I’m a white guy in Silicon Valley and I’m done buying the meritocracy myth | Hacker News Reader

I’m a white guy in Silicon Valley and I’m done buying the meritocracy myth

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67 pointssamepant45 comments

The biggest issue that I see is how much startup founders justify the idea that they need to hire and promote people that they 'would want to hang out with', aka the people they would want to be friends with outside of work. This leads to an extremely homogenous workforce with almost no diversity, because people generally are attracted to those who look and act like them. Guys usually don't see women and internally think 'I want to be friends with that person', white people don't generally see a black guy and think 'I want to be friends with them'.

Now obviously this isn't universal, plenty of cross-group friendships exist, tons in fact, but they are usually formed by the people being forced together (work, neighbors, school). When hiring based on first impressions, though, this becomes a huge problem.

This is probably a side effect of startup founders not actually having lives outside of work.

Self-selecting for this type of employee is also a problem. I can understand doing this for the first few months when you're trying to bootstrap, but long-term if your business model can't scale without people working 12-14 hour days, your business model doesn't scale.

We all read articles on HN and HBR saying that more hours != more work, but we still hire for it anyway. I know most founders are just looking for passionate people who fit with their team, and it can be hard to build a team when one of your team members has to leave every day at 3:30 to pick their kids up from school. But we should at least try to be better.

Well first off, when I meet and like people and therefore come to the conclusion I want to be friends with them, it has nothing to do with race or gender. I'm a white male, may of my friends are female, black, Indian, Asian, Hispanic... and I think, at least in the younger generation (teens - ~ 35 years old) this is generally the case. Unless their parents enforced some crazy ideals in the poor child. For the record, most of my best friends have been girls of different races.

Second, I view partnerships in business as a marriage. It is CRITICAL that I like the person, or it simply will not work. Has NOTHING to do with race or gender.

This is something you simply cannot just generalize across people. Also, having diversity for the sake of diversity is the wrong way to look at things. Yes, you can be diverse with an all white male team. People come from different backgrounds, different parts of the world, etc. Diversity should not just mean race and gender, that's ignorant and really consist of people just spitting out political correctness.

This is a case where two blatant truths are hard to swallow together.

1. People define themselves via their career and their hobbies and these are often correlated with certain races and genders. This gives rise to a kind of social-gravity that attracts those type of people more than others.

2. People prefer to work with friends.

Taken together you can have highly homogenous companies that were built from the group up without a single racist or sexist thought. So its not as simple as "I'm definitely NOT a racist."

So what I fail to understand is that, if those two reasons are why we end up with these homogeneous companies, why is that a problem?

If the field your company is in is something that is predominately an Asian culture thing along with being mostly appealing to males, why is it bad that your company may consist of mostly Asian males? To me, those would be the ones who understand their target market the most and can relate to their customers. Even a company that has a very diversified customer base may be be made up of mostly Asian Males, and there is nothing wrong with that.

I think it's wrong to see a company that isn't "diversified" in the way this article puts it, and think it needs to change. The sheep of political correctness have made too much of an impact on people and for some reason today it's wrong to take any stance that disagrees with the popular opinion.

If I want to start a company with all white females, I should be able to. Is it the best for the company, probably not, but that shouldn't matter. Yes I know employer discrimination laws makes this illegal, it's just an example. If my company sold products to west Texas oil men, guess what, I can't have anybody wearing a turban. That is just the ugly truth. We are human. People will not like other people just because they are different, by appearance and culturally. Hiding this truth behind a veil of ignorance does not solve anything.

It seems most people today lie to themselves to stay politically correct in the public eye. Yet they know their own believe is different.

Section 8 housing has seen this problem. People want to live next to similar people, both wealth, status, cultural, etc. When they declare a property section 8 in a neighborhood like that, the neighborhood's property values decline and people move.

If my company had a strong culture full of people with similar ideas and views, and I forcefully put people in for the sake of "diversity", I would most likely create tension among some employees and possibly lose productivity, cohesiveness, or talent.

