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That's all very rant-y. I'm not sure I quite grok the author's thesis here. But, for the sake of debate... "The reality is that Silicon Valley is one of the mo

That's all very rant-y. I'm not sure I quite grok the author's thesis here. But, for the sake of debate... "The reality is that Silicon Valley is one of the most open and diverse industries in the United States." Ok, that might be true, but the supplied graph doesn't exactly support the statement. Blacks make up 13% of the population, but <5% of Google employees in the US. Similarly, Latino/Latinas make up 18% of the population and <7% of Google employees. Drilling into the chart (leads to a Google-owned site), the workforce is 32% female vs ~51% population. Yeah, there are a lot of Asians (from many countries and ethnic backgrounds) in STEM. That doesn't prove that there isn't a lack of opportunity for US-born minorities (or even some majorities, as we see with women). So, yeah, tech companies might be better than others, but the author didn't provide anything to back that assertion. I also take issue with his statement that 365 reviews are a near-universal in STEM. They aren't. I've never had one done on myself, and have only ever participated in 2-3 (all of which involved a manager, not an IC, who was failing and eventually exited). I believe most of my peers would report a similar experience. I'm also not sure what these have to do with diversity in the workplace.

bruceb 5y ago
Go to nearly any university and look who is in the computer science classes.
snovv_crash 5y ago
What is the purpose of having a company's demographics represent the country? What if certain ethnic groups focus more on sports, or biology, or being lawyers or doctors, or they skip the whole college ripoff and go to a trade school. Do they still need equal representation in tech? Do we just want equally smart people, or do we want people who also are motivated to work on tech, due to their cultural values? What about the individuals themselves? What if we ignore the color of their skin for a moment and try to find diversity in peoples' experiences, backgrounds etc. I feel these anti-racism movements do more to further cement race as an important component of identity into peoples' minds than anything else these days.
- mattzito 5y ago
  No one is arguing that demographics have to match the country, at least not anyone serious. No one is forcing certain ethnic groups to apply to tech jobs - but if you have a group of people who are telling you that they would like these jobs, and there are structural disadvantages in place that make it more challenging for those people to get those jobs - why wouldn't you try to make things more equitable?
  - commandlinefan 5y ago
    I don't see any evidence that any actual otherwise-qualified people are saying they would like these jobs but are unable to get them due to any hurdles at all - I do see advocacy groups insisting that percentages themselves are evidence that there must be such people, but aren't able to produce any examples.
    - mattzito 5y ago
      I mean, there's a lot of examples, like this: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-howard-university-coders/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-howard-university-co... and this: https://medium.com/@racheltho/how-to-make-tech-interviews-a-little-less-awful-c29f35431987 https://medium.com/@racheltho/how-to-make-tech-interviews-a-... > Triplebyte’s key advice for job seekers is to read the bios of founders and apply to companies where the CTO shares your background. Since only 3% of VC funding goes to women and less than 1% goes to Black founders, this advice will be hard to follow for applicants from underrepresented groups or with non-traditional backgrounds. Or this: https://archive.is/zA7lV https://archive.is/zA7lV or this: https://www.fullstackacademy.com/blog/coding-while-black https://www.fullstackacademy.com/blog/coding-while-black There's lots of stories about challenges in getting those jobs, and then getting paid less to do those jobs, and then feeling unwelcome. Why is it so hard to believe that it's simply harder to get a job if you're a qualified minority? How does it lessen you to acknowledge that there are systemic problems?
- alistairSH 5y ago
