6 ms·

Diversity and Feedback at GitHub

56 points by akerl_ 12y ago

westi 12y ago
Some interesting things here. It is interesting to see how many of the failings they admit now are not really gender based but more job role based (although gender undoubtedly plays a part too)
hadoukenio 12y ago
After the whole Horvath incident, I take what they say with a grain of salt. It's hard changing company culture, especially one that's Bro Code heavy. You can probably make big changes within a small company, but there are currently 239 employees.
- krlee 12y ago
  https://github.com/blog/1823-results-of-the-github-investigation https://github.com/blog/1823-results-of-the-github-investiga... "The investigation found no evidence to support the claims against Tom and his wife of sexual or gender-based harassment or retaliation, or of a sexist or hostile work environment. ... As to the remaining allegations, the investigation found no evidence of gender-based discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or abuse."
  - pekk 12y ago
    An accusation is as good as a finding of guilt in the court of public opinion.
  - gress 12y ago
    There is zero transparency into this investigation or it's results.
  - grmarcil 12y ago
    To fill in your ellipsis: "However, while there may have been no legal wrongdoing, the investigator did find evidence of mistakes and errors of judgment. In light of these findings, Tom has submitted his resignation, which the company has accepted." Although they found no evidence of legal wrongdoing, they found enough general dirt to force a founding CEO to resign. Obviously the public will never know exactly what happened, but an explosive, highly publicized employee departure followed by a CEO's resignation makes you wonder how the company allowed things to go so wrong.
- morgante 12y ago
  I've yet to see any evidence that GitHub is "Bro Code heavy."
  - jiggy2011 12y ago
    What does that even mean?
owenwil 12y ago
I'm not sure how to feel about this. On one hand, it acknowledges that the company truly believes there's something to fix. On the other hand, it ignores the fact of what really happened with Julie and doesn't acknowledge (still) that it went down badly/was their fault.
- matthewmacleod 12y ago
  it ignores the fact of what really happened with Julie I would just point out that while there were obvious issues at Github, it's not clear to the public (and never will be) exactly what happened there.
Dewie 12y ago
> We’re in the planning stages of designing a diversity and communication training curriculum for GitHub employees with input from Hubbers and external experts. Anyone have any experience with attending these kinds of things?
YABguy 12y ago
There is an interesting race/gender intersectional aspect of the "not enough women in the pipeline" problem that gets thrown around on HN so often. They're discounting thousands of Indian and Asian women who are entering the industry every year, especially at the graduate level. Where do they end up working? Mostly in big cos. Why? You guessed it - startup "culture". As an anecdote, a few weeks ago, a very good Indian friend of mine started work at a hot SF startup (their backend is in Go!). In her second week, she was asked not to heat up her food in the microwave because her food 'smelled'. If that wasn't enough, her teammates pressured her to drink a Vodka shot after a major deploy (which is apparently, customary). Never mind she's never tasted alcohol in her life. She quit in her 3rd week. This is not a single anecdote. As an Indian person currently working at a startup, I can tell you first hand that the big cos I've worked at are far more culturally sensitive and accomodating to POC.
- jonnybgood 12y ago
  > As an anecdote, a few weeks ago, a very good Indian friend of mine started work at a hot SF startup (their backend is in Go!). In her second week, she was asked not to heat up her food in the microwave because her food 'smelled'. That's a hard one. I personally don't see that as a cultural issue. Startups are usually within small quarters. Big Co's typically have isolated "kitchen areas". I think it's important when working in small quarters organizations to be respectful of the workplace and sensibilities of your coworkers. It's somewhat analogous to BO when someone refuses to wear deodorant or the likes because of their convictions. Unlike noise that can be drowned out with headphones, you can't really drown out smells.
  - YABguy 12y ago
    Indian food isn't BO. It's a different kind of food. For me, personally, I didn't like the smell of bacon at first. But guess what? I sucked it up and got used to it. That's what cultural sensitivity is. If you can't stand the smell of Indian food, then at least be honest about it and don't hire Indian people as a policy. Why this pretense about diversity?
    - 12y ago
allochthon 12y ago
I'm sympathetic to Github's aims of addressing women's issues and increasing diversity. But as a general rule, in direct proportion to the extent that HR are permitted to step in and formalize something at a place, I am less likely to want to work at that place. I understand the need for processes for handling certain situations or deeply-ingrained challenges. But the more structured things are allowed to become, the more constraining a company feels.
- hrktb 12y ago
  I think in their position they have the choice between making it crystal clear to current employees that they need different moral standards, or doing cycles of firings->hirings to get new employees aligned with their new policies. If I were a Github employee happy with my job and current colleagues, I'd prefer the former solution.
- dandroid1 12y ago
  I agree. In particular, the following line really turned me off GitHub's upcoming culture: >We’re in the planning stages of designing a diversity and communication training curriculum for GitHub employees with input from Hubbers and external experts. Topics will include diversity training, effective communication, giving and receiving peer feedback, and conflict resolution.
  - samstokes 12y ago
    I'm not sure if you're objecting to the topics they're planning to train for, or the perceived formality of the training, but I don't think either needs to hurt the culture if done well. Communication is incredibly important at any company, but startups often fail to treat it as such, saying "we don't need meetings to get shit done" or "we hire great people so things will just work out". Some people, through work or life experience, will have no problem giving constructive feedback at appropriate times, and working through differences of opinion. Others will suck at these things. The latter may otherwise be strong contributors - especially if you were hiring for ninja rockstar coding ability and not explicitly for communication skills - so it's worth helping them acquire those skills, both for their own career and for the company. In particular, some people with conflict-avoiding personalities may have never experienced productive conflict resolution, unless you consider always backing down and feeling increasingly disempowered to be productive. Now sure, if GitHub HR (or employees) treat this training as a box-ticking exercise, or use it to encourage bland, conflict-free discussion, the culture will nosedive. But I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
emocakes 12y ago
fuck github

