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Comment by konsalexee | Hacker News Reader

> Start with: “How do you spend most of your time?” Not “What do you do?” It opens people up beyond job titles.

This is something that feels alien in SF people. A fundamental difference for example from Greece and people living in SF is this.

- Greek opening question: "Which city are you from?" - SF opening question: "Which company do you work for?"

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> "Which city are you from?"

Many big tech companies have inclusion training calling this question out as inappropriate on the grounds it provides an opportunity to introduce bias.

This is nonsense as there is no such thing as unbiased personal interaction.

In most parts of the world this is not true.

Even in the US it's ridiculous advice, driven by fear rather than a rational assessment of policy. Asking people where they are from is just fine.

Sure, that's advised in interviews, where you're about to make a decision on someone's livelihood, hence the importance of reducing bias. That's a completely different context than in casual conversation at a social event.

It's a networking event, not an interview loop.

In the same lines, don't ask anything. Everything is a bias. ie, What do they do? - Also a bias as they are engineer, or product, or sales, or whatever.

In SF, people are from so many different places that there is little to no chance that you have personal experience or knowledge of the city that the person would answer your question with. The same is probably not true of someone who grew up in Greece, asking someone else who grew up in Greece

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