Hiring quotas are bad. Let's have quotas in engineering schools instead... O_o
I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity
231–240 of 449 posts
Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity
#232At this point, I find these discussions tiresome. Enough with the politics on HN. Everyone has picked a side and the last place a mind will be changed is the context free world of Internet arguments. The fact that these post get so many votes doesn't mean they're valuable discussion. It just means that even among the supposedly enlightened, we are attracted to drama just like everyone else. I wish the mods would do more to kill these garbage posts.
Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity
#233> I have told my daughter it isn’t optional to learn coding and that she must stick with it until she’s good at it and then she can choose not to do it
This is what I don't understand of society. If someone is bad at something and I think it is important, then I force them to learn it. They will hate it more in the future. All those hours wasted instead of letting her doing what she is good at, and improving that skill.
Just for the records, few years ago it was important for the woman to know how to do the house work and things like cooking and sew. I see no difference with the coding thing. She has tried, she doesn't like it and she is bad at it. Let her move on and do something she will enjoy.
Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity
#234" 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.…
The central point is proven unconsciously bias, which makes "hiring the best person" only possible with blind hiring, and blind marking in University which isn't likely to happen any time soon - to see unconscious bias ignored or passed over is discouraging since it is the problem.
Also more recent research showing that trying train or educate away such bias doesn't work.
I would have dropped a reference except I thought this was so well known it could easily be found. If not, start here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/why-is-...
Meanwhile, thanks for the downvotes on spec - maybe save your downvotes for when you have a bibliography, peeps.
Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, from the context of Google, you are implying that is not what Google does (hires only to the bar). However, that is exactly what Google does. To get hired you have to pass the 5-interview in-person panel. Period. What the original memo author was railing about, incorrectly, is the perception that spending more time widening the recruiting funnel for "diversity candidates" was lowering the bar. That is not true. T…
I think you may have misread what I wrote, or perhaps what I wrote was a bit confusing or vague. I didn't mean that any of this was part of the anti-diversity memo. I meant that what this woman wrote was very similar in content to my own comments on that thread about the Google employee. I agree with you that what she has written is very different than what the Google employee wrote. And I wasn't making specific comm…
Thanks for that illumination. That was helpful.
I think you should be aware your words imply that you believe Google is doing quota based hiring or different hiring bars based on 'diversity'. You said, exactly quoted:
"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. "
The first sentence talks about Google. The second sentence you talk about how "companies" should hire the best person, no exceptions. Implying you believe Google does not do that. Because even though they are separate sentences they are part of the same chain of thought. So the second sentence seems to apply to Google despite your use of "companies" (which includes Google, since Google is a company).
So just be aware, if you raise A then B, then people are, naturally led into thinking that A and B are related in your mind some way.
This is why you can't write a memo like the original anti-diversity one, you are conflating too many issues. You can't dispassionately discuss how to change the diversity programs to be more inclusive in the same thought body that says "effectively lowered the bar for diversity candidates". That signals to people that you think these two things are related. Given that he has been embraced by the alt-right, and he has encouraged that, it should be giving people a pretty clear sign that the original 'anti-diversity memo' wasn't actually argued in good faith.
Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity
#236I see some good points on both sides of the discussion here but one thing occurs to me about the current diversity-pushback that I'm seeing(I'm not going to call it anti-diversity because I think a fair amount of it is well-meaning or at least not explicitly hateful).
We've surprisingly quickly moved from periods where it was common to simply refuse to even consider minorities or women in many fields to a time when many people see political correctness and reverse-racism/sexism as a greater problem than sexism and racism themselves.
I'm glad to see people being very thoughtful about fairness and equality, but I have an honest question: Before quotas and social justice warriors, were you thinking about fairness and equality when the status quo potentially benefited you and excluded others not on their merit but race and gender? I'm asking honestly, not trying to point fingers but I would like to know because this community, while left-leaning on many issues (I think) tends more towards libertarian on issues of race and gender and seems especially defensive when it comes to the tech industry (especially when the term "privilege" is used, it turns downright hostile).
If you were active in supporting equality and diversity (by resisting arbitrarily exclusionary practices) when it wasn't popular to do so and now you are seeing the negative aspects of a push for artificial diversity I would like to know that.
If you have never even considered diversity issues until recently when seeing hiring practices that could negatively affect you I would like to know that too. Do you believe any specific action needs to be taken to promote diversity or will the problem solve itself, or does the problem even exist at all?
Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I hear you when you say,"the only mandate for the interview process would be to hire the best person, no exceptions". It just sounds like an HR platitude. If you know how to do that, I actually think you have a multi-$B idea! Unless you mean "cultural fit", or "went to the same school I did" as the best person, I'm doubtful you have one though. I've done enough interviewing and worked with enough people to know tha…
> The only reason not to do blind hiring is if it produces results which are indistinguishable from standard hiring. Or the fact that it's not really possible. Right now, most software engineering jobs are pretty communication heavy. Almost all company cultures contain a non-trivial amount of verbal communication, so with that premise, it's reasonable to have candidates verbally describe technical things or even make…
You can setup interviews with text chat and screen shares at a large company without including someones voice or picture. Some places also remove names and other details from resumes.
Most companies don't do this in part because text chat introduces other biases, but also because most people ignore their own bias.
Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity
#238 Everyone seems to agree that only the best should be hired.
But may I ask isn't that a form of discrimination as well?. Being the best in an intelectual
activity such as programming is highly corelated with the level of intelligence of an individual.
No matter how hard you try if your IQ is below 80 you will never enter in Google. I even dare to say
that even if you are in the normal range of intelligene your chances of entering in Google are still very low.
Isn't intelligence a biological attribute in the same way of the color of the skin or a gender?.
Who decided its own IQ level before they were born?.
Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hear you when you say,"the only mandate for the interview process would be to hire the best person, no exceptions". It just sounds like an HR platitude. If you know how to do that, I actually think you have a multi-$B idea! Unless you mean "cultural fit", or "went to the same school I did" as the best person, I'm doubtful you have one though. I've done enough interviewing and worked with enough people to know that…
> I hear you when you say,"the only mandate for the interview process would be to hire the best person, no exceptions". It just sounds like an HR platitude. If you know how to do that, I actually think you have a multi-$B idea! Unless you mean "cultural fit", or "went to the same school I did" as the best person, I'm doubtful you have one though. I've done enough interviewing and worked with enough people to know tha…
> The only reason not to do blind hiring is if it produces results which are indistinguishable from standard hiring.
This will possibly result in less women being hired. See: 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
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you explain why this post is disapearing from the frontpage as fast as it is? Even though it has the most votes in very little time. (see my other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15011458 )
Users are flagging it heavily, as they have been flagging most opinion pieces that have appeared during this tidal wave. People who feel strongly one way or the other typically want to see the articles they agree with stay on the front page and the ones they disagree with get flagged. But from a systemic point of view, it isn't in HN's interest to have the front page dominated by repetitive arguments (and certainly n…
I find the stance of HN admins/managers on these type stories incredibly biased. When something is agreeable to the "more X in tech" trope it stays on the front page for hours and gets hundreds of points. When a story that is counter to that trope gains traction it quickly drops off the page and admins/managers are all over the discussion picking and chosing what to suppress. The whole google memo/James Damore thing is a perfect example of this. I don't know if it is general community bias, astroturfing, censorship, or whatever. It is clear that the community has a lot of interest in this and some entity is very eager to minimize the discussion. It's disgusting.