4 ms·

DEI was a song and dance that companies put on for the media, politicians, investors, employees, and the public at large. Now anti-DEI is a song and dance for

• teeray 2y ago
  > the company has NO ONE's interests at heart Except for shareholder value
  • bhouston 2y ago
    > Except for shareholder value Well, it depends. Zuckerberg has controlling interest in Meta even though he owns a minority of it (<15%) because of its dual share structure. Meta will do what he wants it do. Google has a similar structure.
    • jjulius 2y ago
      Semantics. I'd replace "shareholder value" with "making a chunk of people insanely wealthy".
      • iforgot22 2y ago
        It's not semantics. Those founders have more voting power than their actual share in the companies, so they don't have the same incentives as regular shareholders.
        • zht 2y ago
          the founders are also shareholders so they are still maximizing shareholder vlaue
          • iforgot22 2y ago
            Zuck's other financial and personal interests could compete with his money in the company. Unlikely at 1:1, but it's more possible the higher his vote multiplier is.
  • GeekyBear 2y ago
    Isn't that more about the value of the shares they personally received as part of their compensation package?
  • HDThoreaun 2y ago
    If meta cared about shareholder value they wouldnt be spending 10 bil a year on VR. Decisions at meta are made with marks interests in mind
  • NotYourLawyer 2y ago
    Not even really true anymore. It’s all about “stakeholder capitalism“ now, which boils down to management being able to prioritize whichever stakeholder it wants to in any given situation. Shareholder primacy may not be perfect, but it at least constrains management instead of giving them completely free rein.
• greenthrow 2y ago
  This take is cynical to the point of wilfull ignorance. My spouse works in DEI and I guarantee you her and her coworkers are sincere and trying to instill better, less biased hiring practices and to make everyone feel welcome and part of the team. Not everyone is going to be the same but that's like anything else. Being 100% dismissive is as much of a mistake as being 100% unquestioningly accepting.
  • lantry 2y ago
    I think both things are true: there are people who sincerely want to change things, but the organization and incentive structure for large public orgs means the corps will only do things that don't lower their profits.
  • drewbug01 2y ago
    I believe the comment is implying that having DEI programs at all was a song-and-dance put on by the C-suite; not that your spouse is insincere in their work. Put differently: the C-suite set up these programs (and hired very sincere people to work in them) but never really actually cared about the outcomes.
    • nearbuy 2y ago
      The C-suite are humans and as humans, many of them have ideologies. It's very cynical to think executives have no goals or ideologies beyond enriching themselves.
      • drewbug01 2y ago
        > but never really actually cared about the outcomes To be clear, I'm referring to the outcomes of the DEI programs in and of themselves; not the outcomes that resulted from having those programs (and/or appearing to have them). And to be clear - some C-suites really might have cared about the programs because they believed in them. > It's very cynical to think executives have no goals or ideologies beyond enriching themselves. I disagree, wholeheartedly. The majority of executives have shown, time and again, that they primarily care about money. A close second is power. It's not to say that they don't have goals beyond enriching themselves, but rather that does appear to be the goal they overwhelmingly choose when said values are in conflict.
• UncleMeat 2y ago
  Sure, megacorps never had genuine interest in liberation at the very top. But it is a genuine sign of renewed danger when megacorps are perceiving the general public as valuing reactionary politics instead of valuing diversity.
  • blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
    “Reactionary” is a pejorative and not an argument.
    • Over2Chars 2y ago
      Reactionary is a pejorative usually used by Marxists, and implies drawing one side into their false us-vs-them dichotomy where the "them" has a "fair game doctrine" applied to them. Usually other epithets soon follow: racist, criminal, etc. Not only is it not, as you note, an argument, it's a pejorative label designed to discount and demonize the opponent. It's also likely to be used by someone in a political cult (or "high demand new political movement" if you prefer). George Orwell had a really fun article on "Politics and the English Language" which goes into some detail on the controlling nature of such language and the people who use it.
• nox101 2y ago
  At the company I work at, IMO, their DEI initiatives are counter productive so they claim "we support DEI", but in actual practice they're making the problem worse not better. It might be true that removing DEI is performative, but at least at my job, removing DEI would be a net positive for actually diversity, equity, and inclusion. There might be other things they could do proactively. But, the ones they actually chose are derisive, racist, and do nothing to actually make the world a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive place.
• l0t0b0r0s 2y ago
  DEI was a song and dance yes, but it was essentially a mandated one from the government that was requested by the companies themselves. If governments didnt subsidize it, companies would have never implemented it. Companies wanted cheap labor so they lobbied the government for more immigration and DEI policies, in return they they have to perform the DEI song and dance in HR mandated workshops, like dogs begging for a treat.