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Comment by Etheryte | Hacker News Reader

To play the devil's advocate, how do we know this carries over to business? If this was the case, it should have a track record at this point, since DEI has been a topic for a long time. Looking at comparable companies where one did do DEI and the other didn't, did one or the other have a statistically significant edge over the other? I have no idea, but I'm far from convinced purely from a reasoning stand point.

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NPR had a story on this topic years ago and the researchers they talked with said diversity appears to have a negative impact on startups but a positive impact on established businesses. The logic was startups are smaller and need to move fast and be focused so DEI type efforts distract from the main business at that time. Once established diversity help the business by having people that can see business opportunities and challenges that a more homogenous workforce would not otherwise notice.

That diversity research at big organizations has been called into question: https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/diversity-was-supposed...

Ah, McKinsey. That their pro-remote study was bogus will probably come as a shock to the four people left on planet earth who aren't familiar with "where there's fraud there's McKinsey"

The current example is Target vs Costco.

(Because of a black pastor-led boycott of Target for dropping their DEI policy)

Target basically decided to stop "over-delivering" on DEI. e.g. stuff like $2 billion to black-owned businesses, increase black workforce by 20%, etc. Even with the rollbacks, they are probably doing on average more DEI for the sector, than a Costco, Amazon.

They definitely messed up the messaging, though, in that they positioned themselves to be somehow boycotted by both left and right.

Costco is 20x the business as Target for numerous reasons, I kind of doubt any of it has to do with DEI.

Personal experience is that Costco foot traffic has been visibly increased in recent weeks. Our Costco has a few colorful members of staff, which I personally find makes my visits there more pleasant.

> Our Costco has a few colorful members of staff, which I personally find makes my visits there more pleasant.

Is this a poor choice of words, or one of those "I've gone so far left, I'm now also racist" things?

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