Sorry for the rant, I guess my TLDR is: Don't think you have to be diverse (racially and gender wise) for the sake of being diverse and public opinion. We are human, don't hide what you believe and don't sacrifice your morals to be politically correct. I should never have to defend myself by saying "I'm definitely NOT a racist." for who I employee or choose to spend my time with.

To clarify though, I do not have a company full of Asian Males or any other dominant race or gender combination, it was just an example.

I'm as anti-PC as they come. However, I'm not about to ignore the real problems when they show up. This is one of them. The pattern you describe results in systematic alienation of a huge chunk of our population, all kinds of social problems (including crime), and more practically a loss to both the companies and our country when we ignore our potential, top performers. The Navy example cited showed the women were outperforming the men left and right but the bias prevented them from moving up. Had more moved up before, the Navy would've possibly been more effective across the board and would continue as their judgement applied to the next group of candidates.

Every study I looked at on diversity in the workplace showed positive results from the more diverse workplaces. Let's not hypothesize as you did when there's real examples to draw on. In tech, the workplaces of larger companies that are rated best for women specifically include Facebook, Google, Qualcomm, Intel, Texas Instruments, Apple, and Microsoft. Know what they have in common? They own entire markets with massive bankrolls and constant adaptation despite highly-competitive markets that bankrupt many other firms. Might blow your mind that using the best talent rather than just white, males translates to better business decisions, better tech, more money, a healthier economy, and so on. It's why the Nordic countries voluntarily did quotas in high-level business and government positions when they saw the same problem. They don't need quotas now that things are more even and the results were similarly good.

Now, back to your made-up example. The most successful, innovative Asian companies open up operations in many countries hiring locals for operations, marketing, and R&D. They mix talent and ideas from all of them. They also acquire foreign companies for their I.P. and talent. The result: they make billions dominating markets. Toyota, Samsung, and Fujitsu come to mind. On other hand, there are companies like your all-Asian, male firm that avoids all other types: they're called factories and service firms that barely make it to No 4 in their non-innovative industries. In America, we should aim a bit higher and not be left behind by foreign competition. Starting in Silicon Valley...

I'm not advocating to actively hire one demographic. I will always advocate the best individual for the job. In some cases, whether it's sales or even Hooters, where obviously "gifted" females are sought after, it might be directed at one demographic. Odds are if you are a U.S. company and want to expand sales into China, you would most likely have a predominately Chinese sales team doing it. That's just how it works, they are best fit for the job.

The view of looking at a company and saying "it's not diverse enough" I believe is wrong. If all the people at said company were hired based on merit and best suited for the job, and it ends up being largely one demographic, do you think by using an Affirmative Action style hiring spree will make it better? That is what I'm saying should not be done. The fact that companies will see they are 20% women, and then when given the choice to hire for a position out of 5 candidates, they are told, get the 1 female in that group. Despite a male in the group is better suited for the position. All in the name of "diversity". That is wrong and something we need to get rid of. The same is true in a vise versa scenario as well. Fashion is an interesting world that comes to mind. Many female clothing lines are actually behind a male name and designed by males. Many male clothing lines are designed by females.

Sure it's easy to show a company, or the Navy, that has mostly hired males in the past which now hires more females, improve performance. That is re-balancing previous discrimination. Going forward though, they should not try to right their past wrongs by compensating on the other end, they should simply hire the best candidate for the position.

I'm not sure if my point is getting across. I'm not necessarily against what you re saying. If i have a start-up and I need to hire 10 people. I'm not going to say I'l hire 5 males, 5 females, 3 will be white, 3 will be Asian, 2 will be Hispanic, and the others international. NO. I will hire who I find that's best for the position. At the end of the day, if I end up with 9 males and 1 female, and out of the males 7 of them are white, this should not be looked down upon. When I go to hire the 11th employee, the demographics of the previous 10 employees should not matter. Today it seems like people will say, because we have 7 white males, we can't hire an additional white male. That is so F'ed up and needs to stop. It's wrong on so many levels. The best candidates in all positions will make the company preform best overall, period.

