14 ms·

Getting to work on diversity at Google

127 points by ismavis 12y ago

steele 12y ago
age diversity would be interesting as well
- reddog 12y ago
  Indeed. I would bet my last dollar that its workforce is skewed hugely, disproportionately young. And there are no convenient they-just-aren't-majoring-in-CS excuses for this either. Lots of 50 year old engineers with years of training and experience are looking for work.
  - kps 12y ago
    I work for Google (though not in Silly Valley) and see no obvious sign of age discrimination here. I was 46 when hired.
  - skj 12y ago
    (approximate) ages on my team at Google: 26, 32 (me), 35, ~55, ~60, ~70.
    - purringmeow 12y ago
      Wow, a 70 year old engineer?!
      - Erwin 12y ago
        Ken Thompson is 71: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Thompson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Thompson and he still has quite a go at programming.
  - groby_b 12y ago
    Approximate ages on my team: A bunch of 20 year olds, a slightly lesser bunch of 30 year olds, and an even smaller bunch of 40 year olds. So far, I think none of us have reached 50. That's due to lack of candidates, same as with women. (And yes, there's outreach for that area too) If you know experienced engineers looking for a job, please send them our way.
  - laluser 12y ago
    Why is this surprising? CS is a relatively young major compared to other engineering degrees. Also, I would bet that a large majority of CS degrees have been handed out in the last 20 years. Probably more skewed towards the last 10.
  - nl 12y ago
    I don't have the statistics, but my impression from the Googlers I interact with is that they are generally older than the average developer.
- xienze 12y ago
  Age diversity? Come on man, that's not important. What's really important is making sure Google isn't publicly lambasted for having too many white men on their staff.
omonra 12y ago
Curious to see granularity by job type - ie engineers vs sales.
- dandroid17 12y ago
  I'm going to guess that a huge majority of that 30% female workforce is in HR, marketing, and other non-engineering roles.
  - ng12 12y ago
    That's one of the interesting things. Statistically HR has a similar gender ratio as engineering, only reversed -- 72% of all HR professionals are women (http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.pdf http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.pdf).
    - borplk 12y ago
      And where are the crowds crying out loud for diversity and bringing more men to HR?
- ceras 12y ago
  The official site breaks it down by tech/non-tech/leadership: http://www.google.com/diversity/at-google.html http://www.google.com/diversity/at-google.html
  - samstokes 12y ago
    Interesting that non-tech is less male-dominated than tech, as expected, but even more white-dominated.
    - omonra 12y ago
      Same white, just fewer Asians. Nothing to see here, all stereotypes confirmed :)
    - nl 12y ago
Dwolb 12y ago
It's great to be open and all, but they never mention what their goal is. Do Google believe diversity is good for workplace cohesion, their own social mobility goals, good corporate moral policy, etc.? The data is interesting in it's own right but I don't better understand where Google is going with diversity; I only understand where Google currently stands.
- DiggityDug7 12y ago
  Does there have to be a business goal? Making society more fair is a good goal. Reducing the white male preference in the job market should be a social responsibility for a company that greatly impacts our daily lives. There could be business goals though: it improves people's public opinion of you and in this case may help protect them from lawsuits. This link at the bottom of the page has some more info... http://www.google.com/diversity/ http://www.google.com/diversity/
  - EGreg 12y ago
    DiggityDug7, if only 5% of the country was black, say, would having under 10% of your workforce be black be considered unfair? Likewise, if the number of comp sci graduates in the country is 5%, the same question can be asked. Who is the one being unfair?
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  - ianstallings 12y ago
    Yes it takes the idea of a corporation strictly being beholden to shareholders and extends it to all stakeholders, which includes impacted society.
  - brighteyes 12y ago
    > Making society more fair is a good goal. Reducing the white male preference in the job market should be a social responsibility for a company that greatly impacts our daily lives. The data Google just posted contradicts you. 61% of Google employees are white, while 80% of the total US workforce is, see e.g. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/28/google-releases-employee-data-illustrating-techs-diversity-challenge/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/28/google-releases-emp... That means white people are under-represented at Google. The group whose representation is most diverging from the population as a whole are Asians, who are hugely over-represented. Overall, the numbers show that Asians are over-represented, which may explain much of the under-representation by all other groups. So the story here is certainly not one of "white male preference in the job market". You might be right about male, but not about white.
bh3244 12y ago
why is diversity good? forced diversity seems very contrived. why should the percentage of women hired be higher than the number that graduate from school with a CS degree?
- namenotrequired 12y ago
  >why should the percentage of women hired be higher than the number that graduate from school with a CS degree? No one is implying that it should. From the blog they seem to be working on improving the latter number too.
- frozenport 12y ago
  >>why is diversity good? I want there to be more women whom I can date.
EduardoBautista 12y ago
I don't understand why companies are obsessed with diversity just for the sake of it. Edit: I am mexican, and I personally wouldn't like to be hired for diversity reasons, I would prefer to be hired on my abilities.
- Maascamp 12y ago
  Of course companies should only hire qualified people. Diversity is about gaining new perspectives and ensuring you're creating an environment _all_ your employees can enjoy and feel comfortable in. Companies, rightly, don't want to stagnate by being limited to perspectives and views that don't fully reflect the world they operate in.
  - xienze 12y ago
    I hear this all the time but really, how much of an impact does "diversity" have on yet another shitty chat app or photo sharing site? They're creating utterly trivial, harmless social applications that have NOTHING to do with racial, cultural, or religious matters.
    - Maascamp 12y ago
      Who's talking about shitty startups? I don't live in silicon valley.
- EGreg 12y ago
  I agree. I am a Russian Jew and I never needed or wanted to be hired based on diversity needs.
  - enneff 12y ago
    And Google wouldn't hire you just because you're a minority. The article specifically discusses Google's attempts to lure people of diverse backgrounds into computer science earlier, so that there is more diversity among the qualified candidates applying at Google. Nobody at Google got hired to fill a diversity quota.
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- ktsmith 12y ago
  > That's 30,580 blacks and hispanics[1]. For all degrees qualifying as science and engineering. If only 5% of those are in computer science that's only 1,529 people. There are a lot of companies vying for those 1,529 people. Let's also not forget that not all of those 1,529 graduates will actually be capable of qualifying for a job at Google further reducing the quantity. I'm not surprised at all by Google's numbers having actually seen their hiring process from the HR side as well as that of dozens of other companies in technology and other industries.
- declan 12y ago
