“This guy is on every startup website”

Yes! I remember seeing that image so much during the mid 2000s but not for many years now.

Doubt it. I see the same "white" guy in two of google's products. I'm guessing they chose this guy because he's a handsome and prolific model. I don't think trying to slip race into this will make it a better discussion.

It depends some companies use their own employees, some use photos of their customers, etc.

I wonder what kind of contract they have people sign given clients move to different solutions providers and employees move companies as well.

Stock photography because it’s easier to search/filter your way to the perfect photo than it is to try and create it yourself.

> I'm wondering if companies use a stock photo because it's easier than taking photos of their unphotogenic staff, or if it is because they wish to appear diverse but come photo time they look around the office and..."oh, shit, we really need to quit hiring based on 'cultural fit'".

It's just cheaper to use stock photos than to bring-in a photographer. Especially right now with Covid. It's also awkward to ask employees.

And you have to stage the office as well.

There's also a good chance the office looks like something like https://twitter.com/calvinfo/status/1315691567408185346 at launch.

As someone who recently worked on my company’s website redesign, I can say it was none of the above.

We’re actually a quite diverse staff. At the risk of saying something non-PC, many of us are quite attractive and photogenic, including those of non-white skin tones and other diverse backgrounds.

I originally fought for taking “real photos” of “real employees”, but was shot down due to:

1. Time and effort involved in getting good shots with good lighting

2. “Decent but not as nice as stock photo” office scenery (cubicles are drab compared to bright white offices with fake plants)

3. My boss let slip that he didn’t want to give visual aids to help poachers in their ability to find and hire us (nope, not joking about that one, and yes, it is a red flag)

I've done you the favour of finding out about these companies, and I think you'll find they all have diverse staff and founders. I think the problem is companies are now forced to jump over themselves to prove how diverse they are because if they don't people like you are all to eager to dogwhistle about how if they aren't "diverse enough" they must secretly be racist.

https://www.linkedin.com/company/roboflow-ai/people/ https://www.experiencewelcome.com/about-us https://www.linkedin.com/company/returnly-technologies-inc/p...

>Portrait of smiling african American young businessman in glasses pose in modern office hold use smartphone, happy successful millennial biracial male employee or director look at camera at workplace

The "descriptions" on these are wild. I guess it's really just a way to jam in as many potential search terms as possible, but it feels like they half-heartedly tried to make a sentence and then gave up on the idea.

The weird part is not that people use stock photos for their site, the weird part is that considering the countless stock photos of people in casual business attire, this one has been selected quite a few times.

Yeah but if you're anybody BUT this guy you'd be excited bc maybe someone else can get a modeling job for once.

Being outed was a positive thing for this stock model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A1s_Arat%C3%B3

He probably made more from the Coca-Cola deal than he did from years of meme stock sales.

Also? TEDx Talk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FScfGU7rQaM