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I'm confused. Google had never hired from a HBCU and she increased it by 300%. Wouldn't that imply that it's still at 0?

elicash 6y ago
THAT was your takeaway? That when she said she took it from 0 HCBU students to 300 students she also incorrectly said 300%?
- pizza234 6y ago
  I had a similar takeaway. The overall poor wording - odd number(s), bad words and grandeur - support the impression that it's a rage post, rather than a (at least attempted) faithful, balanced, report of the fact.
  - elicash 6y ago
    If her take is accurate -- and Google is free to tell their side, too -- why shouldn't she feel rage?
  - duiker101 6y ago
    Of course it's a rage post, she feels awful, she even says it herself that she is still coping. That doesn't mean that it's any less credible, if you discredit it for those reasons the issue will just remain and keep going.
    - beagle3 6y ago
      You are correct, of course. It doesn’t make it less credible, but it also doesn’t make it automatically credible. I have not yet had a chance to read the letter and all commentary, but I hear echos of Max Howell’s “google didn’t hire me because I cannot invert a binary tree”. It was obviously a rage post; it was obviously his impression of the interview (even though “inverting a binary tree”, being an ill-defined operation, is unlikely what they asked him to do). And following that affair, my impression was that he wasn’t hired for reasons other than his programming abilities - being a team player (and specifically not being a loose cannon) matters at least as much. I have no idea what the story is here, but taking one side or the other based on a single post (and prejudice) is not really helpful.
      - username90 6y ago
        It makes her post less credible, since it significantly raises the likelihood that she got fired for being toxic at work instead of whatever reason she didn't even mention.
  - peteretep 6y ago
    "Tone policing is an ad hominem (personal attack) and anti-debate tactic based on criticizing a person for expressing emotion. Tone policing detracts from the validity of a statement by attacking the tone in which it was presented rather than the message itself." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_policing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_policing
    - pizza234 6y ago
      Well, yes and no. This isn't a post about, say, lock-free algorithms, which are, in nature, decoupled from human behavior. Her attitude _is_ part of the contention itself; for example, there's mention of a career block because she was perceived as intimidating, there's frequent self-flattery, there's an unprofessional insulting of the employer, and so on. Her position is supposed to be covered by a people's person. Of course, there is also at least one mention of colleagues' behavior that is, I suppose, straight illegal, and this is alarming. As I wrote, verbatim, this supports an impression. I didn't write she's wrong.
    - username90 6y ago
      When a person complains in a toxic way about being unfairly fired then I'll believe that they got fired for being toxic rather than whatever thing they want to tell you. It isn't tone policing, it is just common sense. In other words, in this scenario her tone adds extra information, discussing it is therefore not an ad-hominem.
    - mam2 6y ago
      Yes but OP is not tone policing to hide the truth. It's literally trying to understand the truth from the messages
- benfrain 6y ago
  LMAO — spot the programmer!
- duiker101 6y ago
  Really, even in the comments of the thread the fact that so many people are hung up on that is absolutely baffling. Of all the awful stuff that is said in there, that's the comment they want to make?
  - mam2 6y ago
    Trying to understand the facts should never be attacked.
    - rolph 6y ago
      yes 1000% we have both had this experience recently
- MaximumYComb 6y ago
  Yes. In her Twitter thread she implies that she was able to judge the HBCU curriculums to be equal to that of white universities while also not understanding the basics of percentages. Maybe I've got outrageous demands but I expect any making decisions on a CS curriculum to understand percentages.
  - dariusj18 6y ago
    Or maybe this is a twitter rant and not a peer reviewed journal article.
- LunaSea 6y ago
  The other takeaway is that she hired 300 students that usually don't meet the required skill levels.
insensible 6y ago
I thought that perhaps she was the first one.
ALittleLight 6y ago
Could be correct, technically she says before her role existed Google had hired zero from HBCU and that she hired 300 increasing the number by 300%. In other words timeline is: Google hires nobody from HBCU, she joins, Google hires 100 apart from and she hires 300. Now, both statements are true. Google hired none before her and she tripled Google's HBCU hiring. Odd that she both hired 300 and increased by 300% so maybe she misstated something, but it's not logically impossible.
dehumanise 6y ago
something doesn't add up! :D

elicash 6y ago

THAT was your takeaway? That when she said she took it from 0 HCBU students to 300 students she also incorrectly said 300%?

