Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you seriously think they don't have a surfeit of volunteers? C'mon.
Probably not. It's usually difficult to get an engineer to waste an entire day or two visiting a university for recruiting.
You'd be surprised.
Getting to work on diversity at Google
171–180 of 252 posts
Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google
#172It'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 [...] is good for public relations. That's pretty much the only reason tech companies are interested in diversity.
What a douchey thing to say. There's more to it than that, c.f. every other comment in this thread.
Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
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A quota implies there are limited spots. There are not. Google will hire as many qualified people as it can. These initiatives are about getting more diverse candidates in the recruiting pipeline. We are not turning away any qualified white dudes!
Perhaps "quota" is the wrong term. Yes Google doesn't have a limit on how many people they can hire in total, but in the interest of diversity they are likely to _limit_ the number of "X" people they hire (where "X" is some over-represented ethnic group).
Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it is their responsibility to fix it. This seems to contain two embedded and unexamined assumptions. 1. That this is a problem. If women prefer not to go into sciency fields (other than biology) why is that inherently a problem? Do you think women are too dumb to make their own choices? 2. That it can reasonably be "fixed". Spending more money on education must be the most commonly employed and most universally fai…
#1 was not an "embedded an unexamined assumption", it was the explicit condition of the stated conditional. ("If they have reasons to prefer a diverse workforce...") #2 is, insofar as it appears to be an "embedded and unexamined assumption", simply a result of brevity in omitting "...insofar as doing so is practical without costs that make it a net loss" at the end. Obvious qualification is obvious. > I would also qu…
I agree with you. But "you are free to do them in your own company" seems to be less and less true, as the amount of shaming hit pieces in the media rise. Whether that's a good thing, I pass no judgements on. It's interesting watching a community's values change in real time.
Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are aware that every country has "race" distinctions, even if they aren't the same as the US. E.g. in Tel Aviv, it would be interesting to know how many Palestinians are employed, or in Latin America, how many Africans and natives, in China, how many Tibetans and Uighurs? Upstream is important, but we should still make an effort.
> E.g. in Tel Aviv, it would be interesting to know how many Palestinians are employed Why would there be Palestinians in Tel Aviv? That's like asking how many Canadians are in Tuscon. Unless they are citizens or residents they couldn't work there anyway. Maybe you meant to say how many Muslims? Or how many Arabs? That at least makes sense. But in any case, the actual "race" distinction in Israel is Ashkenazim vs Sef…
Right. That's what I meant. The point is some group who makes up a part of the local population but is unrepresented in a company.
Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you seriously think they don't have a surfeit of volunteers? C'mon.
Probably not. It's usually difficult to get an engineer to waste an entire day or two visiting a university for recruiting.
Hey, next Friday is Google's "make the world a better place" day... would you be interested in coming with me and (name) to give mini-talks at a few schools?
--
I guess you'd have a tougher time if you actually call it "wasting an entire day" when you pitch the idea.
Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a truly comical response. To you, the only obvious racial characteristics of the NFL are (1) Not enough black quarterbacks (2) Not enough black coaches and those are issues that need to be addressed? How is the low proportion of black quarterbacks a bigger problem than the ultra-low proportion of white non-quarterbacks?
How is the low proportion of black quarterbacks a bigger problem than the ultra-low proportion of white non-quarterbacks? It would be if there was any other indication of discrimination against whites than the numbers. In the case of coaches and quarterbacks there was. When I wrote that I wasn't aware of any evidence showing discriminatory hiring practices affecting white players, but I have since found an allegation…
> It would be if there was any other indication of discrimination against whites than the numbers.
I agree with you that I don't think the NFL is discriminating against white players. They just want the best, period.
What I have issues with is when a company's racial makeup shakes out to be majority white (funny how that can happen when you draw from a pool that's majority white) and the first instinct is to say "this _must_ be because of bias."
Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google
#178As a person who comes from a place where there has always been an unhealthy obsession with demographic classification (South Africa), I'm curious about the "Asian" classification, which seems even more worthless than the average racial classification. Does it encompass both South Asians and Chinese? Do they have a common "Asian experience" in the US? Does the average person whose ancestors came from Tehran have much in common with someone from Beijing?
Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you think the 99th percentile of SAT scores look like race-wise? Before decrying lack of diversity in field X, demonstrate presence of one in the pool of qualified candidates.
> Before decrying lack of diversity in field X, demonstrate presence of one in the pool of qualified candidates. No, after identifying the lack of diversity in field X (or, in the case, Company G), finding the lack of diversity in the pool of qualified candidates tells you where you need to work if you care about diversity. But it doesn't mean "there's no problem to do anything about" -- as Google recognizes, hence w…
Your comment presumes that diversity is something that is axiomatically desired. I don't - just like I don't order my bookshelf based on gender/race of the authors and decry lack of diversity there.
I personally only care about it as far as principle of fairness. Ie if one can show that company X discriminates against persons Y (by demonstrating that sufficient number of qualified candidates Y are turned away) - then it would register on my radar. Otherwise I consider 'diversity' as a tool to push through quotas that I personally detest.
Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google
#180I really don't get why gender or ethnicity should play any role at all. Especially for jobs based on technical skill it would make a lot of sense to select mainly for ability. It is then very likely that this would have the same skewed distribution of ethnicities that all the 'elite' universities have, despite affirmative action. As a white priviledged male, I feel sort of disheartened reading that all things being equal, officially I won't be hired, unofficially of course often it is the other way around. There are plenty of countries that are much less diverse than the US and still have highly successful companies, so apart from good PR I fail to see why 'working on diversity' does have any meaningful impact.