  Your statement is misleading, and I suspect intentionally so. Google is, reasonably, talking about blacks and Hispanics earning CS degrees. You're changing the subject to broaden the topic to degrees in S&E -- that is, social sciences, psychology and behaviorial science, medical science, biological sciences, earth science and geology, atmospheric science, ocean science, etc. Few of those degrees lead themselves to careers in software engineering; Google isn't known to hire irrigation management or crop specialists to work on new search products.* That's why it makes more sense to talk about CS degrees specifically. [* Yes, of course software engineers can come from any field, and we all know the self-taught high school dropout who can outprogram a Stanford CS PhD. But those are the exception, not the rule.]
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- kps 12y ago
  Not everyone Google hires is straight out of school.
Torgo 12y ago
So women make up 18% of new CS degrees and Google's staffed at 17%. Blacks and hispanics make up under 5% of CS degrees and at Google they make up 3%. Close the ticket, it's an upstream problem.
- rcthompson 12y ago
  Well, they say they're working with "upstream" to resolve the issue: "Among other things, since 2010 we’ve given more than $40 million to organizations working to bring computer science education to women and girls. And we’ve been working with historically black colleges and universities to elevate coursework and attendance in computer science. For example, this year Google engineer Charles Pratt was in-residence at Howard University, where he revamped the school’s Intro to CS curriculum."
  - Torgo 12y ago
    My response was flippant, which is probably why some people have been downvoting it, but I'm legitimately glad if they're working to make their hiring pool more representative of the population. But at the same time, it's hardly their fault or responsibility to "fix" it if universities just aren't graduating people in those proportions. This came right after I'd read a PBS article that claimed "Google finally discloses its diversity record, and it’s not good." Then I read a breakdown of CS grads in this submission, and Google seems to be pretty representative.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      > My response was flippant, which is probably why some people have been downvoting it, but I'm legitimately glad if they're working to make their hiring pool more representative of the population. But at the same time, it's hardly their fault or responsibility to "fix" it if universities just aren't graduating people in those proportions. If they have reasons to prefer a diverse workforce, whether or not they are at fault for the lack of a sufficiently diverse qualified applicant pool, it is their responsibility to fix it.
heydenberk 12y ago
It's {{current_year}} and people are still asking, "why does diversity matter?" Diversity matters for a lot of reasons. Perhaps most importantly, demographic diversity is strongly correlated with diversity in points of view. You want the people building your products to come from many walks of life. Remember how Google+ had significant uptake in the rich white tech dude demographic? Not a coincidence. If you want the best people working at your company, you should want a group with similar demographics as the customer population, and if you disagree with that, you either believe there is something inherent about certain groups that makes them better or worse at these jobs, which is plainly bigoted, or you believe that there are external social biases which cause the discrepancies. If the latter is your belief, that's all the more reason to work to increase diversity as a corrective to those external social biases. Diversity also impacts the way that people see your company, which makes attracting a diverse pool of qualified candidates easier (few people want to be the only member of a certain demographic group) and is good for public relations.
- Maascamp 12y ago
  Thank you for typing that all out. I agree completely. As a visible minority in tech, I'm simply more attracted to companies where I feel l won't stick out like a sore thumb. Of course I want to hired for my qualifications, but I'm only applying to companies that can meet _my_ requirements as well.
  - middleclick 12y ago
    I don't get this logic. How does it matter if you are a sore thumb if you are not being discriminated? As someone who is also from a visible minority group, it never bothers me unless of course people change their behavior towards me because of the colour of my skin, which I have luckily never experienced. Please don't feel that I am being condescending; I have come across this statement many times before and I can't understand it.
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EGreg 12y ago
"But we’re the first to admit that Google is miles from where we want to be" Who is "we"? And why do they want to be somewhere else?
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Who is "we"? Google. > And why do they want to be somewhere else? Among other reasons, because Google is employee-constrained (they have plenty of money and plenty of things they'd like to do, but have trouble hiring enough workers that meet their qualification standards to be able to effectively apply the money they have to the opportunities they would like to pursue), and the lack of the diversity in their workforce, mirroring the lack of diversity in their qualified candidate pool -- given the absence of evidence that there are inherent reasons for that lack of diversity -- indicates that improving social barriers that constrain their qualified candidate pool is likely to be an effective way of making more of the people who are innately capable of being Googlers actually able to become qualified to be Googlers, allowing Google to hire more qualified people, allowing Google to more effectively pursue the wide range of opportunities they would like to pursue.
incision 12y ago
It appears the prior story on this topic got blasted off the front page [1] for whatever reason. Here's what I had to say over there [2]. 1: http://hnrankings.info/7813310/ http://hnrankings.info/7813310/ 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7813811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7813811
chris_mahan 12y ago
True diversity is diversity of thought.
talles 12y ago
What a lovely attitude by Google to open up and show those statistics. It's especially praiseworthy due the fact it's not a case of "look how 'diverse' we are" but more of a "let's openly discuss these numbers".
droopyEyelids 12y ago
I'm always confused by the vagueness of these diversity PR efforts. When you consciously want to improve something, you set goals for yourself, and then figure out ways to meet those goals. Then people can hold you accountable. Google doesn't seem to have done any of that. They made a start in choosing what they're going to measure, but I don't understand it. For example, I don't think "Black" is an ethnicity. The differences between a black South African and someone from Egypt is huge, let alone a third generation American. Also, I notice Google didn't include anything about gender in their diversity graphs, and I think everyone believes gender and sexual orientation contribute a valuable difference in perspective. I'm curious as to why they chose to exclude gay, transgendered, straight, and everyone in between and outside those labels from this push. And then, even if they define all the categories of diversity they want, how the hell do they determine what their targets are for all the different demographics?
- xienze 12y ago
  "We need more diversity" is code for "we need fewer white men", but I think you already knew that. Everyone does, that's why it doesn't have to be stated.
doodyhead 12y ago
Although it's fairly straightforward to distinguish between gender and sexual orientation, I disagree with these traditional US categories of ethnicity. Take a 'White' person, for instance: is a White American the same as a White Englishman, or a White Australian? What about a White Frenchman? These are all classified as 'White' but could potentially be vastly different in terms of diversity. The same argument could be made with the other ethnicities. The 'Asian' category -- are they Chinese, Japanese, Filipino..? Or an American Asian immigrant -- Chinese-American, etc. If you're aiming for diversity that's representative of your customer base, then surely your measure of ethnicity has to be more granular.
- vajorie 12y ago
  Yes, race and ethnicity are socially constructed and are fluid. No, however much you try to whitewash it, 70-30-3-4-5 is as shitty as it gets outside of legalized segregation.