pizza234 6y ago
I had a similar takeaway. The overall poor wording - odd number(s), bad words and grandeur - support the impression that it's a rage post, rather than a (at least attempted) faithful, balanced, report of the fact.
- elicash 6y ago
  If her take is accurate -- and Google is free to tell their side, too -- why shouldn't she feel rage?
- duiker101 6y ago
  Of course it's a rage post, she feels awful, she even says it herself that she is still coping. That doesn't mean that it's any less credible, if you discredit it for those reasons the issue will just remain and keep going.
  - beagle3 6y ago
    You are correct, of course. It doesn’t make it less credible, but it also doesn’t make it automatically credible. I have not yet had a chance to read the letter and all commentary, but I hear echos of Max Howell’s “google didn’t hire me because I cannot invert a binary tree”. It was obviously a rage post; it was obviously his impression of the interview (even though “inverting a binary tree”, being an ill-defined operation, is unlikely what they asked him to do). And following that affair, my impression was that he wasn’t hired for reasons other than his programming abilities - being a team player (and specifically not being a loose cannon) matters at least as much. I have no idea what the story is here, but taking one side or the other based on a single post (and prejudice) is not really helpful.
    - username90 6y ago
      It makes her post less credible, since it significantly raises the likelihood that she got fired for being toxic at work instead of whatever reason she didn't even mention.
- peteretep 6y ago
  "Tone policing is an ad hominem (personal attack) and anti-debate tactic based on criticizing a person for expressing emotion. Tone policing detracts from the validity of a statement by attacking the tone in which it was presented rather than the message itself." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_policing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_policing
  - pizza234 6y ago
    Well, yes and no. This isn't a post about, say, lock-free algorithms, which are, in nature, decoupled from human behavior. Her attitude _is_ part of the contention itself; for example, there's mention of a career block because she was perceived as intimidating, there's frequent self-flattery, there's an unprofessional insulting of the employer, and so on. Her position is supposed to be covered by a people's person. Of course, there is also at least one mention of colleagues' behavior that is, I suppose, straight illegal, and this is alarming. As I wrote, verbatim, this supports an impression. I didn't write she's wrong.
  - username90 6y ago
    When a person complains in a toxic way about being unfairly fired then I'll believe that they got fired for being toxic rather than whatever thing they want to tell you. It isn't tone policing, it is just common sense. In other words, in this scenario her tone adds extra information, discussing it is therefore not an ad-hominem.
  - mam2 6y ago
    Yes but OP is not tone policing to hide the truth. It's literally trying to understand the truth from the messages
benfrain 6y ago
LMAO — spot the programmer!
duiker101 6y ago
Really, even in the comments of the thread the fact that so many people are hung up on that is absolutely baffling. Of all the awful stuff that is said in there, that's the comment they want to make?
- mam2 6y ago
  Trying to understand the facts should never be attacked.
  - rolph 6y ago
    yes 1000% we have both had this experience recently
MaximumYComb 6y ago
Yes. In her Twitter thread she implies that she was able to judge the HBCU curriculums to be equal to that of white universities while also not understanding the basics of percentages. Maybe I've got outrageous demands but I expect any making decisions on a CS curriculum to understand percentages.
- dariusj18 6y ago
  Or maybe this is a twitter rant and not a peer reviewed journal article.
LunaSea 6y ago
The other takeaway is that she hired 300 students that usually don't meet the required skill levels.

insensible 6y ago

I thought that perhaps she was the first one.

ALittleLight 6y ago

Could be correct, technically she says before her role existed Google had hired zero from HBCU and that she hired 300 increasing the number by 300%. In other words timeline is: Google hires nobody from HBCU, she joins, Google hires 100 apart from and she hires 300. Now, both statements are true. Google hired none before her and she tripled Google's HBCU hiring. Odd that she both hired 300 and increased by 300% so maybe she misstated something, but it's not logically impossible.

dehumanise 6y ago

something doesn't add up! :D