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Tech's DEI backlash is here
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Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here
#22> DEI [ensures] a firm or company attracts a diverse pool of talent, hires and promotes people without bias, and fosters positive working environments so all individuals can thrive. What an incredibly biased take by the author, who clearly has not worked at one of these companies and seen DEI in action. Having actually worked at big tech companies with DEI initiatives, there have been many instances when we have had…
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Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here
#23> DEI [ensures] a firm or company attracts a diverse pool of talent, hires and promotes people without bias, and fosters positive working environments so all individuals can thrive. What an incredibly biased take by the author, who clearly has not worked at one of these companies and seen DEI in action. Having actually worked at big tech companies with DEI initiatives, there have been many instances when we have had…
I feel like you should take some responsibility for your own resentment rather than passively saying another party has "fostered" it. I'm not a fan of corporate and especially tech DEI initiatives either, I don't think they're an effective way to achieve their stated goals. But the hiring bar thing just does not match my experience at all. Some of the worst teams I've been on have been behind some of the most gruelin…
> Some of the worst teams I've been on have been behind some of the most grueling & "selective" interview processes
By this process we should just drop hiring bars altogether. But for every team I've worked at, hiring bars clearly worked. We filter out maybe 95% of candidates and none of them would work for our team. Everyone on our team is incredible at what they do.
When I had to lower the hiring bar, it was destructive. We hired a person that was inexperienced and could not keep up with the rest of us. They did not have the domain knowledge others on our team had. They were eager, friendly, and personable, but they required a longer period of extensive coaching get up to a level we would consider adequate.
Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here
#24"Due to the current economic situation we don't have new headcount for our org however feel free to reach out if you have a diverse candidate that would be interested in joining"
From a director during a all-hands.
"We have already selected a male candidate for the internship so it'd be best if the next one was a woman"
From my manager's manager.
"Your no-hire vote should have more justification since the candidate is a woman"
The reality is that we need a strong legal ruling against these type of things otherwise it is simply too "problematic" to bring this up and the risk for retaliation is insanely high.
Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here
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Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here
#26DEI is a scam where militants secure jobs, speaking and consulting contracts by exploiting legitimate grievances in a cynical manner. Rent Seeking.
Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here
#27Here's the problem: you can't change the hiring rules for more equity unless it applies to everyone equally. Otherwise you're just trading one arbitrary class for another. You need to basically destroy seniority and job protection for all, to make it fair. Furthermore, the people brought into replace the oppressive class must be held to a high standard so they don't repeat the offending behavior. DEI agendas can only…
DEI is a way to say you did something, without doing the expensive thing that is really required, which is extensive wealth redistribution.
Fixing labor laws, minimum wages, parental leave, cash or securing good housing, etc is way more expensive. And a lot of it is not solvable in a timeline of a few decades, it would be a slow multi generational change.
Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here
#28DEI as a philosophy is fundamentally flawed. Its whole premise is alleviating racism in the workplace, yet its practical effect is giving certain races a favorable edge in the hiring process, independent of merit. Is this not in itself inherently racist? I raised this with colleagues on a few separate ocassions and was promptly shunned, yet they didn't have an answer. Most recently when he hired an engineer from one…
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Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here
#29I don't quite understand the anger that DEI gets, unless people assume that people are only hired because they belong to a certain group. I'm not US based, so I only see that "safe for UK" view of what $Company blast over to us.
Musk and Thiel see the world in very specific ways. Because they are who they are, and the people that surround them, they will not change their view unless something drastic happens. They simply don't have to, because they are rich enough to weather any storm that requires anyone else to change tack. They have opinion gravity, where anything they say will become true, because people with the same opinions will gravitate towards them (see Taylor Swift & Kanye)
Don't get me wrong, there are parts of DEI that grate my balls: the performative celebration, the "days of action" and the tedious celebrations where we pretend that we've not got a problem with women in the workplace.
However, applying a bit of data to change a few procedures so that we get a better more diverse set of people joining and thriving, is fucking great. Done properly, most people wont notice.
Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here
#30Couple of years ago I've excelled at a lead position interview, we've arrived at the part where I get to just spitball questions about their company, team and overall culture. I just talked about how I think it is important for leaders to have an extra-fine antenna for the psychological well-being of your colleages when in a remote-first environment. The moment I uttered the word "psychological" it triggered the inte…
Aww, I can't say I'm surprised that this text of mine (an open confession by a major european tech company to have racist employment standards) would be getting down-votes :-)
Or of course that a link criticizing DEI would get flagged on HN. Shocker.