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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

#151

Post by pbhjpbhj »

humanrebar wrote: post #72
thiagooffm wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though what I say might sound a bit stupid, I think it's because of style. Everybody that I work with is a geek. If you always thought of yourself more of a guy who is a lawyer, serious, likes to dress well, you will probably want to run away from being a software dev. They generally like to geek out, look weird, look smart or whatever. Then you might have less geeky people and companies, but the overall sentime…

> They generally like to geek out, look weird, look smart or whatever. Playing off this, I think pop culture deserves more blame than it gets for the lack of women in tech. A software engineer is more likely to enjoy ComicCon than than the average person, but actually working in software is pretty normal. In the previous decade or two, some TV shows have been casting women as the "tech genius" quite a bit. That's goo…

Could you list some of the "tech genius" characters you have in mind?

I don't watch that much TV, but Abby (sp?) from NCIS springs to mind, slightly quirky, but v. intelligent, commanding.

The equivalent character in Alias, f.e., was (in early series at least) a one-dimensional dork.

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

#152

Post by imron »

Zyst wrote: post #117
iainmerrick wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to get to know someone's personality at a deep level to make a hiring decision, you need to know their skill level and aptitude. I agree, but how do you estimate their aptitude in an unbiased way? That mostly rules out face-to-face conversations, which is what most companies use. Aptitude tests? I feel like those have a bad reputation, at least in Bay Area tech companies. Are there good tests we should…

How about an artificially anonymized process. HR does know, or assumes, your gender from receiving your CV. But from that point onward your identity is anonymous. For instance, HR creates a throw away email which will be used during the hiring process to coordinate the rest of the tasks. The coding interviews could use one of the many platforms we have for shared/same space coding with an added chat box for talking y…

> And so hiring decisions are done by interviewers without knowing the gender or how the candidate looks.

It might make the situation worse: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-tria...

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

#154

Post by philwelch »

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…

Shaming people is an exercise of political power. If a group truly lacks political power, they're not capable of effectively shaming anyone.

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

#155

Post by pnathan »

tptacek wrote: post #22
jasode wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>, and its kernel is an anecdote about how her son is interested in programming and her daughter in photoshop. Fascinating how different readers take away different salient points. For me, her main buildup was hiring women to meet a "diversity goal" resulted in pressures to hire some women who couldn't do the work . This creates a perverse feedback loop that unfairly taints future women candidates who could do the wo…

Because the piece isn't very well written†, it's unclear whether the "infinite loop" of mediocrity she's referring to is something she actually observed, or something she surmises is possible. She is clear and specific, presenting numbers, when talking about things she was personally involved in. Since the cycle of increasing mediocrity has a prominent float in the parade of horribles conjured by the "anti-diversity"…

> Finally, an obvious point: evaluation of the performance of an individual software developer is one of the great unsolved problems of software engineering.

I don't think it's obvious at all. That an experienced engineer or manager can correctly evaluate a software engineer is one of the ground assumptions that runs through our industry and its thinkpieces. (Though it is borne out by the studies that, e.g., even Google has done).

> If you think that's different at Google, re-evaluate: Google also runs one of the most famously capricious hiring programs in the industry. Despite constant rituals and genuflection towards data-driven decision making, Google continues to thrive based on its status as a premiere destination for new software developers, despite running a hiring process renowned for the quality of the people it has alienated. There is ample evidence of Google having scaled broken processes.

This is a significant point: Google's hiring process is legendarily bad. While I would work for them (I think their ethics are solid, their engineering is excellent, their benefits suitable for adults, and reports of internal culture are generally good - a rare combination), the hoop jumping they ask you to go through is... quite amazing. I just don't have enough of a taste for doing an independent study of my upper division algorithms class to have aggressively tried to get hired there.

It's also evidence, I think, that broken hiring processes do not inherently break a company - or at least a sufficiently profitable one.

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

#156

Post by pbhjpbhj »

reitanqild wrote: post #79
michaelmrose wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mansplaining is one of those words like libtard or freetard that indicates that the user is unlikely to say anything insightful or deep.

In this particular case I think it was used to a particular effect. The irony here is tptacek (a man) is out to explain why this woman is wrong - in order to help women.

Which of course is impossible because the sex of the person who uses/states an argument is the most substantive part, nothing else matters. Thus dismissing a person's argument based only on their sex is just right.

/s

Calling someone's comment "mansplaining" is the mirror image of asking to see "the man in charge"; it's dismissal based on the sex of the person being addressed.

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

#157

Post by criddell »

klipt wrote: post #111
criddell wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Openly offering different salaries based on gender is incredibly illegal.

That's true, I didn't think of that. It does seem like it would be a more direct way for them to increase the number of women that work there though. To me it doesn't feel worse than allowing a numeric quota.

I suppose individual women are free to negotiate a higher salary.

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

#158

Post by nodamage »

cargo8 wrote: post #61
tptacek wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the piece isn't very well written†, it's unclear whether the "infinite loop" of mediocrity she's referring to is something she actually observed, or something she surmises is possible. She is clear and specific, presenting numbers, when talking about things she was personally involved in. Since the cycle of increasing mediocrity has a prominent float in the parade of horribles conjured by the "anti-diversity"…

I think that her "infinite loop" theory was her perception of the anecdote around hiring at her own startup. It does seem conceivable, but yeah obviously data is light here. Good point on how the whole interview process is a crapshoot anyway. Hadn't really thought about that aspect, but obviously is a huge opportunity for subliminal bias since it is how it is.

Even in her anecdote she doesn't actually come out and say they lowered their standards until they ended up hiring women who "couldn't do the work", at least in terms of technical ability. Her only description of these women is:

"But, they lacked the energy to put us into overdrive. Worse, they were starting to drain the energy from the rest of the team."

What exactly does it mean to "lack energy"? Were these women unqualified or otherwise incapable of doing the work? If so, why not say so explicitly? Because otherwise, in the context of startups I would be inclined to interpret that sentence as meaning "they weren't willing to work 80 hour weeks like the rest of our team so we fired them".

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

#159

Post by madeofpalk »

jasode wrote: post #10
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…

>, and its kernel is an anecdote about how her son is interested in programming and her daughter in photoshop. Fascinating how different readers take away different salient points. For me, her main buildup was hiring women to meet a "diversity goal" resulted in pressures to hire some women who couldn't do the work . This creates a perverse feedback loop that unfairly taints future women candidates who could do the wo…

Yes. A lower-quality 'Diversity hire' just to fulfil quotas are not how you achieve equality. But...

> there are talented female computer scientists like Grace Hopper and NASA's Margeret Hamilton.

...it's funny how you point to two quite exceptional people as the standard for women to meet.

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

#160

Post by BadassFractal »

groby_b wrote: post #145
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…

> 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.

Correlation does not imply causation. Is rampant systemic sexism the reason why most oil rig workers are male? Is rampant systemic sexism the reason why 95% of child care teachers are women?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gatn5ameRr8

Disparate outcomes do not imply disparate treatment.

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