Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Getting to work on diversity at Google

googleblog.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 252 posts

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#81

Post by brighteyes »

DiggityDug7 wrote: post #11
Dwolb wrote: post #4

It's great to be open and all, but they never mention what their goal is. Do Google believe diversity is good for workplace cohesion, their own social mobility goals, good corporate moral policy, etc.? The data is interesting in it's own right but I don't better understand where Google is going with diversity; I only understand where Google currently stands.

Does there have to be a business goal? Making society more fair is a good goal. Reducing the white male preference in the job market should be a social responsibility for a company that greatly impacts our daily lives. There could be business goals though: it improves people's public opinion of you and in this case may help protect them from lawsuits. This link at the bottom of the page has some more info... http://w…

> Making society more fair is a good goal. Reducing the white male preference in the job market should be a social responsibility for a company that greatly impacts our daily lives.

The data Google just posted contradicts you. 61% of Google employees are white, while 80% of the total US workforce is, see e.g. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/28/google-releases-emp...

That means white people are under-represented at Google.

The group whose representation is most diverging from the population as a whole are Asians, who are hugely over-represented.

Overall, the numbers show that Asians are over-represented, which may explain much of the under-representation by all other groups. So the story here is certainly not one of "white male preference in the job market". You might be right about male, but not about white.

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#82

Post by [deleted] »

dragonwriter wrote: post #59
Torgo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My response was flippant, which is probably why some people have been downvoting it, but I'm legitimately glad if they're working to make their hiring pool more representative of the population. But at the same time, it's hardly their fault or responsibility to "fix" it if universities just aren't graduating people in those proportions. This came right after I'd read a PBS article that claimed "Google finally disclos…

> My response was flippant, which is probably why some people have been downvoting it, but I'm legitimately glad if they're working to make their hiring pool more representative of the population. But at the same time, it's hardly their fault or responsibility to "fix" it if universities just aren't graduating people in those proportions. If they have reasons to prefer a diverse workforce, whether or not they are at…

[deleted]

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#83

Post by nl »

[deleted] wrote: post #66
nl wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this mean we should empose[sic] quotas to get Blacks out of the NFL and replace them with Whites No to the quotas. But yes, race in the NFL (and in many sports) is an issue that should be addressed. The old problem of the low proportion of black quarterbacks is slowly being addressed, and the Rooney Rule[1] has had some success with the underrepresentation of black coaches. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roone…

[deleted]

It sounds to me like you believe that some ethnic groups have intrinsic (genetic) advantages over others in some areas.

Like most things to do with race there is a tiny, tiny sliver of truth in this, but not enough to explain the outcomes.

sigh

Lets look at sports.

Sprints: The ACTN3 gene[1] is associated with the fast-twitch muscles, and is more prevalent in people of West African descent. Out of the last 7 Olympic 100m mens finals all 56 finalists have been of West African descent. Only 2 out of the top 500 100m race times are by people without African descent.

Case closed? No. The proportion of sprint wins by West Africans is much higher than the prevalence of the ACTN3 gene would explain, and other power sports (notably weight lifting) are dominated by other ethnic groups with a more average distribution of the gene.

Distance running: The Kalenjin tribe (mostly from Kenya) has dominated distance running since the late 1990s. Most of their competition has come from Ethiopian runners and the occasional North African (especially in the women's events)[2].

They do have a genetic advantage: they tend to be very skinny, with long legs and short torsos. But you can find these attributes in any population group. More surprising is that elite non-African runners performance has decreased over time: For example, of the top 10 Marathon times by British athletes only 1 (in 8th position) is since 2000, and 6 are pre 1990 (including the 2 fastest times).

This indicates something else is going on, that can't just be explained by genetics.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACTN3

[2] http://www.iaaf.org/records/toplists/road-running/marathon/o... - the best place person without a African heritige is Ronaldo Da Costa at 57.

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#84

Post by Fishkins »

Torgo wrote: post #14

So women make up 18% of new CS degrees and Google's staffed at 17%. Blacks and hispanics make up under 5% of CS degrees and at Google they make up 3%. Close the ticket, it's an upstream problem.

To be fair, the (real or perceived) opportunities for women and minorities at major tech companies like Google could very well influence the majors college students choose to pursue. If I were an 18 y.o. woman who read news articles or talked to family/friends in the industry who told me women are treated poorly at Google and the like, I might opt for a different degree. I have no idea how much of a factor this actually is in the proportions of college graduates, but I think it's worth considering as a possibility.

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#85

Post by heterogenic »

Torgo wrote: post #14

So women make up 18% of new CS degrees and Google's staffed at 17%. Blacks and hispanics make up under 5% of CS degrees and at Google they make up 3%. Close the ticket, it's an upstream problem.

