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I read a summary of the situation and it seemed to me like both sides handled it poorly. It sounded like there was indeed a lot of activism, which is something

I read a summary of the situation and it seemed to me like both sides handled it poorly. It sounded like there was indeed a lot of activism, which is something you don't really want in a workplace, but the C-levels didn't handle it terribly graciously either, what with looking at past logs to find an employee's messages. It's more than a little impolite, I think. I have to admit there's a certain elegance in filtering out political people by banning public discussions of politics, though. I especially cringed at this bit: > Jane Yang, a data analyst at the company, told me that restricting internal conversations would negatively affect diversity and inclusion efforts. For example, she said, the company’s profit-sharing plan gave more profits to people who have longer tenure — a group that is majority white and male. Making that discussion off limits internally could ensure that inequality in profit sharing becomes a structural feature of the company. It's not like they had a rule that white males get more money, it's a seniority rule! It seems unreasonable to me to extrapolate that to systemic racism in the company.

ajharrison 5y ago
I think that’s the entire point DHH was attempting to make: internal issues don’t need to be connected with broader issues like colonialism and racism. That senior execs making more money is due to their tenure and merit, and not because they’re white and male.
dsr_ 5y ago
"It's not like they had a rule that white males get more money, it's a seniority rule! It seems unreasonable to me to extrapolate that to systemic racism in the company." That's exactly where systemic discrimination originates. Hardly anyone wakes up in the morning and decides that it's a good day to oppress G people. They wake up in the morning having some amount of privilege, discover that it might be threatened, and their actions that day try to avoid reduction of privilege, even if it means treating G people unfairly. It's not anti-G people at first, it's just pro-self. Over years this becomes a de facto systemic discrimination, generally without a rule that explicitly says "we don't want G coworkers". Instead there are rules that mean that everybody works on G holidays, the microwaves can't be used for "smelly" food (and guess what, all G food is "smelly" by default), and of course, rule is by seniority in the company which just happens not to have any senior G people in it. Somehow fewer G people get hired, and those that do are in low-status positions. You can pick your own value for G; it could be gender or nationality or ethnicity or religion or skin color or whatever. It works the same way.
- StavrosK 5y ago
  In what way do you think that a rule like "the people who have been here the longest should get a bigger share of the company" is unfair to a group of people that is segmented by anything other than "time with the company"?
  - runarberg 5y ago
    The answer is remarkably simple given the nuances of the topic: The rule that “the people who have been here the longest should get a bigger share of the company” is unfair in a society which has a history of segregation that favored one group over another, and still is dealing with the aftermath of said segregation. To justify: The favored group has more chance of being an early hire and therefore having better current benefits. On a large scale this leads to systematic discrimination which is not cool.
    - StavrosK 5y ago
      So the objection is that rules that don't attempt to fix biases are inherently "biased by default", even though the rule doesn't actually contain bias itself?
      - runarberg 5y ago
        That is more like a corollary to the rule. If society is biased, and you don’t adjust for said bias, then you will get biased results.
        StavrosK 5y ago
        Right, but that uses some sleight of hand to make the claim that you can/should adjust for bias everywhere instead of at the source, which isn't something everyone finds fair.
        runarberg 5y ago
JPKab 5y ago
I'm at a startup (tiny) now, and thanks to DIE bonuses and hiring emphasis n at FAANGs, diverse candidates have never been more unaffordable. Thoroughly middle of the road, PHP programmers who can't do front end at all, demanding large equity stake AND a salary higher than anyone else at company. They are just valuing themselves at market for a black engineer. It's a shame, because in the chance my company (we are already doubling enterprise customers every 3 months) does well, some journalist will comment on how early employees are skewed towards white/male. (I should note that founder/ceo is a woman who was so amazing when I interviewed that I took a pay cut for more equity, cuz she's a beast who I'm convinced will lead our company to success)
- predaking 5y ago
  Guess the experiences here are pretty diverse. I’ve not had a problem hiring or competing with FAANG for excellent+qualified female / non-white talent. What’s the current gender makeup % of your engineering team, if I can ask? As well, what’s the non white makeup of the engineering leadership and overall leadership team? I found it got easier the less that ratio skewed towards 100%M engineering team and 100% white leadership team :)
  - JPKab 5y ago
    Current engineering team is 2 women, 2 men. 2 over 50, 2 under 40. All white. Leadership team is mostly female, only 1 male, who is CTO. 1 is Latina, others white. In the past, I joined a company where entire leadership team was Indian and male. I never would have thought to not work there because they didn't share my race. That would have been bigoted.
    - predaking 5y ago
      I elaborated on this more in my other response but: “ I never would have thought to not work there because they didn't share my race. That would have been bigoted.” There’s a wealth of factors that go into a choice to work somewhere, and someone not choosing to work at your company because they don’t see themselves represented isn’t necessarily bigotry, but then also wanting an assurance of a safe space and not always knowing whether it will be. I wish I could tell you otherwise but I’ve had these conversations with a wealth of marginalized groups over my career and the teams I’ve built, so it’s not unusual. It’s not a “oh I don’t want to work with these people because I’m [x] and they’re [y]” matter the majority of the time. It’s more often “man, I’m going to be the only [x] on a team of 30 [y]s” which is often culturally uncomfortable for a lot of people. And yes sometimes on occasion it is “man, I don’t want to be working with a company of 10 [y]s where I’m the only [x]” or “if the executive team is all or majority [y]s, do I know for sure there’s career advancement opportunities here?” We do have a rampant amount of sexism, racism, etc in our field (just like many others) and so that is something unfortunately people sometimes suspect. I’m not at all saying that this is the situation at your company - far from it - just saying the choices for people are most often verrrrrry far from bigotry. Not sure of your background but it’s also not too hard for a CIS white male to not sweat working on any other team composition (say, all Indian) vs the reverse, because hey - even if you’re paying a pioneer tax, you’re probably not paying it for long. There’s a lot of advantages that group has that are often taken for granted. :)
waheoo 5y ago
White males are more likely to be in a position of privilege, able to risk their career prospects on a risky startup. It's racism all the way down why don't you understand this? Wow I was just trolling but this is unreal https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27005608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27005608

ajharrison 5y ago

I think that’s the entire point DHH was attempting to make: internal issues don’t need to be connected with broader issues like colonialism and racism. That senior execs making more money is due to their tenure and merit, and not because they’re white and male.

