If it boils down to who applies, then we need to make sure that we're reaching out to communities that are not well represented in our field. It's not about waiting for them to come to us.
If there are issues earlier in the pipeline then we can't just focus on the end of it at the "who's applying" stage.
If we want more representation, are women more represented in comp sci programs? Are they going into related engineering fields? Do they go to meet up groups or construct new ones if they don't want to go to existing ones?
18% of CS majors are women. 76.9% of the U.S. is white. Statistically someone in the work force with a CS degree is a white male.
That absolutely applies in the context of a tech company, unless you want them to hire unqualified applicants and spend months or years training them before they return profit.
The problem isn't with who a company is hiring, the problem is women aren't seeking out the training and non-Whites are a literal minority of the population.
Until more women pursue degrees/training in the field, and everyone starts partnering off with someone of a different race to make melting-pot babies, then it's just going to be this way purely due to statistics.
I don’t believe that people in tech aren’t represented because of some biological difference. That might not be what the commenter was implying, but that’s how I read it.