There's certainly times when a certain demographic gets in more. Although, your second contrived example (Hooters) fails too as many are A-cups that use pushup bra's. Learned that from many ladies that worked at many of them and the ones with smaller tits often outperformed. Once again, you'd have a less qualified (and profitable) worker if you judged Hooters girls by actual Hooter size. I can't even remember a good one with D size at last one I went to. The best were cute but got results on straight-up personality: making it fun for their customers and making them feel like the center of the universe. Customer service 101.

Anyway, back to what I think your point is. There are two ways of looking at the quota perspective. One is that it's wrong because you get unqualified people and it doesn't change anything. The other is that a version of it is necessary because otherwise nothing will change. I still go back and forth on the issue myself other than a few points: clearly don't hire unqualified or way less qualified people just for a quota; ensure people get why it exists to reduce inevitable fighting internally; have reasonable cut-off points for applying it (eg 30% women is OK).

All that said, we've had many decades of attempting the default method you mention. The result was/is systematic discrimination across the board. The OP's Silicon Valley numbers of potential vs hired is a good example. Navy was a perfect example. I also remember a clever experiment where the same great resumes were sent to companies in cities all over the us. Identical resumes different only by the name: one obviously white and one black. The whites got calls 70% of time on a good resume. Rednecks were expecting Blacks to get maybe 60% or something with a little discrimination. Try 30%. We're talking same great skills and background... just the name was enough to disqualify. At this level of bias, the solution isn't going to be popular, clearly not spontaneous, and will likely involve quotas or something. It has to be rather forced because there's no attempt to do it willingly. Quite a statement in itself given talent they're denying.

The overall result is that people aren't finding whose best for the position. There's actually little evidence to support that they ever did. The data shows that people, maybe you or maybe not, pick who they feel is the best fit for their organization and the best for the position. If your white or male, the "best" candidate is likely to be the same even if the others would objectively outscore them & do a good job. This goes on even when we present objective criteria proving a superior candidate, skill, etc: they just make excuses for decision. Preaching didn't work. Showing the extra profit and competitiveness didn't work. Showing companies that did this were ON TOP didn't work. What's next outside initiatives such as quotas FOR QUALIFIED PEOPLE in other demographics? (Emphasis to be clear if I haven't as I don't want unqualified people at all.)

Self-driven model doesn't work because few will do it. So, we need something else. It's why I'm exploring data-driven methods as a potential alternative to straight quotas. I'm also calling out Silicon Valley on being able to systematically, analytically, and technologically solve everything except getting people from a talent pool without discrimination. There's gotta be good tactics in those bright minds. If nothings happening, it's because whoever is in charge doesn't WANT it to happen.

Yes, to be sure, that attitude is a non starter. It sounds very collegiate, but in the wrong way. If taken seriously it not only has the potential to act as a bad filter, but also has the potential to homogenize --which is probably good to some extent organizationally, buy bad if you look at it from an outside of work perspective. You're hammering the squeaky nail. It's like the Borg. All the diverse (skin, culture and otherwise) people meld into one very emotionally homogenous system where the non conformers are labeled as uncooperative non-players.

> Guys usually don't see women and internally think 'I want to be friends with that person'

> white people don't generally see a black guy and think 'I want to be friends with them'.

Is this scientifically proven? I highly suspect these statements. I personally have not become friends with any women by force, and I most definitely have wanted to be friends with people of a race that is different than mine.

Not because of gender or race. Just because they were funny or interesting.

Obviously my anecdote counts for very little, but I find it hard to believe that "generally" people suck at being friends across races or genders. I believe it's possible that some people can experience that, but I highly disagree that it is a general, chronic phenomenon; I think making blanket statements on race or gender outside of the strictly biological+physical ones is very shaky ground.

My favorite example of this is Max Levchin in Founders at Work bragging that they didn't hire a great engineering candidate because he said outside of work he likes to "shoot hoops." According to Levchin it might have been okay to play basketball but saying "hoops" made it immediately clear this guy was a bad culture fit.

