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Getting free of toxic tech culture

blog.valerieaurora.org

181–190 of 420 posts

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#181

I think this was well written. There were a few instances where, upon first reading it, I objected. But rereading it, I thought the language used was chosen well. I have one main gripe, though: The scope limitation to tech. > "Toxic tech cultures are those that demean and devalue you as holistic, multifaceted human beings. Toxic tech cultures are those that prioritize profits and growth over human and societal well b…

In fact, it very probably is a tech-specific problem. Among the STEM fields, CS is almost uniquely imbalanced. STEM fields in general range from ~30-55% women, and those fields include things like Mathematics --- anyone who has gone to an academic cryptography workshop has probably noticed how many more women there are in the room --- which are strong proxies for CS ability. And, of course, among the professions in g…

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Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate on the form of the attacks on white people and men you're seeing in SV companies? I'm both white, male, and at an SV company, and haven't seen them in my experience. From a managerial perspective I'd love to hire more people from underrepresented groups because it would mean a bigger pool to hire from, so I'm all for recruiting efforts, outreach/education programs, etc, but at the end of the day t…

Sure, from Damore’s Google lawsuit: https://twitter.com/mjaeckel/status/950446329603461121

Jesus Christ.

Google seems to be infested by wingnuttery on both sides - nearly every example there is an example of left or right crazies.

But they do seem to show a pattern of left leaning wingnuts being more accepted than right leaning.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, James Damore, the guy who thought he knew stuff. Seems like that is the worst possible example. It's like, self-defeating. It's like, yes, lets pick the guy who yet again wants to rationalize institutionalized sexism with bad science and thought it would be OK to tell his _coworkers_ why some of them are, scientifically, inferior to him. And expect for nobody to take offense to this and that he would not get fire…

Can you identify in his memo where he claimed that, "his _coworkers_... are scientifically, inferior to him."

"Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don't have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership." He lays the groundwork for that argument there, and then his rhetoric which builds upon this throughout the memo basically argues that, possibly, men are better biologically suited than women for high status/stress/leadership roles, or roles involving "things", as he says men are more into "things", and women more into "people".

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#184
Did anyone else notice problems/errors in the linked Kapor Center study and have more questions about that than the article?

    - They list that "Unfairness, however, was the top reason for leaving for women of color (36%)", but their table right below that says that 39% of Women in Color left for "Actively Seeking Better Opportunity".
    - The only significant difference between men and women in this results table is in Unfairness.  Men actually find their jobs almost 10% more unfair than women do!
    - White women seem to be the most unsatisfied with their work environment.
    - Why are women having significantly more unfair experiences than men but so much less likely to leave a job for that reason?

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#185
post #100
post #44

I predict people will claim "our culture isn't that toxic. Some of those things happen, but they don't bother me much." If any non-zero subset of reasonable people are so offended by a behavior that they'd leave the industry because of it, we have to cut it out. So don't ask "would this bother me?" Ask "would it bother someone?" And since you can't predict this from inside your head, you have to rely on firsthand acc…

> If any non-zero subset of reasonable people are so offended by a behavior that they'd leave the industry because of it, we have to cut it out. That's a very high demand. People can leave the industry for a very wide variety of reasons, often mutually contradictory - some want to work as much as possible, provided it translates to $$$$, some are ok with earning less provided they can pursue side interests or family…

I think you're describing different things. The list of things in your first paragraph is not "behavior", it's... heh, not sure I have a word or phrase for it.

At a very small startup, people are going to expect to have to work hard. While I disagree that this absolutely necessitates a lack of work/life balance, let's say for a moment it does. Sure, you're probably only going to be attracting people who are interested in working as much as possible, in a high risk/reward scenario. In some cases that's also going to be selecting for single people who have no children.

And that's fine, for the most part. What's not fine is engaging in exclusionary behavior related to diversity of gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. E.g. it's not fine to have a bunch of white employees who make racist jokes at work, or a bunch of men who talk at work about their sexual exploits, or a bunch of straight people who marginalize homosexual candidates during interviews.

