Diversity at Amazon

Ignoring for a minute that you're the one that inexplicably brought post-modernism into the discussion (and even more inexplicably tie it to anti-empiricism)...

What empirically shows diversity is bad? Empirically speaking, certain groups are underrepresented in hard science. Empirically speaking, intelligence differences between those groups is somewhere between highly disputed and nonexistent. Therefore, a well-managed company would seek to exploit that arbitrage opportunity.

edit: Empirically, good working environments improve business results. Most decent people see the benefit in a diverse workforce in furthering that goal. And it would be beneficial if it just weeded out the types of personalities that are strongly averse to diversity.

I agree absolutely. Categories like these imply discretely definable differences across something uniform. That which initially begins as a uniform definition (human beings, mammals, things that have consciousness, individuals, individual life) is then examined for 'properties', in which a collection of 'properties' define not only a label, but implicitly defined, correlative associations to that label (cultural assumptions).

I think that society might eventually find itself moving past linguistic categorization to process absolute information about reality, if the computational calculation of lots and lots of data about the individual becomes so individually defined, so complex, and so multidimensional, that words can not express meaningful information - both generally and specifically, because it is derived from abstracted layers of object data points [data] and the abstract relations that structure and organize them [composition of theory].

Generally speaking, we need the ability to compose correlations from data in order to infer information about day to day things. This is generally called common sense, or rational knowledge. Sometimes it's wrong. Sometimes it's totally irrational. As a ---, I don't see the point in companies pointing out how diverse they are. All I care about is how much I'm going to learn about code, math, and computer science. I want the assurance that I will be treated equally. Otherwise, it's like trying to get a pendulum to stop swinging by pushing it equally hard, the opposing way.

Please do some research. What you're missing is that the pay gap is measured between people in similar jobs.

Another factor is that the demographics are changing over time, with the percentage of women in CS dropping (dramatically) in recent years. The demographics are for the whole workforce, not just college hires.

It's also not unusual to get into CS/Engineering from a related field. For example, for some reason I see a lot of technical candidates with physics degrees.

So much people have a hard time understanding that they actually discriminate while they are trying to fix discrimination. I don't believe it's the way to solve it, at least, it's not a way that I respect. I can't respect discrimination, even if people believe it's the way to solve discrimination.

No, don't worry, Stephen Colbert agrees with you. By not seeing race, he is by definition the least racist.

People have biases. Making sure your hiring[1] decisions are not subject to those biases are one way to avoid racist behaviours. It also helps an organisation to avoid institutional racism.

Being polite: this is entry level stuff. A quick web search would have turned up some useful resources to answer your question.

[1] and other

Let's try this from another angle:

1) Do you believe racism exists?

2) Do you believe we should do anything about it?

3) What would you do about it? (Hint: "Nothing", is the wrong answer)

Perceiving race as having a meaning is not more racist than perceiving sex to have a meaning is sexist. For better and for worse, race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation and many other parameters play important parts in people's lives. Completely ignoring these would likely be detrimental, even if it was possible. We are not all the same, and it's a good thing.

See wikipedia for arguments for and against "color blindness" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness_(race)_in_the_...

I totally agree. Basing hiring decisions on the color of someones skin or the form of their genitalia is one of the most blatant forms of discrimination. The fact that it is widely accepted by our society makes me sick to my stomach.

I am a female and I just hate it when a company recruiter says he can get me a job in a position I know I am not at all qualified for. Additionally I got scholarship money when going to school when those much more dedicated than me did not simply because they had something hanging between their legs.

If we lived in a society with no discrimination then you might have a point. But we live in a society where certain groups are underrepresented and discriminated against, so it is the responsibility of companies like Amazon and the rest of us to try and rectify this situation.

Good call, but the Amazon post wasn't meant to be "informative." It was meant to give you a warm, fuzzy feeling.

You're right that they're not consistent between the two charts. That can be misleading.

They are ordered by percentage descending, so you can quickly understand which is the 2nd most populous, 3rd most populous, etc. The ethnicity name is right by the percentage so you can quickly grok it, even though the colors don't match across pie charts.

Not only that -- if anything the numbers behind them point to comparative ratios in mangers-to-overall workers that are, for Amazon's purposes, decidedly less than peachy: (asian=1.38, white=1.18, hispanic=0.44, black=0.26).

Those are just "thumbnail" ratios, taken by dividing Amazon's percentages off the chart; we don't have enough information to infer the exact ratios, of course. But taking the case of gender, if we make a reasonable guess of a 4:1 ratio of workers-to-management, we can readily pop out a 60-40 split (male-female) for non-management workers, compared with the 75-25 split for management workers.

We still don't have enough information to conclude evidence (from these charts alone) that Amazon has systematic problems promoting women or non-whites to management (we'd need more hard data, and some basis for comparing with other companies). But the point isn't that we've caught Amazon at something, or that the charts are lying; it's rather that the charts are meaningless. They're simply eye candy; just don't really convey anything one way or another about the fairness of Amazon's hiring practices, or about anything else really.

I made the assumption that this is just corporate, development and the like. They certainly paint a very pretty picture that stands in rather stark contrast to the various stories about migrant workers.

Amazon does not actually own any warehouses, and it also likely doesn't employ any migrant workers. That is all contracted out. (Provides, among other things, plausible deniability and a liability shield for abuse claims/lawsuits by non-technical workers.)

You have to wonder what their diversity looks like when you factor in salary. HQ versus Fulfillment centers.

Apple and Google released similar figures, so of course there will be pressure on Amazon to do this also.

It may be social signaling, but I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with companies publishing demographics.

Hackernews used to be full of people when shown something new would say, "yes AND!". Now it's full of people who shout, "no BUT!"

I came from /. to k5 to hn. Anybody ready for the next iteration yet? I am.

> Makes ya think.

Sure, and rather than being vague here are mine: "Why is HN being negative? Probably because of the insanely dehumanizing working conditions Amazon warehouse 'contractors' are put in. Why would that prevent HN from celebrating this diversity post? Possibly because it reads like a corporate puff-piece that improves their image without actually improving the working conditions of their warehouse 'contractors'."

EDIT: To add, I think celebrating diversity is great. But to do so when workers are under tyrannical working conditions does tend to frame the piece in a 'propoganda' light more so than a genuine 'we care' light.

"Positive and promising" is definitely the spin that Amazon, and many other companies engaged in systematic abuses (labor, environmental, regulatory) would like you to have about their diversity programs. Seen another way, they're merely window dressing.

Yeah, mixing engineering and call center employee numbers in the same graph does make me think. It mostly makes me think diversity numbers in jobs that make more than $10 or $12 an hour are shit.