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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

#131

Post by mindcrime »

jrs99 wrote: post #29
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…

he says people ARE aware that UNC-CH is a good college. but that "few realize the University of Georgia is a Top 30 law school and Top 5 for my master’s program." That sounds pretty understandable to me. I don't feel like there's anything wrong with that.

Right, he mentioned UNC-CH in particular, but otherwise, there seems to be a trend of people on the West Coast / Silicon Valley, being painfully unaware of how good many Southern schools are. And no, I don't expect any random person in CA to know specifically that "UGA is a Top 30 law school", but I'd expect pretty much anybody to realize that it's a pretty damn good school in general. Same for the other schools I mentioned.

But, maybe I'm just putting too much stock into things I read here on HN and in startup related blog posts and articles. I haven't spent that much time in SF/SV and surrounding areas, so maybe this is just a filter bubble thing in effect.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#132

Post by mindcrime »

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.

They're probably best known for the law school, not their undergraduate stuff. Anyway, that was just one example.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#133

Post by mindcrime »

jane_is_here wrote: post #24
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…

Apart from William & Mary I have never heard anything about any of those schools. As for William & Mary I think that I have heard that it is an above average liberal arts college. I could google it and the rest of the list, but that is honestly my level of knowledge of them. Are they considered to be something special in the Southern states ?

> Are they considered to be something special in the Southern states ?

Special? No, why would they be "special"? The point is that they're fine schools; on par with good schools anywhere else in the country - but not necessarily "elite" schools like Yale or Harvard. But some people seem to have this "thing" of acting like having gone to school in the South singles you out as some barely-literate, uneducated hillbilly. This is far, far from the truth. That's all I'm getting at.

That said, there are several Southern schools that help make up the original group of "Public Ivies"[1], including three of the schools named above (W&M, UNC-CH and UVA).

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Ivy#The_original_Public_...

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#134

Post by [deleted] »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #116
hluska wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

(a) is an unbiased method analogous to blind orchestral auditions. (b) and (c) are not. (a) is also basically identical to hiring by github unless the candidate illegaly uses proprietary code as their sample. (From her article: "...not all programmers own the rights to their code..." in which case I can't look at it when hiring. ) The entire article is about how using github (i.e. evaluating code with the human absen…

[deleted]

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#135

Post by lsiebert »

lsiebert wrote: post #16
santaclaus wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there really a bias against schools south of the Mason-Dixon? I feel like most of NYC went to Duke. Tim Cook also seems to be doing alright.

People from the west coast don't necessarily have a nuanced understanding of the south.

To be clear, I say that as a west coast person who has visited the south.

Re: 100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

#136

Post by Geekette »

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…

I would certainly discount info from a researcher who amongst other things: consistently ignored evidence disproving his assertions over time, was funded and endorsed by racist/white supremacist organization specifically to produce literature suggesting racial hierarchy in intelligence[1][2].

More importantly, the concept of IQ is a myth: there is no single measure of intelligence, different neural networks coordinate verbal vs reasoning vs short-term memory abilities, etc[3][4]. That one test (based on solving certain classes of problems at most) is still being extrapolated to assessment of overall intelligence and used to somehow differentiate people is ludicrous.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#Criticism

[2] http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.174...

[3]http://www.thestar.com/life/2012/12/19/iq_a_myth_study_says....

[4] http://www.owenlab.uwo.ca/pdf/2012%20-%20Hampshire%20-%20Neu...

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