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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

#61

Post by strken »

jonathankoren wrote: post #50
bluedevil2k wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you probably wouldn't, as Silicon Valley attracts the top X% of the tech population due to the pay, the status of the companies hiring, VC money floating around, etc.

Are you saying the top X% is racially skewed? Because all things being equal, if the only difference between the two groups is color of their skin, I'd say that was a textbook definition of racial bias.

The question isn't whether there's racial bias anywhere in the pipeline from conception to employment, because there clearly is. It's whether there's racial bias in the SV companies themselves, or whether it happens exclusively in earlier stages.

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

#62

Post by commandlinefan »

fipple wrote: post #11

The whole “diversity industry” (and it is a huge industry) is based on a lie... that “diversity” improves a company’s performance. The research on this is so shaky with so much empirical evidence to the contrary, and everyone knows it, which is why companies are trying to do nothing more than “lip service.”

> that “diversity” improves a company’s performance.

Hm - well, I agree that there's a lie floating around, but I don't think that's quite the lie in play. More often what they say is that you're hurting yourself by turning away qualified candidates based on their race/geneder/sexual orientation/whatever they're not seeing as many of as they think they ought to be. The problem is that, while this is strictly true, there's no evidence that qualified people of _x_ race/gender/sexual orientation are actually being turned away. For all the digital ink that's been virtually spilled on tech and diversity, I have yet to see _anybody_ claim, even anecdotally, that they, themselves are qualified members of diversity group _x_ but are unable to find employment. Instead, they express bewilderment that although they have no trouble finding employment, they don't see enough other members of group _x_... which they presume must be because all of the other ones are being turned away by prejudiced hiring managers.

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

#64

Post by zepto »

jonathankoren wrote: post #50
bluedevil2k wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you probably wouldn't, as Silicon Valley attracts the top X% of the tech population due to the pay, the status of the companies hiring, VC money floating around, etc.

Are you saying the top X% is racially skewed? Because all things being equal, if the only difference between the two groups is color of their skin, I'd say that was a textbook definition of racial bias.

All things are not equal. Black Americans as a group are poorer than other racial groups save perhaps native Americans, and have worse educational outcomes on average.

Is this the result of institutional racism? I’d say so, but it also can be a cause or underrepresentation in higher skilled employment, even if the employers are not biased in their selection processes.

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

#65

Post by mont »

vinceiiikensin wrote: post #42
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…

I once went on an interview to Uber in Palo Alto. At lunchtime, when we went to the cafeteria, I saw most of the 200+ workers were either Chinese or Indian, sitting in their prospective table. Same with LinkedIn and workday in Santa Clara. I don’t see any racisms in Silicon Valley

You realize racism doesn't necessarily mean discriminating against _all_ races, right?

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

#66

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

whyaduck wrote: post #60
ingsoc79 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One look at the website of Seattle's Garfield High School (34% black/latino) CS Club website pretty much sums it up: http://www.garfieldcs.com/ The makeup is similar at the college level: sitting in on CS courses at UW you see a sea of white, east asian, and south asian faces. I can count the number of black or latino students (out of the several hundred enrolled students I saw) on two hands. It's a pipeline problem,…

And corporate diversity goals are based on the pipeline, not the general population. Lots of folks in this conversation seem to be making utterly incorrect assumptions about programs that they seem to have deep contempt for. Unsurprising.

Well, right. Corporations internally work towards their diversity goals, which are sensibly based on the pipeline and aim to eliminate bias in hiring. That's why they don't want to publicize their numbers; they know people like the Bloomberg reporter who wrote this article will incorrectly try to measure their efforts against the total number of minorities in the US.

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

#67

Post by _iyig »

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…

Agreed. The general population argument also has troubling implications. For example, why don't we talk about the lack of representation in tech by whites?

After all, they're 3/4 of the U.S. population. At Google, this means they're already underrepresented at 53.1% of all employees in 2018. That number does not separately identify whites as non-Hispanic, or more significantly (and most troubling to anyone who's seriously examined the implications of this type of argument), non-Semitic.

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

#68

Post by xiphias2 »

malvosenior wrote: post #15
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?

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…

Young girls/women have much more sexual value than young guys in general, so it makes sense for them to invest more in their social life and looks, and less in their future earning potential.

Still, it can be changed: in China studying is increasing social value much more than in Europe / US for example.

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

#69

Post by [deleted] »

deogeo wrote: post #55
vinceiiikensin wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once went on an interview to Uber in Palo Alto. At lunchtime, when we went to the cafeteria, I saw most of the 200+ workers were either Chinese or Indian, sitting in their prospective table. Same with LinkedIn and workday in Santa Clara. I don’t see any racisms in Silicon Valley

If most were either Chinese or Indian, then they were greatly over-represented compared to US demographics. If you replace Chinese with white, it'd be taken as a sign of racism and privilege. So why isn't it racism in this case?

[deleted]

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

#70

Post by siruncledrew »

sjg007 wrote: post #16
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 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.

Except when looking at the EEOC report, the numbers they are comparing are percentages of black, hispanic, and women working in tech in Silicon Valley vs. the percentages of those same groups working in all industries (not just tech) in the US.

In reality, the tech-tech participation comparison between SV and the US is closer than the article makes it seem. Look at the chart "INDUSTRY PARTICIPATION BY GENDER SEX AND RACE GROUP - HIGH TECH VS. ALL PRIVATE INDUSTRIES" in the EEOC report [1], and then compare to the numbers listed on the graphs for SV.

The proper corresponding stats for representation in tech between SV and US would be:

Black: 2.6% SV vs. 7.4% US

Hispanic: 6.4% SV vs. 8.0% US

Women: 32.3% SV vs. 35.7% US

So one could still point to the differences above for looking at the group disparities, but the article's statistics are comparing apples to oranges.

Not to mention location demographics and other factors attribute to differences between SV as a data point vs. the aggregate data for the US.

The pick-and-choose implementation of statistics is looking through a narrow lens.

[1] https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/reports/hightech/

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