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100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

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Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#101

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Cakez0r wrote: post #73
onion2k wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're both right and wrong. You're right in the sense that we do need to bring in the most talented people, but I suspect you're wrong in the definition of what the talents we need are. When people say "we need talented people" they usually mean that we need people who are best at doing what we do now. And that's not the solution, that's the problem . In order to improve society/business/whatever we have to…

That confuses skin colour and culture though. The idea that skin colour makes you think differently is essence of racism. We may (or may not) need to break the privileged male echo chamber, but whether you're black or white is completely irrelevant. You want the diversity of social status, sure. To assume someone is of a different social status based on their skin colour is racism.

It also very common, because there is a positive correlation. Its an unfortunate fact that racial profiling is so popular, because it works. You have to address that head-on to make any progress.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#102

Post by kweinber »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #96
kweinber wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the post to suggest that the existing team was obviously not very emotionally sensitive since they are explicitly working to "manipulate behavior" which sounds sinister. Perhaps hiring more folks who are both rational AND emotionally sensitive to their users is the diversity they need.

What's sinister about it? If you ever make a design change to increase conversions, you are working to manipulate user behavior. Are landing pages, a/b tests, pretty designs, and pictures of human faces now "sinister"?

Making a nicer product that increases user engagement is manipulating the product to match what the user likes, not manipulating the user. Changing the order and quality of ranked news articles, bending the truth, using behavioral science to promote addictive dependence,advertising products you don't actually make are all manipulating the user.

There is a big difference and yes, "manipulating the user" is sinister.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#103

Post by JoeAltmaier »

digitalzombie wrote: post #23
collyw wrote: post #4

Interestingly I see a lot of comments saying we need more women in tech, but none saying we need more black people in tech. I have worked with a number of women, and only ever seen one consultant come in who was black. Are we more racist than sexist? (I see plenty of Indians however, maybe a disproportionate amount compared to the general population?). I am based in Europe, and I do think there is less of a cultural…

There's no proof that women are systematically targeted to be ousted from the tech field. I haven't seen any research papers with any clear evidence of this other than that there are more boys than girls in a particular field. I'm sure there are other occupation with the same thing. There are too many Fillipino in Nurse career I don't see any body saying to diversify it. There are tons of Vietnamese in nails, my uncl…

Any group tends to recruit like members. Its human nature. Even the much-applauded hiring criterion of "they have to be a team fit" just means "they have to be like us" which probably means male, upper-middle-class white college kid.

So there's the whole problem right there. Never mind right or wrong. Its just statistics and bias in group dynamics, nothing more.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#104

Post by JoeAltmaier »

ebfe wrote: post #98

The average IQ of African-Americans is a standard deviation below that of whites, which in turn is a bit below that of Asians and Ashkenazi Jews [1]. Under the assumption that the tech industry has a higher average IQ than the population as a whole, then in a world free of any sort of discrimination, one would expect to see blacks underrepresented and Asians overrepresented. This isn't a fun fact to discuss; I don't…

Yeah that's widely disputed. Maybe because its just the PC line; maybe its actually nonsense. That article spends an uncomfortable amount of time tooting its own horn about being the underdog and what national newspapers its been featured in.

The obvious criticism is, the classes measured in so-called 'Jensenism' are defined by cultures as well as race. What attempt has been made to disambiguate that?

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#105

Post by phamilton »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #92
kasey_junk wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty trivial to find examples where societal biases create negative results for companies that do not move beyond them. For instance, in some places (you may be aware of ;) there is a societal bias that heterosexual anglo men are hyper sexual. That they are literally untrustworthy due to it is not an uncommon bias. It is an easy jump from that bias to an implicit (or even explicit) belief that it is better NOT…

I'm not sure how your post relates to mine. I'm hiring a data team. Based on the applicant pool it'll probably be me and 3 Punjabi males assuming I hire purely based on ability [1]. My claim is that I'll get no marginal value out of hiring a Maharashtrian, an African or a westerner over an equally qualified Punjabi. I provide no special western perspective on Kafka. I also don't know why it would be the "right thing…

I think there are secondary effects. While technical expertise is probably not going to be affected, team dynamics will be affected through diversity in critical thinking and expression. That's not the same as race/gender/etc. Too much conformity within a team causes the team to embrace that common ground rather than embrace differences.

