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Comment by poulpy123 | Hacker News Reader

I don't care either way since I'm not concerned but I can shake how bizarre and grotesque the switch to and from DEI were. The very recent example of Zuckerberg going full "masculine energy has been neutered by feminine energy" like he is some kind of Andrew Tate influencer is quite unbelievable for the CEO of a 600 billion dollars company

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The rapid switch is indicative of widespread preference falsification followed by a preference cascade. Basically, people where sick of DEI for a long time but stayed quiet about it because they were afraid of reprisal for speaking out and didn't know they had numbers on their side because everybody else was staying quiet about it too. This is a condition which can last for decades, but once the dam breaks it breaks fast.

Eh, I’d argue most people don’t think or care about DEI or go on social media to post weird rants. Most people have better things to do. Social media and the Web can amplify opinions that really aren’t that widespread in reality.

People care insofar as their lives are made to intersect with it.

Zuckerberg in particular most likely cares and isn't being performative when he speaks out against it. I'm surprised that people are surprised he has. The man likes to larp as a bronze age hunter, killing goats with spears in his backyard. He trains in combat sports and wants to have a celebrity boxing match with Elon Musk. He's the father of half-asian children, who are classified as "negative diversity" by DEI initiatives. The man fits the profile for somebody who hates DEI, but until recently he wasn't speaking out against it. If he, despite his enormous privilege, felt cowed into silence by DEI, that speaks to the strength of the social forces driving the preference falsification.

> He's the father of half-asian children, who are classified as "negative diversity" by DEI initiatives.

WTF!? Do you have more information about this "negative diversity" concept?

Pale and male is stale. Asians are white and Jews are white post October 7.

The foundation is here —"Apple's Black Diversity Chief Steps Down After Saying White Men Are Diverse, Will Be Replaced By A White Woman" I believe via BET

The vast majority of people aren’t affected by DEI just as they weren’t when it came to CRT. No one wakes up and worries how DEI will impact their day. DEI was used as a wedge issue on the campaign trail and amplified on social media (and right wing infotainment) for the purpose of having a boogeyman to attack.

It was a gesture for preening on the social networks, and now that the winds have changed, they will be trying to buy attention and approval on social networks through something else.

It is also a good indication that DEI doesn't really make money. If DEI was improving the bottom line measurably, as its proponents promise, capitalists would be loath to scrap it entirely. Possibly they would change the name of the program or try to cover it up somehow, but they would keep it, and the people involved, around.

This is what interested me for a long time. The media industry in particular demonstrates very well that DEI content is not only unprofitable; it is net negative to the companies that produce it. The state of the movie industry is such that we have movies that have positive journalist reviews and negative user reviews, yet nobody is watching these movies, and each movie production costs them hundreds of millions. This should have a giant impact on a company that produces such content, yet the company keeps going on producing something that is net negative to it. Obviously, this looks like a push from investors. But why aren't investors interested in seeing more profits?

That is a really interesting question.

I understand why CEOs, boards etc. engage in virtue signaling: once you are rich enough, status becomes more important than extra money, and this is a cheap way how to buy status and get invited to the right parties, where you may even be allowed to recite your own land acknowledgment from a podium.

But investors mostly don't care about status, and quite a lot of investors likely come from countries where DEI was never popular to begin with (Saudi Arabia etc.) I would expect them to push against it.

Perhaps the investors felt that DEI programs would produce benefits in the long run? For all the accusations of Wall Street short-termism, the stock market was very patient with Amazon during its reinvest-all-profit years and the Saudis were very patient with Masayoshi Son's Vision Fund adventures.

> It is also a good indication that DEI doesn't really make money

Can't argue with that, but wanted to point out that this (ostensibly at least) wasn't the point. The point of these types of schemes was always purported to be for some kind of social justice.

You never encountered the idea that having diverse workforce makes the corporation better at doing business?

I saw it quite often.

>If DEI was improving the bottom line measurably, as its proponents promise, capitalists would be loath to scrap it entirely.

This may be true, but if you are going to construct such a sentence you might want to address the fact that the title of this thread is stating that one of the biggest capitalist companies in the world is trying to do just that. The elephant in the room and all that.

"... is quite unbelievable for the CEO of a 600 billion dollar company"

He holds the NYSE record for largest single day loss in share price, 230 billion

https://www.investopedia.com/investing/biggest-singleday-mar...

I understand his words and he has a bit of a point in his context. I question his motives, everything he says and the obvious army of “bros” who are just as bad and juvenile as the blue haired woke ones. It’s sad to see most adult dynamics it’s just high school with money and fatter.

Yeah, I didn’t find that part of the conversation with zuck and Rogan to be incorrect.

Essentially I think he was discussing the generalization that men are biased towards action than women.

There are differences between men and women, each having unique strengths and weaknesses, and it’s refreshing that we can be honest about that fact again.

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