How can anyone read that and find Levchin's reasoning compelling? He doesn't have any sort of knowledge of casual basketball as a hobby and is making a value judgment on the word choice of the candidate based on Levchin's own inexperience with the hobby culture the candidate lives in. It's basically running up a flag that says if you think someone is remotely different from you don't hire that person. Yet I've heard the opposite from some people, that this is a great move by Levchin. Jessice Livingston included this in her book of advice from founders! This is why there's no diversity in SV.

I'm an advocate of blind hiring and promotion across the board. Study after study has shown that it is the only way to remove bias (race/class/gender/etc) on the part of the hiring/promoting party.

Here's an NPR/All Tech Considered story on it.

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/05/28/410...

How would hiring work in practice? Wouldn't you have to completely eliminate in-person and or telephone interviews?

Promotions I can see (although you need very formal promotion requirements). Hiring? I don't know.

People might cry and complain, but why not text based media like chat or email? Chat for real time related things, email for other.

Or voice scramblers, but that's just silly :)

You contract with an outside firm to do the interviewing, screening, etc. On the other hand, a completely separate HR department gathers the prerequisites of the hiring department or manager, and then they make the decision as to whom to hire. The manager is given a new worker with no biased input as to race, gender, sexuality, attraction, etc. I think it goes much further than simply having a workforce that works well together, and likes to hang out with each other. The attractiveness of the candidate, and whether or not they'd be fun to hang out with on the weekends, or worse, date, should have zero bearing on the hiring process.

Check out Malcolm Gladwell in his book "Blink" discussing blind auditions for musicians.

Also: http://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/oct/14/b...

That's interesting. What studies do you have backing up the results rather than just bias elimination?

Most posts I see on hiring are about assessing the person as much as the person's skills. Character and personality matter a lot. How do you blind hire on that?

Is there corresponding data that character and personality (as defined subjectively by hiring managers) affect results?

Not sure. I know the traits are important but as to hiring managers' effectiveness in assessing them... totally different. Mostly anecdotal stuff there. Wonder if anyone has some studies to post on that sort of thing. Make a nice read.

Unfortunately, blind hiring/promotion would take all the power out of the hiring/promotion game. Most medium/large sized companies have a flourishing trade in promotions/bonuses: you help me back one of my people for promotion to director this year, and I'll make sure you get feature XYZ by the end of the year.

These types of power networks are what make big companies run. Not that taking them away would necessarily be a bad thing, but there would be a LOT of resistance.

Eliminating bias in hiring is likely a good thing (with some govt security exceptions) Allowing opportunity to all who meet qualifications is good. What is not settled is what is normal or acceptable for different fields. That's to say, while women are severely underrepresented in high tech, if based on demographics, is the end to have all fields mimic the demographics of a given area radius or a given graduating class? It may be worthwhile, or not. I don't know.

What I would say is people who qualify (credentials, whatever, immigration status, clearance status, etc) should have equal opportunity and should not face discrimination. It may even warrant active recruitment, but I'm unsure if that is good or just on the surface desirable.

Interestingly, and this is anecdotal, but in my experience there is a higher relative ratio of East and south Asian women than women in general in tech. Even more to the point, Asian women are better represented in ee and cs than non Asian who might be in supporting roles like marketing, branding, etc. If the observations hold, it would be interesting to see why.

His "it's not the pipeline" argument rests on 30% of STEM degrees going to women, but that is for all STEM degrees. In the degrees most relevant to Silicon Valley, engineering and computer science, it is 16%. The average is pulled up to 30% by much higher concentrations of women in physical sciences (40%), math and statistics (42%), and biology (58%).

16% of the engineering/CS degrees going to women lines up very nicely with the 15% he cites for the number of tech jobs in the Bay Area being held by women.

Many of the comparisons of Silicon Valley to national averages are comparing very different types of companies. For example, the comparison of executives is comparing to the S&P 100. I see no reason to expect that, say, a pharmaceutical company absent discrimination would be expected to have the same percentage of women executives as a computer software company absent discrimination. As his link on STEM degrees shows, women make up a considerably higher percentage of the degrees that would be of interest to a pharmaceutical company.

