Google's diversity numbers haven't budged, and it just lost its diversity chief
fastcompany.com
fastcompany.com
For those that want the science and math behind diverse teams (as I've given this talk numerous times), there are bunch of links on the last slide of my deck: http://slides.com/fmitchell/how-math#/10
If you want to see the actual talk I gave at O'Reilly, it's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02HS9wjgfQY
Wouldn't it be strange if, despite all the claims that race and gender, etc., don't matter, it really does matter as EEO regs keep telling us?
But people differ in ways other than skin color, gender, religion, age, physical ability and sexual preference. Members of our team from the city versus the country; short versus tall; early-risers versus nightowls; family size; headbangers versus country music fans; vegans or steak-eaters; and so on.
Why should we think that it's critical to have a pastiche of races, genders, etc.; while simply assuming that all the other interesting ways that people experience life differently is irrelevant?
I don't know of anyone who values diversity in gender/religion/sexuality/etc but draws the line there, and I know a lot of very unusual people from all walks of life. That would be a weird line to draw. A gay genderfluid punk rocker probably has lots of experiences a biromantic genderfluid cellist would be fascinated by.
Diversity is good. The more intersections, the better. Why do you think anyone would draw this line?
Gender (and gender identity), along with race, are things that cannot be unshed.
The language you choose to speak, what music you listen to, and whether you choose to share your sexuality, while they are differences, they cannot be instantly detected.
The natural heuristic we use drawing upon our experiences in an American society have a unique relationship with gender and race. It is especially because those things are non-choices and instantaneously recognizable, that they are the most important to address first.
This heuristic doesn't accurately predict which attributes are protected (legislatively or otherwise) and which are not. There's a pretty much open-ended set of predetermined attributes that can be discriminated on. Start with height and physical attractiveness: these factors are more-or-less immutable, but are well known as drivers of discrimination.
Because the line has been drawn. The government has told me that there's a short list of protected attributes. And my employer (and thus by extension my hiring and compensation decisions) is held accountable based on those and only those.
And in the discourse on the topic, we always hear "why aren't there enough blacks in tech" or "why do women get paid less", but not a peep about the achievement gap for punk rockers.
As for the second article, please correct me if I am wrong, but from skimming it I believe that first of all, it speaks of diversity in knowledge and problem solving approaches, rather than race, gender, age and other identifying features. In fact it remarks the following:
"The claim that perspectives and heuristics may be influenced by race, geography, gender, or age has much to recommend it, as does the claim that perspectives and tools are shaped by experiences, training, and preferences. However, even when applying our result to those cases when identity diversity has been shown to correlate with functional diversity, we need to be acutely aware that identity-diverse groups often have more conflict, more problems with communication, and less mutual respect and trust among members"
The other problem I see is that this model (from what I gathered) translates into software development terms as something like: 10 top C# developers are not necessarily better at writing a C# backend than, say a group of, 5 very good C# developers, 2 top C developers, 1 very good Python developer and 2 top Haskell developers. Rather than mix and matching experienced and junior devs because the juniors are more "diverse" in one aspect; as is encouraged and practiced by diversity evangelists.
This makes me further cement my position about the diversity question, and that is to just let people find their vocation on their own; the Internet has solved information access, we live in mostly free societies and we can learn on our own. Introduce people to CS? Absolutely. Artificially incentivize career choice by changing hiring practices? Bad idea.
Here is a page linked to the research and modeling I ascribe in my talk: http://sites.lsa.umich.edu/scottepage/research-2/diversity-r...
Specifically:
http://sites.lsa.umich.edu/scottepage/wp-content/uploads/sit...
http://sites.lsa.umich.edu/scottepage/wp-content/uploads/sit...
http://sites.lsa.umich.edu/scottepage/wp-content/uploads/sit...
> it speaks of diversity in knowledge and problem solving approaches, rather than race, gender, age and other identifying features
The key piece is how you connect that statement to your next statement of what defines 'top' and 'very good'. Your heuristic is coding output. Code and programming has context. In most cases, it's a business context.
The point is value can be derived from experiences uniquely tied to race and gender, especially given how we're taught race and gender. It often doesn't coincide with reality.
That intrinsic value, of lived experience, shapes thought. It shapes how people approach problems. That value has to be tapped. Those evaluating talent (and its potential) often cannot 'see' why it should be a factor.
This is a limitation of the evaluators' local optima (referenced in the research).
I can barely understand what you are saying (what does "coincide with reality" mean? What use is it for a company if it doesn't coincide with reality?), but perhaps you could clarify it with a couple of examples?
Also, isn't that argument a bit treacherous in that it implies that "diverse" people are different after all, meaning if they don't get ahead in some environments it might actually be because of their different ways of thinking, and not because of bias they face?
Edit: I was asked once in a tech interview to prove the theorem of Pythagoras. Yesterday I was in a museum for kids that also featured that theorem, so I feel inspired to use this classical problem:
Could you provide an example on how a woman, a woman of color, a white man, a black man, a latino, a gay person (or any other "diverse" person you can think of) would prove that theorem in different ways, unique to their race and gender?
Also, seeing as recently a major share of psychology papers has been found to have serious methodological flaws, I would take this one with a grain of salt, too.
I reference it in my talk (not on the last slide), but I invite you to read the story of Valeria Aurora (it's been referenced on HN before): http://bit.ly/1WZiNYQ
Her unique experience perspective to a mathematical problem is quintessential. The same is true for the women featured in the Hidden Figures movie.
Concluding that 'hard science' and 'hard math' realms don't benefit from diversity and only knowledge is why tackling this problem is so hard.
Likewise, you can not prove things with movie references. I haven't seen "Hidden Figures", but it was obviously made to make a certain point, so they would insert stories "proving" their point.
