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Comment by rdl | Hacker News Reader

Is he quoted out of context, or trolling? I'm confused, because most Microsoft people I know speak really highly of him, but the system is shitty for promoting even white guys in tech, let alone anyone else -- people get promoted by moving jobs every 12-24 months, not through being recognized and rewarded for contributions at companies.

"Karma" makes me think he's trolling, or was quoted out of context.

(The snarky response here is "he's clearly speaking from his extensive experience as a woman in technology...", but I'd rather take the high road.)

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I think the likeliest case is that he is a poor negotiator himself and has left potential raises on the table without realizing it due to a lack of initiative.

The personality types that are more common in the software field are often the personality types that would avoid risk and conflict - two fears that prevent labor from negotiating for better wages.

I really don't understand why this is being made into a gendered issue. My first instinct is to just assume that if he'd instead been asked "How should software developers ask their bosses for raises?" he would have had the same answer, an answer that reflects his own insecurity and fear of negotiating - not one that reveals some deep-seated prejudice.

In the software field? Maybe. In the billion dollar software company CEO field? No, really not the case.

No its not out of context, a better article here has more details: http://readwrite.com/2014/10/09/nadella-women-dont-ask-for-r...

For what its worth he walked back the statement on twitter, "Was inarticulate re how women should ask for raise. Our industry must close gender pay gap so a raise is not needed because of a bias #GHC14"

http://readwrite.com/2014/10/09/nadella-women-dont-ask-for-r... has a better write up, in my opinion. this was at the annual grace hopper celebration of women in computing and was not out of context / said ironically.

>> Twenty-nine percent of the general Microsoft workforce is female, and in the U.S., almost 61% is white.

Can someone give me an american perspective on why Americans find 61% white to be an unacceptable thing considering 60-70% of american population identifies as white and America still predominantly is a white country.

It's the same as any other agenda-driven statistics. It's based on the interpretation the author/speaker is looking for, not any sort of greater context or meaning.

Critical thinking is hard for everyone. And escaping own's own biases is difficult even when you are aware of those you hold.

I think they usually mean "much lower black and hispanic representation than demographics would suggest". The population of the USA is 13% black and 17% hispanic [0] - Microsoft employees are 4% black and 5% hispanic. [1] The coincidentally similar percentage of white people in the two groups is because MS has a far higher representation of Asians than the general population.

[0] - http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html [1] - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/diversity/inside-microsoft/de...

Then why don't they say that? It seems more damaging to use an obviously absurd euphemism.

Lazy thinking.

It's true. I was at the conference when he said that and he has not been quoted out of context.

If he was trolling, he chose to do it at a bad location given that he's at a conference aimed at promoting women in the tech industry

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