  What is the purpose of having a company's demographics represent the country? The value to society, if done well, is ensuring everybody has a roughly equal chance to succeed across careers/jobs/industries. The company itself possibly gets value from ensuring new candidates see others like them working there. They might get value from being able to show broader society that they are being fair. Regardless, it's up to the BoD, shareholders, and C-suite to decide what value is created and act accordingly. Apparently some tech companies see value in building a diverse workforce. What if certain ethnic groups focus more on sports, or biology, or being lawyers or doctors, or they skip the whole college ripoff and go to a trade school. Do they still need equal representation in tech? The burden is on people who want to maintain the current, non-representative state to prove nobody from other demographics wants into the field. Failing that, we should be trying to discover why some groups are underrepresented. And I just don't buy the argument that blacks prefer to play basketball and women prefer to teach, or whatever else it is your implying.
nightski 5y ago
Wouldn't you need to compare it to available workforce and not entire population? I don't know how the available workforce breaks down by race (even more specifically tech) but it seems like that could change the numbers a lot.
- alistairSH 5y ago
  But when the available workforce nowhere near matches general demographics, you have to dig a little deeper. Why are there so few blacks, females, or whoever else entering the industry?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
Causality1 5y ago
I think his point is that the problem is no longer as simple as a lack of diversity, and blanket calls for "more diversity" are not addressing the problem. The problem is a lack of women and black people and we need to stop framing it as "white men won't let in anyone but themselves."
- alistairSH 5y ago
  Sure, but are any serious policy wonks actually saying tech is all white males? That, and the most famous faces (on the evening news) of tech ARE largely white males. Gates, Jobs, Musk, Zuckerberg, etc. So a casual observer might not realize there really are a lot of minorities at all levels of tech.
  - Causality1 5y ago
    If the media chooses to focus on someone who died ten years ago and someone who retired fifteen years ago is that really a problem the tech industry can do anything about?
tonymet 5y ago
It's impossible for a company to match the share of the population. there's too much variation on many dimensions
mattzito 5y ago
I started to write a similar reply, got distracted, and by the time I turned back I assumed someone would have written it (and you had!). There's a ton of biases in tech, and it's possible for that to result in complex situations like the ones we see. If you largely prefer hiring people from a small number of universities, and those universities are largely white, asian, and/or male - you're going to have a very non-diverse population even if you have a lot of immigrants. If you interview people in a particular way that is optimized for a specific style of education, people who did not experience that same education are going to be at a disadvantage. Similarly, if you primarily hire people in an area that is not particularly diverse, you're going to end up with a very non-diverse employee base. None of this is to say that everyone is a racist or that there's no way for a minority to be successful in big tech, it's just that the structural systems in place work against them. The odds are longer and the hurdles higher. If you look at some of the things that big tech companies are doing to address that - heavily recruiting at schools with large minority student bodies, helping to build curriculums to help those students perform well on interviews, and even opening offices in places where there is greater diversity - you're trying to remove some of those structural hurdles. I remembered this article from a long time ago that I was able to track down: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-howard-university-coders/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-howard-university-co... It's got great details on how hard some of these challenges can be to address, and looking back on it, things have gotten better. But why is it such a problem to say that there's more to be done?

