Hacker News Reader

Comment by fleddr | Hacker News Reader

Fascinating how the absolute richest of the richest employees in the world, Google employees, seem the most oppressed, or "marginalized".

Here's how my "CEO for a day" fantasy would work...

The DEI department is de-solved immediately. All non-work slack channels closed. The new hiring strategy is merit-only, using tests that are as neutral as possible, with transparent salary scales and promotion paths. Equality but not equity.

Anybody having a problem with this policy, stirring up shit, doing walkouts, trying to get colleagues fired and other wildly unprofessional behavior can leave.

Surely many think this is aggressive and that I'm a creepy authoritarian. No, this cleans up the obnoxious 5% that makes everybody's lives miserable, so the outcome is a pleasant, fair and peaceful workplace.

A DEI department is a discrimination machine. Division is their output, because if there is none, it's obsolete.

View on HN

> The new hiring strategy is merit-only, using tests that are as neutral as possible, with transparent salary scales and promotion paths. Equality but not equity.

What specific proposals do you have to ensure that this happens? Which perfectly neutral, bias-free tests would you employ? How would you ensure that the humans delivering the tests or screening candidates were neutral and perfectly bias-free?

Also, would you be doing all this yourself as the CEO? If so, seems like an inefficient use of your time.

Perhaps you'd employ some staff to ensure this gets carried out at the scale of Google. These folks would be assigned to creating the sense of fairness, merit, and justice you describe at scale, so that everyone felt included in the same way. You could even put them in their own department. Hmm...

>What specific proposals do you have to ensure that this happens? Which perfectly neutral, bias-free tests would you employ? How would you ensure that the humans delivering the tests or screening candidates were neutral and perfectly bias-free?

Devising which metrics to measure is tough, but your objection isn't really a checkmate like you think it is. OP presumably is against the type of DEI initiatives that are in the form of "group X makes up Y% of the overall population but only make up Z% of the employees at this company. This means there's discrimination going on and we need to enact affirmative action to increase the participation of group X". I can arguably ask the same questions about the approach given there. I doubt that it's "neutral, bias-free", nor do I think the people in DEI would be "neutral and perfectly bias-free".

Yes, coming up with objective metrics is hard, but it's not something that's solved by DEI. Using that as an objection against getting rid of DEI doesn't make sense.

Targetting underrepresented candidates and trying to change the top of funnel (the focus of most DEI effort) is independent from changing the hiring criteria.

This seems to be an area where the supposed goals of DEI (increased diversity) align with expected business behavior (ie. trying to expand the applicant pool to get better talent and/or reduce costs). That's a good argument for keeping DEI, but also a good argument for getting rid of DEI and telling recruiters/managers to just do their jobs (ie. trying to find candidates wherever you can, whether they're an white appalachian coal miner or a visible minority from the inner cities).

> Yes, coming up with objective metrics is hard, but it's not something that's solved by DEI. Using that as an objection against getting rid of DEI doesn't make sense.

It does though. The objection isn't simply "coming up with objective metrics is hard" but more honestly "there are not objective metrics". This is true for a variety of reasons. A sort of overarching one is that in a Goodhart's law sense, if a metric is public, people will game it. People with more resources ("power", "privilege", "class", whatever you want to call it) will be able to make themselves appear to look better according to the metric, all else equal.

In that sense, a lot of DEI is akin to an abuse-prevention org: figuring out how particular ways of measuring can mislead or harm, and how we can improve or account for those in the absence of any single perfect measurement.

>In that sense, a lot of DEI is akin to an abuse-prevention org: figuring out how particular ways of measuring can mislead or harm, and how we can improve or account for those in the absence of any single perfect measurement.

But something tells me that if management decided to use some obviously flawed way of measuring performance (eg. # of commits), that DEI won't step in unless it turned out that black workers committed less code than whites or whatever. In that respect you don't really want DEI, you want an anti metrics abuse department.

> But something tells me that if management decided to use some obviously flawed way of measuring performance

Then other people, including perhaps members of the DEI department can step in and point out that this is a bad idea. The DEI department doesn't have a monopoly on management's ear. You're doing the same thing, trying to invent a perfect department to solve all of the problems. Don't do that. Stop trying to invent perfect systems or perfect metrics, they don't exist. Focus on making incremental improvements in people's lives. I don't want a "metrics abuse department" because that's so vague and missionless as to be pointless.

If management does something stupid that upsets everyone, they'll know. If they do something stupid that only upsets the 1% of black employees, they're not going to notice unless someone (the DEI department) is specifically looking.

I mean, if you put it that way (ie. a maximally benevolent interpretation of a DEI department), then it's hard to be against it, but that's not the type of conduct that causes people (like OP) to be pissed at DEI departments and for OP to want them to be gone. They're far more concerned about the negative effects that the DEI department does.

This is a great reply. A lot of the anti-DEI folk seem to think that there IS some kind of objective way to rank software engineers against each other.

If there was, Google interviews (and interviews in general) would be MUCH less of a shitshow, and hiring would be much less stressful overall.

But there isn't - brilliant people present very differently depending on their backgrounds, and the unfortunate truth is that asking people to judge this subjectively ends up creating tons of bias.

The constant stream of DEI fluff (like banning the words "blacklist" or "master") can get annoying, but pretending that there are no problems or that these departments exist for ideological reasons is worse. If you believe in meritocracy, you should believe in recruiting from HBCUs and doing outreach to other URM.

