"...scores of young people, mostly male (70%) mostly white (61%), produced by the same set of top universities..."
I guess he just described e.g. French CEOs and traders as well. But if techies are doing this, then it's suddenly so wrong.
I guess he just described e.g. French CEOs and traders as well. But if techies are doing this, then it's suddenly so wrong.
French CEOs aren't in charge of creating products. Neither are traders.
If you're dependent on creating products that people love with features that help people in their day-to-day lives, you can't afford to be completely insulated.
A trader who is focused on a numbers all day - can.
> A trader who is focused on a numbers all day - can.
Though I agree that insular corporate cultures can be bad, I do not find this argument very compelling. I thought part of Google's operations was turning things into numbers so they can make decisions based on those numbers. Yes, in practical terms, the features of Google products are what is important. But with a huge user base, they can afford to do A/B testing, try new features, etc. and turn it all those things into numbers which can be analyzed for trends. I suspect that is what they are doing when they kill things like their RSS reader, modify Google+ requirements, etc.
Edit: tweaked working
It's only a problem if you believe that these places are being favoured over others with merit being thrown to the way side, and I'd be interested to see any evidence of such a thing.
Start with 'mostly male' anyone and everyone in the tech world knows that most software engineers are male. So whats google to do hire many more female engineers who are less qualified just so they have equal female representation?! Regarding the white part 61% is less then the overall us white population representation (63%), so what exactly is the issue here?