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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

#311

Post by [deleted] »

lerpa wrote: post #250
turc1656 wrote: post #146

" 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.…

> she hired at least a few women over men which she thought were better candidates simply because "we have to". That's a problem. I don't have any problem with people having arbitrary standards which guide their hiring process. They could be hiring the worst candidates, and I don't care, it's their business, may be they want to do charity or whatever. The problem I have is with the "have to" hire such and such, and w…

[deleted]

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

#312

Post by mcguire »

tptacek wrote: post #40
GlennCSmith wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see where the author's reasoning is weak. A female tech lead / founder tried the standard way to get better representation of women at Google: try to hire more women, and found out there weren't enough highly qualified candidates to significantly move the numbers in the desired direction. Then as a founder herself, she tried to hire a higher percentage of women, and found there weren't enough candidates. She…

Again: everyone knows the candidate pool is overwhelmingly comprised of men. There's no real dispute anywhere about this fact. It's not part of the debate; there is no debate about it. Nobody can reasonably believe it's realistic to expect parity in hiring in the immediacy, and all the available evidence suggests --- like you'd expect! --- that Google doesn't expect that either. That makes that part of the argument i…

Note: The percentage of women in computing is roughly 25%. I don't know how she got the 90% and 98% numbers.

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

#313

Post by JKCalhoun »

turc1656 wrote: post #146

" 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 only mandate for the interview process would be to hire the best person, no exceptions.

Yes. But, how did said person even get to the interview stage. It has been documented that people will recommend their peers for positions a their company — peers that often look like they do.

Unfortunately, I think it's rather complicated....

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

#315

Post by rbanffy »

thecrazyone wrote: post #304
rbanffy wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once you're listening to real voices, Use a voice scrambler.

thats what i was thinking. Everyone should be made to sound like darth vader and now we've an interview process to die for :P

Maybe Donald Duck

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

#316

Post by unlmtd1 »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #270

> "In the name of diversity, when we fill quotas to check boxes, we fuck it up for the genuinely amazing women in tech." And, why aren't these genuinely amazing women in tech otherwise being found? How is it that things are so easily "f'd up" for them?

Dilution of merit.

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

#317

Post by arkitaip »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #286
arkitaip wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diversity is intersectional and people who actually fight for diversity absolutely talk about and work so that Mexicans, Asians, latinos, the disabled, gay people, trans people, etc, etc are given equal opportunities and treatment in the workplace. There are literally thousands of organizations in just the US advocating for workplace diversity for pretty much any and every minority you can imagine. I suspect the prob…

I disapprove of this response on a number of levels. One of the biggest reasons I avoid these discussions is ironically, the "safe-space" crowd has managed to offend, insult, and ignore me more effectively than almost any other group, and ironically, they do so because of my race and gender [white, male]. Working in tech I work with probably 80% minorities (Indians, Asians, women, gays, Iranians, Bangladeshi, Pakista…

"'safe-space' crowd has managed to offend, insult, and ignore me"

Poor neglected you. I can only assume that the reason why you are being so incredibly defensive, offended and acting like a child is because the criticism hit home. In the end it doesn't matter of course, changing is coming and you will have to adapt to it.

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

#318

Post by foldr »

mduerksen wrote: post #308
tptacek wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the entire question we're addressing in these threads. It is weird that women excel in: * the rest of STEM, * the law, * medicine, * pretty much all the rest of the professions (accounting, actuary, &c) ... despite the fact that many of those fields are, both intellectually and from the amount of work product expected, more challenging than computer science. Add to that the fact that most software jobs are far…

Possible explanation as follows: The perks for those jobs in our culture are different ones and on average women prefer a different mix. In western culture, my experience has been: When you tell some acquaintance you're a software developer, engineer etc., they are almost instantly bored. Contrast that with * Science - The flair of knowledge, curiosity, discovery and a general sense of meaning * the law - Status and…

>In western culture, my experience has been: When you tell some acquaintance you're a software developer, engineer etc., they are almost instantly bored.

I think telling someone that you're a software engineer isn't the best way to make it sound exciting and high status. Tell people what the software does, or what the company does. Saying "I'm a software engineer" is like saying "I'm a screwdriver operator" rather than "I'm an aviation maintenance technician". Nobody cares about the nitty-gritty details of how exactly you get your work done.

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

#319

Post by arkitaip »

mistermann wrote: post #149
arkitaip wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Please don't add new text to your comment after submitting it, it comes off as disingenuous and warps the discussion.
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