8 ms·

I think we're going to see a rise of new companies formed, perhaps not from Silicon Valley, that will reject the whole D&I concept and move forward with complet

I think we're going to see a rise of new companies formed, perhaps not from Silicon Valley, that will reject the whole D&I concept and move forward with complete blindness to race, culture, or gender. They will excel, outperform and form a new age of englightenment. I don't think this will happen because I want it to, it will happen because incentives and fundamentals of operations of a company – i.e., just focus on building good things.

inglor_cz 4y ago
It is also possible that those companies will be suffocated by the fact that banks won't extend credit to them (ESG) or angry Twitter will pressure potential customers not to do business with them.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  True, this is actually happening as we speak. There will be a bifurcation, once enough flywheel speed has picked up; ESG funds will see competitor funds that will outperform. No wasting money on greenwashing or other ESG bullshit. Totalitarianism has to fight a war with reality and facts. It is unsustainable (pardon the pun).
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    It is likely that some foreign funds (Arab, Chinese) won't give a damn about ESG anytime soon, if at all. That said, this is how you end with critical technology in potential adversaries' hands.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > ESG funds will see competitor funds that will outperform. No wasting money on greenwashing or other ESG bullshit. Would that work? IIRC, stock prices aren't so much about performance, just who wants to buy your stock. Decreased actual performance from "greenwashing or other ESG bullshit" might be overwhelmed by demand by ESG pots of money.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > It is also possible that those companies will be suffocated by the fact that banks won't extend credit to them (ESG) or angry Twitter will pressure potential customers not to do business with them. I think that would only be an issue if they made a big deal in public about rejecting DEI. Such a statement might also attract a bunch of obnoxious, oppositely-polarized people you don't want either. Probably the best strategy would be to not mention it at all unless forced, and then just make vague, positive statements about diversity until whoever is bothering you moves on to something else.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    The University of Central Florida has bought an email address I own from some spammers and they're now occasionally asking me to enroll in some program where I can prove my commitment to diversity and inclusion and eventually become a certified supplier to them. "Positive statements" will not be what you need, you'll need to show that you actually have the numbers, and if you don't, you will not be considered.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      IIRC, the US government's contracting rules are so byzantine that it gets shut results and wastes all kinds of money on incompetent contractors whose primary skill is compliance with the government's byzantine process. If you want to ignore requirements like that (or similar DEI requirements), you're going to have to forgo those kinds of customers.
  - chudmeister 4y ago
- maldev 4y ago
  ESG practices are currently under lawsuits as it's not in the shareholders best financial interest to factor these in when doing investments. So should fix itself soon. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-08/texas-joins-republican-ags-slamming-larry-fink-on-esg-investment?leadSource=uverify%20wall https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-08/texas-joi...
version_five 4y ago
This is optimistic - I certainly hope it works out this way. I think a recent problem is that all the "free" or nearly free money has completely disconnected many operations from actual market forces, so they are not incentivized to build something good and their attention can wander to fitness signaling type activities
omegaworks 4y ago
>that will reject the whole D&I concept This is already the norm in Silicon Valley. D&I awareness is a brand new thing, and mediocre reactionaries like the author pervade existing leadership structures. Over 50 years ago the US Military recognized that segregation and entrenched racial biases lead to inefficiencies and lack of readiness.[1] In an economy where hiring pipelines for skilled technical people are stretched incredibly thin, we need to be taking a hard look at why we're only getting people that look a certain way through our hiring process. 1. https://twitter.com/pptsapper/status/1579610768638881800 https://twitter.com/pptsapper/status/1579610768638881800
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > Over 50 years ago the US Military recognized that segregation and entrenched racial biases lead to inefficiencies and lack of readiness.[1] In an economy where hiring pipelines for skilled technical people are stretched incredibly thin, we need to be taking a hard look at why we're only getting people that look a certain way through our hiring process. That doesn't follow, at all. For one, you're comparing apples and oranges. The "norm in Silicon Valley" is not to practice explicit racial segregation like the US Army did in 1940. Additionally, D&I may very well be operating at the wrong end of the pipe. An anecdote: a non-white friend of mine recently quit her job, because she was pressured into hiring an incompetent person who checked a lot of DEI boxes. That person proceeded to drive her crazy with their incompetence until she burned out and quit.
  - omegaworks 4y ago