  - xienze 12y ago
    Whites are 78% of the US population, so being 70% of Google's population is a pretty fair representation. Asians are over-represented though. What exactly do you think is "fair"? I'm guessing having fewer than 50% whites at Google.
    - Mangalor 12y ago
      Why would you guess that? Clearly the non-asian minorities figures are abominable.
      - xienze 12y ago
        Because "diversity" is code for "there's too many white people here." I highly doubt anyone would complain about diversity if Google were 61% black (just like no one complains about the NFL and NBA's appalling lack of diversity). Either way, to boost non-Asian minority percentages you've got to take away from the white or Asian percentages. Hmm... who do you think's gonna be on the receiving end of that rebalancing?
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- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > 72.4% of Americans are White, yet 61% of Google employees are White. Technically Whites are under-represented. > Women earn 18% of computer science degrees, yet 30% of Google employees are Women. Technically women are over-represented. How come you use "Americans" as the universe of comparison in the first sentence and "CS degrees" in the second? I suspect that neither is the universe of comparison that Google is looking at -- particularly the latter, given that one of their approaches for addressing diversity is to support programs that are designed to expand the number of women and underrepresented minorities graduating in technical fields. > Another 10 years of this diversity mania propaganda and we'll have the same quotas for Whites as the ones that were used against Jewish high achievers. No one is talking about adopting quotas, except for the reflexively anti-diversity crowd.
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    - enneff 12y ago
      > Between the lines they are indeed hinting towards "soft quotas". No, they're not. They're talking about increasing the number of qualified candidates in the recruiting pipeline. I've said it before in this thread and I'll repeat it here: Google wants to hire _as many qualified candidates as possible_. We've got a huge pile of money but not enough people!
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        enneff 12y ago
        You should be sorry for having such a persecution complex. How you can read the original article as an attack on white people is astonishing. It is beyond question (although I'm sure you question it) that white people are by far the most privileged group of people around today. To see yourself is a victim because of your race and gender is simply an excuse for whatever insecurities you might have. Most people in this world are born with a tremendous handicap. You had an advantage* . If you still feel threatened, then I'm sorry for you. ( * You may have been disadvantaged in other ways, but by being white you do have an advantage, whether you like it or not.)
nl 12y ago
Are these diversity numbers for the US or for Google as a whole? If they are world-wide, I find it quite interesting how closely the location of the Google offices where software development occurs[1] matches the ethnicity numbers. Notably, there is only one development office in Latin America (and none in Spain/Portugal), and the only development office in the Middle East or Africa is Tel Aviv (not clear what ethnicity the workers there would class themselves as). I'm not aware of any world-class Computer Science programs in Africa. There are some decent ones in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, but increasing the number would be a problem worth tackling. [1] https://www.google.com.au/about/careers/teams/engineering/swe/ https://www.google.com.au/about/careers/teams/engineering/sw...
- cbhl 12y ago
  Race is US, Gender is Worldwide.
  - nl 12y ago
    Interesting.. my point is pretty valid then.
    - nl 12y ago
      (err. Actually this means there is no evidence for my point one way or another. Too late to delete though.)
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  - waveman2 12y ago
    In a number of countries you are not allowed to ask someone's race, let alone record it on your computers. In the USA it is compulsory so you can provide these stats and protect yourself against lawsuits.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  You are aware that every country has "race" distinctions, even if they aren't the same as the US. E.g. in Tel Aviv, it would be interesting to know how many Palestinians are employed, or in Latin America, how many Africans and natives, in China, how many Tibetans and Uighurs? Upstream is important, but we should still make an effort.
bothuman 12y ago
If Google achieves a 51% Female 49% Male ratio, is this good? Supporters of forced diversity are implying it is, but why? If there is something gained by having gender X, then you are saying that genders are not equal. If there is no difference, then why are we doing this? Why are we basing employment on gender anyway? I'd like to see stats regarding people looking for work who are successful and those that are not. If a woman wants to stay at home, can we not accept her choice? If a man wants to stay at home while the woman is breadwinner, is this not okay too?
- groby_b 12y ago
  Please do show me these strawmen supporters of forced diversity. > then you are saying that genders are not equal No, you're saying that their life experience is not equal. There's no inequality in terms of ability, but in terms of what you know. > I'd like to see stats regarding people looking for work who are successful Closest proxy I can find is a study of success rate for MBAs by gender.[1] No surprise whatsoever, women experience lower salaries and career satisfaction. Also, women have less upward mobility into management positions. > If a woman wants to stay at home, can we not accept her choice? The issue is not wanting to stay at home. > If a man wants to stay at home while the woman is breadwinner, is this not okay too? Of course it is. To make that possible, we need to close the salary gap and address glass ceiling issues. http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/29182/0000235.pdf?sequence=1 http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/29182...
asdfologist 12y ago
I'd be really curious to see the gender/ethnic breakdown of just the Google software engineers. As it stands it's hard to make a meaningful comparison between Google and the overall US population of CS majors.
- kirkbackus 12y ago
  They don't have the software engineers specifically, but they have the breakdown of the "Tech" people http://www.google.com/diversity/at-google.html#tab=tech http://www.google.com/diversity/at-google.html#tab=tech
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- jpatokal 12y ago
  The "Tech" stats at the PBS article are just that: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/google-discloses-workforce-diversity-data-good/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/google-discloses-workfor...
- fionatg 12y ago
  Exactly, it feels like they are artificially boosting the figures here because when people look at Google stats they think tech anyway. The Tech only figures are much more male-skewed.
ChuckMcM 12y ago
When I worked there I thought they did a reasonably good job on gender, religion, and sexual orientation but there were not enough older engineers there. I wonder what the actual numbers are for that.
- purringmeow 12y ago
  Burnout maybe? How long is the average work week?
jpatokal 12y ago
This is a near-dupe of the discussion of this PBS article, which has more data, including the tech vs non-tech breakdown: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/google-discloses-workforce-diversity-data-good/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/google-discloses-workfor... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7813310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7813310
monkmartinez 12y ago