They're all about being data-driven until the data shows they're racist and sexist. ;)

However, I'm going to note that this happens with any majority. I'm a white guy that spent much of my life in areas that were controlled by Blacks and one controlled by Hispanics. Whites in those areas experienced everything Blacks describe in areas with white racists: job discrimination; government discrimination; different police treatment; being served second or not at all at a food place; unprovoked beatdowns by black mobs (esp in schools); different punishment in schools; banned from certain "hoods" always or certain times. Ran into one or two places controlled by women that discriminated against men for key positions but most women-run places were more fair.

Anyway, the point is this stuff is an aspect of human nature and group dynamics. It happens any time a majority is in control of an area or situation with minorities pushing into their turf. We need to eliminate it across the board for all parties. The Navy example was a great one. I also once attended a diversity class that suggested methods of trying to eliminate bias. Another time a HR person suggested Topgrading methodology that was results-focused and said it helped her. Each of these apparently reduced the effect of discrimination in hiring, promotion, and firing.

So, I think we should put a bunch of effort into further R&D on such methods. Not to mention, collect a bunch of what's proven to work (partly or fully) into one resource. I see lots of interesting, data-driven methods posted on HN. Add them, too. Maybe keep a forum or blog network going where results of experiments can be posted over time to see where success is trending. All methods focusing on the skills, character, and objective-as-possible results are the best starting point regardless.

As long as there is "fit" based decisions being made, conscious/subconscious biases based on age/gender/race etc will creep in.

And as long as these pervade, hiring will not be a meritocratic process.

This article is disingenuous. 'Science' has nothing to do with being an engineer in Silicon Valley. I know lots of women in science; they do research in pharmaceuticals and academia, not program social networks for dogs.

Computer science and math at my school (which has the largest faculty of Mathematics in the world) was something like 20% female.

The guy could be correct but some of those stats don't look like they relate. Presumably a lot of the people working in tech in SV didn't originate from SV so the proportion of women in the general population of SV is pretty meaningless unless women interested in tech are going to SV then not landing tech jobs but staying in SV.

If I recall correctly (I may very well be mistaken), men's performance is more variable than women's. Which would lead to the following: * Men would hold the majority of top and bottom spots in a field.

That said, I don't think that's fully responsible for this, but it's interesting to think about.

Additionally, I do think people in Silicon Valley seem to give off the vibe of sacrifice life to be good at your job; something I think women tend to do less often. I don't think that everyone does do that, but there's a stereotype about it for a reason.

Part of fixing the 'gender problem' is not only fixing the selection bias but making sure that there's an environment that does discriminate against one sex or the other. If you're looking to do that.

Are these blanket statements? Yes. Please take them with a huge grain of salt. We are talking about trends and stereotypes after all.

I agree with your assessment of the problem -- it's the environment. But, as long as millions/billions of dollars are on the line then there will always be those who put all their time/energy into their job.

Maybe it's biology that allows men to lead less balanced lives; mabye it's culture. But the effect is what we have today -- when living an unbalanced life is rewarded handsomely, men dominate.

I'd like to hear counter examples.

Maybe it's biology that allows men to lead less balanced lives

It can't be ignored. Males are nature's crapshoot. In many measures when comparing men against women, we'll see more men at the extremities. Most bay area CEOs are men. But so are most prisoners.

This essay helped to shape my views around the topic: http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm

I wish the world would use blind hiring a lot more. I'm not attractive, and I'm a big guy. I've lost out on jobs to people who were less qualified but better looking, and skinnier. I know if the interviewer is a young person I'm probably not getting the job. This crap about "culture" fit is nothing more than code for not hiring people the HR person wouldn't want to hang out with, bang, or find attractive.

Everything is a meritocracy until the bankers arrive. Well, the bankers have arrived.