bruceb 5y ago

Go to nearly any university and look who is in the computer science classes.

snovv_crash 5y ago

What is the purpose of having a company's demographics represent the country? What if certain ethnic groups focus more on sports, or biology, or being lawyers or doctors, or they skip the whole college ripoff and go to a trade school. Do they still need equal representation in tech? Do we just want equally smart people, or do we want people who also are motivated to work on tech, due to their cultural values? What about the individuals themselves? What if we ignore the color of their skin for a moment and try to find diversity in peoples' experiences, backgrounds etc. I feel these anti-racism movements do more to further cement race as an important component of identity into peoples' minds than anything else these days.

mattzito 5y ago
No one is arguing that demographics have to match the country, at least not anyone serious. No one is forcing certain ethnic groups to apply to tech jobs - but if you have a group of people who are telling you that they would like these jobs, and there are structural disadvantages in place that make it more challenging for those people to get those jobs - why wouldn't you try to make things more equitable?
- commandlinefan 5y ago
  I don't see any evidence that any actual otherwise-qualified people are saying they would like these jobs but are unable to get them due to any hurdles at all - I do see advocacy groups insisting that percentages themselves are evidence that there must be such people, but aren't able to produce any examples.
  - mattzito 5y ago
    I mean, there's a lot of examples, like this: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-howard-university-coders/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-howard-university-co... and this: https://medium.com/@racheltho/how-to-make-tech-interviews-a-little-less-awful-c29f35431987 https://medium.com/@racheltho/how-to-make-tech-interviews-a-... > Triplebyte’s key advice for job seekers is to read the bios of founders and apply to companies where the CTO shares your background. Since only 3% of VC funding goes to women and less than 1% goes to Black founders, this advice will be hard to follow for applicants from underrepresented groups or with non-traditional backgrounds. Or this: https://archive.is/zA7lV https://archive.is/zA7lV or this: https://www.fullstackacademy.com/blog/coding-while-black https://www.fullstackacademy.com/blog/coding-while-black There's lots of stories about challenges in getting those jobs, and then getting paid less to do those jobs, and then feeling unwelcome. Why is it so hard to believe that it's simply harder to get a job if you're a qualified minority? How does it lessen you to acknowledge that there are systemic problems?
alistairSH 5y ago
What is the purpose of having a company's demographics represent the country? The value to society, if done well, is ensuring everybody has a roughly equal chance to succeed across careers/jobs/industries. The company itself possibly gets value from ensuring new candidates see others like them working there. They might get value from being able to show broader society that they are being fair. Regardless, it's up to the BoD, shareholders, and C-suite to decide what value is created and act accordingly. Apparently some tech companies see value in building a diverse workforce. What if certain ethnic groups focus more on sports, or biology, or being lawyers or doctors, or they skip the whole college ripoff and go to a trade school. Do they still need equal representation in tech? The burden is on people who want to maintain the current, non-representative state to prove nobody from other demographics wants into the field. Failing that, we should be trying to discover why some groups are underrepresented. And I just don't buy the argument that blacks prefer to play basketball and women prefer to teach, or whatever else it is your implying.

nightski 5y ago

Wouldn't you need to compare it to available workforce and not entire population? I don't know how the available workforce breaks down by race (even more specifically tech) but it seems like that could change the numbers a lot.

alistairSH 5y ago
But when the available workforce nowhere near matches general demographics, you have to dig a little deeper. Why are there so few blacks, females, or whoever else entering the industry?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

Causality1 5y ago

I think his point is that the problem is no longer as simple as a lack of diversity, and blanket calls for "more diversity" are not addressing the problem. The problem is a lack of women and black people and we need to stop framing it as "white men won't let in anyone but themselves."

alistairSH 5y ago
Sure, but are any serious policy wonks actually saying tech is all white males? That, and the most famous faces (on the evening news) of tech ARE largely white males. Gates, Jobs, Musk, Zuckerberg, etc. So a casual observer might not realize there really are a lot of minorities at all levels of tech.
- Causality1 5y ago
  If the media chooses to focus on someone who died ten years ago and someone who retired fifteen years ago is that really a problem the tech industry can do anything about?

tonymet 5y ago

It's impossible for a company to match the share of the population. there's too much variation on many dimensions

mattzito 5y ago

I started to write a similar reply, got distracted, and by the time I turned back I assumed someone would have written it (and you had!). There's a ton of biases in tech, and it's possible for that to result in complex situations like the ones we see. If you largely prefer hiring people from a small number of universities, and those universities are largely white, asian, and/or male - you're going to have a very non-diverse population even if you have a lot of immigrants. If you interview people in a particular way that is optimized for a specific style of education, people who did not experience that same education are going to be at a disadvantage. Similarly, if you primarily hire people in an area that is not particularly diverse, you're going to end up with a very non-diverse employee base. None of this is to say that everyone is a racist or that there's no way for a minority to be successful in big tech, it's just that the structural systems in place work against them. The odds are longer and the hurdles higher. If you look at some of the things that big tech companies are doing to address that - heavily recruiting at schools with large minority student bodies, helping to build curriculums to help those students perform well on interviews, and even opening offices in places where there is greater diversity - you're trying to remove some of those structural hurdles. I remembered this article from a long time ago that I was able to track down: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-howard-university-coders/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-howard-university-co... It's got great details on how hard some of these challenges can be to address, and looking back on it, things have gotten better. But why is it such a problem to say that there's more to be done?