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Google kills diversity hiring targets

wsj.com

101–110 of 300 posts

Re: Google kills diversity hiring targets

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, targeting childhood household income will see representation of the groups you're trying to help drop to nearly zero. Impoverished white children outscore wealthy black children by a significant margin on standardized tests, and there are a lot more poor white children than poor black children. There used to be programs like that, and they mostly helped the children of Chinese and Vietnamese refugees…

"childhood household income. That transcends race or gender" vs "targeting childhood household income will see representation of the groups you're trying to help drop to nearly zero" Did you misunderstand the point? It seems right that if you want to help poor people, you should target poor people, how could that be counterproductive?

But what if the poor people have the wrong skin color?

Re: Google kills diversity hiring targets

#102

Well, they've already achieved diversity, haven't they? Whites were already under-represented at Google (and at 18/23 tech companies) back in 2017 [1]. If they've rolled over for anyone, it was for the Asian lobby, who is over-represented at 23/23 of those tech companies, and now won't be facing DEI pressures to reduce their numbers. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20250127210140/https://informati...

> Well, they've already achieved diversity, haven't they? Whites were already under-represented at Google (and at 18/23 tech companies) back in 2017 For most diversity purposes, Asians and Indians both count as white, if not "even more white". Government programs, other than schools, are the main exception.

It's telling that culture will instantly lump anyone successful into the "white" category. I feel like this diversity drive was broken from the start

Re: Google kills diversity hiring targets

#103
post #79

When I came over to the states to go to a tech conference at a NASDAQ listed billion dollar corp that bought us, the only black people I met were either working at the hotels (90% of that staff) or living in the nearby inner city. I don't pretend to understand the USA, and maybe that conference wasn't representative, but to me it was quite shocking that the disparity was so clearly visible. So I think its a bit of a…

What you say is true, but these corporate diversity efforts are mostly used for PR and aren't actually making a difference to any race or community. The simple truth is that tech companies are going to hire any qualified engineer they can find, regardless of whether they are in a minority group or not and whether there is a DEI department at the company or not. So the question that should be asked is – why are black…

You're assuming there is no genetic component whatsoever to human skills and interests, and the only reason women are not studying computer science/car repair/welding is sexism.

Re: Google kills diversity hiring targets

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is actually making the claims here about these companies "achieving diversity"? Me? Do you want me to do your homework? It's quite easy to post specious data to support your specious claims on the internet. Quite easy to generate a desired reaction that way.

You're claiming the data is specious, but you have offered zero evidence to that end, only very shaky speculation. You say some of the links 404 - of the ones that do not, were their numbers significantly different from the table in the article?

Here you want to look at data? Let's look at Amazon's EEO-1: https://assets.aboutamazon.com/64/79/d3746ef14fd99cc6be94532...

Amazon in your table lists 21% black employees. Maybe a lot has changed since 2017, but it sure seems like that might be misrepresenting the picture when 79% of those black employees are listed as laborers in the EEO-1 from 2023. But who can say!

Akin to this, the 2023 EEO-1 says 47% of professional employees are Asian! Wow sure seems overrepresented. Do we know anything about the compensation packages of these employees? No. We don't. We have no ability to tell if these are offshored employees, H1-B, under-compensated, what their tenure is, or even what the actual role of these employees are besides an incredibly broad categorization for them.

Also hmm, interesting that number gets cut by more than half when looking at the percentage of first/mid-level managers. Again have no idea if there's pay equity or equal opportunity at different levels of management.

What can we actually say about diversity at Amazon? Well "mission accomplished" obviously.

Re: Google kills diversity hiring targets

#105
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since education is a state level responsibility, why not handle it there? We don’t have a federal education ministry in Canada for instance.

But if the name of the game is efficient spending why are we replicating much of the same work in 50 states instead of just once federally? That would make far more sense if this was only about money.

Libertarians and conservatives don't want to acknowledge efficiencies of scale in certain areas because it's not about efficient spending.

Re: Google kills diversity hiring targets

#106

Well, they've already achieved diversity, haven't they? Whites were already under-represented at Google (and at 18/23 tech companies) back in 2017 [1]. If they've rolled over for anyone, it was for the Asian lobby, who is over-represented at 23/23 of those tech companies, and now won't be facing DEI pressures to reduce their numbers. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20250127210140/https://informati...

> Well, they've already achieved diversity, haven't they? Whites were already under-represented at Google (and at 18/23 tech companies) back in 2017 For most diversity purposes, Asians and Indians both count as white, if not "even more white". Government programs, other than schools, are the main exception.

So... what are the categories then? Black and Everyone Else?! That seems pretty silly on almost every level.

Re: Google kills diversity hiring targets

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"childhood household income. That transcends race or gender" vs "targeting childhood household income will see representation of the groups you're trying to help drop to nearly zero" Did you misunderstand the point? It seems right that if you want to help poor people, you should target poor people, how could that be counterproductive?

But what if the poor people have the wrong skin color?

...raise taxes on the households of whatever the "correct skin color" is until they qualify for these programs? Obvs. :)

/s, I hope. :/

Re: Google kills diversity hiring targets

#108
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you say is true, but these corporate diversity efforts are mostly used for PR and aren't actually making a difference to any race or community. The simple truth is that tech companies are going to hire any qualified engineer they can find, regardless of whether they are in a minority group or not and whether there is a DEI department at the company or not. So the question that should be asked is – why are black…

You're assuming there is no genetic component whatsoever to human skills and interests, and the only reason women are not studying computer science/car repair/welding is sexism.

Ultimately the onus is on the people claiming a genetic component to find it and prove it. There are known social issues and have been for quite some time, after all there are people alive today who experienced segregation.

So if there's some genetic bias at play, as long as the social issues are right there staring us in the face, you're going to need to advance the science of genetics to get the answer. Without that it just comes off "race science" and that kind of thing.

Re: Google kills diversity hiring targets

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since education is a state level responsibility, why not handle it there? We don’t have a federal education ministry in Canada for instance.

Are you happy with the state and trajectory of education in Canada? Ontario is the wealthiest, most populous and most diverse. Are you happy with education there?

I am not I would imagine the federal government getting involved would only make it worse. (BC)
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