81–90 of 497 posts
I've only been to SF twice, but I have to agree that it is pretty white. Not as white as Colorado, but still. I also toured Medium and was blown away by the lack of black folks working there. It's tough to describe the feeling, but when you're the only black person in the room, you do feel different--a little uncomfortable. However, I don't think this reflects a conscious effort to not hire blacks, rather there are i…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As soon as a minorty achieves success (and often disproportionate success) they are no longer considered minorities.
If it were a game, it would be called "Whiteness unlocked." An Indian- or Chinese-American can attain "no longer considered minority" (aka whiteness) but African-Americans don't get that achievement.
> One senior, Sarah Jones, ... “There are not a lot of people of color in the Valley—and that, by itself, makes it kind of unwelcoming." This statement may be true if "people of color" means African American. Otherwise, it is just not the fact. I do think, through my personal experience, the Valley is probably the most diverse place that I have been. I've seen people all over the wrold here: Asian, Latino, European,…
As soon as a minorty achieves success (and often disproportionate success) they are no longer considered minorities.
is a person's worth to you determined by how successful they are? that's like the argument about steve jobs: 'we should let in syrian refugees because they might end up fathering a brilliant tech entrepeneur' - no, we should let in syrian refugees because it's the right thing to do.
I would say some of the students in the article probably aren't SV material - "They’d begun studying computer science in college"? So you've been involved with computers for 4 whole years and you think you're qualified for a top tier job? I'm sure not all of the students only started in college - I'm also not naive enough to think there isn't prejudice in SV, but didn't start until college...
I think its kinda ridiculous to say that to be 'SV material' you need to have started studying CS before college
Let's assume there is this black guy / girl sitting in the interview room with you. You (white) are asking interview questions and you soon realise that the person you are interviewing is excellent. But something is off, you can't really put your finger on it. What do you do?
I would say some of the students in the article probably aren't SV material - "They’d begun studying computer science in college"? So you've been involved with computers for 4 whole years and you think you're qualified for a top tier job? I'm sure not all of the students only started in college - I'm also not naive enough to think there isn't prejudice in SV, but didn't start until college...
My institution was heavily recruited by big corps, government labs, and east coast companies.
The "best" students, by GPA, were in high-demand for all of the above. Many were heavily recruited into management tracks for non-IT companies. A large number of government institutions and defense contractors were also eager to land new grads from our school. The "best" students, by hacking skills were (maybe stereo-typically for hackers) less interested in classes that didn't involve slinging code, but also all landed programming gigs. Less committed students, from either metric, seemed to still be getting jobs but I can't generalize as to the job type.
I think it is fair to say that my undergrad course-work was not as demanding as (guessing a bit here) Stanford, MIT, or CMU. But my GPA and GRE scores landed me multiple job and graduate school offers.
One aspect of hiring from (or at least my) HBCUs is that there is very strong network effect - alumni come back to the school and recruit interns and fulltime positions for their companies, help prep students for the process, and students looked to those alumni as trusted sources.
If Silicon Valley really wants to hire from HBCUs, that is the path I would recommend. Hire a few alums from the HBCUs and make recruiting and grooming candidates a priority for those alums.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't find it surprising. I'm white, and I've been on all-white teams where everyone else watched the same TV shows or went to the same movies or played the same video games, and I didn't. Those common interests would feel like the only thing they ever talked about, and it would feel very unwelcoming. Part of the problem is just luck of the draw in terms of the team you get placed on. If that team is all into the…
But that's not what she says, her problem isn't that she doesn't like Marvel Cinematic Universe but that she feels that she doesn't have much in common with people of other races.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think its kinda ridiculous to say that to be 'SV material' you need to have started studying CS before college
Why would you think that? You believe there is less than 4 years of material in all of CS?