Getting to work on diversity at Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#211

Post by xienze » Thu, May 29, 2014, 2:37 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #203

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).

As has been stated already in this thread the pool of qualified candidates forces Google to hire fewer people than they would prefer and their efforts on diversity include efforts to expand the pool of qualified candidates. They don't need to limit (or reduce) hiring (or retention) of any group to achieve diversity. The biggest diversity win for them would be expanded hiring in all groups, but greatest in those curre…

> and their efforts on diversity include efforts to expand the pool of qualified candidates

OK, so it sounds like they've got a fix that'll only take a couple decades to implement.

In the meantime, how do you think Google is going to improve their minority percentages in the absence of qualified minorities?

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#212

Post by Mangalor » Thu, May 29, 2014, 2:40 PM UTC

xienze wrote: post #202

Mangalor wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you guess that? Clearly the non-asian minorities figures are abominable.

Because "diversity" is code for "there's too many white people here." I highly doubt anyone would complain about diversity if Google were 61% black (just like no one complains about the NFL and NBA's appalling lack of diversity). Either way, to boost non-Asian minority percentages you've got to take away from the white or Asian percentages. Hmm... who do you think's gonna be on the receiving end of that rebalancing?

The point is that in reality Google is not 61% Black. If it were, you'd have a point.

And people do complain about lack of diversity in the NFL/NBA, on both sides.

These are such small percentages that you wouldn't even need to reduce head count to increase representation, just hire a few more workers. But even if they did have to replace, why are you so focused on saving every last White or Asian soul to the detriment of addressing the problem?

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#213

Post by SwellJoe » Thu, May 29, 2014, 2:40 PM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #131

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.

Does GOOG have any self-taughts in tech positions? Might be missing some data in the staffing-to-CS-grads proportions.

Not many, and they would mostly be acqui-hires or early hires. Google strongly prefers candidates from a list of preferred universities. If you didn't graduate from one, you'd need to be coming from another employer in order to get hired there (and even then, my understanding is that those with degrees from those universities have a better chance of being hired, all other things being equal).

They also hire (or at least recruit) based on Open Source work (I've gotten recruitment letters from them based on a book I wrote and some Open Source software I've been involved in), but I doubt that I would have been hired just on the strength of that. I've never taken them up on the offer of an interview, as I liked working for myself too much, but I suspect I would not measure up during the process, given my self-taught background and unimpressive education history. I know several folks who have been hired by Google, including folks who got the recruitment letter based on Open Source software work, and they tend to also have the strong college background.

In short, I believe that for those folks who end up at Google, they very likely got there by way of a good university. So, the upstream needs to be fixed for the diversity at Google to be fixed.

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#214

Post by enneff » Thu, May 29, 2014, 2:44 PM UTC

xienze wrote: post #177

nl wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "thi…

What's more likely:

a) White males are better at software engineering and that's why the majority of software engineers are white males (there is no scientific evidence to support this whatsoever).

b) There are socio-economic factors that lead more white males into software engineering than anyone else (there is ample scientific evidence to support this theory).

Clearly there is a bias at work somewhere. It's not necessarily a hiring problem, but rather one that starts further up the "supply chain" (if you will). We're trying to fix that.

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#215

Post by enneff » Thu, May 29, 2014, 2:48 PM UTC

xienze wrote: post #211

dragonwriter wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As has been stated already in this thread the pool of qualified candidates forces Google to hire fewer people than they would prefer and their efforts on diversity include efforts to expand the pool of qualified candidates. They don't need to limit (or reduce) hiring (or retention) of any group to achieve diversity. The biggest diversity win for them would be expanded hiring in all groups, but greatest in those curre…

> and their efforts on diversity include efforts to expand the pool of qualified candidates OK, so it sounds like they've got a fix that'll only take a couple decades to implement. In the meantime, how do you think Google is going to improve their minority percentages in the absence of qualified minorities?

Not in the way you arrogantly and incorrectly keep suggesting.

Google is not going to in any way limit the intake of qualified candidates. It is mission critical for us to hire as many talented people as possible. Most teams at the company really need more people.

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#216

Post by ap22213 » Thu, May 29, 2014, 2:51 PM UTC

It's nice for Google to publish this, but their commentary is misleading.

From 2000 to 2009, 10% (48,897 / 471,318) of Computer Science undergraduate degrees were awarded to Blacks, according to NSF ([1][2]).

