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Comment by badapple13 | Hacker News Reader

I understand that people of Asian descent are overrepresented by a factor of 5.3x at Google and that people of European descent are underrepresented by a factor of 0.87x at Google, but I think the author goes too far by attributing this to malice on behalf of the Asians. Clearly asians could be doing more for the rest of us, but I don't follow the authors subtle undertone that this is their fault. What do you guys think?

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I'm not sure that there is an undertone that it's their fault. At best, it's because Asians value school and mathematics more and Google prefers high GPA and ability to solve mathematical and algorithmic problems. I suspect there are also a lot of Asians in the world and Google will pull talent from other countries.

To continue your analogy:

"I'm not Asian, so I'm not good at math, but perhaps if I were Asian I could be. Those guys do math all the time and they love it; its impossible for a Caucasian guy like me to be any good at it. I spent 10 hours on my calculus work and Li did it in 30 minutes and got a higher grade. I'm just not Asian."

Google doesn't really select for high GPA.

Maybe they don't select for high GPA but students with high GPAs in high school presumably have a higher chance of getting into a top 10 college and I imagine Google prefers students from top schools

I think they only care if it's your first (or maybe second) job. After that, experience is more important.

I'm curious as to whether or not this is objectively true when measured. It doesn't have to be intentional, but a reputation for that (which it certainly had at one point) could have the equivalent effect.

Naw, they just select for advanced degrees from God-tier schools, something those C students just happen not to be able to reach for.

> I understand that people of Asian descent are overrepresented by a factor of 5.3x at Google and that people of European descent are underrepresented by a factor of 0.87x at Google, but I think the author goes too far by attributing this to malice on behalf of the Asians.

The linked article [1] literally does not even contain the word "Asian". Am I missing something here?

[1] http://martinfowler.com/articles/born-for-it.html

I read it as race being used as a stand-in or counter-example to that of gender. It's a point you have to think about, it provokes conversation rather than being an argument that stands on its own.

The point could have been delivered more clearly then. Instead it came off as an odd non sequitur that seemed to be about an entirely different article.

Considering how underrepresented minorities, whether Asian or otherwise, are in management and IT in the Western world, I would not start crying foul over this small irregularity. If anything Google needs more different minorities if anything, for instance Latinos and Blacks.

> If anything Google needs more different minorities if anything, for instance Latinos and Blacks.

This is a much bigger problem than just the software industry in the US. I'm a Navy veteran, as a nuclear reactor plant mechanic. I remember being shocked in MEPS (the enlistment and entry processing center for all branches of the armed forces) by the number of black men enlisting in the Army and Marine infantry - it's much higher than the local population would suggest. But of the roughly thousand or so people I worked with as Nukes in the Navy, I can recall only one black man. The trend is just as strong in college. While I'm working as a software engineer today, my degree isn't in CS: its in Mechanical Engineering. The same trend applies there, too. I've worked with a grand total of one black engineer professionally, and he was an intern! There is a serious problem in this country with our failure to attract black and latino talent to engineering. Its pretty frustrating to see all the media attention focused on bringing women into CS, while almost zero attention is being focused on the lack of black and latino engineers.

I can't point to any single factor that is driving this trend. But it must happen in High School or earlier, since it's already totally broken by the time folks are graduating HS.

Engineering, from my recollections, had probably the highest wash-out rates of any major when I was in college. It sure looks like a huge part of that is because of the math requirements - a lot of engineering programs throw you in the deep end right at the beginning, with calculus and differential equations, and then you're pretty much hosed in the subsequent coursework if that doesn't click, or you come in woefully unprepared. And overwhelmingly, high schools do a piss-poor job of teaching mathematics to a level that would prepare someone to hit the ground running well enough to survive the initial stages of an engineering major and get through to the interesting stuff. AP Calculus students from top high schools struggle mightily with it, Flying Spaghetti Monster help you if you never mastered, or even were exposed to those concepts at weaker schools.

Computer science isn't much different. All the math coursework hazing is why I have a history degree and a minor in CS - the minor let you take all the interesting stuff, without the 4-5 semesters of poorly taught, mostly useless math department coursework.

> engineering programs throw you in the deep end right at the beginning

I started as a EE. My diff EQ professor literally did the stunt "look to your left, look to your right, of the three of you, only one will pass my class." I was the only caucasian to pass, but I made a D, and rather than re-take the class I decided that EE wasn't for me.