    The norm in Silicon Valley is treat D&I with an inordinate level of skepticism, if not reject it outright as "anti-meritocratic." What we have here is not explicit racial segregation, but a system operating via capital and clout that has elevated a small group of mostly white men into positions of extreme power and influence over the most vibrant segment of the American economy. This creates huge bind spots and carries the risk of building systems that reinforce oppression. >D&I may very well be operating at the wrong end of the pipe. Then that should be the argument at hand. Not rejecting the idea outright. >she was pressured into hiring an incompetent person That there is no system in place for addressing concrete performance issues in any employee is the failing of the organization. The requirements for any role you hire for should be clear, expectations should be set and when they are not met there should be consequences. If this is not the case at the organization she worked at, she was bound to burn out, irrespective of the DEI objectives.
wyager 4y ago
Companies aren't doing DEI because they feel like it. They're doing it because if they don't, they will be punished by the state. The way this works is that there is a patronage relationship between the grievance HR class and certain political actors. If you fail to hire enough DEI HR people to suck revenue from your company, the state prosecutors hit you with all kinds of hiring discrimination lawsuits. It's sort of like a mob protection racket. You hire some of our guys for some no-show jobs, we don't burn your business down.
- pc86 4y ago
  I can't even imagine what it must be like to live in this kind of contrived world.
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    I kind of agree with OP. Lot of the D&I initiatives are CYA from lawsuits and we have built regulations so that D&I are instituted permanently by law. I hope SCOTUS strikes all of this down.
    - Glide 4y ago
      I’m surprised I had to go down this far into the conversation before I saw someone bringing up legal liability.
      - wyager 4y ago
        I'm surprised at how negative the reaction to my explanation is. It's not even controversial to anyone who keeps track of the current state of title VII legal strategy.
  - wyager 4y ago
    What process do you use to select between world-models? I'm curious if you have a coherent answer here, or if you just can't accept what I'm describing because you don't like the way it sounds. Do you know anything about employment law or the current state of title VII jurisprudence? I'm guessing not if you're reacting this way to a pretty uncontroversial claim.
winternett 4y ago
What kind of statement is this? D&I is supposed to be comparatively balanced to the society is serves. Minorities are essential within companies to prevent bias in their marketing and product development that can be fatal to business success. D&I is not a terrible paradigm that needs to be dismantled just because some companies take it to far, it's no different than accounting or other functional considerations within big business where it's too easy to lose sight of how balanced a company is internally. If you don't keep reports on finances a company can easily fail. If you don't take steps to make sure minority groups are represented within your company, it will also create situations where bias takes hold, and suddenly discrimination becomes the norm. What's next? Should we get rid of sexual harassment training and policies? Only someone from a background that elimination of equal opportunity would serve foremost would think that "complete blindness to race" is possible in our world. It's a childish and a destructive ignorance considering what is currently happening in our world even to this day, as white nationalist groups are growing in numbers, and other groups, a prior US president, and public celebrities are also regularly publicly expressing race based hate.
- seti0Cha 4y ago
  > Minorities are essential within companies to prevent bias in their marketing and product development that can be fatal to business success. Is there any reason to believe this is true and not just conjecture? This always struck me as kind of far fetched.
  - skrbjc 4y ago
    It's just one of those things that gets repeated so much that people just start to believe it.
- gnull 4y ago
  > Minorities are essential within companies to prevent bias in their marketing and product development that can be fatal to business success. This is far-fetched and based mostly on ideology rather than evidence, not much different from a Soviet socialist explaining why planned economies are essential to the country's success (100 years ago it didn't sounds as absurd as now). It's your right to believe this sort of things, I don't deny you this, but don't insist that this is an objective truth that every reasonable person should believe in. As it goes with this kind of questionable ideas, it should be ok to choose not to believe in them, as I think the parent comment does. And I agree with the parent comment's view here. Whatever advantage the woke-culture companies may have is easily explained by their increased visibility among woke audience, not by some deep insights. It's just a marketing trick, just like putting AI/Blockchain on your ad increases your visibility among some of tech enthusiasts. > What's next? Slippery slope is a fallacy. > white nationalist groups are growing in numbers […] prior US president, and public celebrities are also regularly publicly expressing race based hate How does any of this back up the impossibility of blindness to race? (Remember that most of the world is outside of US.)
Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
It should happen all other factors being equal, but eventually successful companies start to grow and attract the kind of political manager types. Then the turmoil and in fighting starts. Also, people hiring in their friends and family over others who are distinctly better. I've been in many roles over the years in very different companies, and these two eventualities always play out. People are flawed, and the companies they create become equally flawed
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  > Also, people hiring in their friends and family over others who are distinctly better. That mostly has to do with weighing trusted known-contact vs. untrusted stranger. In extreme case, we see this in a traditional family business that has been owned and operated for generations.
chudmeister 4y ago

inglor_cz 4y ago

It is also possible that those companies will be suffocated by the fact that banks won't extend credit to them (ESG) or angry Twitter will pressure potential customers not to do business with them.