Hispanics mentioned 4 times in this thread as of 10:23pm MST. Asian's mentioned 18 times... Everyone talks Black (27 mentions) and White (82 mentions).... meanwhile Hispanic and Asian ethic groups race higher and higher in total number. [1] In raw numbers, Hispanics are growing far faster than any ethnic group in the US. Companies in this game for the long haul had better recognize that Hispanics will be the dominant ethnic group in relatively short order.[2] But who are the Hispanics? Better figure it out. It matters now and will increasingly matter much more going forward. [1] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/population/cb13-112.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/population... [2]http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/fast-growth-latino-population-blurs-traditional-u-s-racial-lines-article-1.1291138 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/fast-growth-latino-...
Matt_Cutts 12y ago
I found data (from 2012) for some other companies: http://money.cnn.com/interactive/technology/tech-diversity-data/ http://money.cnn.com/interactive/technology/tech-diversity-d...
- nl 12y ago
  The low proportion of Asian sales workers at Cisco is interesting.
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- a-t-shirt 12y ago
  And here's an interesting demographics map of the Bay Area from 2010: http://minus.com/i/bgqCzuSwvcAi1 http://minus.com/i/bgqCzuSwvcAi1 I wonder the extent to which Googlers' lives at work are affected by Google's new-found focus on diversity. When a company's culture shifts, so will its output. It's inevitable.
bowlofpetunias 12y ago
Ah, the US, where blatantly racist categorization of humans is used to prove your not racist. Seriously, how many other countries divide people in "black" and "white"? Or is it even legal to do so?
- jqm 12y ago
  Not to mention it makes less and less sense everyday. Look at how many multi-racial people there are. Well, almost everybody really if you think about it.
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buyx 12y ago
As a person who comes from a place where there has always been an unhealthy obsession with demographic classification (South Africa), I'm curious about the "Asian" classification, which seems even more worthless than the average racial classification. Does it encompass both South Asians and Chinese? Do they have a common "Asian experience" in the US? Does the average person whose ancestors came from Tehran have much in common with someone from Beijing?
- dmm 12y ago
  I think I get what you're saying. The continent of Africa contains more human (genetic) diversity than the rest of the world combined, yet almost everyone from it would be classified as "Black".
  - buyx 12y ago
    The continent of Africa contains more human (genetic) diversity than the rest of the world combined, yet almost everyone from it would be classified as "Black". Interesting that you should bring that up: in South Africa under Apartheid, the racial classification of "Black" (previously called "Bantu" and "Native") was a person of "pure" African descent. In post apartheid South Africa, for the purposes of redress [^] "black" means Indian, Coloured (mixed race) and black Africans. Of course, it was found that disproportionately Coloureds and (especially) Indians were being appointed (they were better educated and more affluent), so there seems to be a renewed emphasis on black Africanness... our Indian finance minister was just replaced by a black African, which was viewed as some kind of milestone - incidentally Julius Malema brought this up a few years ago, but it was quickly sent down the memory hole. There has been, in recent times the emergence of racial bomb-throwers who claim that whites cannot be "African". In any case, my point is that even the term "black" is not as clear-cut as we would assume. [^] I actually do support affirmative action in South Africa as a corrective measure. The potential for abuse does exist, in the future - currently whites, despite a huge amount of whining are not particularly disadvantaged. Sadly there isn't a sunset clause, although the constitution limits reverse discrimination to reversing the effects of past discrmination, a sunset clause of, say 2035, after which all racial discrimination would be banned, would have been better, in my opinion.
orbifold 12y ago
I really don't get why gender or ethnicity should play any role at all. Especially for jobs based on technical skill it would make a lot of sense to select mainly for ability. It is then very likely that this would have the same skewed distribution of ethnicities that all the 'elite' universities have, despite affirmative action. As a white priviledged male, I feel sort of disheartened reading that all things being equal, officially I won't be hired, unofficially of course often it is the other way around. There are plenty of countries that are much less diverse than the US and still have highly successful companies, so apart from good PR I fail to see why 'working on diversity' does have any meaningful impact.
- Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
  From a company perspective the reason is you may well be missing out on great talent and the great teams that research shows come with greater diversity. I don't necessarily agree with affirmative action, but if you believe that many of the factors which contribute towards easily measured ability (attending a good school, work experience) may be skewed, then you presumably also accept that there is untapped potential out there - people with the ability to be as great but who have been in some way - fairly or otherwise - disadvantaged. In IT in particular, where everything changes rapidly, you want to be hiring for potential as much as skill the candidate has today. I don't think it's about picking someone because they're part of a minority, it's about thinking about how you look for and judge candidates to take into account that potential which so far hasn't been tapped.
  - orbifold 12y ago
    I agree that there is a lot of potential lost due to unequal opportunities (for example children with poor parents, versus children with rich parents) and peer pressure / gender stereotypes. I've studied physics and the 5% of female students consistently were well above average for example, which suggests that only a portion of the extremely talented females even considered studying physics. I am not sure if an individual company can really do anything about the factors contributing to those inequal oportunities. I feel for many skills they come to late, the education system is really the place that should work to reduce the amount of wasted potential.
marincounty 12y ago
Google needs to hire a few older people who know about the Mcarthy Era, and how Nazis used personal information against family members? And yes, Duckduckgo is getting better each month. My love affair with Google is long over. She taped everything I said, and will not stop stalking me.
merrua 12y ago
It's tiring always being first, always being different, always being the one who has to adapt, denying important parts of yourself just to get the chance to do your job. It’s like being a stranger in a strange land, where you speak the language but nobody learns yours. That's why even women who do well in development end up leaving mid-career. http://www.fastcolabs.com/3008216/tracking/minding-gap-how-your-company-can-woo-female-coders http://www.fastcolabs.com/3008216/tracking/minding-gap-how-y... [You could swamp out woman with any other minority group and it would still be true. Its much harder to stick with something when the river flow is actively against you.]
ap22213 12y ago
It's nice for Google to publish this, but their commentary is misleading. From 2000 to 2009, 10% (48,897 / 471,318) of Computer Science undergraduate degrees were awarded to Blacks, according to NSF ([1][2]). [1]: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c2/c2s2.htm http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c2/c2s2.htm [2]: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/append/c2/at02-19.xls http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/append/c2/at02-19.xls
darkhorn 12y ago
I think that the author doesn't know the difference between race and ethnicity.
julesbond007 12y ago
I wonder how many of those minorities are working the low ends at Google...the details of course didn't say. Also, they stopped short of saying it's the perception and blame the facts on 'statistics'. I'm sure they have no problems hiring cooks, janitors, etc who are minorities.

