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Getting to work on diversity at Google

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Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#191

Post by xienze »

enneff wrote: post #188
xienze wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Uh, no, we're not. That is an entirely baseless assertion.

So you work at Google but you're having trouble grasping simple mathematics? OK then. Let's break it down:

X is an over-represented group of Googlers threatening their diversity. Let's say it's males. Y is, let's say, women. Z is the total number of current Googlers.

In this case, 0.7Z = X and 0.3Z = Y. (70% men, 30% women).

Still with me?

If Google were to continue hiring X at the current rate (i.e., 70% of all candidates hired), then the diversity of Z will not change with respect to X and Y.

Therefore, in order to achieve the desired balance, Y must be >> X, be that through hiring (i.e., hire more Y than X) or firing (fire more X than Y). Rinse and repeat for other over- and under-represented groups at Google. I'm not sure why this concept is lost on you.

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#192

Post by psaintla »

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. "…

That reminds me of this cartoon regarding the supreme court http://sedulia.blogs.com/.a/6a00d8341c82d353ef015390fee6ce97...

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#193

Post by notduncansmith »

throwaway54984 wrote: post #78
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…

If diversity matters so much and it should reflect the customer population, then perhaps Google (or any other company for that matter) should hire less smart or even dumb people. After all 47.5% of the population has an IQ between 70 and 100.

As early product testers, absolutely. It's one thing to put yourself "in the user's shoes" as far as unfamiliarity with a product, it's another entirely to pretend to have 30-50 fewer IQ points. This could produce some valuable insights :)

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#194

Post by dragonwriter »

omonra wrote: post #179
dragonwriter wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

No, it doesn't presume that diversity is axiomatically desired. It has as an explicit condition ("if you care about...") that it is desired, but whether such desire is axiomatic or a consequence of an a posteriori conclusion about instrumental utility of diversity makes no difference.)

And, while your statement of your personal biases about quotas are, I suppose, revealing of just that - your personal biases - I am not sure what you think they add to the discussion. Certainly, you can't think that a statement of what you consider diversity to be an a secret code word for unaccompanied by either evidence or logic justifying that consideration says anything about anything other than your own bias.

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#195

Post by crazypyro »

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 :)

Are role models in CS (and even other industries) really what drives people to pursue the career? Just looking at my own experience, its hard to pinpoint a "role model".

I'm curious why there is always such a huge focus on role models (is it a grandfathered idea from the past?) and not on the herd of other problems, such as access to tools, ease of self-learning and targeted tutorials at under-represented demographics. I'd imagine tutorials that are targeted at doing things that tend to be more popular with certain demographics would be more useful than a few famous minority or women C.S. majors, but I could be wrong.

It seems dated to me, but maybe there is some strong research that correlates to the role model idea. I'm just not seeing it.

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#196

Post by dragonwriter »

girvo wrote: post #174
dragonwriter wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#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.

Freedom to do something doesn't imply freedom from criticism from people who disagree with you doing it.

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#197

Post by Mangalor »

waveman2 wrote: post #103
heterogenic wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> I would hypothesize that this is false Citation required. And if women are less interested overall in CS and/or have less ability on non-verbal tasks overall then you would expect that the RHS tail of the distribution of women would be lower than the RHS tail of the distribution of men. This is just basic statistics. The same applies with African Americans. Blacks in the US have far lower IQs than whites - this is…

You make the mistake of assuming an equal playing field where there clearly isn't one.

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#198

Post by dmm »

buyx wrote: post #178

As 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…

I think I get what you're saying. The continent of Africa contains more human (genetic) diversity than the rest of the world combined, yet almost everyone from it would be classified as "Black".

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#199

Post by dragonwriter »

paulwolf wrote: post #158
dragonwriter wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#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…

>Obvious qualification is obvious. Don't form arguments this way. Dumping tautologies into an argument sounds childish.

The quoted bit that you object to wasn't part of an argument in the first place.

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#200

Post by Dwolb »

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…

The reason it's important to ask 'why does diversity matter' has to do with overall program metrics. If you don't know why you're doing something, you can't state where you are going, you can't plan how to get there and you can't tell when you've reached the destination. It's a matter of accountability and making sure we're doing things the right way.
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