5 ms·

No you probably wouldn't, as Silicon Valley attracts the top X% of the tech population due to the pay, the status of the companies hiring, VC money floating aro

No you probably wouldn't, as Silicon Valley attracts the top X% of the tech population due to the pay, the status of the companies hiring, VC money floating around, etc.

jonathankoren 8y ago
Are you saying the top X% is racially skewed? Because all things being equal, if the only difference between the two groups is color of their skin, I'd say that was a textbook definition of racial bias.
- strken 8y ago
  The question isn't whether there's racial bias anywhere in the pipeline from conception to employment, because there clearly is. It's whether there's racial bias in the SV companies themselves, or whether it happens exclusively in earlier stages.
  - jonathankoren 8y ago
    He's explicitly rejecting the notion that the already skewed nationwide tech population is relevant. One would think, that if I was a large company recruiting nationwide, with brand name that's a resume magnet, I would be drawing from the skewed nationwide tech population, because that's what's entering the pipeline. If controlling for geographic factors, that's not what's coming out, something looks amiss. He explicitly is saying that "talent" is determining factor. That seems odd, since that would be conditionally independent.
- zepto 8y ago
  All things are not equal. Black Americans as a group are poorer than other racial groups save perhaps native Americans, and have worse educational outcomes on average. Is this the result of institutional racism? I’d say so, but it also can be a cause or underrepresentation in higher skilled employment, even if the employers are not biased in their selection processes.
  - jonathankoren 8y ago
    Yes there are population biases in the hiring and funding data. No one denies that. What he said was "the top x% of the tech population". The tech distribution as a whole is already skewed. If talent was independent of race, you'd expect an equally skewed distribution at whatever talent threshold you set. That's how conditional independence works. His statement is implying that is not true, and that if you set the talent threshold high, you get a different racial distribution. That's a very important distinction, if that is indeed what he's saying. I really think this is what he's saying, because he's explicitly stating that large companies that recruit nationwide should be have a population equal to the skewed nationwide tech population, because they higher only "the top x% of the tech population". Not confounding geographic reasons (i.e. someone doesn't want to move away from their family), but specifically talent reasons.
  - jameane 8y ago
    This also plays a role. It would be important to note that the Bay Area also has a very different dynamic than let's say the south or the easy coast where there is also a much longer history of middle and upper middle class black families. For example DC has a huge college educated black population because the government was one of the few places you could get a well paying as a black person with less discrimination. So lots of people decided to settle there. Atlanta has a lot of historically black colleges - creating a pool of educated workers. In CA, most of the black population came over as blue collar workers in the military, shipyards, and manufacturing. Whereas most of the Asian population is made up of professional worker or affluent educated immigrants. Yes I am generalizing here. We don't do a good job of carving out the differences for Asian groups. East Asians tend to be super educated, southeast asians tend to not be, and the outcomes are also widely different.
axaxs 8y ago
Ignoring the overt racism in this statement, it's just not true. I'll agree that a decent percentage of the top X percent are in the bay area due to pay, but nothing close to all of them. Saying so is an insult to developers not only nationwide, but worldwide...
- bluedevil2k 8y ago
  "overt racism"? I didn't mention race at all in my statement, please calm down SJW. I never said that ALL the top talent is in SV, I said it attracts that kind of talent. Big difference. If you want to discuss race, let's look at perhaps the best coding college in the United State, MIT. We can probably all agree MIT produces some top talent programmers, right? I know HN is typically anti-college, but I think we can agree on that. 30% Asian, 9% black, and 15% Hispanic. That's 5x higher Asian percentage than the general US population and slightly lower for both black and Hispanic. If that's the pool that companies in SV are pulling from, then of course their diversity numbers won't match the US population as a whole. Look at the colleges near SV too - Caltech (43% Asian), Stanford (22% Asian), Berkley (42%).
  - axaxs 8y ago
    Dude, this statement - No you probably wouldn't, as Silicon Valley attracts the top X% of the tech population Could literally be summarized/rephrased as - Silicon valley doesn't have a lot of black people, because it attracts top talent only. I do presume you didn't mean it that way, which is why I didn't expand on it. But I want to point out that is the impression given. One could argue that for a myriad of reasons, probably mostly money(again, for its own reasons), some minorities are underrepresented in the best tech schools and/or do not have the funds to up and move to the coast. That's an absolutely fair assessment. But I wouldn't assume that they are automatically not 'top talent' for those reasons. In my experience, the bay has a pretty low signal to noise ratio. Cheers.

