Hacker News Reader

Comment by kedean | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com