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What the Kapors Have Learned from Years of Working on Diversity in Tech

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Re: What the Kapors Have Learned from Years of Working on Diversity in Tech

#41

Post by kelukelugames »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #27

> Or changing employee referral networks. When I ask if companies have employee referral networks, most say yes. But if I ask whether they’d have a structure for referrals of underrepresented groups, people often think that’s discriminatory and unfair. Because it is. You can only remove bias by removing bias, not by introducing counter-bias. Removing names from resumes works, imposing quotas doesn't. The problem with…

I agree with your criticism of affirmative action. The last company I worked at had a strong Women in Tech program, but one of the women of color described it as "white feminism." The company favored one axis, which was enough for it to become self-congratulatory.

But I don't think this quote is about quotas. At least not quotas for employment. The program is merely for getting resumes of underrepresented groups. If the employee referral network only produces resumes from homogenous candidates then this is a positive change.

Re: What the Kapors Have Learned from Years of Working on Diversity in Tech

#42

Post by geofft »

iiiggglll wrote: post #24
KirinDave wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What was the percentage of blacks and/or women at Lotus notes when Mitch sold? > How many low-income/minority households is Mitch within walking distance of from his Berkeley compound? > Diversity for thee, but not for me. Can I ask you a quick question here? What does any of this matter? Diversity isn't about protecting yourself from character assassination. It's about promoting fairness, equality, and opportunity…

> If you look in the past of anyone, you will find things they regret and things that may draw censure from the pro-diversity and intersectional feminist mindset. That's natural. That's to be expected. Serious question: is it also "expected" that people will lose their jobs because of those things, like Brendan Eich?

Can we please avoid the "lose their jobs" rhetoric here? Eich's job was never in danger even in the C-suite, until he moved from CTO to CEO. One of the job duties of being CEO is to be the face of your company to the world. Another is to command the continued trust of your employees. Another is not to embroil the organization in unprofitable distractions.

"Lose their jobs" has emotional impact precisely because one envisions a hard-working, paycheck-to-paycheck breadwinner with minimal savings. The inability of a man who'd been around for Netscape's IPO to advance from CTO to CEO -- whatever you think about whether that's good or bad, or whether Eich had a way to recover the situation, or anything -- is a very different matter, and implying a comparison between the two cases leads to unclear thinking.

Once we've made the distinction clear, we can say, no, it's unjust for a non-management worker who's not representing the company to be fired by their manager over political activities, and no, Eich "losing his job" isn't precedent because it's not at all related.

Re: What the Kapors Have Learned from Years of Working on Diversity in Tech

#43

Post by [deleted] »

Joeboy wrote: post #16
throwit542 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read my post more closely, I wasn't talking about white men, but white people. It's pretty clear that the facts show that women are underrepresented in tech.

To be fair the combined overrepresentation of men and underrepresentation of white people may well mean white men are overrepresented, and you started your post with the words "White men". But yeah, in terms of ethnicity those figures are not what you would expect from reading some media representations of the tech industry. I'll be interested to hear what the big problems and flawed reasoning alluded to elsewhere ar…

[deleted]

Re: What the Kapors Have Learned from Years of Working on Diversity in Tech

#44

Post by Eridrus »

throwit542 wrote: post #13
KirinDave wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument is using some old data and substantially flawed reasoning and I'll let other people talk about it. But there is one thing I want to point out: It is possible to be both marginalized in one aspect and privileged in another. It is definitely the case for Asian Americans in tech. Very few will say they're not (in aggregate, individual experiences vary of course!) better off than other people of color in th…

>Your argument is using some old data and substantially flawed reasoning and I'll let other people talk about it If I'm not mistaken, all of those sources are from 2015. You seem to be interpreting my statement of the facts regarding demographics in the tech industry as as a statement that I believe Asian Americans are privileged. I'm not saying that. I think tech is the closest industry to an honest meritocracy that…

The CIA data is from 2007 and counts all hispanic/latino people as white. Wikipedia places the white population at 63.7% based on the 2000 census.

So while it changes nothing about your comments about Asian people being over-represented, it does show that white people are not really underrepresented significantly.