dsr_ 5y ago

"It's not like they had a rule that white males get more money, it's a seniority rule! It seems unreasonable to me to extrapolate that to systemic racism in the company." That's exactly where systemic discrimination originates. Hardly anyone wakes up in the morning and decides that it's a good day to oppress G people. They wake up in the morning having some amount of privilege, discover that it might be threatened, and their actions that day try to avoid reduction of privilege, even if it means treating G people unfairly. It's not anti-G people at first, it's just pro-self. Over years this becomes a de facto systemic discrimination, generally without a rule that explicitly says "we don't want G coworkers". Instead there are rules that mean that everybody works on G holidays, the microwaves can't be used for "smelly" food (and guess what, all G food is "smelly" by default), and of course, rule is by seniority in the company which just happens not to have any senior G people in it. Somehow fewer G people get hired, and those that do are in low-status positions. You can pick your own value for G; it could be gender or nationality or ethnicity or religion or skin color or whatever. It works the same way.

StavrosK 5y ago
In what way do you think that a rule like "the people who have been here the longest should get a bigger share of the company" is unfair to a group of people that is segmented by anything other than "time with the company"?
- runarberg 5y ago
  The answer is remarkably simple given the nuances of the topic: The rule that “the people who have been here the longest should get a bigger share of the company” is unfair in a society which has a history of segregation that favored one group over another, and still is dealing with the aftermath of said segregation. To justify: The favored group has more chance of being an early hire and therefore having better current benefits. On a large scale this leads to systematic discrimination which is not cool.
  - StavrosK 5y ago
    So the objection is that rules that don't attempt to fix biases are inherently "biased by default", even though the rule doesn't actually contain bias itself?
    - runarberg 5y ago
      That is more like a corollary to the rule. If society is biased, and you don’t adjust for said bias, then you will get biased results.
      - StavrosK 5y ago
        Right, but that uses some sleight of hand to make the claim that you can/should adjust for bias everywhere instead of at the source, which isn't something everyone finds fair.
        runarberg 5y ago

JPKab 5y ago

I'm at a startup (tiny) now, and thanks to DIE bonuses and hiring emphasis n at FAANGs, diverse candidates have never been more unaffordable. Thoroughly middle of the road, PHP programmers who can't do front end at all, demanding large equity stake AND a salary higher than anyone else at company. They are just valuing themselves at market for a black engineer. It's a shame, because in the chance my company (we are already doubling enterprise customers every 3 months) does well, some journalist will comment on how early employees are skewed towards white/male. (I should note that founder/ceo is a woman who was so amazing when I interviewed that I took a pay cut for more equity, cuz she's a beast who I'm convinced will lead our company to success)

predaking 5y ago
Guess the experiences here are pretty diverse. I’ve not had a problem hiring or competing with FAANG for excellent+qualified female / non-white talent. What’s the current gender makeup % of your engineering team, if I can ask? As well, what’s the non white makeup of the engineering leadership and overall leadership team? I found it got easier the less that ratio skewed towards 100%M engineering team and 100% white leadership team :)
- JPKab 5y ago
  Current engineering team is 2 women, 2 men. 2 over 50, 2 under 40. All white. Leadership team is mostly female, only 1 male, who is CTO. 1 is Latina, others white. In the past, I joined a company where entire leadership team was Indian and male. I never would have thought to not work there because they didn't share my race. That would have been bigoted.
  - predaking 5y ago
    I elaborated on this more in my other response but: “ I never would have thought to not work there because they didn't share my race. That would have been bigoted.” There’s a wealth of factors that go into a choice to work somewhere, and someone not choosing to work at your company because they don’t see themselves represented isn’t necessarily bigotry, but then also wanting an assurance of a safe space and not always knowing whether it will be. I wish I could tell you otherwise but I’ve had these conversations with a wealth of marginalized groups over my career and the teams I’ve built, so it’s not unusual. It’s not a “oh I don’t want to work with these people because I’m [x] and they’re [y]” matter the majority of the time. It’s more often “man, I’m going to be the only [x] on a team of 30 [y]s” which is often culturally uncomfortable for a lot of people. And yes sometimes on occasion it is “man, I don’t want to be working with a company of 10 [y]s where I’m the only [x]” or “if the executive team is all or majority [y]s, do I know for sure there’s career advancement opportunities here?” We do have a rampant amount of sexism, racism, etc in our field (just like many others) and so that is something unfortunately people sometimes suspect. I’m not at all saying that this is the situation at your company - far from it - just saying the choices for people are most often verrrrrry far from bigotry. Not sure of your background but it’s also not too hard for a CIS white male to not sweat working on any other team composition (say, all Indian) vs the reverse, because hey - even if you’re paying a pioneer tax, you’re probably not paying it for long. There’s a lot of advantages that group has that are often taken for granted. :)

waheoo 5y ago

White males are more likely to be in a position of privilege, able to risk their career prospects on a risky startup. It's racism all the way down why don't you understand this? Wow I was just trolling but this is unreal https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27005608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27005608