Big Tech Layoffs Are Hitting Diversity and Inclusion Jobs Hard • Hacker News Board

Re: Big Tech Layoffs Are Hitting Diversity and Inclusion Jobs Hard

#121

Post by gamblor956 » Wed, Jan 25, 2023, 7:21 PM UTC

tristor wrote: post #61

testfoobar wrote: post #41

DEI departments and projects have a fervor to them that is near religious: the core tenets are faith based and impossible to challenge scientifically. Challenge any DEI tenet and your are immediately met with threats of excommunication. Get in line or you're out. The thing is DEI efforts oftentimes mask comical understanding of history and blindingly gross racism. Personal anecdote: How do you deal with people who pr…

> Challenge any DEI tenet and your are immediately met with threats of excommunication. Get in line or you're out. The one that continually upsets me (as someone who grew up in a predominantly Hispanic community, is married to a Hispanic person, has Hispanic children, and speaks Spanish as a fluent second language and in the home) is the use of the term "LatinX" which has spread through the DEI community and now gene…

I don't know any Latinos who actually use the term "Latinx." Spanish is an inherently gendered language; using the term "Latinx" is perceived by most as an attack on their culture.

If LGBTQ+ people want to use the term Latinx to refer to themselves, that's fine. But they don't get to make that decision for the 98% who are fine with "Latino" or "Latina."

Re: Big Tech Layoffs Are Hitting Diversity and Inclusion Jobs Hard

#122

Post by tristor » Wed, Jan 25, 2023, 7:30 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #121

tristor wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Challenge any DEI tenet and your are immediately met with threats of excommunication. Get in line or you're out. The one that continually upsets me (as someone who grew up in a predominantly Hispanic community, is married to a Hispanic person, has Hispanic children, and speaks Spanish as a fluent second language and in the home) is the use of the term "LatinX" which has spread through the DEI community and now gene…

I don't know any Latinos who actually use the term "Latinx." Spanish is an inherently gendered language; using the term "Latinx" is perceived by most as an attack on their culture. If LGBTQ+ people want to use the term Latinx to refer to themselves, that's fine. But they don't get to make that decision for the 98% who are fine with "Latino" or "Latina."

The objection I've heard from friends and family is less about any desire to protect the gendered expression of words in Spanish, and more about the fact that LatinX is explicitly and obtusely violating language rules and is effectively unpronounceable. It uses English-specific visual and pronunciation expectations and applies them to another language.

There is already an established way to make this term non-gendered, either drop the gender suffix entirely Latin, or make it explicit by using Latine. Both are which are existing words in Spanish with an established meaning. Rather than use this, activists in the US decided to demand 640 million people change their language to appease those who don't even understand their language.

Re: Big Tech Layoffs Are Hitting Diversity and Inclusion Jobs Hard

#123

Post by testfoobar » Wed, Jan 25, 2023, 7:41 PM UTC

taylodl wrote: post #109

tristor wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Challenge any DEI tenet and your are immediately met with threats of excommunication. Get in line or you're out. The one that continually upsets me (as someone who grew up in a predominantly Hispanic community, is married to a Hispanic person, has Hispanic children, and speaks Spanish as a fluent second language and in the home) is the use of the term "LatinX" which has spread through the DEI community and now gene…

It's sad how many Americans don't realize how many white people live in Latin America - they've lived all their lives in Latin America and their families have been in Latin America for centuries. We definitely have a stereotype for those living in Latin America. That and not everybody in Latin America speaks Spanish, either. But hey, I'm a white guy! What do I know about other people and cultures?!

I have an Argentinian friend. Brilliant guy with a lovely family. He has a senior level big tech job. Vacations around the world with his family. Drives fancy cars. Currently building a beautiful new home.

He is also fair skinned, blonde and blue eyed - as is his family. He objectively looks "white". Why does it matter? Because in the current DEI world, he and his children can mark "Hispanic" or "Latino" on all forms (I may be wrong here on whether it is both).

His children will therefore benefit from many advantages granted by DEI benefactors. Lost in this crazy DEI calculus is that this is a wealthy family.

Re: Big Tech Layoffs Are Hitting Diversity and Inclusion Jobs Hard

#124

Post by alephnerd » Wed, Jan 25, 2023, 7:43 PM UTC

alphabettsy wrote: post #116

alephnerd wrote: post #85

While there are 100% are issues and abuses of power due to how DEI is managed in the private sector, I find it annoying how these threads in HN always throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are successful diversity hiring programs and proactive management, but you don't hear about those as much because outrage sells. Hell, people from my background were underrepresented when I was working on the Hill and I wish…

I’ve found it’s impossible to have a fair and constructive conversation about diversity on HN.

Sadly it seems to be the case. I'm at -4 karma at this point for my comment above. This forum has literally become a Gen X version Reddit.