Re: What the Kapors Have Learned from Years of Working on Diversity in Tech

#45

Post by AnthonyMouse »

kelukelugames wrote: post #41
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #27

> Or changing employee referral networks. When I ask if companies have employee referral networks, most say yes. But if I ask whether they’d have a structure for referrals of underrepresented groups, people often think that’s discriminatory and unfair. Because it is. You can only remove bias by removing bias, not by introducing counter-bias. Removing names from resumes works, imposing quotas doesn't. The problem with…

I agree with your criticism of affirmative action. The last company I worked at had a strong Women in Tech program, but one of the women of color described it as "white feminism." The company favored one axis, which was enough for it to become self-congratulatory. But I don't think this quote is about quotas. At least not quotas for employment. The program is merely for getting resumes of underrepresented groups. If…

> But I don't think this quote is about quotas. At least not quotas for employment.

Quotas for resumes don't in principle work any differently than quotas for hiring.

And I still don't see how that solves the pipeline problem. The problem in 1950 was that middle class jobs were unavailable to qualified women and minorities. The problem in tech in 2015 is that qualified women and minorities are unavailable to middle class jobs. You can't solve it in the same way because it isn't the same problem.

Re: What the Kapors Have Learned from Years of Working on Diversity in Tech

#46

Post by KirinDave »

striking wrote: post #20
KirinDave wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What was the percentage of blacks and/or women at Lotus notes when Mitch sold? > How many low-income/minority households is Mitch within walking distance of from his Berkeley compound? > Diversity for thee, but not for me. Can I ask you a quick question here? What does any of this matter? Diversity isn't about protecting yourself from character assassination. It's about promoting fairness, equality, and opportunity…

Something something just-world fallacy. http://www.spring.org.uk/2012/06/the-belief-in-a-just-world-... > expensive With the millions of dollars from diversity initiatives, I'm sure someone could pull it off. Also, I think you're missing the entire "classism" thing. I'm Polish, and just because I'm white doesn't mean I have the world handed to me. Kind of the opposite actually, everything that I've ever gotten in lif…

The world IS fundamentally unfair. That doesn't mean that society should foster fundamentally unfair policies. I don't know why you would think that this would be wise, or after even a casual perusal of history you'd think it was novel or sustainable.

> Also, I think you're missing the entire "classism" thing. I'm Polish, and just because I'm white doesn't mean I have the world handed to me. Kind of the opposite actually, everything that I've ever gotten in life was thanks to fighting the system (whether it was my work or my parents' work).

It simply wasn't the subject of this conversation. "White privilege" is a specific set of special treatments you get in the US. It is not, "Magically you have a perfect life." It's undeniable that with white privilege you're less likely to be summarily executed by law enforcement, as an example.

But economic and other social divides still exist. Polish and Irish people are excellent examples of other axis of discrimination and racism that still exist in the world today.

> I could say I deserve something, but honestly I don't really think I do.

We're all raised to accept racism as normal. It's not surprising that you feel this way. But remember, you're not the one who's history is getting them shot in the street in the US right now, so you're probably going to feel slightly less personal pain and be asked to express slightly more empathy at this exact moment.

Re: What the Kapors Have Learned from Years of Working on Diversity in Tech

#47

Post by KirinDave »

PopeOfNope wrote: post #37
KirinDave wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What was the percentage of blacks and/or women at Lotus notes when Mitch sold? > How many low-income/minority households is Mitch within walking distance of from his Berkeley compound? > Diversity for thee, but not for me. Can I ask you a quick question here? What does any of this matter? Diversity isn't about protecting yourself from character assassination. It's about promoting fairness, equality, and opportunity…

It's about promoting fairness, equality, and opportunity for everyone in society. Except for white people, which is why the parent is worried about character assassination. It's a real worry when building a business these days. There's no amount of compliance to progressive ideals that will protect you if you have light colored skin. Progressivism isn't a fad. It's the consistent direction of society since the dark a…

> Except for white people, which is why the parent is worried about character assassination.

This just isn't true. White people hold incredible advantages in modern society. Especially white men. When people ask you to express empathy & are bitterly frustrated when most refuse, they lash out. But that lashing shouldn't be surprising.

One need only look at how the police would treat you if you ran from them vs. the many highly publicized (but hardly unique or isolated) cases where police officers acted outrageously against people of color in the US.

> The pendulum swings one way for a little while, then it swings the other way.

Sorry, but this is wrong. The world is consistently more progressive and permissive over time. We certainly have had major reversals of this in history, but these never recover to quite the same level of conservatism.