127 points by ismavis 12y ago

steele 12y ago

age diversity would be interesting as well

reddog 12y ago
Indeed. I would bet my last dollar that its workforce is skewed hugely, disproportionately young. And there are no convenient they-just-aren't-majoring-in-CS excuses for this either. Lots of 50 year old engineers with years of training and experience are looking for work.
- kps 12y ago
  I work for Google (though not in Silly Valley) and see no obvious sign of age discrimination here. I was 46 when hired.
- skj 12y ago
  (approximate) ages on my team at Google: 26, 32 (me), 35, ~55, ~60, ~70.
  - purringmeow 12y ago
    Wow, a 70 year old engineer?!
    - Erwin 12y ago
      Ken Thompson is 71: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Thompson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Thompson and he still has quite a go at programming.
- groby_b 12y ago
  Approximate ages on my team: A bunch of 20 year olds, a slightly lesser bunch of 30 year olds, and an even smaller bunch of 40 year olds. So far, I think none of us have reached 50. That's due to lack of candidates, same as with women. (And yes, there's outreach for that area too) If you know experienced engineers looking for a job, please send them our way.
- laluser 12y ago
  Why is this surprising? CS is a relatively young major compared to other engineering degrees. Also, I would bet that a large majority of CS degrees have been handed out in the last 20 years. Probably more skewed towards the last 10.
- nl 12y ago
  I don't have the statistics, but my impression from the Googlers I interact with is that they are generally older than the average developer.
xienze 12y ago
Age diversity? Come on man, that's not important. What's really important is making sure Google isn't publicly lambasted for having too many white men on their staff.

omonra 12y ago

Curious to see granularity by job type - ie engineers vs sales.

dandroid17 12y ago
I'm going to guess that a huge majority of that 30% female workforce is in HR, marketing, and other non-engineering roles.
- ng12 12y ago
  That's one of the interesting things. Statistically HR has a similar gender ratio as engineering, only reversed -- 72% of all HR professionals are women (http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.pdf http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.pdf).
  - borplk 12y ago
    And where are the crowds crying out loud for diversity and bringing more men to HR?
ceras 12y ago
The official site breaks it down by tech/non-tech/leadership: http://www.google.com/diversity/at-google.html http://www.google.com/diversity/at-google.html
- samstokes 12y ago
  Interesting that non-tech is less male-dominated than tech, as expected, but even more white-dominated.
  - omonra 12y ago
    Same white, just fewer Asians. Nothing to see here, all stereotypes confirmed :)
  - nl 12y ago

Dwolb 12y ago

It's great to be open and all, but they never mention what their goal is. Do Google believe diversity is good for workplace cohesion, their own social mobility goals, good corporate moral policy, etc.? The data is interesting in it's own right but I don't better understand where Google is going with diversity; I only understand where Google currently stands.

DiggityDug7 12y ago
Does there have to be a business goal? Making society more fair is a good goal. Reducing the white male preference in the job market should be a social responsibility for a company that greatly impacts our daily lives. There could be business goals though: it improves people's public opinion of you and in this case may help protect them from lawsuits. This link at the bottom of the page has some more info... http://www.google.com/diversity/ http://www.google.com/diversity/
- EGreg 12y ago
  DiggityDug7, if only 5% of the country was black, say, would having under 10% of your workforce be black be considered unfair? Likewise, if the number of comp sci graduates in the country is 5%, the same question can be asked. Who is the one being unfair?
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- ianstallings 12y ago
  Yes it takes the idea of a corporation strictly being beholden to shareholders and extends it to all stakeholders, which includes impacted society.
- brighteyes 12y ago
  > Making society more fair is a good goal. Reducing the white male preference in the job market should be a social responsibility for a company that greatly impacts our daily lives. The data Google just posted contradicts you. 61% of Google employees are white, while 80% of the total US workforce is, see e.g. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/28/google-releases-employee-data-illustrating-techs-diversity-challenge/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/28/google-releases-emp... That means white people are under-represented at Google. The group whose representation is most diverging from the population as a whole are Asians, who are hugely over-represented. Overall, the numbers show that Asians are over-represented, which may explain much of the under-representation by all other groups. So the story here is certainly not one of "white male preference in the job market". You might be right about male, but not about white.

bh3244 12y ago

why is diversity good? forced diversity seems very contrived. why should the percentage of women hired be higher than the number that graduate from school with a CS degree?

namenotrequired 12y ago
>why should the percentage of women hired be higher than the number that graduate from school with a CS degree? No one is implying that it should. From the blog they seem to be working on improving the latter number too.
frozenport 12y ago
>>why is diversity good? I want there to be more women whom I can date.

EduardoBautista 12y ago

I don't understand why companies are obsessed with diversity just for the sake of it. Edit: I am mexican, and I personally wouldn't like to be hired for diversity reasons, I would prefer to be hired on my abilities.

Maascamp 12y ago
Of course companies should only hire qualified people. Diversity is about gaining new perspectives and ensuring you're creating an environment _all_ your employees can enjoy and feel comfortable in. Companies, rightly, don't want to stagnate by being limited to perspectives and views that don't fully reflect the world they operate in.
- xienze 12y ago
  I hear this all the time but really, how much of an impact does "diversity" have on yet another shitty chat app or photo sharing site? They're creating utterly trivial, harmless social applications that have NOTHING to do with racial, cultural, or religious matters.
  - Maascamp 12y ago
    Who's talking about shitty startups? I don't live in silicon valley.
EGreg 12y ago
I agree. I am a Russian Jew and I never needed or wanted to be hired based on diversity needs.
- enneff 12y ago
  And Google wouldn't hire you just because you're a minority. The article specifically discusses Google's attempts to lure people of diverse backgrounds into computer science earlier, so that there is more diversity among the qualified candidates applying at Google. Nobody at Google got hired to fill a diversity quota.