56 points by akerl_ 12y ago

westi 12y ago

Some interesting things here. It is interesting to see how many of the failings they admit now are not really gender based but more job role based (although gender undoubtedly plays a part too)

hadoukenio 12y ago

After the whole Horvath incident, I take what they say with a grain of salt. It's hard changing company culture, especially one that's Bro Code heavy. You can probably make big changes within a small company, but there are currently 239 employees.

krlee 12y ago
https://github.com/blog/1823-results-of-the-github-investigation https://github.com/blog/1823-results-of-the-github-investiga... "The investigation found no evidence to support the claims against Tom and his wife of sexual or gender-based harassment or retaliation, or of a sexist or hostile work environment. ... As to the remaining allegations, the investigation found no evidence of gender-based discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or abuse."
- pekk 12y ago
  An accusation is as good as a finding of guilt in the court of public opinion.
- gress 12y ago
  There is zero transparency into this investigation or it's results.
- grmarcil 12y ago
  To fill in your ellipsis: "However, while there may have been no legal wrongdoing, the investigator did find evidence of mistakes and errors of judgment. In light of these findings, Tom has submitted his resignation, which the company has accepted." Although they found no evidence of legal wrongdoing, they found enough general dirt to force a founding CEO to resign. Obviously the public will never know exactly what happened, but an explosive, highly publicized employee departure followed by a CEO's resignation makes you wonder how the company allowed things to go so wrong.
morgante 12y ago
I've yet to see any evidence that GitHub is "Bro Code heavy."
- jiggy2011 12y ago
  What does that even mean?

owenwil 12y ago

I'm not sure how to feel about this. On one hand, it acknowledges that the company truly believes there's something to fix. On the other hand, it ignores the fact of what really happened with Julie and doesn't acknowledge (still) that it went down badly/was their fault.

matthewmacleod 12y ago
it ignores the fact of what really happened with Julie I would just point out that while there were obvious issues at Github, it's not clear to the public (and never will be) exactly what happened there.