The Parent poster's solution has to only be marginally better than the DEI team at hiring based on merit (appropriate relevant experience and performance for the job)

Probably a copy paste of CS material as taught by top-tier US universities.

As if a company full of "well, actually" techbros wouldn't be completely dysfunctional too

Answering this question is an enormous side track, a category of research in its own.

I'd first say that I do not share the default assumption that discrimination is widespread. As if it is some default, rather than an exception. You're far too cynical.

I base this on 2 decades of work experience. I work in a small tech hub with 80 nationalities. It literally cannot get more diverse. We don't have DEI departments, social justice slack channels or activists. And somehow it all works fine. No tensions, no outrage, happy workers.

A mystery, I guess? It's almost as if people are pretty good, by default.

How to make a test neutral? Background check before the interview, to verify claimed education/credentials. Then a test similar to what you do when going on one of those certification exams.

Then the "softer" in-person test, where you collect multiple inputs to prevent the bias of a single interviewer.

I pretty much think that's good enough to give the candidate a 3 month trial period where actual work performance is measured by some agreed metric. Pass that and you're permanently in. The end.

As an anecdote, we introduced a policy in the office that political and religious discussions should not take place in the office.

Three people out of 50 quit. They were absolutely the most toxic and unproductive people in the office and nearly everyone was happy to see them leave.

There is a high correlation between unproductive employees and activist employees.

A company is like a sports team that is working together towards a singular goal. It is not a family. It is not a microcosm of the world nor the community.

That indeed is the summary of my post: fire all activists. All of them.

Most activism has no relevance at work, but worse: it typically achieves the exact opposite of making the workplace more fair. It's regressive, not progressive.

Why not hire all slaves? that ensure no activist exists.

False dichotomy. You don't have to be a slave to not be an activist.

You must have mistyped the word worker. This is an ancient concept where you pay somebody and they do their job.

A sports team, does it mean the team can be as racist as it can be and achieve a singular goal at the same time?

> “A DEI department is a discrimination machine. Division is their output, because if there is none, it's obsolete.”

By the same logic SRE is responsible for breaking my software because if the site is always reliable then they’re obsolete.

Please have a seat and let me tell you a story about a little something called 'Kubernetes'.

I think you just summed up my career. I make web apps so insanely complex that I'm guaranteed to do the rewrite. I also love JS frameworks reinventing all of it every year or so. Keep them coming.

It’s Maslows hierarchy of human needs: some employees are treated well enough they have capacity to care about other issues and how their work affects the world.

Ideally all employees would have the time and capacity for that care.

I’d go a step further and fire anyone that was closely associated with the slack channels, e-mail groups, etc. Give them very generous severance and be kind, but simply recognize they aren’t compatible with the majority of employees and need to be isolated before they can do more damage.

Agreed. I was putting it mildly, basically.

To me, the purpose of employment is to earn money. It's not to promote my political agenda or make the world a better place. I can do that on my own time. I support DEI efforts to the extent that they will increase my company's stock price and therefore my compensation.

Does it means the purposes of a company is to exploit the world like there are ten thousand worlds out there? Exploit other human being and all horrible things we have fixed in last century?

The company's job is to maximize profits. If it's not doing that, then it's leaving money on the table, doing a disservice to its shareholders, and creating an opening for its competitors. Exploitation isn't always conducive to this goal.

It's the government's responsibility to deal with exploitation and create laws to prevent it.

The question is what are the merit only tests, and how do you have a transparent and merit based promotion path? Honestly if you have the solution for that you don't need to be CEO for a day, start a consultant shop teaching your methods and I'm sure plenty of places will bite.

Would you also be willing to get rid of the Memegen Police... err, Community Moderation Team?

I don't know what that is but yes I'd totally get rid of it. As well as the people complaining about me getting rid of it.

They don't call me The Cleaner for nothing.

When you become CEO, let me know. I'd love to work for such a company!

Do you think there is workplace discrimination taking place against Dalits, and if so, how would you like to see it addressed?

I don't know if I'd subscribe to the above person's ideas, but the simple business approach would probably work right?

Treat it like any form of behavior that creates a hostile work environment and thereby lowers overall workplace productivity. Businesses are incentivized to keep things running in the most productive method possible.

Discrimination costs your business in lowering employee productivity and other affects like possibly losing talent or opportunities. Warning discriminating employees that their behavior could cost them their job or simply firing them depending on the severity of the situation seems like a simple enough solution?

I have absolutely no idea if such discrimination takes place.

As to how to address it, a first step is the method of reporting. The accusation of discrimination is a serious one, and I'm against hotheaded employees randomly shouting things in slack or emails.

I'd offer an institutional channel to report it to, which will investigate each complaint seriously. The person making the report needs to have a good story, something tangible, some evidence. And I'd take it from there.

If the story checks out and is beyond any doubt, the offender gets disciplined. Preferably a single and last warning. If the story holds no ground at all, the reporter gets a warning for defamation.

Wild generalizations like "all people of caste X discriminate" is a discrimination in itself and not actionable. Keep making generalizations and I'd fire you. This is work, not a postmodernist philosophy class.

You get rid of the obnoxious 5%, but at what cost?

How much of your top 5% are you alienating and losing?

Is it worth it?

If so, I suspect all the companies would've already done it.

At what benefit, you mean?

Slowly, more and more companies are taking a stance against activism. Coinbase did it, BaseCamp, and recently Netflix drew a line in the sand.

So you'd turn it into IBM?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com