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Silicon Valley Is Using Trade Secrets to Hide Its Race Problem

bloomberg.com

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Re: Silicon Valley Is Using Trade Secrets to Hide Its Race Problem

#21

Post by andrewmcwatters »

darawk wrote: post #7

More like journalism is using race to hide its jealousy problem. Tech now has the power, influence, and compensation that journalist used to have, and they're mad about it. Most of these companies go way out of their way to recruit minorities and women. If you believe that not having enough of them in tech companies is a problem, you're going to have to look further down the funnel, to college major choices and hones…

The whole thing is a bullshit joke to begin with; it's always a complaint about diversity in jobs perceived to have status, but never jobs that are not.

No complaints about diversity in fast food. No complaints about diversity in landscaping or construction.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Using Trade Secrets to Hide Its Race Problem

#22

Post by ben_jones »

dpflan wrote: post #10
darawk wrote: post #7

More like journalism is using race to hide its jealousy problem. Tech now has the power, influence, and compensation that journalist used to have, and they're mad about it. Most of these companies go way out of their way to recruit minorities and women. If you believe that not having enough of them in tech companies is a problem, you're going to have to look further down the funnel, to college major choices and hones…

Would you be willing to share your ideas on what can be done at the beginning of the pipeline?

In my experience the theme of what someone wants to do as a career often forms in high school. Programming/software is equated to the more introverted gamer/robotics types which often confers lower popularity and social status then other extra-curricular activities. Men and women alike choose to opt out of programming for this reason, although the absence of women is much more heavily felt.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Using Trade Secrets to Hide Its Race Problem

#23

Post by mixmastamyk »

adamnemecek wrote: post #14
dpflan wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be willing to share your ideas on what can be done at the beginning of the pipeline?

Good primary and secondary education systems and affordable colleges.

Countering American anti-intellectualism is needed as well.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Using Trade Secrets to Hide Its Race Problem

#25

Post by samstokes »

darawk wrote: post #7

More like journalism is using race to hide its jealousy problem. Tech now has the power, influence, and compensation that journalist used to have, and they're mad about it. Most of these companies go way out of their way to recruit minorities and women. If you believe that not having enough of them in tech companies is a problem, you're going to have to look further down the funnel, to college major choices and hones…

You've italicised "pipeline" as if you believe this is a novel insight, but actually it's very common to dismiss diversity and inclusion efforts by redirecting attention to "the pipeline problem". Unfortunately there is evidence that the pipeline is far from the only problem, and even after successful interventions to swell the pool of qualified diverse candidates, companies' representation is still extremely skewed, and those candidates still encounter hiring barriers that other demographics do not.

Here's one thread from an organisation that spent 10 years working on the pipeline and found many companies wouldn't hire their candidates: https://twitter.com/Code2040/status/1092853501766467585?s=19

(Edit: gah, pasted the same link twice instead of the Twitter thread I meant to post)

And some more links on the "pipeline problem": http://isitapipelineproblem.com

Re: Silicon Valley Is Using Trade Secrets to Hide Its Race Problem

#26

Post by crististm »

dpflan wrote: post #19
malvosenior wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step one (and really the only step) is that people have to want to become developers/scientists, sit in front of a computer all day, read and learn, all the time. There are a million different reasons someone may not want to do that or may be encouraged against it, but you'd have to look at every individual and culture to find out why. It may not even turn out to be a bad thing. What if someone wants to become a chef…

For choosing a major and career I think step makes sense but I think that is near the end of the pipeline. What about exposure to the field and introducing computational thinking into earlier pars of the education system? Not necessary making kids program as their first exposure, but exposing them to computational concepts (maybe start with power of twos when learning multiplication, or control-flow-logic for writing…

There are so many hours in a day. Exposure to computation as opposed to not exposing to what? What would you trade this with?

Re: Silicon Valley Is Using Trade Secrets to Hide Its Race Problem

#27

Post by ceejayoz »

crististm wrote: post #20
sjg007 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article cites data from the government on percentages of black, hispanic, and women in tech in Silicon Valley vs those same populations in tech nationwide. You would expect the percentages to be statistically equal.

