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Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

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Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#471

Post by RSieger1 »

pirate787 wrote: post #343
crackercrews wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they ignored race entirely, and just laid off people at random This is a false dichotomy. They could have done layoffs based on the company's needs and the performance of the employees. That isn't random. Your big picture point amounts to a heckler's veto. The more you cater to the heckler, the more powerful the heckler becomes.

I'm going to vote against corporate racism by closing my Twilio account.

Good. I would too if I had one or had ever heard of them before this or had any idea what the company does, LOL.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#472

Post by RSieger1 »

prottog wrote: post #78
John23832 wrote: post #34

(I am a black man) I feel like the statement that the layoffs "were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens" puts a target on the backs of the people who you claim to be helping. If you're affected by layoffs described this way, you then question whether that was because of who you are. That then makes it harder for the minorities you claim to be "helping" to stay in the room anywhere else because of…

Imagine that in 2022 we would be told that we're hired or fired on the basis of race! Unbelievable.

No post body was provided.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#473

Post by rdl »

John23832 wrote: post #34

(I am a black man) I feel like the statement that the layoffs "were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens" puts a target on the backs of the people who you claim to be helping. If you're affected by layoffs described this way, you then question whether that was because of who you are. That then makes it harder for the minorities you claim to be "helping" to stay in the room anywhere else because of…

I'd quit if I were working at a company which announced its layoffs like that and I somehow failed to get laid off.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#474

Post by [deleted] »

RSieger1 wrote: post #468
Kye wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always enjoyed that attempt at a definition that led to people pointing out it made women out of chairs and horses. Some of them do manage to be ideologically consistent and exclude vast swathes of cis women from womanhood just to get at trans women, but most just fall back on "but science!" even as actual scientists point out science doesn't support anti-trans ideology.

"Actual scientists point out science doesn't support anti-trans ideology" -- unfortunately, "actual science" is defined by who speaks for it and what is permitted to be published and any criticism of the sexualization or surgical/therapeutic treatment of vulnerable minors is automatically "transphobia". Right now, we are in a very dark place with powerful lobbies dictating things unimaginable in prior eras and which…

[deleted]

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#475

Post by t0mas88 »

meragrin_ wrote: post #469
t0mas88 wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wrong. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/cchr/law/the-law.page

New York state not New York City. Big difference.

Nope, same thing for NY State: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/eepc/laws/state-laws.page

The parent post is just plain wrong. Race and color are protected classes, for every race and every color, not just for specific ones.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#476

Post by noelsusman »

dilap wrote: post #371
noelsusman wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is full of reactionaries who are easily triggered by any sort of diversity-related language and seem to lose their ability to think critically. Everyone complaining about that line is making a whole lot of assumptions about what it actually means. FWIW I would be interested to know what the CEO actually meant by that. My assumption is it's more lip service than anything else.

I agree the statement is ambiguous. However, it does seem to be hinting at something . What do you think "layoffs were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens" means? Like, what concrete actions do you think they took to justify that statement? Do you think it's purely window-dressing? That they did absolutely nothing different, and just included the statement? I don't know if it's an authoritative so…

> I'd bet that the racial makeup of the laid off employees is not an even sampling of the racial makeup of the company.

I would bet that your average "blind" layoff is not an even sampling of the racial makeup of the company. If they did anything at all here it was probably taking some sort of active role in preventing that outcome.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#477

Post by skrbjc »

ransom1538 wrote: post #244
John23832 wrote: post #34

(I am a black man) I feel like the statement that the layoffs "were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens" puts a target on the backs of the people who you claim to be helping. If you're affected by layoffs described this way, you then question whether that was because of who you are. That then makes it harder for the minorities you claim to be "helping" to stay in the room anywhere else because of…

"I feel like the statement that the layoffs "were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens" puts a target on the backs of the people who you claim to be helping." How do they know who is what race though? If I am 50% latino / 50% asian what does that mean? Do you get to pick? Or do they test my skin color? Do they have forms to fill out what race you are? Do they do genetic testing? Depressing racism i…

When I refused to log my race in our HR system they said they would use “perceived race” to report my race to the government. I specifically asked them to not guess my race and they said tough luck they are doing it anyway. It’s outrageous.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#478

Post by skrbjc »

thedorkknight wrote: post #329
anonym29 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To imply there is absolutely no overlap between the group of people espousing CRT and the group of people who believe the world would be a better place if every white person spontaneously died is to be willfully ignorant of an unfortunate reality. We should be taking the opportunity to disavow the latter on behalf of the good intentions of the former.

Do you have any actual data on how many people "believe the world would be a better place if every white person spontaneously died"? I don't mean this to be combative but without some actual survey data or something proving their significance, it seems like this is one of those "it feels true to me" things

This guy seems to be making a splash with his book about white people disappearing. With the general idea seeming to be the world would be better off. He’s reviewed favorably in many newspapers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/03/books/review/the-last-whi...

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#479

Post by crackercrews »

wizofaus wrote: post #374
crackercrews wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share a section reference? Looks like it's 90 pages long.

Chapter 4 (pp. 44-) is a good place to start, particularly "UNCOVERING BIAS BY USING FICTITIOUS RESUMES" (p. 47).

Another study found that anonymizing resumes actually hurt minority candidates. [1] This is because the companies were trying hard to help people with minority sounding names and no longer could.

Anonymizing seems like an appropriate way to handle layoffs as well. It may be hard to do because some managers know the people involved. But they could force all decisions to be justified and externally reviewed by others who don't know the demographics.

No one would have had a problem if they described a rigorous process of anonymizing the layoff decisions. It swings the pendulum too far to go full on anti-racist. Others point out it's also illegal.

1: https://www.povertyactionlab.org/case-study/unintended-effec...

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#480

Post by polski-g »

Spivak wrote: post #405
NeverFade wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company (Twilio) is executing a mass layoff, and is implying that it will protect certain racial minorities from this layoff. Doing this, they are necessarily discriminating against any employee who does not belong to these racial groups. If you have employees A and B, both earning $100k/year, and your declining financials require you to save $100k/year, you must fire A or B. If you decide to fire A because s/he is…

Change the framing from “white person was fired” to “black person was retained” and you’re suddenly back into affirmative action territory and the case whether it’s a civil rights violation becomes iffy. You don’t actually have to avoid depriving a protected class of anything by relative omission. Otherwise affirmative action and diversity programs would be illegal, and until the courts change their mind they’re curr…

Affirmative action in the private sector is 100% illegal.
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