3 ms·

I worked in SF during the same time period, at a small startup. There would have extreme fury at the idea of hiring/firing based on anything but ability. Again

I worked in SF during the same time period, at a small startup. There would have extreme fury at the idea of hiring/firing based on anything but ability. Again, this was a small company. Every person mattered. Every talented hire advanced the company, and every talented departure put us at risk. Even now at the big company I work for, the small team sizes mean each dev either contributes or drains. We even have an informal budget of how much we expect contributors go drain/gain (junior devs can drain for a while, senior devs make up for it, etc). The sort of “anti-racist” methodology suggests a mindset I don’t quite get. Every company I know of has an extemee backlog. Product isn’t getting shipped because there aren’t enough devs. Are people seriously saying it’s ok their company doesn’t ship as much product if it benefits historically oppressed devs?

Manuel_D 4y ago
By contrast, I was at two successful unicorns. They were both large (1,000 and 2-3,000 employees). We had the luxury of having significantly more applicants than headcount. I think the mentality is more that the product is already successful, and we have a responsibility to ensure that that oppressed people don't miss out on that success. The irony is that most "oppressed" people hired at the companies we very well off. I'm Latin myself (a fact I don't advertise in my workplace precisely because of this discrimination) and I had a very privileged upbringing. Same with another Trinidadian engineer I spoke with. So in the end, it was a bunch of privileged white people patting themselves on the back for hiring privileged Latin and Black people.
- NeverFade 4y ago
  > So in the end, it was a bunch of privileged white people patting themselves on the back for hiring privileged Latin and Black people. While whites and Asians born into poverty, who struggled all their lives against overwhelming odds, were deprived of these opportunities due to the color of the skin they were born in. This is ugly, ugly stuff.
  - nonethewiser 4y ago
  - nemo44x 4y ago
    It’s beyond ugly and the irony will be that progressives who are so concerned with how history will judge them will be judged harshly by these positions.
    - NeverFade 4y ago
      That's why the key point for me isn't that it's illegal (though it is): it's immoral, even if it was legal. Discrimination against blacks in the South was legal. Plenty of people defended racism on these grounds back then: "it's legal, the courts have approved it, and therefore it must be right." These are not the people progressives are celebrating today. In fact, they'll cancel you for being at all similar to these people. Yet they are just like them.
- gampleman 4y ago
  I think of this as the Left having lost its way (in its own sort-of marxist terms). It's overly obsessed with identity and forgets the much more important discriminant of class. A cynical analysis is that the upper classes are using this as a successful divide and conquer tactic...
  - taolegal 4y ago
    It’s a communist tactic to sow division in society by raising tension along identity lines like race, etc. Of course schools usually cover this part of history as “McCarthyist nonsense.”
micromacrofoot 4y ago
this assumes that you’re making a lesser hire and that a parallel skill level hire of a minority isn’t possible

Manuel_D 4y ago

By contrast, I was at two successful unicorns. They were both large (1,000 and 2-3,000 employees). We had the luxury of having significantly more applicants than headcount. I think the mentality is more that the product is already successful, and we have a responsibility to ensure that that oppressed people don't miss out on that success. The irony is that most "oppressed" people hired at the companies we very well off. I'm Latin myself (a fact I don't advertise in my workplace precisely because of this discrimination) and I had a very privileged upbringing. Same with another Trinidadian engineer I spoke with. So in the end, it was a bunch of privileged white people patting themselves on the back for hiring privileged Latin and Black people.

NeverFade 4y ago
> So in the end, it was a bunch of privileged white people patting themselves on the back for hiring privileged Latin and Black people. While whites and Asians born into poverty, who struggled all their lives against overwhelming odds, were deprived of these opportunities due to the color of the skin they were born in. This is ugly, ugly stuff.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
- nemo44x 4y ago
  It’s beyond ugly and the irony will be that progressives who are so concerned with how history will judge them will be judged harshly by these positions.
  - NeverFade 4y ago
    That's why the key point for me isn't that it's illegal (though it is): it's immoral, even if it was legal. Discrimination against blacks in the South was legal. Plenty of people defended racism on these grounds back then: "it's legal, the courts have approved it, and therefore it must be right." These are not the people progressives are celebrating today. In fact, they'll cancel you for being at all similar to these people. Yet they are just like them.
gampleman 4y ago
I think of this as the Left having lost its way (in its own sort-of marxist terms). It's overly obsessed with identity and forgets the much more important discriminant of class. A cynical analysis is that the upper classes are using this as a successful divide and conquer tactic...
- taolegal 4y ago
  It’s a communist tactic to sow division in society by raising tension along identity lines like race, etc. Of course schools usually cover this part of history as “McCarthyist nonsense.”

micromacrofoot 4y ago

this assumes that you’re making a lesser hire and that a parallel skill level hire of a minority isn’t possible