systemvoltage 4y ago
True, this is actually happening as we speak. There will be a bifurcation, once enough flywheel speed has picked up; ESG funds will see competitor funds that will outperform. No wasting money on greenwashing or other ESG bullshit. Totalitarianism has to fight a war with reality and facts. It is unsustainable (pardon the pun).
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  It is likely that some foreign funds (Arab, Chinese) won't give a damn about ESG anytime soon, if at all. That said, this is how you end with critical technology in potential adversaries' hands.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > ESG funds will see competitor funds that will outperform. No wasting money on greenwashing or other ESG bullshit. Would that work? IIRC, stock prices aren't so much about performance, just who wants to buy your stock. Decreased actual performance from "greenwashing or other ESG bullshit" might be overwhelmed by demand by ESG pots of money.
tablespoon 4y ago
> It is also possible that those companies will be suffocated by the fact that banks won't extend credit to them (ESG) or angry Twitter will pressure potential customers not to do business with them. I think that would only be an issue if they made a big deal in public about rejecting DEI. Such a statement might also attract a bunch of obnoxious, oppositely-polarized people you don't want either. Probably the best strategy would be to not mention it at all unless forced, and then just make vague, positive statements about diversity until whoever is bothering you moves on to something else.
- luckylion 4y ago
  The University of Central Florida has bought an email address I own from some spammers and they're now occasionally asking me to enroll in some program where I can prove my commitment to diversity and inclusion and eventually become a certified supplier to them. "Positive statements" will not be what you need, you'll need to show that you actually have the numbers, and if you don't, you will not be considered.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    IIRC, the US government's contracting rules are so byzantine that it gets shut results and wastes all kinds of money on incompetent contractors whose primary skill is compliance with the government's byzantine process. If you want to ignore requirements like that (or similar DEI requirements), you're going to have to forgo those kinds of customers.
- chudmeister 4y ago
maldev 4y ago
ESG practices are currently under lawsuits as it's not in the shareholders best financial interest to factor these in when doing investments. So should fix itself soon. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-08/texas-joins-republican-ags-slamming-larry-fink-on-esg-investment?leadSource=uverify%20wall https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-08/texas-joi...

version_five 4y ago

This is optimistic - I certainly hope it works out this way. I think a recent problem is that all the "free" or nearly free money has completely disconnected many operations from actual market forces, so they are not incentivized to build something good and their attention can wander to fitness signaling type activities

omegaworks 4y ago

>that will reject the whole D&I concept This is already the norm in Silicon Valley. D&I awareness is a brand new thing, and mediocre reactionaries like the author pervade existing leadership structures. Over 50 years ago the US Military recognized that segregation and entrenched racial biases lead to inefficiencies and lack of readiness.[1] In an economy where hiring pipelines for skilled technical people are stretched incredibly thin, we need to be taking a hard look at why we're only getting people that look a certain way through our hiring process. 1. https://twitter.com/pptsapper/status/1579610768638881800 https://twitter.com/pptsapper/status/1579610768638881800

tablespoon 4y ago
> Over 50 years ago the US Military recognized that segregation and entrenched racial biases lead to inefficiencies and lack of readiness.[1] In an economy where hiring pipelines for skilled technical people are stretched incredibly thin, we need to be taking a hard look at why we're only getting people that look a certain way through our hiring process. That doesn't follow, at all. For one, you're comparing apples and oranges. The "norm in Silicon Valley" is not to practice explicit racial segregation like the US Army did in 1940. Additionally, D&I may very well be operating at the wrong end of the pipe. An anecdote: a non-white friend of mine recently quit her job, because she was pressured into hiring an incompetent person who checked a lot of DEI boxes. That person proceeded to drive her crazy with their incompetence until she burned out and quit.
- omegaworks 4y ago
  The norm in Silicon Valley is treat D&I with an inordinate level of skepticism, if not reject it outright as "anti-meritocratic." What we have here is not explicit racial segregation, but a system operating via capital and clout that has elevated a small group of mostly white men into positions of extreme power and influence over the most vibrant segment of the American economy. This creates huge bind spots and carries the risk of building systems that reinforce oppression. >D&I may very well be operating at the wrong end of the pipe. Then that should be the argument at hand. Not rejecting the idea outright. >she was pressured into hiring an incompetent person That there is no system in place for addressing concrete performance issues in any employee is the failing of the organization. The requirements for any role you hire for should be clear, expectations should be set and when they are not met there should be consequences. If this is not the case at the organization she worked at, she was bound to burn out, irrespective of the DEI objectives.