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ktsmith 12y ago
> That's 30,580 blacks and hispanics[1]. For all degrees qualifying as science and engineering. If only 5% of those are in computer science that's only 1,529 people. There are a lot of companies vying for those 1,529 people. Let's also not forget that not all of those 1,529 graduates will actually be capable of qualifying for a job at Google further reducing the quantity. I'm not surprised at all by Google's numbers having actually seen their hiring process from the HR side as well as that of dozens of other companies in technology and other industries.
declan 12y ago
Your statement is misleading, and I suspect intentionally so. Google is, reasonably, talking about blacks and Hispanics earning CS degrees. You're changing the subject to broaden the topic to degrees in S&E -- that is, social sciences, psychology and behaviorial science, medical science, biological sciences, earth science and geology, atmospheric science, ocean science, etc. Few of those degrees lead themselves to careers in software engineering; Google isn't known to hire irrigation management or crop specialists to work on new search products.* That's why it makes more sense to talk about CS degrees specifically. [* Yes, of course software engineers can come from any field, and we all know the self-taught high school dropout who can outprogram a Stanford CS PhD. But those are the exception, not the rule.]
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kps 12y ago
Not everyone Google hires is straight out of school.

Torgo 12y ago

So women make up 18% of new CS degrees and Google's staffed at 17%. Blacks and hispanics make up under 5% of CS degrees and at Google they make up 3%. Close the ticket, it's an upstream problem.

rcthompson 12y ago
Well, they say they're working with "upstream" to resolve the issue: "Among other things, since 2010 we’ve given more than $40 million to organizations working to bring computer science education to women and girls. And we’ve been working with historically black colleges and universities to elevate coursework and attendance in computer science. For example, this year Google engineer Charles Pratt was in-residence at Howard University, where he revamped the school’s Intro to CS curriculum."
- Torgo 12y ago
  My response was flippant, which is probably why some people have been downvoting it, but I'm legitimately glad if they're working to make their hiring pool more representative of the population. But at the same time, it's hardly their fault or responsibility to "fix" it if universities just aren't graduating people in those proportions. This came right after I'd read a PBS article that claimed "Google finally discloses its diversity record, and it’s not good." Then I read a breakdown of CS grads in this submission, and Google seems to be pretty representative.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > My response was flippant, which is probably why some people have been downvoting it, but I'm legitimately glad if they're working to make their hiring pool more representative of the population. But at the same time, it's hardly their fault or responsibility to "fix" it if universities just aren't graduating people in those proportions. If they have reasons to prefer a diverse workforce, whether or not they are at fault for the lack of a sufficiently diverse qualified applicant pool, it is their responsibility to fix it.

heydenberk 12y ago

It's {{current_year}} and people are still asking, "why does diversity matter?" Diversity matters for a lot of reasons. Perhaps most importantly, demographic diversity is strongly correlated with diversity in points of view. You want the people building your products to come from many walks of life. Remember how Google+ had significant uptake in the rich white tech dude demographic? Not a coincidence. If you want the best people working at your company, you should want a group with similar demographics as the customer population, and if you disagree with that, you either believe there is something inherent about certain groups that makes them better or worse at these jobs, which is plainly bigoted, or you believe that there are external social biases which cause the discrepancies. If the latter is your belief, that's all the more reason to work to increase diversity as a corrective to those external social biases. Diversity also impacts the way that people see your company, which makes attracting a diverse pool of qualified candidates easier (few people want to be the only member of a certain demographic group) and is good for public relations.

Maascamp 12y ago
Thank you for typing that all out. I agree completely. As a visible minority in tech, I'm simply more attracted to companies where I feel l won't stick out like a sore thumb. Of course I want to hired for my qualifications, but I'm only applying to companies that can meet _my_ requirements as well.
- middleclick 12y ago
  I don't get this logic. How does it matter if you are a sore thumb if you are not being discriminated? As someone who is also from a visible minority group, it never bothers me unless of course people change their behavior towards me because of the colour of my skin, which I have luckily never experienced. Please don't feel that I am being condescending; I have come across this statement many times before and I can't understand it.
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EGreg 12y ago

"But we’re the first to admit that Google is miles from where we want to be" Who is "we"? And why do they want to be somewhere else?

dragonwriter 12y ago
> Who is "we"? Google. > And why do they want to be somewhere else? Among other reasons, because Google is employee-constrained (they have plenty of money and plenty of things they'd like to do, but have trouble hiring enough workers that meet their qualification standards to be able to effectively apply the money they have to the opportunities they would like to pursue), and the lack of the diversity in their workforce, mirroring the lack of diversity in their qualified candidate pool -- given the absence of evidence that there are inherent reasons for that lack of diversity -- indicates that improving social barriers that constrain their qualified candidate pool is likely to be an effective way of making more of the people who are innately capable of being Googlers actually able to become qualified to be Googlers, allowing Google to hire more qualified people, allowing Google to more effectively pursue the wide range of opportunities they would like to pursue.

incision 12y ago

It appears the prior story on this topic got blasted off the front page [1] for whatever reason. Here's what I had to say over there [2]. 1: http://hnrankings.info/7813310/ http://hnrankings.info/7813310/ 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7813811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7813811

chris_mahan 12y ago

True diversity is diversity of thought.

talles 12y ago

What a lovely attitude by Google to open up and show those statistics. It's especially praiseworthy due the fact it's not a case of "look how 'diverse' we are" but more of a "let's openly discuss these numbers".

droopyEyelids 12y ago

I'm always confused by the vagueness of these diversity PR efforts. When you consciously want to improve something, you set goals for yourself, and then figure out ways to meet those goals. Then people can hold you accountable. Google doesn't seem to have done any of that. They made a start in choosing what they're going to measure, but I don't understand it. For example, I don't think "Black" is an ethnicity. The differences between a black South African and someone from Egypt is huge, let alone a third generation American. Also, I notice Google didn't include anything about gender in their diversity graphs, and I think everyone believes gender and sexual orientation contribute a valuable difference in perspective. I'm curious as to why they chose to exclude gay, transgendered, straight, and everyone in between and outside those labels from this push. And then, even if they define all the categories of diversity they want, how the hell do they determine what their targets are for all the different demographics?

xienze 12y ago
"We need more diversity" is code for "we need fewer white men", but I think you already knew that. Everyone does, that's why it doesn't have to be stated.

doodyhead 12y ago

Although it's fairly straightforward to distinguish between gender and sexual orientation, I disagree with these traditional US categories of ethnicity. Take a 'White' person, for instance: is a White American the same as a White Englishman, or a White Australian? What about a White Frenchman? These are all classified as 'White' but could potentially be vastly different in terms of diversity. The same argument could be made with the other ethnicities. The 'Asian' category -- are they Chinese, Japanese, Filipino..? Or an American Asian immigrant -- Chinese-American, etc. If you're aiming for diversity that's representative of your customer base, then surely your measure of ethnicity has to be more granular.

vajorie 12y ago
Yes, race and ethnicity are socially constructed and are fluid. No, however much you try to whitewash it, 70-30-3-4-5 is as shitty as it gets outside of legalized segregation.
- xienze 12y ago
  Whites are 78% of the US population, so being 70% of Google's population is a pretty fair representation. Asians are over-represented though. What exactly do you think is "fair"? I'm guessing having fewer than 50% whites at Google.
  - Mangalor 12y ago
    Why would you guess that? Clearly the non-asian minorities figures are abominable.
    - xienze 12y ago
      Because "diversity" is code for "there's too many white people here." I highly doubt anyone would complain about diversity if Google were 61% black (just like no one complains about the NFL and NBA's appalling lack of diversity). Either way, to boost non-Asian minority percentages you've got to take away from the white or Asian percentages. Hmm... who do you think's gonna be on the receiving end of that rebalancing?