Not necessarily.

You're assuming that the factors which drive women out of engineering do so independent of ability.

I would hypothesize that this is false, that the most interested and passionate women are least likely to be nudged out. Google should be comparing its ratio to that of their potential pool, which is presumably skewed high. If that's true, they should be expecting to get closer to 50%. (Not exactly 50, but better than the holistic ratio at least.).

Also, they can look at their specific source pools to get a less hypothetical target. Berkeley is ~50/50, for example. (http://www.wired.com/2014/02/berkeley-women/). But retroactively

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#86

Post by rcthompson »

fiatmoney wrote: post #54
heydenberk wrote: post #17

It's {{current_year}} and people are still asking, "why does diversity matter?" Diversity matters for a lot of reasons. Perhaps most importantly, demographic diversity is strongly correlated with diversity in points of view. You want the people building your products to come from many walks of life. Remember how Google+ had significant uptake in the rich white tech dude demographic? Not a coincidence. If you want the…

"Diversity in points of view" is not an unalloyed good. There are significant coordination costs associated with it. It is also not something you get when you attempt to recruit people from the same sources and socio-cultural milieus with the same acceptance criteria, but of different genders and ethnicities. Hiring an ethnically diverse range of, eg, MIT/CMU/Stanford graduates does not engender diverse viewpoints. "…

> Hiring an ethnically diverse range of, eg, MIT/CMU/Stanford graduates does not engender diverse viewpoints.

I don't agree with that statement. At the very least, everyone acknowledges that women and men in the same environment have vastly different viewpoints from each other. (Source: Approx. 50% of all jokes, also science) I think that ethnic diversity will also result in more diverse viewpoints, even when passed through "purifying filters" such as elite college acceptance standards.

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#88

Post by cbhl »

groby_b wrote: post #72
Torgo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My response was flippant, which is probably why some people have been downvoting it, but I'm legitimately glad if they're working to make their hiring pool more representative of the population. But at the same time, it's hardly their fault or responsibility to "fix" it if universities just aren't graduating people in those proportions. This came right after I'd read a PBS article that claimed "Google finally disclos…

No, it's not Google's job, but Google is in a good position to fix upstream. One of the things you repeatedly hear from girls/young women considering CS is that there are no role models. Sending female engineers to university events is a small step, but it can have huge impact. In a nutshell, it's playing the long game :)

I'm not sure I would want to take this to its logical conclusion. Imagine if it was mandated that every female engineer had to participate in university events. Now the job responsibilities are different between the genders, and you've made the problem worse on a different axis (equality of job responsibilities).

Think about all the articles and blog posts written by female engineers who attend conferences and are insulted that they are perceived to be non-technical, or just a recruiter, and how such an initiative would make that worse.

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#89

Post by cbhl »

nl wrote: post #64

Are these diversity numbers for the US or for Google as a whole? If they are world-wide, I find it quite interesting how closely the location of the Google offices where software development occurs[1] matches the ethnicity numbers. Notably, there is only one development office in Latin America (and none in Spain/Portugal), and the only development office in the Middle East or Africa is Tel Aviv (not clear what ethnic…

Race is US, Gender is Worldwide.

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#90

Post by nl »

[deleted] wrote: post #76
nl wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diversity programs are important because they uncover and fight discrimination, both explicit and more subtle. A specific example: I once worked in a job where the team leader and hiring manager was looking at resumes, found one was female and put it aside saying "she'll just get pregnant and leave". That was an extremely explicit form of discrimination that a formal diversity program may have helped combat (eg: he m…

[deleted]

Firstly, I'd appreciate it if you could tone down the personal insults and inflammatory language. Discrimination is inflammatory enough on its own. Thanks.

What does white-guilt mean, exactly?

I believe that economic gains made by whites at the expense of other races because of past racist policies reinforced by a historical power imbalance should not be reinforced.

I believe it is appropriate for active steps to be taken to make sure this power imbalance is not reinforced.

I do not believe this is a zero-sum game.

As if that makes it less racist. You know the story you just told me about the hiring manager throwing out a female's resume based on assumptions about her gender? You should re-read it. It applies to your views on white people.

I don't believe it does. I cannot see anything in my story or approach that excludes anyone based on colour, creed or religion. Instead it is explicitly about making sure people are included, not excluded.

To be clear, I think the story would have gone like this: Hirer sees white person's resume, says "oh, this person is white. They will probably drink too much coffee (not sure of a racist stereotype for whites). Damn, we'll have to interview them anyway because of diversity policy and they are qualified"

How does that make it racist?

Post reply on HN