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Silicon Valley Is Using Trade Secrets to Hide Its Race Problem

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

#111

Post by jameane »

purple_ducks wrote: post #86
samstokes wrote: post #72

Since this has become yet another discussion about "the pipeline problem" instead of a discussion about a tactic major tech companies are using to duck accountability, this Twitter thread might be informative: https://twitter.com/Code2040/status/1092853501766467585?s=19 It's from an organisation (Code2040) that spent 10 years working to build a pipeline of qualified Black and Latinx candidates, only to find many comp…

It's a series of opinions in tweets. no facts. no scientific anything. From a person who (after looking at their LinkedIn bio) is in no way qualified to tell companies what they need _at all_ From what I see of the company & CEO, it's a self serving & self preserving job role & company.

Their facts are based the experiences of trying to place their program graduates and the experiences of those people. Code2040 had a very extensive program pairing young people with tech worker mentors, getting them the right education and helping to place them in tech jobs. And after doing that for 10 years they found without companies that were very very committed to retention, even with all of that preparation, it still didn't work. Hence the pivot by that organization.

They started trying to solve the "pipeline problem" and it turned out that wasn't really the problem.

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

#112

Post by dontreact »

byproxy wrote: post #98
dontreact wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me the issue is not discrimination but rather representation. I will give you a concrete example. Our team (working in medicine) had very few Latinos for a long time. As a result of this we completely avoided gathering training data from Latin America because no one was well versed in how to conduct business there, yet we had data/deals with US, Europe and Asia. As a result our algorithms will likely not help Lati…

When you say "Latino", do you mean someone who actually hails from Latin America? Because I'm Latino from the United States and I'd probably be just as lost when it comes to dealing with Latin America as a non-Latino from the United States.

Yes, I’m in the same boat. But I think you’d be a lot more likely to notice that there was something missing.

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

#113

Post by username90 »

longerthoughts wrote: post #77
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…

>massive overrepresentation of Indians and other Asians As indicated in the article, there's evidence [0] that there is profound underrepresentation at the leadership level relative to junior representation. [0] https://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.ascendleadership.org/resource/...

Does that take into account that China graduates 7 times as many people today as 20 years ago? It makes sense that there are few Asians in leadership positions simply because they barely have any educated people with lots of experience.

https://assets.weforum.org/editor/PSSvl1XRKP4L2tFL2PNtPufC-v...

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

#114

Post by kkhire »

dontreact wrote: post #51
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…

To me the issue is not discrimination but rather representation. I will give you a concrete example. Our team (working in medicine) had very few Latinos for a long time. As a result of this we completely avoided gathering training data from Latin America because no one was well versed in how to conduct business there, yet we had data/deals with US, Europe and Asia. As a result our algorithms will likely not help Lati…

hammer on nail. I don't know why the demand for diversity in consumer & people oriented businesses upsets so many people.

It's simply good strategy to hire a diverse workforce so your products/services can spread to all types of markets.

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

#115

Post by joelfolksy »

jonathankoren wrote: post #56
crististm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Male and female representation is also a function of domain interest. Last time I checked there were not that many women applications in brick layering.

So what changed in 1984? https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when...

The attitudes of men changed? Women's attitudes wouldn't have to change at all to produce that graph.

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

#116

Post by ralusek »

dontreact wrote: post #91
ralusek wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The example you gave is a diversity of skills , and that diversity of skills was actually a requirement for your business. If the inclusion of individuals possessing those additional skills (ability to speak Spanish, ability to network effectively in a given foreign country/culture) happens to map on to a racial or ethnic diversity, great, but that's not what's being advocated for here. This also brings up an interes…

I don't know anyone who believes in Claim 1 as you've presented it. There is an alternate version that I do believe "All populations of people are inherently valuable and therefore should not be left behind by advancements in technology" The examples I gave were both cases where it was not obvious at all to predict that the skills would be needed. For example, while the low level circuit designer probably won't benef…

All populations are inherently valuable, to whom? Every business values every population intrinsically? How do you decide how valuable they are? Do you need to hire as many Maori from New Zealand and as many Inuit from Alaska as their world populations would dictate, or are their intrinsic values allowed to differ in any capacity?

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

#117

Post by thorwasdfasdf »

jameane wrote: post #94
thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a company I worked at they hired an young female intern in her late high school years, who made it obvious she didn't really want to be there. Our project manager made sure to tell us to "make programming seem as interesting as possible to her". When I was 17, I would have killed for an opportunity to work at a software company, and so would many other young kids. It's time for the world to admit, there's reasons…

We need to stop trying to attribute that to gender. I loved math as a kid, I thought it was fun. I was on the math team for middle school and high school. I had a computer at home from a young age, and played the math games my parents forced on me. In addition to the game, games. (I am 40 - so things were pretty different as I was coming up. But my family was an early adopter of technology - we had a computer when I…

The percentage of women that likes video-games/programming is lower than the percentage of men. That's just a fact. You can try to correct that with lots of outreach and exposure but it's only going to work for some people.

Anecdotally. I've worked at a (hard core strategy) gaming company. Even there, Most of women that worked there, that I knew, did not like gaming at all (if we're being honest).

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

#118

Post by [deleted] »

dontreact wrote: post #93
haberman wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that we all have blind spots and that diversity in decision-makers can help correct these. If this principle was applied consistently across any dimension where such blind spots are likely to exist, I would be on board. However when some axes of diversity are elevated over others, based not on likeliness of blind spots but rather on unrelated grievances ("historically marginalized subgroups"), the whole exerc…

I think gender, race, class, and sexual orientation are probably the most important dimensions. I gave very specific reasons why race is important in my field of medicine, and I don't know why you think I am highlighting it as an important dimension because of historical marginalization. What are other ones that should be as elevated?

[deleted]

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

#119

Post by deogeo »

jameane wrote: post #97
crowdpleaser wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, instill discipline in schools. Go to a school of 'underrepresented minorities' and you'll see an incredible amount of misbehavior. Anyone who struggles to listen and not gratify their most immediate desires will probably fail to develop technical skills. Also, immediate suspension for kids who bully academically-inclined students for 'acting white'. Not only is it a racially charged statement that probably has…

Maybe have a little empathy here. In a low-income school, kids are walking in the door with way more problems than your upper middle class school where most kids have their basic needs met. Also, it is time to retire this stereotype that every non-white kid who is academically inclined is being bullied for acting white at school all the time. I get the most grief from white kids about "acting white" growing up. From…

> upper middle class

The US is a long way from having its entire white population in the upper middle class: http://www.nccp.org/media/releases/release_34.html

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

#120

Post by colpabar »

maxxxxx wrote: post #83
deogeo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I remember a while ago there was an article about a company that openly promotes women and discriminates against males. The article was in a positive light. It seems that only whites are guilty of racism and and only males are guilty of gender discrimination.

More and more people are adopting new definitions for racism and sexism -- "prejudice (against a certain race/sex) plus power." Combined with the concept of white male privilege, these new definitions imply that only whites can be racist, and only males can be sexist.
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