Dewie 12y ago

> We’re in the planning stages of designing a diversity and communication training curriculum for GitHub employees with input from Hubbers and external experts. Anyone have any experience with attending these kinds of things?

YABguy 12y ago

There is an interesting race/gender intersectional aspect of the "not enough women in the pipeline" problem that gets thrown around on HN so often. They're discounting thousands of Indian and Asian women who are entering the industry every year, especially at the graduate level. Where do they end up working? Mostly in big cos. Why? You guessed it - startup "culture". As an anecdote, a few weeks ago, a very good Indian friend of mine started work at a hot SF startup (their backend is in Go!). In her second week, she was asked not to heat up her food in the microwave because her food 'smelled'. If that wasn't enough, her teammates pressured her to drink a Vodka shot after a major deploy (which is apparently, customary). Never mind she's never tasted alcohol in her life. She quit in her 3rd week. This is not a single anecdote. As an Indian person currently working at a startup, I can tell you first hand that the big cos I've worked at are far more culturally sensitive and accomodating to POC.

jonnybgood 12y ago
> As an anecdote, a few weeks ago, a very good Indian friend of mine started work at a hot SF startup (their backend is in Go!). In her second week, she was asked not to heat up her food in the microwave because her food 'smelled'. That's a hard one. I personally don't see that as a cultural issue. Startups are usually within small quarters. Big Co's typically have isolated "kitchen areas". I think it's important when working in small quarters organizations to be respectful of the workplace and sensibilities of your coworkers. It's somewhat analogous to BO when someone refuses to wear deodorant or the likes because of their convictions. Unlike noise that can be drowned out with headphones, you can't really drown out smells.
- YABguy 12y ago
  Indian food isn't BO. It's a different kind of food. For me, personally, I didn't like the smell of bacon at first. But guess what? I sucked it up and got used to it. That's what cultural sensitivity is. If you can't stand the smell of Indian food, then at least be honest about it and don't hire Indian people as a policy. Why this pretense about diversity?
  - 12y ago

allochthon 12y ago

I'm sympathetic to Github's aims of addressing women's issues and increasing diversity. But as a general rule, in direct proportion to the extent that HR are permitted to step in and formalize something at a place, I am less likely to want to work at that place. I understand the need for processes for handling certain situations or deeply-ingrained challenges. But the more structured things are allowed to become, the more constraining a company feels.

hrktb 12y ago
I think in their position they have the choice between making it crystal clear to current employees that they need different moral standards, or doing cycles of firings->hirings to get new employees aligned with their new policies. If I were a Github employee happy with my job and current colleagues, I'd prefer the former solution.
dandroid1 12y ago
I agree. In particular, the following line really turned me off GitHub's upcoming culture: >We’re in the planning stages of designing a diversity and communication training curriculum for GitHub employees with input from Hubbers and external experts. Topics will include diversity training, effective communication, giving and receiving peer feedback, and conflict resolution.
- samstokes 12y ago
  I'm not sure if you're objecting to the topics they're planning to train for, or the perceived formality of the training, but I don't think either needs to hurt the culture if done well. Communication is incredibly important at any company, but startups often fail to treat it as such, saying "we don't need meetings to get shit done" or "we hire great people so things will just work out". Some people, through work or life experience, will have no problem giving constructive feedback at appropriate times, and working through differences of opinion. Others will suck at these things. The latter may otherwise be strong contributors - especially if you were hiring for ninja rockstar coding ability and not explicitly for communication skills - so it's worth helping them acquire those skills, both for their own career and for the company. In particular, some people with conflict-avoiding personalities may have never experienced productive conflict resolution, unless you consider always backing down and feeling increasingly disempowered to be productive. Now sure, if GitHub HR (or employees) treat this training as a box-ticking exercise, or use it to encourage bland, conflict-free discussion, the culture will nosedive. But I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

emocakes 12y ago

fuck github