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If you want to ignore that there's an inherent bias towards companies being started more often by people of certain social or racial profiles, sure. But you'd b

by lagadu 5y ago

If you want to ignore that there's an inherent bias towards companies being started more often by people of certain social or racial profiles, sure. But you'd be willingly be ignoring it, and that's why systemic problems are so insidious to fix, they require a more active analysis than "I'm not actively trying to discriminate someone".

stavros 5y ago
> If you want to ignore that there's an inherent bias towards companies being started more often by people of certain social or racial profiles, sure. Right, so it's not that the rule is biased, it's just that there's general bias because of other things and this rule isn't compensating for it, which are two very different things. Equality of result is, by definition, a way to bias things towards a different group, and as a proponent of equality of opportunity, I think that's not a good way to build a just society. That's why I'm against trying to "fix" rules that aren't biased in the first place (ie rules which people who support equality of result consider "not biased enough the other way").
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- etruong42 5y ago
  "Making that discussion off limits internally could ensure that inequality in profit sharing becomes a structural feature of the company." The main concern seems to stem from making the discussion off limits. No "fixes" have been proposed. The first step to solving a problem at all is to admit that there is a problem. Being apolitical is privilege. For the unprivileged, simply defending ones rights and dignity is a political issue.
unishark 5y ago
Aren't a majority of startups founded by immigrants?
- avereveard 5y ago
  Only when it suits the narrative. Also, white or light skinned immigrant don't count, of course, because in the oppression olimpic doesn't matter what your past history is, only what group you belong to in the present.
  - runarberg 5y ago
    I think you are being downvoted because of HN’s inherent bias on topics regarding diversity and inclusion (although the flamebaity tone might also be at fault here). But I think this point needs reiterating as it is important to the discussion at hand. I my self am an immigrant that don’t consider me self a member of any minority and I can attest to this. I don’t experience discrimination in my day-to-day activities, nor on the job market. The only discrimination I experience is what I inherit from USA’s immigration policies. I.e. I have more restricted international travel and my visa is tied to my employer (which I would imagine would be far worse of an experience if I would belong to a minority). And this makes sense given the sibling threads. Being from a majority group in a country where I have good access to quality education, health care and other services, as well as good job opportunities. This indeed gives me a privilege that I take with me as I migrate. Non-immigrants that have been rejected these opportunities don’t have it this good. In my experience immigration status alone is not enough to put into a group that has increased risk of being discriminated against.
    - avereveard 5y ago
      Makes me mad because wife is an immigrant, but of the wrong kind - light skinned, came here legally - and while she grew in disadvantageous situations much like everyone else reaching the shores illegally, she got exactly zero support from the state, while everyone else was receiving welfare, free healthcare and privileged access to education and the job market. When we eventually settled she had a long backlog of health issues, which we had to pay out of pocket to the tune of dozens thousands, because the mythical European free healthcare is only for the extremely poor or the tax evaders. So fuck people towing the line of "we help immigrants because they are resources" - there are few feel good resources that are ultimately discriminatory and capriciously allocated to the most noisy groups, leaving people in need screwed because activists don't fill their diversity quota cards below a certain melatonin concentration
JPKab 5y ago
The woman owned and founded startup I work for is completely unable to hire the diverse candidates we have interviewed because they are completely unaffordable at a startup. Why is this? Because executives at various massive tech companies are getting massive bonuses connected to how many diverse people they hire. They give lavish salaries and large chunks of equity to people who they otherwise would not. Somebody who is getting offers like this is naturally going to have all of their incentives misaligned for joining a startup. My company's back end code is Java and Python and we interviewed an engineer who I was willing to teach both of these languages to. She happened to be a black woman and only new PHP using the laravel stack. Zero experience doing front end coding and not really a standout when it came to databases and barely new cloud. She asked for a large equity stake, but also wanted a salary of $195,000. We are not at all in the Bay area and this salary is completely ridiculous for somebody who also wants a lot of equity and has very few skills that connect to our code base. She was hired at Amazon for some rather boring role on an internal team that helps the data centers meet energy efficiency requirements by building applications that are essentially dashboards for internal decision makers. We actually talk on regular basis now because I give her some advice for learning Python. She was simply negotiating based on her market value and her own fiscal priorities and made a sound well-reasoned decision. If my company hits it big one day which of course is typically not high probability, people like you will show up and say that we are systemically racist. Ironically the twisted incentives at these massive companies are creating this issue. As long as women are significantly less interested in jobs involving things just like men are significantly less interested in jobs involving people we're going to have to admit that trying to bring things to 50/50 proportions is going to create weird incentives that will further create side effects.
- jcadam 5y ago
  > She asked for a large equity stake, but also wanted a salary of $195,000. That level of pay is reserved for absolute top talent with at least 15+ years of experience everywhere I’ve worked. Only a major corporation could afford to waste that kind of money on a junior level dev.
  - 1980phipsi 5y ago