wyager 4y ago

Companies aren't doing DEI because they feel like it. They're doing it because if they don't, they will be punished by the state. The way this works is that there is a patronage relationship between the grievance HR class and certain political actors. If you fail to hire enough DEI HR people to suck revenue from your company, the state prosecutors hit you with all kinds of hiring discrimination lawsuits. It's sort of like a mob protection racket. You hire some of our guys for some no-show jobs, we don't burn your business down.

pc86 4y ago
I can't even imagine what it must be like to live in this kind of contrived world.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  I kind of agree with OP. Lot of the D&I initiatives are CYA from lawsuits and we have built regulations so that D&I are instituted permanently by law. I hope SCOTUS strikes all of this down.
  - Glide 4y ago
    I’m surprised I had to go down this far into the conversation before I saw someone bringing up legal liability.
    - wyager 4y ago
      I'm surprised at how negative the reaction to my explanation is. It's not even controversial to anyone who keeps track of the current state of title VII legal strategy.
- wyager 4y ago
  What process do you use to select between world-models? I'm curious if you have a coherent answer here, or if you just can't accept what I'm describing because you don't like the way it sounds. Do you know anything about employment law or the current state of title VII jurisprudence? I'm guessing not if you're reacting this way to a pretty uncontroversial claim.

winternett 4y ago

What kind of statement is this? D&I is supposed to be comparatively balanced to the society is serves. Minorities are essential within companies to prevent bias in their marketing and product development that can be fatal to business success. D&I is not a terrible paradigm that needs to be dismantled just because some companies take it to far, it's no different than accounting or other functional considerations within big business where it's too easy to lose sight of how balanced a company is internally. If you don't keep reports on finances a company can easily fail. If you don't take steps to make sure minority groups are represented within your company, it will also create situations where bias takes hold, and suddenly discrimination becomes the norm. What's next? Should we get rid of sexual harassment training and policies? Only someone from a background that elimination of equal opportunity would serve foremost would think that "complete blindness to race" is possible in our world. It's a childish and a destructive ignorance considering what is currently happening in our world even to this day, as white nationalist groups are growing in numbers, and other groups, a prior US president, and public celebrities are also regularly publicly expressing race based hate.

seti0Cha 4y ago
> Minorities are essential within companies to prevent bias in their marketing and product development that can be fatal to business success. Is there any reason to believe this is true and not just conjecture? This always struck me as kind of far fetched.
- skrbjc 4y ago
  It's just one of those things that gets repeated so much that people just start to believe it.
gnull 4y ago
> Minorities are essential within companies to prevent bias in their marketing and product development that can be fatal to business success. This is far-fetched and based mostly on ideology rather than evidence, not much different from a Soviet socialist explaining why planned economies are essential to the country's success (100 years ago it didn't sounds as absurd as now). It's your right to believe this sort of things, I don't deny you this, but don't insist that this is an objective truth that every reasonable person should believe in. As it goes with this kind of questionable ideas, it should be ok to choose not to believe in them, as I think the parent comment does. And I agree with the parent comment's view here. Whatever advantage the woke-culture companies may have is easily explained by their increased visibility among woke audience, not by some deep insights. It's just a marketing trick, just like putting AI/Blockchain on your ad increases your visibility among some of tech enthusiasts. > What's next? Slippery slope is a fallacy. > white nationalist groups are growing in numbers […] prior US president, and public celebrities are also regularly publicly expressing race based hate How does any of this back up the impossibility of blindness to race? (Remember that most of the world is outside of US.)

Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago

It should happen all other factors being equal, but eventually successful companies start to grow and attract the kind of political manager types. Then the turmoil and in fighting starts. Also, people hiring in their friends and family over others who are distinctly better. I've been in many roles over the years in very different companies, and these two eventualities always play out. People are flawed, and the companies they create become equally flawed

systemvoltage 4y ago
> Also, people hiring in their friends and family over others who are distinctly better. That mostly has to do with weighing trusted known-contact vs. untrusted stranger. In extreme case, we see this in a traditional family business that has been owned and operated for generations.

chudmeister 4y ago