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dragonwriter 12y ago
> 72.4% of Americans are White, yet 61% of Google employees are White. Technically Whites are under-represented. > Women earn 18% of computer science degrees, yet 30% of Google employees are Women. Technically women are over-represented. How come you use "Americans" as the universe of comparison in the first sentence and "CS degrees" in the second? I suspect that neither is the universe of comparison that Google is looking at -- particularly the latter, given that one of their approaches for addressing diversity is to support programs that are designed to expand the number of women and underrepresented minorities graduating in technical fields. > Another 10 years of this diversity mania propaganda and we'll have the same quotas for Whites as the ones that were used against Jewish high achievers. No one is talking about adopting quotas, except for the reflexively anti-diversity crowd.
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  - enneff 12y ago
    > Between the lines they are indeed hinting towards "soft quotas". No, they're not. They're talking about increasing the number of qualified candidates in the recruiting pipeline. I've said it before in this thread and I'll repeat it here: Google wants to hire _as many qualified candidates as possible_. We've got a huge pile of money but not enough people!
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      - enneff 12y ago
        You should be sorry for having such a persecution complex. How you can read the original article as an attack on white people is astonishing. It is beyond question (although I'm sure you question it) that white people are by far the most privileged group of people around today. To see yourself is a victim because of your race and gender is simply an excuse for whatever insecurities you might have. Most people in this world are born with a tremendous handicap. You had an advantage* . If you still feel threatened, then I'm sorry for you. ( * You may have been disadvantaged in other ways, but by being white you do have an advantage, whether you like it or not.)

nl 12y ago

Are these diversity numbers for the US or for Google as a whole? If they are world-wide, I find it quite interesting how closely the location of the Google offices where software development occurs[1] matches the ethnicity numbers. Notably, there is only one development office in Latin America (and none in Spain/Portugal), and the only development office in the Middle East or Africa is Tel Aviv (not clear what ethnicity the workers there would class themselves as). I'm not aware of any world-class Computer Science programs in Africa. There are some decent ones in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, but increasing the number would be a problem worth tackling. [1] https://www.google.com.au/about/careers/teams/engineering/swe/ https://www.google.com.au/about/careers/teams/engineering/sw...

cbhl 12y ago
Race is US, Gender is Worldwide.
- nl 12y ago
  Interesting.. my point is pretty valid then.
  - nl 12y ago
    (err. Actually this means there is no evidence for my point one way or another. Too late to delete though.)
- deleted 12y ago
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- waveman2 12y ago
  In a number of countries you are not allowed to ask someone's race, let alone record it on your computers. In the USA it is compulsory so you can provide these stats and protect yourself against lawsuits.
seanmcdirmid 12y ago
You are aware that every country has "race" distinctions, even if they aren't the same as the US. E.g. in Tel Aviv, it would be interesting to know how many Palestinians are employed, or in Latin America, how many Africans and natives, in China, how many Tibetans and Uighurs? Upstream is important, but we should still make an effort.

bothuman 12y ago

If Google achieves a 51% Female 49% Male ratio, is this good? Supporters of forced diversity are implying it is, but why? If there is something gained by having gender X, then you are saying that genders are not equal. If there is no difference, then why are we doing this? Why are we basing employment on gender anyway? I'd like to see stats regarding people looking for work who are successful and those that are not. If a woman wants to stay at home, can we not accept her choice? If a man wants to stay at home while the woman is breadwinner, is this not okay too?

groby_b 12y ago
Please do show me these strawmen supporters of forced diversity. > then you are saying that genders are not equal No, you're saying that their life experience is not equal. There's no inequality in terms of ability, but in terms of what you know. > I'd like to see stats regarding people looking for work who are successful Closest proxy I can find is a study of success rate for MBAs by gender.[1] No surprise whatsoever, women experience lower salaries and career satisfaction. Also, women have less upward mobility into management positions. > If a woman wants to stay at home, can we not accept her choice? The issue is not wanting to stay at home. > If a man wants to stay at home while the woman is breadwinner, is this not okay too? Of course it is. To make that possible, we need to close the salary gap and address glass ceiling issues. http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/29182/0000235.pdf?sequence=1 http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/29182...

asdfologist 12y ago

I'd be really curious to see the gender/ethnic breakdown of just the Google software engineers. As it stands it's hard to make a meaningful comparison between Google and the overall US population of CS majors.

kirkbackus 12y ago
They don't have the software engineers specifically, but they have the breakdown of the "Tech" people http://www.google.com/diversity/at-google.html#tab=tech http://www.google.com/diversity/at-google.html#tab=tech
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jpatokal 12y ago
The "Tech" stats at the PBS article are just that: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/google-discloses-workforce-diversity-data-good/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/google-discloses-workfor...
fionatg 12y ago
Exactly, it feels like they are artificially boosting the figures here because when people look at Google stats they think tech anyway. The Tech only figures are much more male-skewed.

ChuckMcM 12y ago

When I worked there I thought they did a reasonably good job on gender, religion, and sexual orientation but there were not enough older engineers there. I wonder what the actual numbers are for that.

purringmeow 12y ago
Burnout maybe? How long is the average work week?

jpatokal 12y ago

This is a near-dupe of the discussion of this PBS article, which has more data, including the tech vs non-tech breakdown: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/google-discloses-workforce-diversity-data-good/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/google-discloses-workfor... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7813310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7813310

monkmartinez 12y ago

Hispanics mentioned 4 times in this thread as of 10:23pm MST. Asian's mentioned 18 times... Everyone talks Black (27 mentions) and White (82 mentions).... meanwhile Hispanic and Asian ethic groups race higher and higher in total number. [1] In raw numbers, Hispanics are growing far faster than any ethnic group in the US. Companies in this game for the long haul had better recognize that Hispanics will be the dominant ethnic group in relatively short order.[2] But who are the Hispanics? Better figure it out. It matters now and will increasingly matter much more going forward. [1] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/population/cb13-112.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/population... [2]http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/fast-growth-latino-population-blurs-traditional-u-s-racial-lines-article-1.1291138 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/fast-growth-latino-...