And quite frankly, we all have agency in this. We can change the world for the better, if we act in concert. The sum of individual actions is our society, and the sum of societal actions is the arc of history. So stop acting like it's inevitable.

Re: What the Kapors Have Learned from Years of Working on Diversity in Tech

#48

Post by KirinDave »

iiiggglll wrote: post #24
KirinDave wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What was the percentage of blacks and/or women at Lotus notes when Mitch sold? > How many low-income/minority households is Mitch within walking distance of from his Berkeley compound? > Diversity for thee, but not for me. Can I ask you a quick question here? What does any of this matter? Diversity isn't about protecting yourself from character assassination. It's about promoting fairness, equality, and opportunity…

> If you look in the past of anyone, you will find things they regret and things that may draw censure from the pro-diversity and intersectional feminist mindset. That's natural. That's to be expected. Serious question: is it also "expected" that people will lose their jobs because of those things, like Brendan Eich?

Yeah poor Eich, would would have to exercise his golden parachute because his role as face of a company was jeopardized by being a bad face for the company.

Hold on, I'm shedding tears I'm so frustrated for him. Maybe he'll have to retire as a multi-millionaire at 65 instead of 60 now.

Re: What the Kapors Have Learned from Years of Working on Diversity in Tech

#49

Post by KirinDave »

striking wrote: post #20
KirinDave wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What was the percentage of blacks and/or women at Lotus notes when Mitch sold? > How many low-income/minority households is Mitch within walking distance of from his Berkeley compound? > Diversity for thee, but not for me. Can I ask you a quick question here? What does any of this matter? Diversity isn't about protecting yourself from character assassination. It's about promoting fairness, equality, and opportunity…

Something something just-world fallacy. http://www.spring.org.uk/2012/06/the-belief-in-a-just-world-... > expensive With the millions of dollars from diversity initiatives, I'm sure someone could pull it off. Also, I think you're missing the entire "classism" thing. I'm Polish, and just because I'm white doesn't mean I have the world handed to me. Kind of the opposite actually, everything that I've ever gotten in lif…

> With the millions of dollars from diversity initiatives, I'm sure someone could pull it off.

One other thing, you underestimate the magnitude of this problem. You'd literally need to make a private island with a controlled social environment and raise children from birth meticulously in a Truman-Show-like theme park to actually isolate all the cultural influences that are being discussed here.

Take the issue of sexism. This is baked into NEARLY ever message children receive, from birth and onwards. How would you ever actually reverse that? You can't, outside of a vacuum. You can only try to counter-balance it and hope the next generations can continue that process.

Even if that were feasible, it'd be unethical.

Re: What the Kapors Have Learned from Years of Working on Diversity in Tech

#50

Post by PopeOfNope »

KirinDave wrote: post #47
PopeOfNope wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about promoting fairness, equality, and opportunity for everyone in society. Except for white people, which is why the parent is worried about character assassination. It's a real worry when building a business these days. There's no amount of compliance to progressive ideals that will protect you if you have light colored skin. Progressivism isn't a fad. It's the consistent direction of society since the dark a…

> Except for white people, which is why the parent is worried about character assassination. This just isn't true. White people hold incredible advantages in modern society. Especially white men. When people ask you to express empathy & are bitterly frustrated when most refuse, they lash out. But that lashing shouldn't be surprising. One need only look at how the police would treat you if you ran from them vs. the ma…

White people hold incredible advantages in modern society.

Not anymore. There was a white man recently who could only get his work published by using an Asian pen name. Look at all of the white men who have had their careers destroyed by the mere allegation of sexism, racism or homophobia, the scarlet letters of your so called "progressiveism". Just ask Pax Dickinson, Brendan Eich or Brad Wardell.

The world is consistently more progressive and permissive over time.

This is easily disproved if you knew even a little world history. Any time a civilization gets significant wealth and comfort, it becomes more progressive. That progressivism in turns creates its downfall, after which wealth becomes scarce and the people become more conservative again. Round and round it goes since the creation of Babylon. The Roman Empire followed this cycle, until it was sacked by the Visigoths. It was followed by the dark ages. Then came the renaissance and its progress, followed by the stark conservatism of the Victorian era. We just finished a long upswing. The pendulum has already started swinging back towards conservatism.

Technology continues to progress. Humanity and its flawed ideologies follow predictable cycles.

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