5 ms·

I suspect the conditions were the opposite at the time: competition for good non-white employees was fierce after BLM, making them harder to find. If I'm unders

I suspect the conditions were the opposite at the time: competition for good non-white employees was fierce after BLM, making them harder to find. If I'm understanding the Bloomberg numbers correctly, a random non-white person would have 47x better odds of being hired than a white person at the S&P 100 companies. Edit: another comment on hn says that Bloomberg's methodology was flawed, which seems more plausible to me.

stevage 2y ago
I had an interesting experience asking a startup I worked at why they had no female engineers. The answer was they couldn't afford them. They were in such demand that they commanded a significant premium over male engineers at the same level.
- skeeter2020 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - llm_trw 2y ago
    And price is determined by both supply and demand. If there wasn't a demand for specifically female engineers they would cost the same as male engineers regardless of the supply because an engineer should be fungible with gender. Unless you think that women have some innate characteristic that makes them better than men?
  - mjevans 2y ago
    It can be both. To fix this sort of problem a wholistic approach is required. Whatever the approach it should apply to all equally so that the market is fair. Offhand, my historic recollection is that STEM generally is traditionally less appealing to those of the female sex (by Science/Biology definition of the phrase), and that there might (rightly?) be a perception of poor work / life balance and career tracks that don't pair well with fulfilling time limited biological imperatives. My personal opinion is that enforced labor regulation that provides sufficient parental leave, work / life balance generally, and generally promotes healthier recognition of employees as humans would be better for society overall. I also recognize that we're probably not going to get that until the US gets rid of the 'first past the post' madness and adopts a voting system with literally _any_ form of IRV. There just won't be bandwidth for such an issue otherwise. Of said systems, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_method is my favorite, but I'd start with ANY IRV, they're (offhand) all less flawed than what we've got.
    - ponow 2y ago
      None of that is combatting sexism, but reality.
      - mjevans 2y ago
        Sexism is '(sex) Can't do x'. That's combated by successful examples being common. Bias of applicants is solved by making the job worth for all to do, not just from the positives but by removing the negatives.
- MacsHeadroom 2y ago
  This is real. Female engineers are overrepresented in big tech something like 3-4x the graduation rate. There just aren't any left over for startups that can't afford FAANG rates.
  - Cumpiler69 2y ago
    > Female engineers are overrepresented in big tech something like 3-4x the graduation rate. Why is that? Virtue signaling? Discrimination on males?
    - LPisGood 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - Cumpiler69 2y ago
        Why would those quality traits be specific to females in engineering? Engineering as a whole is a skill fungible regardless of gender so if a gender is hired by big-tech at 3-4x their graduation rates compared to the other gender, then there must be something at play. Think about it like this, if you'd use the same argument you gave me if the roles were reversed with men being 3-4x overrepresented in a well paying white collar career, everyone would cry sexism and discrimination and action being taken to "fix" that. So why isn't it when the genders are reversed?
        LPisGood 2y ago
        > So why isn't it when the genders are reversed? Men occupy a position of institutional and societal power that makes such a comparison unhelpful, at best.
        an_guy 2y ago
        Has the same energy as "President is black therefore talks about racism against blacks is unhelpful"
az226 2y ago
Before 2020, it was around 7-10x, so it doesn’t surprise me it went up after.
SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
> a random non-white person would have 47x better odds of being hired than a white person at the S&P 100 companies. I’m so old fashioned thinking your immutable characteristics shouldn’t be considered for employment.

stevage 2y ago

I had an interesting experience asking a startup I worked at why they had no female engineers. The answer was they couldn't afford them. They were in such demand that they commanded a significant premium over male engineers at the same level.

skeeter2020 2y ago
[flagged]
- llm_trw 2y ago
  And price is determined by both supply and demand. If there wasn't a demand for specifically female engineers they would cost the same as male engineers regardless of the supply because an engineer should be fungible with gender. Unless you think that women have some innate characteristic that makes them better than men?
- mjevans 2y ago
  It can be both. To fix this sort of problem a wholistic approach is required. Whatever the approach it should apply to all equally so that the market is fair. Offhand, my historic recollection is that STEM generally is traditionally less appealing to those of the female sex (by Science/Biology definition of the phrase), and that there might (rightly?) be a perception of poor work / life balance and career tracks that don't pair well with fulfilling time limited biological imperatives. My personal opinion is that enforced labor regulation that provides sufficient parental leave, work / life balance generally, and generally promotes healthier recognition of employees as humans would be better for society overall. I also recognize that we're probably not going to get that until the US gets rid of the 'first past the post' madness and adopts a voting system with literally _any_ form of IRV. There just won't be bandwidth for such an issue otherwise. Of said systems, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_method is my favorite, but I'd start with ANY IRV, they're (offhand) all less flawed than what we've got.
  - ponow 2y ago
    None of that is combatting sexism, but reality.
    - mjevans 2y ago
      Sexism is '(sex) Can't do x'. That's combated by successful examples being common. Bias of applicants is solved by making the job worth for all to do, not just from the positives but by removing the negatives.
MacsHeadroom 2y ago
This is real. Female engineers are overrepresented in big tech something like 3-4x the graduation rate. There just aren't any left over for startups that can't afford FAANG rates.
- Cumpiler69 2y ago
  > Female engineers are overrepresented in big tech something like 3-4x the graduation rate. Why is that? Virtue signaling? Discrimination on males?
  - LPisGood 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - Cumpiler69 2y ago
      Why would those quality traits be specific to females in engineering? Engineering as a whole is a skill fungible regardless of gender so if a gender is hired by big-tech at 3-4x their graduation rates compared to the other gender, then there must be something at play. Think about it like this, if you'd use the same argument you gave me if the roles were reversed with men being 3-4x overrepresented in a well paying white collar career, everyone would cry sexism and discrimination and action being taken to "fix" that. So why isn't it when the genders are reversed?
      - LPisGood 2y ago
        > So why isn't it when the genders are reversed? Men occupy a position of institutional and societal power that makes such a comparison unhelpful, at best.
        an_guy 2y ago
        Has the same energy as "President is black therefore talks about racism against blacks is unhelpful"

az226 2y ago

Before 2020, it was around 7-10x, so it doesn’t surprise me it went up after.

SV_BubbleTime 2y ago

> a random non-white person would have 47x better odds of being hired than a white person at the S&P 100 companies. I’m so old fashioned thinking your immutable characteristics shouldn’t be considered for employment.