No you probably wouldn't, as Silicon Valley attracts the top X% of the tech population due to the pay, the status of the companies hiring, VC money floating around, etc.

jonathankoren 8y ago

Are you saying the top X% is racially skewed? Because all things being equal, if the only difference between the two groups is color of their skin, I'd say that was a textbook definition of racial bias.

strken 8y ago
The question isn't whether there's racial bias anywhere in the pipeline from conception to employment, because there clearly is. It's whether there's racial bias in the SV companies themselves, or whether it happens exclusively in earlier stages.
- jonathankoren 8y ago
  He's explicitly rejecting the notion that the already skewed nationwide tech population is relevant. One would think, that if I was a large company recruiting nationwide, with brand name that's a resume magnet, I would be drawing from the skewed nationwide tech population, because that's what's entering the pipeline. If controlling for geographic factors, that's not what's coming out, something looks amiss. He explicitly is saying that "talent" is determining factor. That seems odd, since that would be conditionally independent.
zepto 8y ago
All things are not equal. Black Americans as a group are poorer than other racial groups save perhaps native Americans, and have worse educational outcomes on average. Is this the result of institutional racism? I’d say so, but it also can be a cause or underrepresentation in higher skilled employment, even if the employers are not biased in their selection processes.
- jonathankoren 8y ago
  Yes there are population biases in the hiring and funding data. No one denies that. What he said was "the top x% of the tech population". The tech distribution as a whole is already skewed. If talent was independent of race, you'd expect an equally skewed distribution at whatever talent threshold you set. That's how conditional independence works. His statement is implying that is not true, and that if you set the talent threshold high, you get a different racial distribution. That's a very important distinction, if that is indeed what he's saying. I really think this is what he's saying, because he's explicitly stating that large companies that recruit nationwide should be have a population equal to the skewed nationwide tech population, because they higher only "the top x% of the tech population". Not confounding geographic reasons (i.e. someone doesn't want to move away from their family), but specifically talent reasons.
- jameane 8y ago
  This also plays a role. It would be important to note that the Bay Area also has a very different dynamic than let's say the south or the easy coast where there is also a much longer history of middle and upper middle class black families. For example DC has a huge college educated black population because the government was one of the few places you could get a well paying as a black person with less discrimination. So lots of people decided to settle there. Atlanta has a lot of historically black colleges - creating a pool of educated workers. In CA, most of the black population came over as blue collar workers in the military, shipyards, and manufacturing. Whereas most of the Asian population is made up of professional worker or affluent educated immigrants. Yes I am generalizing here. We don't do a good job of carving out the differences for Asian groups. East Asians tend to be super educated, southeast asians tend to not be, and the outcomes are also widely different.

axaxs 8y ago

Ignoring the overt racism in this statement, it's just not true. I'll agree that a decent percentage of the top X percent are in the bay area due to pay, but nothing close to all of them. Saying so is an insult to developers not only nationwide, but worldwide...

bluedevil2k 8y ago
"overt racism"? I didn't mention race at all in my statement, please calm down SJW. I never said that ALL the top talent is in SV, I said it attracts that kind of talent. Big difference. If you want to discuss race, let's look at perhaps the best coding college in the United State, MIT. We can probably all agree MIT produces some top talent programmers, right? I know HN is typically anti-college, but I think we can agree on that. 30% Asian, 9% black, and 15% Hispanic. That's 5x higher Asian percentage than the general US population and slightly lower for both black and Hispanic. If that's the pool that companies in SV are pulling from, then of course their diversity numbers won't match the US population as a whole. Look at the colleges near SV too - Caltech (43% Asian), Stanford (22% Asian), Berkley (42%).
- axaxs 8y ago
  Dude, this statement - No you probably wouldn't, as Silicon Valley attracts the top X% of the tech population Could literally be summarized/rephrased as - Silicon valley doesn't have a lot of black people, because it attracts top talent only. I do presume you didn't mean it that way, which is why I didn't expand on it. But I want to point out that is the impression given. One could argue that for a myriad of reasons, probably mostly money(again, for its own reasons), some minorities are underrepresented in the best tech schools and/or do not have the funds to up and move to the coast. That's an absolutely fair assessment. But I wouldn't assume that they are automatically not 'top talent' for those reasons. In my experience, the bay has a pretty low signal to noise ratio. Cheers.