You can also make any lie you want with statistics.

You can also use that argument to wave away any statistics you don't like the ramifications of.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Using Trade Secrets to Hide Its Race Problem

#28

Post by narrator »

ralusek wrote: post #8

For the millionth time. The distribution of populations not lining up with the general population distributions is not indicative of discrimination. Not to mention that the "anti-brown people" narrative absolutely dissolves in the face of the massive overrepresentation of Indians and other Asians. To say that Silicon Valley has a "race problem" and only include the employment statistics as they relate to the populati…

The operational principle of political correctness is we imagine a way we would like the world to be and then we act like it's that way. When people dispute with empirical data that is not that way, they are destroying the magical thinking that will make it that way. They are a heretic that must be persecuted. So people hide that the empirical reality and the imagined perfect world are not matching up.

This is much like Soviet plant managers would lie about their production numbers to avoid getting sent to Siberia because the politically correct idea in those days was that communist production was at least equal or better than capitalist production. Similarly, in order to give praise to the imagined perfect world, we offer up a regular sacrifice to the imagined perfect world in the form of a persecution of non-believers, some would even call them saboteurs of the imagined world when they point out its lack of empirical observability, even though after the persecution the empirical dissonance remains and doesn't go away.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Using Trade Secrets to Hide Its Race Problem

#29

Post by malvosenior »

dpflan wrote: post #19
malvosenior wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step one (and really the only step) is that people have to want to become developers/scientists, sit in front of a computer all day, read and learn, all the time. There are a million different reasons someone may not want to do that or may be encouraged against it, but you'd have to look at every individual and culture to find out why. It may not even turn out to be a bad thing. What if someone wants to become a chef…

For choosing a major and career I think step makes sense but I think that is near the end of the pipeline. What about exposure to the field and introducing computational thinking into earlier pars of the education system? Not necessary making kids program as their first exposure, but exposing them to computational concepts (maybe start with power of twos when learning multiplication, or control-flow-logic for writing…

I think that's a great idea.

Honestly I don't think any culture in the west has ever been truly supportive of becoming a STEM person. Until very recently is was extremely derided in even white American culture as being "for nerds".

A more positive exposure to technology at an early age can only be a good thing. I think we'll still find very few people want to become engineers due to the required workload and that will be ok.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Using Trade Secrets to Hide Its Race Problem

#30

Post by porpoisely »

"And as criticism grows over Silicon Valley’s bro culture and its lack of minority representation"

Isn't 40% of the tech industry made up of east and south asians? Do they not count as minorities? If anything, you'd think SV would be praised for being one of the most diverse industries.

"A growing body of research shows diverse perspectives bring tangible benefits to firms that support them"

You see this so much in these types of articles. "Diverse perspectives" doesn't necessarily mean "diverse ethnicity". A group of 3 white men ( CEO, factory work and homeless man ) will have greater diverse perspectives than 3 female CEOs ( black, white and asian ) who went to the same schools, hung out with the same crowd and live in the same area. Also if her assertions were correct, wouldn't more diverse firms naturally have beaten out less diverse firms and we wouldn't need to legislative or force diversity in these companies?

If what is being stated in this article is true, why doesn't YC or any VC firm gather the most diverse set of founders to start a new Google, Facebook, Apple, etc? "Research" has shown that the new diverse google, facebook, etc have tangible benefits which must translate into success. Right?

Instead of complaining about it, why not start a diverse company and take hundreds of billions from the less diverse companies like Apple, Google, Facebook?

Also, does this apply just to tech companies only? What about another highly successful firm in the silicon valley area - the Golden State Warriors. Instead of having 5 african american starters, why not diversify the team since "research" has shown that has tangible benefits.

I'm against racism of all kinds whether it benefits whites,blacks,asians,etc. I'm against sexism as well - whether it benefits males or females. If there are systematic obstacles, lets remove those rather than creating more racism and racial obstacles.

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