My initial reaction to the parent's assertion of "any non-zero subset of reasonable people are so offended by a behavior that they'd leave the industry because of it" was also negative, because it sounds super absolutist, and PC (in all the actual negative ways "PC" has been used), and an indictment of being your genuine self. But really it's just about keeping stuff out of the workplace that has nothing to do with work. If work is about building products and figuring out how to sell them, and you focus on that, it eliminates a lot of problems. That doesn't stop you from being friends with people at work, but it does mean you might want to keep certain conversations away from the workplace, and instead have them on your own time. It really isn't that hard, as long as you're committed to examining your unconscious biases and eliminating behaviors that stem from them, at least in the workplace.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate on the form of the attacks on white people and men you're seeing in SV companies? I'm both white, male, and at an SV company, and haven't seen them in my experience. From a managerial perspective I'd love to hire more people from underrepresented groups because it would mean a bigger pool to hire from, so I'm all for recruiting efforts, outreach/education programs, etc, but at the end of the day t…

Sure, from Damore’s Google lawsuit: https://twitter.com/mjaeckel/status/950446329603461121

I've read the complaint and scrolled through the almost 100 pages of screenshots of bad internal memes and social media posts. The memes are bad, yes. But the complaint is a hodge-podge of things that reference "white" or "conservative" or "male" or any such thing, in no particular order.

For instance, under "Anti-Caucasian Postings," there's a screenshot of an employee sharing (on internal G+) a link to Tim Chevalier's blog post "Refusing to Empathize with Elliot Rodger: Taking Male Entitlement Seriously." This tells me two things: first, the people who prepared this complaint were so scattershot in their attempt that they stuck something with "male" under "Anti-Caucasian Postings." (The employee's commentary on the link is "The doc considered formally as abuse springing from an entitled worldview. Excellent essay." - so nothing anti-Caucasian there, either. The post itself, which is on the public internet, does mention race a few times, but focuses on gender.) Second, it tells me that the people preparing the complaint think that a white man's link to a white man's essay expressing opposition to the manifestos of mass murderer Elliot Rodger, mass murderer Marc Lépine, and James Damore is somehow either anti-Caucasian or anti-male (giving them the benefit of the doubt that they miscategorized it).

Now, you may certainly argue that it's distasteful, unprofessional, unacceptable, and perhaps even unconscionable to have your coworkers compare you to two mass murderers simply for having written an article that (in their view) makes similar points. I'd certainly agree that there were and still are attacks on James Damore as an individual at Google. But that is in no way anti-white or anti-male, unless you think that the content of those manifestos, and (in two cases) their direct connection to mass murder, is somehow intrinsic to whiteness or maleness - which seems both wrong and a huge attack on white men, more than anything alleged in the complaint.

Plenty of other posts are similarly not attacks on whiteness or maleness, many of which are miscategorized - other "anti-Caucasian postings" include someone writing that "the creator of Dilbert is ... a paranoid sexist dickbag", a link to an HBR article entitled "Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?", a truly awful-quality meme conveying "0 days since last ... white male says diversity isn't important," etc.

Finally, remember that this is a lawsuit by one side, which has a story to tell. We don't know that we're not seeing a cherry-picked picture. Maybe these sorts of low-quality memes and overly-political posts on corporate channels affect everyone. It's certainly the case that shortly after Damore's suit, a story came out about an employee with rather diametrically opposed opinions being pushed out by management: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15JokX8thp1TxG_I9aodYUxDw...

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#187
post #79
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am unemployable because I'm a white male whose in his 40s, has a family, and because somehow, in this industry experience is a bad thing. What indications do you have that those are the reasons you are unemployable? I have many well respected, senior coworkers who fit this description so at least personally I don't understand why people would be hesitant to hire you based on that description alone..

I can attest that many tech companies are hostile to older people. I'm a white male in my 40s, and I've felt it myself and heard many more accounts. The existence of counterexamples doesn't falsify the claim. The temptation to blame victims is strong. I think it comes from wanting to reassure oneself that "it can't happen to me." So you have to actively silence that voice in your head, and assume that victims are act…

The software industry has few required degrees, certifications or titles. There is no rigid career path or unions forcing companies to retain people they have had influence over for a long time. This is great for people starting out, but like everything else there is no free lunch. It is entirely possible, even likely, to navigate this wrongly.

General experience doesn't mean much since there are few standards. Ones experience would generally be used to take more responsibility, do more important things or in other ways advance ones career. Not as some measurement of quality, since that would be very subjective.

