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I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

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Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#141

Post by d--b »

khazhoux wrote: post #91
d--b wrote: post #39

She has very valid points about what should be fought against, like subliminal biases against women in tech. But then she's like 'we had to fire our women tech workers because they lacked the energy'. Isn't that something that's easily taken out of context and fuels exactly what she advocates against? This feels to me that it's the kind of articles that causes engineer bros to say things like: 'see, even good women e…

> She has very valid points about what should be fought against, like subliminal biases against women in tech. But then she's like 'we had to fire our women tech workers because they lacked the energy'. Isn't that something that's easily taken out of context and fuels exactly what she advocates against? > This feels to me that it's the kind of articles that causes engineer bros to say things like: 'see, even good wom…

Well 'lacking energy' and 'draining energy from others' is not exactly factual...

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#142

Post by virgil_disgr4ce »

arkitaip wrote: post #128
virgil_disgr4ce wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this question downvoted?

HN has a terrible bias towards white dudes and now that it's their privilege that's being questioned - as opposed to that of blur collar workers, conservatives, hillbillies etc - they are in full panic mode. Can't even discuss or take in another POV - just downvote.

Yes, I have noticed. :(

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#143

Post by cylinder »

Is anyone aware of how many female engineers come out of Iran? This has everything to do with education quality. Our math education is an absolute joke in the US, even mine and I went to a supposedly amazing public school. Add in cultural biases such as parents and teachers pushing bright girls to "girly" fields instead of math and you end up like this. Then in typical American fashion we try to impose quotas or other bandages at the endpoint rather than fixing the system itself.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#144

Post by ryandvm »

fapjacks wrote: post #118
iainmerrick wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep thinking about orchestras, where simply auditioning performers behind a curtain completely fixes the bias problem. Of course the trick is that you don't need to see the candidates or talk to them, just listen to their playing. In software, we would need to find some similarly effective way to measure anonymized performance. In fact, completely aside from fixing gender and racial biases, that's something we cou…

There appear to be problems with this approach that wouldn't be acceptable to the people driving the diversity effort [0]. To summarize the linked example: ElectronConf tried a gender-blind selection process for speakers, and when they lifted the veil on their selections, discovered they had only selected men to speak, so they canceled the conference. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868

Google Code Jam has the same problem. I'm honestly surprised that Google hasn't yet tried to intervene with some sort diversity enchantment...

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#145

Post by groby_b »

Icedcool wrote: post #23

"In the name of diversity, when we fill quotas to check boxes, we fuck it up for the genuinely amazing women in tech." Awesome. A plea towards hiring based on quality, rather than quotas. Towards a group that is judged by the content and quality of their character rather than some of the variation of an attempt to combat discrimination through discrimination.

That would be a meaningful statement if there actually were quota hiring.

Alas, there is mostly lazy hiring. Her point that 98% of the candidates are male? I have a long list of colleges right here on my desk that she could reach out to that have a wider pool.

By all means, hire by quality. And I'm not aware of a single company actually doing quota hiring. It's a silly proposal. But look at a wider range. It's not as hard as the author makes it out to be.[1]

But all that bringing in of candidates doesn't help if your culture is crap. If you let people behave like it's a frat-house, guess what? The few minority people you'll find and hire will leave, because they'll be made to feel unwelcome.

I'm sick of tired of the hiring strawman. The reason there's a scarcity of women and other minorities is that many companies have a culture that's full of toxic sewage.

New hires aren't judged "by character". I wish more companies did, because we'd see less problems. But we're all desperately clinging to the ludicrous idea that reciting some algorithms from memory in front of the whiteboard is the one indicator for job fitness.

If you actually want diversity (and quality!), start right there. Test how people actually behave in a group setting. Have them solve real problems, together with other people.

[1] Of course, if you pay your recruiters by quantity, they'll be happy to let people self-select. And if your company's culture skews exclusive, guess what, minorities won't self select. It's not a problem of the candidate pool, though.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#146

Post by turc1656 »

"In the name of diversity, when we fill quotas to check boxes, we fuck it up for the genuinely amazing women in tech."

Precisely. This goes directly to the core of the issue and what I had brought up on the thread recently about the Google employee who got fired. Specifically, if companies were truly interested in fairness, the only mandate for the interview process would be to hire the best person, no exceptions. By doing this you treat both sexes fairly and give everyone an equal chance. Otherwise, you end up with "reverse sexism", which the author does not explicitly say, however she does essentially admit to in her description of the hiring loop:

"After some rounds of low to no success, we start to compromise and hire women just because we have to"

The only logical conclusion that can be drawn from that is she hired at least a few women over men which she thought were better candidates simply because "we have to". That's a problem.