There was only one way to ace that class, and that's to live inside it. I have a very good mind for math, but I was also interested in lots of other things: music, theater, philosophy, humanities, business, politics. The same semester I had made a D in Diff EQ I had also taken a Phil 101 (Logic) class which I aced. I was also a walk-on in a play that semester.

The dean of the engineering school called me to his office to tell me I wasn't the sort of student the EE program was looking for. I left and got an MIS degree, where I could develop as a much more rounded student.

Looking back some 30 years later, I realize now that the dean was literally telling me that they don't want well-rounded EE students. He was literally telling me, in spite of being in the top 1/3 of my class (math-wise) the very fact that I wasn't willing to forgo Logic and my theater activities to become a better calculus student made me a misfit. The whole point of making Diff EQ so amazingly difficult was specifically to weed out those who did anything but study Diff EQ.

So in the end, I made the right decision for myself and my career. And I've learned a healthy suspicion of companies that tend to exclusively hire ace engineering students.

Eh, those math and science Computer Science required classes I haven't found to be too useful after getting my degree (exception: discrete math and linear algebra). It was definitely a struggle to get through them, though, and I found math and science to be easy in high school, so I probably wasn't as well prepared.

But even though I breezed through it in high school, my classmates didn't, even the AP courses. So I'm not sure how much that could be ramped up. I do think at least discrete math could be taught earlier, though.

America is not an equal system, money matters. It's a vicious cycle. If you're looking for one factor, I think it's dollars and cents.

>If anything Google needs more different minorities if anything, for instance Latinos and Blacks.

Why?

I think equal opportunity is a better goal than equal representation. Forced equal representation can quickly deteriorate to racism/sexism.

Inequality in the name of equality.

I seriously don't think there can be anything such as equal opportunity. As there is bias at every part of the hiring process. Equal representation means that more or less wealth is being directed far and wide to people that represent all groups. Having money means having power to affect policies and politics as well as economics.

So for creating any sense of equality in society it's a fact that there needs to be more or less equal representation. Yes there is IQ disparity which probably decreases chances further of finding elite employment. But there are outliers in every population, enough to create equal representation.

You can segment the human population in any way and assign equal power to each of these groups. Why segment the population by race?

Life is inherently unfair. There will always be differences in power. The goal can't be to assign equal power to everyone because it is impossible. The best goal is to ensure that there isn't a huge difference in power. Equal opportunity provides that guarantee.

In regard to the US, the obvious answer is that some races were literally oppressed on that very basis for decades/centuries.

That was not a passive activity. So is it any real surprise that it might have long-lasting effects that need active, rather than passive, countering?

EDIT: your comment reads differently after your addition of the second paragraph so now I don't know if I'm disagreeing with you or answering a rhetorical question or what. Regardless...

The problem is that reparations in the form of equal representation hurt people that have nothing to do with the original oppression. It is a zero sum game.

The groups that suffer the most from "equal representation" are immigrants and their children. These people tend to be high achievers, competing in the upper echelon where every little difference counts. It is unfair to punish these people for actions that were done when they were not even in the country.

Even if there is some way to only target the children of the perpetrators, it isn't fair to punish people for simply being related to the perpetrators.

What happened in the past is wrong and unfair, but reparations will just displace the hurt from one group to another.

No, an individual's circumstances cannot be determined by their skin color. Forcing a company to take a candidate that is objectively worse than others with different skin colors or genitalia is stupid and makes everyone else bitter when they realize the incompetence.

Government sponsored education for the unprivileged is much better than the ham fisted bandaid of making companies match percentages of different segments.

Forcing employment would be a rather extreme attempt at a remedy, but the graph here[0] illustrates rather nicely a problem that race-blind attempts at fixes will run into. What works in one environment may not work in another, and their are dramatically different environments for different races in the USA.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/08/12/black...

Jobs are not for spreading wealth to different groups. If that's all Google was doing it wouldnt need any of the employees to come into the office. Companies hire people to provide services, not to be an open hand waiting for money.

No one said that, you are putting words into my mouth. Obviously any employer should hire people best qualified for the job, but there are literally thousands of people to choose from. One aspect of the choice is that it affects wealth of the individual and thereby people that are socially close and related to the individual.

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