you then try to correct (unconscious) bias with necessary metric-correcting, like gender balance. If you put gender balance as the underlying truth, and then to optimize your process to make it work, you will see various issues that eventually sabotage your goals.

Robotbeat 8y ago

Wow, huh, my comment was down-voted. My theory is that innate talent (if there is such a thing) is probably roughly evenly distributed among the sexes and races, so in fields which are dominated by white men, you're actually at an advantage if you manage to hire women and/or minorities as you are able to hire some of the very best humans effectively at an enormous discount (of course, if everyone did this, the discount would disappear and we'd have meritocratic equality, which is kind of what we want). Plus it increases the solution space you're able to efficiently explore due to a wider range of perspective and background. I have had several women bosses, and they're pretty much all great. We'll know when we've achieved gender equality when it's just as common to have a crappy female boss as a male boss. Oh, and folks suggesting we look at "objective" metrics alone... Well, there's no such thing. When hiring folks, there's an enormous amount of information that just can't be known at the time. You really do have to look at the outcome to judge how "objective" you're actually being, on net. . "Am I pretty much just hiring people who look like me?" There's two answers to that question: "Well, obviously people who look like me are naturally better than everyone else." Or, my perspective: "I'm probably missing something important so I should cast a wider net."

erikpukinskis 8y ago
I share your theory. Which points to a business opportunity creating diversity-friendly companies. The trouble is, the world is still sexist and racist. So while you’d end up with a more capable workforce, your company would also be disadvantaged at every turn. Your sales people would be looked over by clients, your bizdev reps would be disrespected by partners, etc. I think to exploit your insight profitably, you need to create an n-sided market of many companies all committed to diversity. That opens you to other attacks, like how the Black Panthers were infiltrated by the CIA for trying to build a black separatist economy. N-sided market problems are also really hard. Although I think this one can be solved with some clever software infrastructure. Once we start seeing some really capable “Ubers of Everything” these kinds of people plays become more feasible.
belorn 8y ago
> probably roughly evenly distributed among the sexes and races While some studies disagree, we can assume its true for the sake for discussion. > so in fields which are dominated by white men, you're actually at an advantage if you manage to hire women and/or minorities as you are able to hire some of the very best humans effectively at an enormous discount There is a logical error here. The assumption is that the missing non-white men in the evenly distributed population would not be working. Instead what we see in countries like Sweden is that people segregate, so you got the non-white men dominating some fields, and white men dominating other fields, and so forth. A field which is dominated by white men that want non-white men has to compete with fields that are dominated by non-white men. Similar, there is no discount to get white men into fields that are dominated by non-white men because they have to compete with fields that are dominated by white men. > if everyone did this, the discount would disappear and we'd have meritocratic equality Logical error #2. If everything was equal we would not see every field being exactly 50% men and women, with exact race distribution as proportional to the population. Randomness would still apply. Unless the population is infinitive you will get random variation.

justicezyx 8y ago

No, the person is valuable because it’s own independent thoughts leadership and vision etc. It has little to do with gender. Please do not pay attention to gender and potentially downplay woman’s own intellectual power.

stcredzero 8y ago
Please do not pay attention to gender and potentially downplay woman’s own intellectual power. Right. Valuing people more or less depending on what chromosomes they have or how the flesh they have under their clothes is formed is wrong and dehumanizing. People should be valued by what they do and make, not by how they are born and raised. This is how you separate real social justice from embittered identitarians posing as "social justice" -- are they truly against valuing people on the basis of identity, or do they use and exploit such tribal impulses for their own ends?
- retsibsi 8y ago
  > Valuing people more or less depending on what chromosomes they have or how the flesh they have under their clothes is formed is wrong and dehumanizing. People should be valued by what they do and make, not by how they are born and raised. This depends on context though, right? We all have our blind spots and our areas of unusual insight, and these are shaped partly by our life experience, which is shaped partly by our gender, race, economic background, etc. So if a group consists almost entirely of men (or women, or people who grew up rich, or whatever), it might genuinely have some avoidable blind spots and biases. Treating women as superior or inferior to men is dumb, but caring about gender balance can make good sense. [edit: the key point, which I didn't make explicit, is that this holds even if there was no significant bias in the hiring process that produced the imbalance. People who are great choices individually might not make the best team, if their strengths and weaknesses are correlated rather than complementary.]
  - justicezyx 8y ago
    No, you got things in reverse order. First, you make the determination that people should be assessed based on objective metrics. Second, you then try to correct (unconscious) bias with necessary metric-correcting, like gender balance. If you put gender balance as the underlying truth, and then to optimize your process to make it work, you will see various issues that eventually sabotage your goals.