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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

#331

Post by user5994461 »

corporateslave3 wrote: post #53
ardit33 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Riiigght... It takes years to become decent, and almost a decade to become 'really good'. Most junior engineers (first year off the school), or interns are a net negative for the first year. Including the folks that just went to hacker/training type of programs. Hence most startups avoid them, and only large companies have the means to absorb them in large numbers. The only good right after school engineers I have wo…

I dont think this is true. There's a reason fresh engineers are paid so much, they are almost immediately valuable.

The reason is that they have to pay a $4000 rent for a 1 bedroom, while reimbursing their tuition for the MIT.

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

#332

Post by mistermann »

arkitaip wrote: post #319
mistermann wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I noted the person sounded angry, was called out for it, so added additional descriptive text. And I'm being disingenuous?

This whole discussion is basically one side accusing the other of being a bully/thief/exploiter, that side asking how so, and the other saying no, prove to me that you're not!

And the accusers wonder why they're not achieving a lot of success in the real world. It is truly something to behold.

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

#333

Post by perfectstorm »

Finally someone is talking like a matured person about this whole issue. If you really wanted to fix this issue, you've to fix it at the source. i.e encourage girls to take up engineering courses in college.

I went to college in 2005 and there was only 1 girl who graduated with me from my engineering class. There were tons of girls/women in my optional classes (Geography, History) but very few (2 or 3) in some of the core engineering classes.

You can't fix this by sending women to coding bootcamps. It's like - what we call - a bandaid fix i.e applying patches without fixing it at the root level.

I've tried my best to convince my cousin to take up a career in STEM but she refuse to even consider that possibility. She claims Math is too hard for her and is choosing nursing as her major. I'm sure she will be a good nurse and there's nothing wrong with nursing as a career. In the end it's her choice and all I can do is talk and try to convince her.

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

#334

Post by mining »

BadassFractal wrote: post #160
groby_b wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 outc…

> Is rampant systemic sexism the reason why 95% of child care teachers are women?

Yes, absolutely. Men are generally treated very poorly if they choose to voluntarily work with small children.

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

#335

Post by jeffrom »

m1el wrote: post #293
Lon7 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 was not thinking about that. And when I started being exposed to it, my immediate reaction was like you described: seeing political correctness and reverse-racism/sexism as a greater problem than sexism and racism themsel…

Nothing you said here is a counter argument to either the comment you replied to or the linked post. > All these women that are being talked about as statistics are real people. Nobody denies that. However, once you say that there's not enough "equality" of engineers, you invoke statistics. > I think the human aspect of all this is sorely missing on HN. Think of those poor talented engineers denied a place of work be…

Well it's not. Not objectively. Not in any sense. Only in abstract terms.

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

#336

Post by sololipsist »

JimboOmega wrote: post #260
sololipsist wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But what if there are still biases in hiring? That someone sees a woman and assumes this or that about her based on gender alone? Quotas are not the answer, period. It's not okay to deny someone a job to correct for some possible, unmeasured, inaccurate judgement call on another person based on a stereotype whether or not that stereotype is accurate across populations. All you're doing is transferring the injustice…

Agree. There is an argument I'm not sure I support that diversity has value on its own - that 5 people with different backgrounds is worth more than 5 with the same background. But that being said - questioning biases, and correcting them at every point you spot them (not just interviewing!) is vital.

Whether or not it has value on it's own (which I'm not convinced of in coding). It doesn't matter.

Meritocratic hiring has value on its own. The best person getting the job has value on its own. Not including OR discluding someone from a job based on their skin color or genitals has value on its own.

Insisting that having people with different skin color program a piece of software makes that software better is one thing, actually playing god with people's careers on the basis of their skin color or genitals because you, personally, value that more than meritocracy is an irresponsible and highly unethical course of action.

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

#337

Post by solipsism »

msteffen wrote: post #106

I worked at Google, and Alan Eustace, Google's most emphatic champion of gender diversity when I worked there, repeatedly emphasized that Google couldn't lower its hiring bar for women candidates, because that would hurt the reputation of women already there The main forms of gender-diversity outreach that I remember Google engaging in were 1) programs for young girls, to introduce them to programming, 2) programs fo…

Exactly. The author says we shouldn't check boxes to fill quotas... and then doesn't accuse anyone of doing so. She tosses that strawman out there, getting people to nod their heads in vigorous agreement, but she never makes any claims that any particular company is engaging in the behavior she criticizes.

Of course, the implication is that Google is doing so. But if Google was doing so, they wouldn't have the poor diversity stats they've been accused of having.

You can't have it both ways! Either Google is lowering the bar to achieve satisfactory diversity stats... or they are failing to achieve satisfactory diversity stats.

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

#338

Post by ajdkjafklds »

It's all very well and good to increase the pipeline. But we also need to continue our efforts to support women who are currently working as many of them experience sexual harassment. But we also need to keep in mind that some people don't like tech and don't like tech and are happy with their jobs that are less challenging and pay less money. For example, an acquaintance who is a secretary told me that she thought programming was a boring job and she was glad to be a secretary even though it's a low wage and low prestige job.

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

#339

Post by sajfklasjfsd »

One thing I think we should keep in mind and that worries me in our diversity efforts is that some cultures seem to me to be hostile to women. For instance as I've been walking around I've noticed that I've been harassed by one race more than the others. I've also been harassed at work by that race more than the others despite that race only being a small percentage in tech. I think we need to plan so that increasing the number of people from that race doesn't lead to fewer women because harassment increases.

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

#340

Post by yazaddaruvala »

sidlls wrote: post #219
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the fact is that virtually none of the software engineering we do in the industry --- very much including most of the work done at Google --- requires a college degree in the first place. Please do not mislabel opinion as fact. You do both yourself and the world a disservice.

As an academic turned to industry, I have to agree with him. Almost all of the "CS fundamentals trivia is engineering" stuff I see is more because a bunch of CS grads who consider engineering, architecture and the like to be beneath them or else they're completely unfamiliar with how engineering works in any other engineering field.

We can have that debate but at this time, weather I agree with their opinion or not is not my point.

I feel very strongly that noone should proclaim opinion as a fact.

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