Overall, though, I thought her piece was well written and she seems to get at the real issue and even has a possible solution that doesn't involve just hiring women for purposes of optics only - fighting the battle far earlier and getting girls interested young so that they choose to enter these fields at a higher rate than they currently are doing.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#147

Post by reitanqild »

Frondo wrote: post #124
reitanqild wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in itself. I'll even sometimes step up myself and at some point managed to get my boss to hire the girl who cleaned our offices since she was qualified only hadn't been considered since she was Polish. The insistence on punishment (firing, public shaming) for minor offences (wrongthink) withouth due process is worrying though.

I'm going to push back on the critique of shaming. It's literally the only consequence groups without any (economic/political) power have. It bears no force of law. It creates no consequence directly except for a little discomfort on the part of the recipient. Tell historically disadvantaged communities--the ones with decades or centuries of societal biases working against them--they can't shame people they think are…

It's literally the only consequence groups without any (economic/political) power have.

To me it seems it is more used by resourceful people.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#148

Post by wizu »

criddell wrote: post #89
orclev wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the core of the article was pointing out that setting arbitrary quotas for female hires and then sacrificing your standards in order to meet those quotas does more harm than good. Fundamentally there are two issues that need addressing, firstly trying to get more qualified female applicants which is why she recommends focusing on early education and college STEM programs. Secondly there's the issue of how to addr…

One aspect I haven't read much about are the incentives that the big tech companies are offering women candidates. You mention wage gaps but if the pool of qualified engineers is mostly men and Google (and other tech companies) want to hire women, it seems that salaries for women should be far, far higher than it is for men. The fact that they are close to equal might be part of the problem.

True, you could let the market dictate their salaries, but then you run into the issue of paying one gender more money for the same amount of work, a practice outlawed under the Equality Pay Act of 1963.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#149

Post by mistermann »

arkitaip wrote: post #58
mistermann wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't sound curious, you sound angry, as if you somehow already KNOW the answers to your questions. Do you feel highly certain that she is lying? To understand one's mind, you should observe it.

Maybe you can address the issues instead of playing armchair psychologist.

About what I would have expected.

> What exactly is this supposed to mean? What exactly does it mean to "lack energy" and to "drain energy" from other people? How on EARTH did she come to this conclusion? And WHY would this be a problem inherent to women?

Absolutely mystified.

> This tells me more about her management style than it does about any woman at her company.

Suddenly, no longer mystified at all.

Not that I particularly care, but this is why I have very little respect for hardcore advocates, they see themselves as completely objective while in reality their bias is obvious. The confidence of youth I guess, but this energy would be better expended on actually doing something towards achieving success rather than complaining that someone hasn't delivered it to your doorstep.

In the medium/long term, this is all the distractions of a childish culture. While we bicker dishonestly among ourselves like self-entitled children, China is quietly working its ass off and will soon eat all of our lunches.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#150

Post by nodamage »

orclev wrote: post #16
tptacek wrote: post #2

Some of the reasoning in this post is very weak. It's not very long, and its kernel is an anecdote about how her son is interested in programming and her daughter in photoshop. My daughter is also more interested in art than my son (who is more interested in video games). Both would make exceptional programmers, and both have a latent interest. Both are setting a course for STEM careers, but, like all 18 and 16 year…

No, the core of the article was pointing out that setting arbitrary quotas for female hires and then sacrificing your standards in order to meet those quotas does more harm than good. Fundamentally there are two issues that need addressing, firstly trying to get more qualified female applicants which is why she recommends focusing on early education and college STEM programs. Secondly there's the issue of how to addr…

> No, the core of the article was pointing out that setting arbitrary quotas for female hires and then sacrificing your standards in order to meet those quotas does more harm than good.

Is this actually occurring at Google due to the existence of their diversity programs? If so, that is quite a strong claim and needs to be backed by evidence. But she doesn't appear to be actually making that claim.

> Fundamentally there are two issues that need addressing, firstly trying to get more qualified female applicants which is why she recommends focusing on early education and college STEM programs.

Isn't this literally what Google's diversity programs do? The ones that James Damore advocates eliminating? I thought they were internship programs designed to encourage more minority groups to get into computer science?

For example:

BOLD - https://www.google.com/about/careers/students/bold.html

CSSI - https://edu.google.com/resources/programs/computer-science-s...

Engineering Practicum - https://careers.google.com/jobs#!t=jo&jid=/google/engineerin...

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