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U.S. regulators accuse Palantir of bias against Asians

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. regulators accuse Palantir of bias against Asians

#111

Post by derefr »

Spooky23 wrote: post #62
ones_and_zeros wrote: post #49

Palantir gets some of my sympathy. My organization has a large internship program and I've been first contact for many applicants. I found that a similar number of applicants had to be dropped either due to communication skills or an overall technical skills gap and they tended to be asian/southeast asian. Interestingly most of them fit the same profile of a bachelor's from India, 1 or 2 years at a consulting firm in…

There's alot of cheating and other shady nonsense. Bodyshop contractors will do anything. I've seen cases where those companies send shill candidates to interview, claim that candidates have more experience in reality (in one case a 22 year old with a decade of Oracle Financials experience) and submitting fake resumes.

Quality-checking the contractors a consulting agency is feeding you feels like the perfect case for a Starfighter-alike "bar exam"—much moreso than the actual Employee-Employer matchmaking that Starfighter tried.

Re: U.S. regulators accuse Palantir of bias against Asians

#112

Post by mildbow »

rb2k_ wrote: post #32
munchbunny wrote: post #27

The part that doesn't make sense to me is... what does Palantir have to gain by discriminating? The other way this happens is by cultural biases causing discrimination, but not intentionally with some specific goal in mind. I'm operating only on anecdotes, but in the tech industry, discriminating against Asians at the intern/ground level seems to be a non-issue. Maybe different story when you get to management, and m…

I have no idea, but just a random guess: If you try to sell a lot of secret spying services to the government (which I think Palantir does?), they probably think it helps if your employees don't look/sound Chinese, seeing as the government might be afraid of China's espionage efforts. I also don't know how much trouble they have getting clearance for someone that grew up in China compared to other countries. (again:…

It's a pretty shitty guess.

That's the sort of thinking that led to japanese internment camps.

Re: U.S. regulators accuse Palantir of bias against Asians

#113

Post by sib »

ezzaf wrote: post #107
derefr wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general form of this question is: do we care more about government departments in their role as equal-opportunity jobs projects, or do we care more about the government being "effective", doing the most it can with each tax dollar? In this case, I can see how "increased cohesion"—although decreasing the "jobs project" value—would be extremely helpful for increasing tax-dollar ROI.

Tax dollar ROI for whom? Part of the benefit of ensuring a diversity in government roles is aiding governments to better provide services for all aspects of society, not just the minority who hold those roles.

Tax dollar ROI for taxpayers (since they are the "investors").

Re: U.S. regulators accuse Palantir of bias against Asians

#114

Post by sib »

api wrote: post #100
throwaway8976 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Palantir in the covered period and did a ton of interviews, 5-10 a week. I experienced exactly this dynamic - very large numbers of applicants who had a bachelor's degree from a South or East Asian university, a year or two of work experience, and a Masters from a mid-tier US University. The large majority washed out on the FizzBuzz-level technical questions on phone screens (or asked in person at job fai…

I've seen American university CS grads wash out on FizzBuzz level questions at alarming levels as well so this is not exclusively a phenomenon with these backgrounds. How in the world are people making it through schools (with a MS!) without actually.... uhh.... you know.... knowing the subject at all ?

"How in the world are people making it through schools (with a MS!) without actually.... uhh.... you know.... knowing the subject at all?"

I'm sure that there are many more people who could complete FizzBuzz on a homework assignment, with the help of the Googles, than could do so in an interview. And there are many mid-tier MS programs that are happy to take money from international candidates and give them every opportunity to keep paying.

Re: U.S. regulators accuse Palantir of bias against Asians

#115

Post by throwaway8976 »

api wrote: post #100
throwaway8976 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Palantir in the covered period and did a ton of interviews, 5-10 a week. I experienced exactly this dynamic - very large numbers of applicants who had a bachelor's degree from a South or East Asian university, a year or two of work experience, and a Masters from a mid-tier US University. The large majority washed out on the FizzBuzz-level technical questions on phone screens (or asked in person at job fai…

I've seen American university CS grads wash out on FizzBuzz level questions at alarming levels as well so this is not exclusively a phenomenon with these backgrounds. How in the world are people making it through schools (with a MS!) without actually.... uhh.... you know.... knowing the subject at all ?