I'm a fairly loud, direct person. I work with other loud and direct people. We added someone to our team who is a bit quieter and quite frankly thoughtful onto the team. The effect wasn't so much that (s)he changed our technical decisions, but that we as a team started to give people apace for less confrontational disagreement. It improved our individual abilities to communicate and approach a problem from multiple angles.

That is why diversity in personality is important. The hypothesis is then that race/gender/etc is correlated with intellectual diversity.

Anecdotal evidence yes, but something I've found valuable.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#106

Post by tbrownaw »

onion2k wrote: post #71
smanuel wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. I just wanted to make sure you don't put all white people in one basket, labeled privileged . So, by your definition there should be "white non-privileged people" as well, right? This means we shouldn't talk about black, white, etc. people but we should talk about having more non-privileged people in tech? I like this thinking but I don't understand what should be the mechanisms for making it happen. The only…

Yes, you are right, but (as I said in my first reply) we need to look at talents that aren't just the technical skills that industry demands right now. We need to populate tech with people who are good at things that we don't necessarily look for right now - having good philosophers, ethicists, sociologists, teachers, artists, etc would improve our industry immeasurably. Looking beyond experience and education is vit…

Where I work, we have the concept of a "subject matter expert". This is someone that the technical people can work with, to sove problems outside the technical person's expertise. Using technology outside the SME's expertise.

Why can't this idea of collaborating with outsiders work for the industry as a whole? Why must everyone be able to do everything?

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#107

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

mindcrime wrote: post #3

The comment about bias against going to school in the South really resonates. I mean, in one sense it's hilarious to think that there are people who don't realize that schools like UNC-CH, Georgia Tech, Clemson, NCSU, Campbell, Wake Forest, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Virginia Tech, William & Mary, etc. are great schools. But in another sense it's very, very sad. And I almost find it weirder to hear that about…

I've lived and worked all over the country and do a lot of engagement with the academic literature and academics in general, and I've never even heard of Campbell.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#108

Post by hluska »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #93
hluska wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted to avoid replying to you. Our perspective is dramatically different and I am tired of arguing with people like you who 'oppose diversity activists'. However, did you even read the article that you linked to?? Someone posted a link showing that if you blindfold people (so they just listen to how people play), you end up with more women in orchestras. The Ashe Dryden article is about how using open source cont…

I'm familiar with orchestral blind auditions and the effect they had (though not from the article, my mom is a classical musician). I favor using blind auditions to eliminate bias. I favor the same in tech. My claim is that most activists in tech don't really believe that bias is the cause of underrepresentation here. As evidence for that, observe how few such activists actually favor purely meritocratic hiring.

Once again, have you even read the article that you pointed to? If so, what do you think about her plan to remove open source contributions from the hiring mix? She suggests that when hiring, employers should:

a) Ask for code samples.

b) Pair as an interview.

c) Hire as a contractor before you make an offer of employment.

She does not dispute the existence of bias, rather she makes the point that valuing open source so heavily makes technology less of a meritocracy.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#109

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #107
mindcrime wrote: post #3

The comment about bias against going to school in the South really resonates. I mean, in one sense it's hilarious to think that there are people who don't realize that schools like UNC-CH, Georgia Tech, Clemson, NCSU, Campbell, Wake Forest, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Virginia Tech, William & Mary, etc. are great schools. But in another sense it's very, very sad. And I almost find it weirder to hear that about…

I've lived and worked all over the country and do a lot of engagement with the academic literature and academics in general, and I've never even heard of Campbell.

I checked, their math department appears to be five professors and an instructor, and only three of them have phds.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#110

Post by yummyfajitas »

kweinber wrote: post #102
yummyfajitas wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's sinister about it? If you ever make a design change to increase conversions, you are working to manipulate user behavior. Are landing pages, a/b tests, pretty designs, and pictures of human faces now "sinister"?

Making a nicer product that increases user engagement is manipulating the product to match what the user likes, not manipulating the user. Changing the order and quality of ranked news articles, bending the truth, using behavioral science to promote addictive dependence,advertising products you don't actually make are all manipulating the user. There is a big difference and yes, "manipulating the user" is sinister.

I specifically discussed putting human faces on the landing page to get more conversions and other design changes (e.g., button color, button copy). These don't change the product, only the landing page.

That's not a lie or bending the truth. It is manipulating the user.

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