But it was never a meritocracy. That's the pernicious myth of--well, most of modern society, but very much including tech. The unconscious and conscious biases of the first movers have shaped it since day one, and we still see the effects today.

The first movers in programming were women.

The first movers in programming were the military, who assigned the role of 'programmer' to women because it was considered, not to put too fine a point on it, women's work.

Yep. As was Margaret Hamilton who invented both software engineering and fault-tolerant, hardware-software design. Bunch more on top of that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Hamilton_%28scientist...

Been my favorite for the last year or two since a friend told me about her work doing... basically much of what I was trying to do lol. Her software resume kicks much of Silicon Valley's ass. Yet, many wouldn't hire women and certainly wouldn't know one invented the engineering aspect of their field after another invented programming. ;) Many similarly impressive women in tech and colleges that face uphill battle getting good jobs. Messed up...

Note: Her USL and 001 Toolkit handled specification, semi-automated design, automated coding, automated testing, and handled SCM issues for arbitrary platforms. You could say she was the first "full-stack" engineer with a broader definition of full-stack. ;) 001/USL are really weird so one line of my research is doing same with a user-friendly, specification and implementation language + extensive metaprogramming + good heuristics. Racket or RED are likely implementation languages when I get the concepts all together.

That's somewhat correct on its face--though, as krapp notes, a little disingenuous--but, more importantly, is wholly irrelevant to the growth of tech as an industry, which is what I pretty specifically pointed at rather than at "programming" (as if a trade skill was the point here in the first place).

But you knew all that. So why'd you post that?

A guy on Hacker News posted a theory that discrimination in startup culture came from it's connection to MBA-culture, not nerd-culture. You might enjoy hearing his take on it:

Comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9942837 The blog post linked to in the comment https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/vc-istan-8-t...

I don't think this analysis stands up to the observation that many non-SV nerdcultures have severe problems genderwise.

(Also it should be pointed out that that dude got a ban (not a hellban or slowban, a real ban) from this forum for a gender-based insult)

It makes sense to issue different rucksacks to women but boots?

How is it not a pipeline problem when according to the article:

> In the last two decades, the amount of women graduating with tech degrees has been in decline

If that's happening before they even have a chance to be hired, then it is a pipeline problem.

Is it even really a "problem" though? It looks as if young women are exercising their free will and choosing their own career paths which may or not be technical. Why are the choices they're making deemed problematic?

Because his argument is that even adjusting for the pipeline issue, women and minorities are under-represented. In other words, even if you fixed the pipeline issue, they would still be discriminated against and under-represented because of bias.

His numbers are all over the place. Most of the stats he provides are for executives and investors which don't require STEM degrees, yet he uses STEM graduation as his initial stat.

I don't even know what this means:

"0% of partners at some of our largest Bay Area VC firms are women"

So > 0% of partners of the largest Bay Area VC firms are women, since he qualifies the statement with "some"?

I think it means that there are large firms whose partners are 100% male.

The argument is that the availability of choices is not the same between the sexes. Part of the problem is that so few women are in the engineering disciplines that when young girls make the decision (and this is of course, a simplification...it's not the decision, but hundreds of little decisions that factor into a career choice), they aren't as inclined to go into engineering because they just don't see themselves as being engineers. Nor do their parents, peers, social groups, etc. So it's an unfortunate feedback loop.

To use an anecdotal example...I wanted to be a journalist growing up, but that was not something my parents heavily encouraged, when all of the other Asian immigrant kids went into med school or engineering. I ended up just doing journalism and engineering in college but I credit that to my parents being relatively easy-going about what path I choose. I'd like to say that I graduated with an engineering degree because I'm especially talented for it, but more likely, it's just that I didn't face much resistance and I also saw a lot of other people "like me". I doubt this is the same for women.

The women not choosing to become engineers are choosing to do something though. In fact there are more women than men graduating from college today. Women are succeeding in higher education, just in fields of their own choosing.

I don't think anyone should look at the choices people make for career and say it's problematic because they didn't help a gender stat go up in a field they weren't interested in.

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