You're asking a lot from soft science, especially where said effects would be really hard to measure.
but now it looks like someone down voted my expression of good luck to a job seeker!
interesting.
Anyway, good luck with the interview process and I hope you land something great.
Not that I'm against diversity or anything, I just don't like how it's enforced as a goal unto itself.
It's also terrible (, terrible) how many companies are wasting money on "Quality Assurance", "Accounting", or "groundskeeping" when a business should actually be profit-driven.
If only we could get out from under the yoke of political correctness. We'd give every employee the title of "profit maker".
"Diversity" is neither. It's nice to have it, sure, but it cannot be a goal unto itself.
I seriously doubt any qualified developer would have troubles landing a job, regardless of race. Therefore I think the talk about hiring practices and cultural exclusion are misguided. Looking at the pipeline might be more promising, but it seems even Google can not turn the lives of millions of people around single-handedly.
Also: you are asking about Apple because it's one of the most prominent companies in the field. It's prominent because it's successful. It's successful because it creates excellent products. Excellent products are created by excellent people. Biases in hiring are detrimental to hiring, and a divers team will (all other things being equal) be better – especially in terms of creativity.
As far as their high-tech and HQ staff, I don't see any reason to believe that they are materially different from Google or Facebook.
1) article mentions https://hackerlife.co/blog/tech-companies-diversity/San-Fran...
[edit: downvoted in a diversity thread for asking for more diversity]
They are very diverse, and minorities are well represented as a block.
What they have is a 'not enough Blacks and Latinos' problem.
And - 'not enough Females in management positions' problem, possibly.
The underlying issue which some fail to address is the fact that if you only have 15% of tech grads female, and 0.1% African American - it's really difficult to have '50% female coders' or '10% African American coders'. Actually, I'd argue it's impossible.
A really interesting survey I read saw that Males in the Valley tend to think that the 'talent pool' is the issue (i.e. as I stated above), but Females tend to think the big issue is a 'lack of role models'.
Maybe I'm biased being a guy, but I do think that it's primarily the talent pool issue, but I do concede that 'lack of role models' is probably a concern.
I think that this is a concern, but a soft one, and that if a company like Google - which is very open minded and progressive struggles with it, well, it's a tough one to crack. As long as they are trying to make inroads there, then that's good.
I don't think that we should hold them to any specific standard or shame them.
Also, please elaborate why you think your idea of relegating minorities protected by these laws to manual labour "and similar jobs" doesn't deserve to be called "fucking racist".
Yeah, it kinda does.
Keep in mind that the burden of proof is on the plaintiff in discrimination cases. If there are any problems with applying these laws to high-skilled work (I'm guessing you mean something like "it's too hard to compare people for this sort of work"), those problems would diminish the plaintiffs' cases more than anything.
I think your idea that you should be allowed not to hire African-Americans or women even if they're equally or better qualified is quite offensive.
Even worse is that your argument now seems to be that you wouldn't want them as friends, either.
And, worst of all, that you think that this community would share this attitude and could be convinced by it.
I would flag that comment if it were posted to HN, and I'll explain why below.
The comment argues that a woman (a "girl") should have no more or less control over her body than a corporation should have over its employees.
One reason that's immoral is that people want autonomy, they thrive under it, and they deserve autonomy as a basic human right. Therefore, we should minimize the amount of control that corporations have over employees and maximize the amount of control people have over their own bodies.
(And for too long, too many men think they should have control over women's bodies, especially deciding who women should be "allowed"/forced to partner with, so it's especially important that women be allowed to control their own bodies.)
The comment you linked to isn't just incorrect; it's gross. It reduces the quality of HN as a forum, and it leaves me unwilling to read your upthread comment in a positive light.
No, they weren't. They were designed for all jobs, which weren't just manual labor then.
Obviously, lots of the jobs people in groups which had been systematically discriminated against in work, education, and every place else for centuries were working in or trying to get work in were at or near the bottom of the prestige and pay heirarchy, and thus manual labor, so certainly a lot of the early application was there. But nothing about the motivation or design of the laws was limited to that domain.
Google is not being discriminatory in any way - so I don't think this is the issue here.
I'm always amazed that California's progressive political leadership isn't constantly hammering these companies to make their workforce look more like the California population.
I wonder what would happen if Jerry Brown and Kevin De Leon pulled a Trump on Google, Apple, Facebook and Uber.
"Hire California Latino workers or we will tax your ass out of existence!!!"
Instead, they turn a blind eye.
Then the California Republican party would be competitive statewide again overnight, and/or a lot of tech companies would move out of California, employing even fewer California Latinos than they do now. Possibly both.
1. How would your first possible scenario play out in the voter's mind? What considerations would cause a large number of formerly Democratic voters, and/or current non-voters, to say, "I'd rather vote for a Republican now."
e.g. Do a lot of voters feel so strongly that Google, Apple, Facebook and Uber should remain unencumbered by such goals that it would overcome all their other deeply held objections to Republicans?
Would it just be a deep revulsion to such a Trumpian method applied to large California companies?
I mean what do you see as the thing large numbers of voters would really dislike about such a political move?
2. Alternatively, if a lot of tech companies voluntarily began moving out of California for this reason, how would they spin it? Surely they would not say, "We're leaving California because we don't want to hire Latinos".
How would they explain such a decision to investors, customers, the general public?
Thank you, kindly.
> "Hire California Latino workers or we will tax your ass out of existence!!!"
Speaking as someone that's been involved with a lot of hiring decisions, it ultimately comes down to who is in the pipeline when you're hiring for positions that require expertise.
If you think companies should be forced to hire based on race, openly stating that people will be judged differently based on physical attributes, I welcome you to create a business and try this for yourself.