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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

#341

Post by asciicircum »

okreallywtf wrote: post #236

I 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 m…

I'm not long enough in the workforce to have experienced open discrimination, so I don't feel qualified to comment on your overall question, i.e. on how my consideration of equality has changed due to the change in social climate.

I still want to reply to your question because your opening sentence reflects my feelings on the topics well: Both sides have good points - the debate is not as black and white as it is portrayed and is valuable to have [1].

> 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

Thanks for this, seriously. I'm happy to see openness to discussion rather than the (perceived) omnipresent downright dismissal of the opposing side :).

To still kinda answer your question: I think it's good discrimination has been brought to everyone's attention and that we are working on solutions as a society. I disagree with the diversity-push side on how we should go about it.

In a non-perfect world where we don't know the exact amount of discrimination/bias suffered [2], we can't use discrimination in the form of affirmative action or the like to correct for it without potentially discriminating the opposing group rather than just correcting for their privilege.

We should help individuals do what they want to do, so I'm all for breaking down any roles or whatever that prevent people from doing that. Forcing our idea of freedom of choice / equality is just not the way to do that. Especially when we forbid questioning it [3].

We should keep striving to become a better, fairer society. I don't know the solution, I just know that this way - no matter how well intentioned - is not it.

[1] only if we have an actual debate and try to understand the opposing side rather than dismissing valid points out of offense - both sides mostly do the latter right now as far as i can tell.

[2] Could be that e.g. the representation gap is 100% due to discrimination, could be that it's just 10% due to discrimination. The point is we don't know yet.

[3] the google manifesto was not scientifically debated and dismissed but attacked as sexist. If an hypothesis is not allowed we are not being scientific. And we really shouldn't turn our back to the scientific method.

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

#342

Post by icc97 »

mcguire wrote: post #312
tptacek wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's in the text next to the 90%

> But I was working with a candidate pool composed of 90% men. Try software engineers with experience in sensors, wireless and hardware stacks before angrily correcting my stats there.

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

#343

Post by agarden »

mcguire wrote: post #297
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"…

Let me just leave this here: " We [UrbanAMA] try hard, but again find ourselves with a 98% male candidate pool. You should know that we are an early stage startup that cannot afford market salaries. Despite that, we paid premium salaries to bring a few women who did well in our interviews. But, they lacked the energy to put us into overdrive. Worse, they were starting to drain the energy from the rest of the team. Ev…

She clarified in a comment that she fired men as well as women for "lacking the energy to put us into overdrive." She says:

"Yes, we invest in mentoring and training all our team members and we did with the women we hired as well. We definitely found a few men and women who were either unwilling or unable to take on the role. We did end up losing the men who didn’t as well. On that part, it wasn’t a gender thing really — sorry that the post made it sound like that. Basically we had fewer women to begin with. And as luck would have it, these women did not end up having the desire to do what it takes."

https://medium.com/@hellovidya/yes-we-invest-in-mentoring-an...

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

#344

Post by JimboOmega »

sololipsist wrote: post #336
JimboOmega wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Well, right, but there are biases that are hard to account for; and saying "I know I am probably biased, so I will act on the margins to try to correct that" is in no way irresponsible.

Choosing the best team for the job is always the goal.

And once again, the hard work isn't just the interviewing - it's managing the ongoing workplace environment, day to day.

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

#345

Post by wnoise »

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…

> But that's a cop-out. We should work on all stages of the pipeline.

We have finite resources to devote to this problem. Prioritizing them to the interventions that work is not merely acceptable, but praiseworthy and necessary.

> virtually none ... requires a college degree in the first place

Absolutely, but the pipeline leaks start far before college.

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

#346

Post by alexandercrohde »

okreallywtf wrote: post #236

I 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 m…

I'm glad that you brought this up, and how you brought it up (as somebody coming from the opposite side).

To answer your question, I didn't actively consider diversity in tech a problem before. So I think you have a point that it's good people have brought it up.

However, that doesn't mean I always agree with the means of social justice. It is possible to fight for a good cause in a bad way.

So there are multiple facets to this issue. I believe in the endgame of social progress while still siding with Dalmore. I think the correct way to refute Dalmores of the world is with research not firings, and people who would have him fired I think are doing the wrong thing, for the right reason.

That said, from what I've heard it sounded like google had a fine program in place. I think we're on the right track at a good pace for women in tech.

I'd like to see people start talking about minorities in investment banking next, because I'm not hearing it.

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

#348

Post by mncharity »

belorn wrote: post #291
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.…

> fighting the battle far earlier and getting girls interested young I can think of two major obstacles towards that. First, boys from average age of 15 enter a society where their attractiveness and social status is directly correlated to how much wealth they have. As such there is a strong incentive towards getting a job as early as possible or focusing studying towards specific high paying professions like tech. I…

> When a student fail a exam at a university level, the risk that they will switch program is several time higher if their gender is a minority in their class.

Belonging interventions can have a startlingly large impact this kind of failure mode.

Instilling "college is hard for people - they work hard, get help, and succeed" reframes difficulty from "I guess I don't belong here", affecting outcomes at scale. http://gregorywalton-stanford.weebly.com/uploads/4/9/4/4/494...

Two Brief Interventions to Mitigate a “Chilly Climate” Transform Women’s Experience, Relationships, and Achievement in Engineering http://gregorywalton-stanford.weebly.com/uploads/4/9/4/4/494... is interesting - two different ways of improving outcomes, with very different secondary effects.

The many questions of belonging. (2017, book chapter) http://gregorywalton-stanford.weebly.com/uploads/4/9/4/4/494...

More on http://gregorywalton-stanford.weebly.com/research.html and http://gregorywalton-stanford.weebly.com/papers.html .

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

#349

Post by j45 »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #76
j45 wrote: post #32

Is diversity only defined as gender diversity?

I was having a conversation about this yesterday with my girlfriend. What minorities need protection and rebalancing? We rarely talking about supporting the Jewish, for example, or Mexicans, or gays representation in engineering. What is the philosohpy at play here? And what if someday women became the majority, would you then fight to bring men back up to parity? She didn't have answers, which to me just made me won…

If one person can't imagine any minoroties needing help, does that eliminate the possibility a need can't exist?

I know that's not what you're saying, but should minorities have to meet the burden to satisfy the majority in society for them to validate what they may be experiencing?

In the working world, diversity is something I look for in leadership first, down to management, down to front lines, instead of working up the ranks. Diversity doesn't seem to exist if it's not leadership downwards.

Gender diversity is real. All progress on diversity is good as long as voice and support is lent to all groups affected by a lack of diversity.

I wonder if the current gender diversity conversation indirectly has appropriated the voice of diversity issues groups like our visible minorities may experience.

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

#350

Post by goodbye- »

arkitaip wrote: post #119
alexandercrohde wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was having a conversation about this yesterday with my girlfriend. What minorities need protection and rebalancing? We rarely talking about supporting the Jewish, for example, or Mexicans, or gays representation in engineering. What is the philosohpy at play here? And what if someday women became the majority, would you then fight to bring men back up to parity? She didn't have answers, which to me just made me won…

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…

"Intersectionalism" is a clever technique being leveraged by the very people who have, for decades, studied how media influences groups of people to do and think particular things. It is a weapon crafted to create a larger group out of disparate smaller ones. Whether or not it is justified is an entirely different argument. To say that people struggle at different levels in life strictly because of their skin color or ethnicity is hilarious to me. All people struggle in all kinds of ways.
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