Matt_Cutts 12y ago

I found data (from 2012) for some other companies: http://money.cnn.com/interactive/technology/tech-diversity-data/ http://money.cnn.com/interactive/technology/tech-diversity-d...

nl 12y ago
The low proportion of Asian sales workers at Cisco is interesting.
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a-t-shirt 12y ago
And here's an interesting demographics map of the Bay Area from 2010: http://minus.com/i/bgqCzuSwvcAi1 http://minus.com/i/bgqCzuSwvcAi1 I wonder the extent to which Googlers' lives at work are affected by Google's new-found focus on diversity. When a company's culture shifts, so will its output. It's inevitable.

bowlofpetunias 12y ago

Ah, the US, where blatantly racist categorization of humans is used to prove your not racist. Seriously, how many other countries divide people in "black" and "white"? Or is it even legal to do so?

jqm 12y ago
Not to mention it makes less and less sense everyday. Look at how many multi-racial people there are. Well, almost everybody really if you think about it.
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buyx 12y ago

As a person who comes from a place where there has always been an unhealthy obsession with demographic classification (South Africa), I'm curious about the "Asian" classification, which seems even more worthless than the average racial classification. Does it encompass both South Asians and Chinese? Do they have a common "Asian experience" in the US? Does the average person whose ancestors came from Tehran have much in common with someone from Beijing?

dmm 12y ago
I think I get what you're saying. The continent of Africa contains more human (genetic) diversity than the rest of the world combined, yet almost everyone from it would be classified as "Black".
- buyx 12y ago
  The continent of Africa contains more human (genetic) diversity than the rest of the world combined, yet almost everyone from it would be classified as "Black". Interesting that you should bring that up: in South Africa under Apartheid, the racial classification of "Black" (previously called "Bantu" and "Native") was a person of "pure" African descent. In post apartheid South Africa, for the purposes of redress [^] "black" means Indian, Coloured (mixed race) and black Africans. Of course, it was found that disproportionately Coloureds and (especially) Indians were being appointed (they were better educated and more affluent), so there seems to be a renewed emphasis on black Africanness... our Indian finance minister was just replaced by a black African, which was viewed as some kind of milestone - incidentally Julius Malema brought this up a few years ago, but it was quickly sent down the memory hole. There has been, in recent times the emergence of racial bomb-throwers who claim that whites cannot be "African". In any case, my point is that even the term "black" is not as clear-cut as we would assume. [^] I actually do support affirmative action in South Africa as a corrective measure. The potential for abuse does exist, in the future - currently whites, despite a huge amount of whining are not particularly disadvantaged. Sadly there isn't a sunset clause, although the constitution limits reverse discrimination to reversing the effects of past discrmination, a sunset clause of, say 2035, after which all racial discrimination would be banned, would have been better, in my opinion.

orbifold 12y ago

I really don't get why gender or ethnicity should play any role at all. Especially for jobs based on technical skill it would make a lot of sense to select mainly for ability. It is then very likely that this would have the same skewed distribution of ethnicities that all the 'elite' universities have, despite affirmative action. As a white priviledged male, I feel sort of disheartened reading that all things being equal, officially I won't be hired, unofficially of course often it is the other way around. There are plenty of countries that are much less diverse than the US and still have highly successful companies, so apart from good PR I fail to see why 'working on diversity' does have any meaningful impact.

Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
From a company perspective the reason is you may well be missing out on great talent and the great teams that research shows come with greater diversity. I don't necessarily agree with affirmative action, but if you believe that many of the factors which contribute towards easily measured ability (attending a good school, work experience) may be skewed, then you presumably also accept that there is untapped potential out there - people with the ability to be as great but who have been in some way - fairly or otherwise - disadvantaged. In IT in particular, where everything changes rapidly, you want to be hiring for potential as much as skill the candidate has today. I don't think it's about picking someone because they're part of a minority, it's about thinking about how you look for and judge candidates to take into account that potential which so far hasn't been tapped.
- orbifold 12y ago
  I agree that there is a lot of potential lost due to unequal opportunities (for example children with poor parents, versus children with rich parents) and peer pressure / gender stereotypes. I've studied physics and the 5% of female students consistently were well above average for example, which suggests that only a portion of the extremely talented females even considered studying physics. I am not sure if an individual company can really do anything about the factors contributing to those inequal oportunities. I feel for many skills they come to late, the education system is really the place that should work to reduce the amount of wasted potential.

marincounty 12y ago

Google needs to hire a few older people who know about the Mcarthy Era, and how Nazis used personal information against family members? And yes, Duckduckgo is getting better each month. My love affair with Google is long over. She taped everything I said, and will not stop stalking me.

merrua 12y ago

It's tiring always being first, always being different, always being the one who has to adapt, denying important parts of yourself just to get the chance to do your job. It’s like being a stranger in a strange land, where you speak the language but nobody learns yours. That's why even women who do well in development end up leaving mid-career. http://www.fastcolabs.com/3008216/tracking/minding-gap-how-your-company-can-woo-female-coders http://www.fastcolabs.com/3008216/tracking/minding-gap-how-y... [You could swamp out woman with any other minority group and it would still be true. Its much harder to stick with something when the river flow is actively against you.]

ap22213 12y ago

It's nice for Google to publish this, but their commentary is misleading. From 2000 to 2009, 10% (48,897 / 471,318) of Computer Science undergraduate degrees were awarded to Blacks, according to NSF ([1][2]). [1]: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c2/c2s2.htm http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c2/c2s2.htm [2]: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/append/c2/at02-19.xls http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/append/c2/at02-19.xls

darkhorn 12y ago

I think that the author doesn't know the difference between race and ethnicity.

julesbond007 12y ago

I wonder how many of those minorities are working the low ends at Google...the details of course didn't say. Also, they stopped short of saying it's the perception and blame the facts on 'statistics'. I'm sure they have no problems hiring cooks, janitors, etc who are minorities.