In a changing industry it would even be expected that when things change a certain amount of people won't last, because they get squeezed out between new people coming up and old people already specialized.

So while surely part of the industry focuses to much on youth I think people jump the conclusion that it is widespread too quickly.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If any non-zero subset of reasonable people are so offended by a behavior that they'd leave the industry because of it, we have to cut it out. I used to think like this. After years and years of refining my own behavior, a non-work, non-"tech" friend let it slip that my fiends though I had turned into a non-confrontational, lawyer-sounding, people-pleaser. He wasn't wrong, I had gotten in the habit of always walking…

As a consultant whose client portfolio used to include F500's in health, insurance, and NY finance, and whose portfolio now includes nothing but startups, and having had the pleasure of whiling away many languorous afternoons in the cube farms of those companies, I find it extraordinarily hard to believe that the average startup tech employee is "walking on eggshells" and being performatively docile compared to the d…

Having been around F500's and tech companies - one accusation of violating norms at a tech company can be a career ender - one accusation of same violation of norms at a Fortune 500, is usually deal with thru a discipline process.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#189
post #85
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I am not responsible for others feelings. There should be clear rules of conduct at any job and a clear process of enforcement. This make the situation fair and certain. One easy rule is that if someone says "Only talk to me about work." then the other person has to respect it. No forcing of social acceptance , no shaming the other to believe what you believe, just focus on what you were hired for. This i…

As a manager, you're absolutely responsible for your team member's feelings. Both morally and practically because if they feel bad at work, they'll leave.

I disagree. You are responsible for YOURSELF. If you are being ugly or talking shit - you are responsible for your actions. Saying "you are absolutely responsible for someone else's feelings" is the bat-ass craziest thing I have ever heard [It is not lost on me that I'm making a snarky comment in this thread ;)]. An example: I am talking to someone and make a comment that the other person interprets as threatening or demeaning. They do not ask me about it but they play a narrative inside their mind about how I am threatening them. This is some fictional narrative in their mind. I have no clue this is happening. How could I be responsible for this? It is in their mind.

It is incumbent on the person who feels awkward to ask for clarification. This is not "extra work" or forcing the down-trodden to work harder - it is clarity. We do it all the time in conversation. "I'm sorry, but when you say X are you meaning Y?" And you give the person a chance to clear it up.

Now. Where the adulting comes off the track appears to be in the hyper-Ayn-Randian culture of technology/start-ups where people who are incredibly self-centered feel they can "vent" in the open and expect others to "deal with it". This is absolutely unacceptable. And most people who act this way - are usually so self-centered - they dont KNOW they are acting this way. It is unacceptable but when you ask then "did you mean X?" it gives them some space to be clear. If they really did mean to threaten, demean and provoke someone else -- they will be clear they DID intend for that to be case. But they had an opportunity to be clear about it.

Narcissism is rampant in start-up scene (imho). Likely its just on the rise in general in USA population. One of the things that is great about a narcissist is that THEY WILL OFTEN TELL YOU THEY ARE A NARCISSIST! (google, how to find out if someone is a narcissist) They are quite proud of their eliteness and expectation to entitlements. When you ask them for clarity -- they will be clear. And that is when there is no need to have some fictional narrative being built in your mind -- you will KNOW for sure because you have asked them and they have told you.

Regardless. Be clear. And most importantly -- if you HEAR someone asking for clarification -- give them positive feedback. Clear, kind, and even tempered rational communication is what we need more of in the world and less reactivity.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the link? Those aren’t his words, they’re straight from Google employees.

I read his memo, the Wired article explaining his poor interpretation of existing science, the Quora article explaining his poor interpretation of existing science, and the recent Gizmodo article about the lawsuit. I glanced at your twitter link; once I saw it was about his lawsuit I shifted gears to the root of the issue. I thought Damore's comment in footnote 9, when discussing compensation in the workplace, that "…

(FYI, I agree with your views but I think that shifting this thread to the merits of the Damore memo is off-topic and unproductive - it's months old, and everyone who knows about it has made up their minds about it already. I think there's room for productive conversation about the blog post this comment thread is supposed to be about, and I think re-litigating the Damore memo is just going to push this thread in the flameward direction, as 'dang puts it.)
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