> I've seen American university CS grads wash out on FizzBuzz level questions at alarming levels as well so this is not exclusively a phenomenon with these backgrounds.

Absolutely. They may even have washed out at higher numbers. The applicant pool described in the complaint definitely isn't representative of US CS majors nationwide, so you can't use it to draw inferences about the quality of students overall.

Re: U.S. regulators accuse Palantir of bias against Asians

#117

Post by [deleted] »

vthallam wrote: post #55
ones_and_zeros wrote: post #49

Palantir gets some of my sympathy. My organization has a large internship program and I've been first contact for many applicants. I found that a similar number of applicants had to be dropped either due to communication skills or an overall technical skills gap and they tended to be asian/southeast asian. Interestingly most of them fit the same profile of a bachelor's from India, 1 or 2 years at a consulting firm in…

Wow! I kind of fit into your sterotype, except i graduated from a large private university. Isn't it stupid that you are putting a billion people in the same pool(Indian bachelors+ consulting firm exp+US State school = suckers)?

[deleted]

Re: U.S. regulators accuse Palantir of bias against Asians

#118

Post by Shivetya »

derefr wrote: post #98
onmatest wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would guess for the second part that the government prohibits it because it could result in unequal opportunities for job seekers based on race. While referrals are more acceptable in non-government-sponsored companies, government-sponsored companies are held to higher standards because that is where taxpayer dollars are directly headed. If the applicant pool was overwhelming black and Palantir hired more white peo…

The general form of this question is: do we care more about government departments in their role as equal-opportunity jobs projects, or do we care more about the government being "effective", doing the most it can with each tax dollar? In this case, I can see how "increased cohesion"—although decreasing the "jobs project" value—would be extremely helpful for increasing tax-dollar ROI.

tax dollar ROI is less important to politicians than an equivalent of voter ROI. It cost them nothing to turn out an inferior program, project, expenditure, or whatever, provided the political points are accounted for.

seen companies at local airport bidding contracts who have minorities who are merely paid to be on the board so they qualify for the contract.

want to know one reason the government is so large, intrusive, and inefficient, look no further to rules that enforce everything but efficiency.

Re: U.S. regulators accuse Palantir of bias against Asians

#119

Post by 67726e »

api wrote: post #100
throwaway8976 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Palantir in the covered period and did a ton of interviews, 5-10 a week. I experienced exactly this dynamic - very large numbers of applicants who had a bachelor's degree from a South or East Asian university, a year or two of work experience, and a Masters from a mid-tier US University. The large majority washed out on the FizzBuzz-level technical questions on phone screens (or asked in person at job fai…

I've seen American university CS grads wash out on FizzBuzz level questions at alarming levels as well so this is not exclusively a phenomenon with these backgrounds. How in the world are people making it through schools (with a MS!) without actually.... uhh.... you know.... knowing the subject at all ?

I'm rather shocked by this as well. I understand not knowing the latest frameworks and such, but I have close personal friends that say my name should be in parenthesis next to theirs on their diplomas. A lot of CS courses can be passed by getting help on take home assignments and rote memorization on tests. At least for your typical state schools.

Re: U.S. regulators accuse Palantir of bias against Asians

#120

Post by leroy_masochist »

I guess this is the other side of the coin when it comes to government contracting.

Government contracts are great if you can make them work -- these organizations have big budgets, and many individual layers of the bureaucracy have a "we must spend our allowance or we won't get one next year" mentality. Find a good use case for your tech, hire a couple of people who are good at making gov't relationships and who know how to do the paperwork right, and you're in business.

The flip side of this is that government contracting rules are really, really strict. And the impact of being barred or even partially restricted from government contracting work would be really, really bad for Palantir.

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