[1]: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c2/c2s2.htm [2]: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/append/c2/at02-19.xls

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#217

Post by xienze » Thu, May 29, 2014, 2:54 PM UTC

enneff wrote: post #215

xienze wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and their efforts on diversity include efforts to expand the pool of qualified candidates OK, so it sounds like they've got a fix that'll only take a couple decades to implement. In the meantime, how do you think Google is going to improve their minority percentages in the absence of qualified minorities?

Not in the way you arrogantly and incorrectly keep suggesting. Google is not going to in any way limit the intake of qualified candidates. It is mission critical for us to hire as many talented people as possible. Most teams at the company really need more people.

You are aware that companies set hiring goals every year/quarter, right? I get that Google is "special" and printing money at the moment but typically companies don't have the luxury of saying "we have no limits! Hire as many people as you want!!!" Google will be no exception. Now -- when Google finally _does_ have to cope with the fact that they can't just increase the number of people they hire every year AND they want to tilt the ratio of X to Y, then what?

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#218

Post by kaitai » Thu, May 29, 2014, 2:55 PM UTC

tragic wrote: post #205

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 you want the best people working at your company, you should want a group with similar demographics as the customer population, and if you disagree with that, you either believe there is something inherent about certain groups that makes them better or worse at these jobs, which is plainly bigoted, or you believe that there are external social biases which cause the discrepancies. From the point of view of a bus…

While I agree with your last paragraph, there have been a number of studies on diversity on corporate boards, for instance:

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/organization/is_there_a_pay... http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~dobbin/cv/workingpapers/Board_Di...

That's a start. Seems like evidence is mixed, of course, with some part of the evidence "against" diversity confounded by people's unconscious -isms.

It's really terrible, these -isms: I start to worry when a woman is named CEO of a major US company because it seems like they only allow a woman in if the company's doing poorly. And it seems that's borne out by some evidence: http://hbr.org/2011/01/how-women-end-up-on-the-glass-cliff/a... Frustrating.

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#219

Post by enneff » Thu, May 29, 2014, 2:56 PM UTC

xienze wrote: post #217

enneff wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in the way you arrogantly and incorrectly keep suggesting. Google is not going to in any way limit the intake of qualified candidates. It is mission critical for us to hire as many talented people as possible. Most teams at the company really need more people.

You are aware that companies set hiring goals every year/quarter, right? I get that Google is "special" and printing money at the moment but typically companies don't have the luxury of saying "we have no limits! Hire as many people as you want!!!" Google will be no exception. Now -- when Google finally _does_ have to cope with the fact that they can't just increase the number of people they hire every year AND they…

Fortunately we don't have to deal with that issue.

But it's nice of you to assume the worst of us in that hypothetical situation.

I would assume that when that happens we would raise the hiring bar. And by that time there would be more diverse candidates in the pipeline, so we would naturally get a more diverse spread of new hires.

I strongly doubt we would sacrifice our long held policy of "hiring the best" for the sake of diversity. It flies in the face of our corporate culture.

My understanding of Google's diversity efforts is that they are centered around a) encouraging candidates from more diverse backgrounds to apply to Google (many, particularly women, do not believe they are as good as their male counterparts for social reasons), and b) encouraging people from diverse backgrounds to get into computer science. I have been involved in both these efforts at Google. And, to be quite honest, only a sociopath would see a problem with these initiatives.

Re: Getting to work on diversity at Google

#220

Post by xienze » Thu, May 29, 2014, 2:57 PM UTC

Mangalor wrote: post #212

xienze wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because "diversity" is code for "there's too many white people here." I highly doubt anyone would complain about diversity if Google were 61% black (just like no one complains about the NFL and NBA's appalling lack of diversity). Either way, to boost non-Asian minority percentages you've got to take away from the white or Asian percentages. Hmm... who do you think's gonna be on the receiving end of that rebalancing?

The point is that in reality Google is not 61% Black. If it were, you'd have a point. And people do complain about lack of diversity in the NFL/NBA, on both sides. These are such small percentages that you wouldn't even need to reduce head count to increase representation, just hire a few more workers. But even if they did have to replace, why are you so focused on saving every last White or Asian soul to the detrime…

> why are you so focused on saving every last White or Asian soul to the detriment of addressing the problem?

Because I take offense to people saying that having a majority of white workers at a company located in a white majority country is a "problem".