by lagadu 5y ago

stavros 5y ago

> If you want to ignore that there's an inherent bias towards companies being started more often by people of certain social or racial profiles, sure. Right, so it's not that the rule is biased, it's just that there's general bias because of other things and this rule isn't compensating for it, which are two very different things. Equality of result is, by definition, a way to bias things towards a different group, and as a proponent of equality of opportunity, I think that's not a good way to build a just society. That's why I'm against trying to "fix" rules that aren't biased in the first place (ie rules which people who support equality of result consider "not biased enough the other way").

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
etruong42 5y ago
"Making that discussion off limits internally could ensure that inequality in profit sharing becomes a structural feature of the company." The main concern seems to stem from making the discussion off limits. No "fixes" have been proposed. The first step to solving a problem at all is to admit that there is a problem. Being apolitical is privilege. For the unprivileged, simply defending ones rights and dignity is a political issue.

unishark 5y ago

Aren't a majority of startups founded by immigrants?

avereveard 5y ago
Only when it suits the narrative. Also, white or light skinned immigrant don't count, of course, because in the oppression olimpic doesn't matter what your past history is, only what group you belong to in the present.
- runarberg 5y ago
  I think you are being downvoted because of HN’s inherent bias on topics regarding diversity and inclusion (although the flamebaity tone might also be at fault here). But I think this point needs reiterating as it is important to the discussion at hand. I my self am an immigrant that don’t consider me self a member of any minority and I can attest to this. I don’t experience discrimination in my day-to-day activities, nor on the job market. The only discrimination I experience is what I inherit from USA’s immigration policies. I.e. I have more restricted international travel and my visa is tied to my employer (which I would imagine would be far worse of an experience if I would belong to a minority). And this makes sense given the sibling threads. Being from a majority group in a country where I have good access to quality education, health care and other services, as well as good job opportunities. This indeed gives me a privilege that I take with me as I migrate. Non-immigrants that have been rejected these opportunities don’t have it this good. In my experience immigration status alone is not enough to put into a group that has increased risk of being discriminated against.
  - avereveard 5y ago
    Makes me mad because wife is an immigrant, but of the wrong kind - light skinned, came here legally - and while she grew in disadvantageous situations much like everyone else reaching the shores illegally, she got exactly zero support from the state, while everyone else was receiving welfare, free healthcare and privileged access to education and the job market. When we eventually settled she had a long backlog of health issues, which we had to pay out of pocket to the tune of dozens thousands, because the mythical European free healthcare is only for the extremely poor or the tax evaders. So fuck people towing the line of "we help immigrants because they are resources" - there are few feel good resources that are ultimately discriminatory and capriciously allocated to the most noisy groups, leaving people in need screwed because activists don't fill their diversity quota cards below a certain melatonin concentration

JPKab 5y ago

The woman owned and founded startup I work for is completely unable to hire the diverse candidates we have interviewed because they are completely unaffordable at a startup. Why is this? Because executives at various massive tech companies are getting massive bonuses connected to how many diverse people they hire. They give lavish salaries and large chunks of equity to people who they otherwise would not. Somebody who is getting offers like this is naturally going to have all of their incentives misaligned for joining a startup. My company's back end code is Java and Python and we interviewed an engineer who I was willing to teach both of these languages to. She happened to be a black woman and only new PHP using the laravel stack. Zero experience doing front end coding and not really a standout when it came to databases and barely new cloud. She asked for a large equity stake, but also wanted a salary of $195,000. We are not at all in the Bay area and this salary is completely ridiculous for somebody who also wants a lot of equity and has very few skills that connect to our code base. She was hired at Amazon for some rather boring role on an internal team that helps the data centers meet energy efficiency requirements by building applications that are essentially dashboards for internal decision makers. We actually talk on regular basis now because I give her some advice for learning Python. She was simply negotiating based on her market value and her own fiscal priorities and made a sound well-reasoned decision. If my company hits it big one day which of course is typically not high probability, people like you will show up and say that we are systemically racist. Ironically the twisted incentives at these massive companies are creating this issue. As long as women are significantly less interested in jobs involving things just like men are significantly less interested in jobs involving people we're going to have to admit that trying to bring things to 50/50 proportions is going to create weird incentives that will further create side effects.

jcadam 5y ago
> She asked for a large equity stake, but also wanted a salary of $195,000. That level of pay is reserved for absolute top talent with at least 15+ years of experience everywhere I’ve worked. Only a major corporation could afford to waste that kind of money on a junior level dev.
- 1980phipsi 5y ago