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Comment by high_derivative | Hacker News Reader

At my company (FAANG), 2/3 of intern and entry level opportunities are given to women. Ironically virtually all of them come from the same few elite universities and were hardly held back by anyone, as far as I can tell.

Some of them play this game very aggressively. Once they are there, immediately organize into diversity projects and groups to push for quotas in promotions, project leads, etc. Despite these fast-track opportunities, they fully believe they are continuously being held back, at every level, and everything will be interpreted that way.

I think it will eventually break the org but I don't plan on staying.

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Maybe people just try to do things they are interested in or care about and aren’t trying to scheme or gang up on others? I think if I were in such a position, I might see the process as too unegalitarian and want to change it. I wonder how one would get involved with changing such a thing.

You’re obviously able to organise in the workplace for basically whatever goals you want if you like (though in the US this organisation is only protected if more than one person is involved.)

This is a nice idea if they were trying to change the process to work better for everyone.

That's not what's happening. They just demand explicit quotas for themselves.

The whole 'diversity and inclusion/feminism makes things better for everyone' is largely a myth, it's just identity groups out for themselves in corporate America.

I’ve also seen that FANG is actively discriminating against white men. I was asked to throw out all white male and Asian male resumes for an internship programs relatively recently.

If that is true and there isn't more to this story it is likely illegal if this was done in the US.

That said, FAANG companies have provided countless textbook examples of what HR departments should not do in almost every imaginable situation.

It’s not illegal to discriminate by race for internships.

I’d love to see the aclu sue FANG over their Diversity programs. I highly suspect they are illegal in one way shape or form.

Not a lawyer, but my understanding is that it depends on the details of how and why.

A uniform decision regarding all interns across an entire company targeting specific racial charactaristics is very different from a policy that bases decisions on objective measurements done in good faith with intent to correct for some form of bias.

Checkout this past HN thread on the topic.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18524333

I also sat in a conversation with my team about not hiring the most qualified intern candidate because he was a white guy. Affirmative action is a double edged sword and it sucks that more left leaning people in places of power can't admit that.

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