Hell, I'm not even denying that hiring abuses under the guise of DEI occur, but to downvote a call for constructive discussion is just ridiculous

Re: Big Tech Layoffs Are Hitting Diversity and Inclusion Jobs Hard

#125

Post by jemmyw » Wed, Jan 25, 2023, 7:51 PM UTC

kypro wrote: post #112

kypro wrote: post #20

I predicted this would likely happen at the start of the year. I don't think it was an accident that tech become one of the main industries pushing D&I over the last several years. Whatever your opinion is on D&I it's arguably not something a company would put significant investment or time into unless they had spare margin and cashflows. This isn't a political comment, just an observation as someone who works for a…

After writing this I figured I'd check our Yammer just to see what's happen today... The top post is someone who's upset because they believe an employee has intentionally moved all the books about feminism and race in the office library to the top shelf where they are out of sight. They also suspect the same person has likely moved a Piers Morgan book down to eye level. After some angry words they finish their post…

If they wanted to play the game they'd move Piers and all the other books they don't like to the lowest shelf so you have to bend down to find them.

Re: Big Tech Layoffs Are Hitting Diversity and Inclusion Jobs Hard

#126

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 25, 2023, 8:00 PM UTC

zenzen wrote: post #14

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unclear what D&I consultants can do in order to conjure more non-Asian computer science students out of thin air to fill that pipeline.

It’s not a pipeline problem https://www.fastcompany.com/90596325/its-time-to-debunk-the-...

[deleted]

Re: Big Tech Layoffs Are Hitting Diversity and Inclusion Jobs Hard

#127

Post by tzs » Wed, Jan 25, 2023, 8:05 PM UTC

poszlem wrote: post #53

turtlesdown11 wrote: post #27

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our... > Gender diversity is correlated with both profitability and value creation. In our 2017 data set, we found a positive correlation between gender diversity on executive teams and both our measures of financial performance: top-quartile companies on executive-level gender diversity worldwide had a 21 percent likelihood of outperforming their fourth-quarti…

Do you believe those statistics enough to get rid of the laws that prevent discrimination? If the stats are true, then surely companies, who are known to value monetary gains above all else, would take care of the problem of lack of diversity based solely on their market performance.

> If the stats are true, then surely companies, who are known to value monetary gains above all else

1. Companies are not known to value monetary gains above all else.

2. Even those that do often concentrate and very short term gains over things that would make them more money in the long run.

Re: Big Tech Layoffs Are Hitting Diversity and Inclusion Jobs Hard

#128

Post by tristor » Wed, Jan 25, 2023, 8:10 PM UTC

turtlesdown11 wrote: post #86

throwaway23597 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean honestly, you can't possibly think that just adding people of other gender / skin colors just magically improves profitability. There's clearly some lurking variables here that McKinsey purposefully ignored in order to draw this specific conclusion.

I believe viewpoint diversity adds value to product ideation, design, execution, etc.

It does not necessarily follow that diversity of immutable characteristics creates viewpoint diversity. Ironically, most companies seem to actively stamp out viewpoint diversity as part of their corporate culture (both as part of and distinct from any DEI initiatives they may have).

Re: Big Tech Layoffs Are Hitting Diversity and Inclusion Jobs Hard

#129

Post by AlbertCory » Wed, Jan 25, 2023, 8:10 PM UTC

turtlesdown11 wrote: post #81

AlbertCory wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the original research, using 2014 diversity data, we found that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on their executive teams were 15 percent more likely to experience above-average profitability than companies in the fourth quartile. In our expanded 2017 data set this number rose to 21 percent and continued to be statistically significant. For ethnic and cultural diversity, the 2014 finding was a…

> If you actually want to show something, do a longitudinal study: first of all, pick cohorts that match up in most other respects, then compare their relative performance within the cohort after increasing their DEI numbers. Or not doing so. I agree these study parameters would yield much better data. The construction of such a study would probably prove challenging.

It would, indeed, be difficult to do this. But just finding correlations doesn't convince anyone not already predisposed to believe the conclusions.

Re: Big Tech Layoffs Are Hitting Diversity and Inclusion Jobs Hard

#130

Post by filoleg » Wed, Jan 25, 2023, 8:29 PM UTC

testfoobar wrote: post #123

taylodl wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad how many Americans don't realize how many white people live in Latin America - they've lived all their lives in Latin America and their families have been in Latin America for centuries. We definitely have a stereotype for those living in Latin America. That and not everybody in Latin America speaks Spanish, either. But hey, I'm a white guy! What do I know about other people and cultures?!

I have an Argentinian friend. Brilliant guy with a lovely family. He has a senior level big tech job. Vacations around the world with his family. Drives fancy cars. Currently building a beautiful new home. He is also fair skinned, blonde and blue eyed - as is his family. He objectively looks "white". Why does it matter? Because in the current DEI world, he and his children can mark "Hispanic" or "Latino" on all forms…

Everyone who doesn't align with the "stereotypes" assigned to each group by the DEI bible gets affected disproportionally in really weird ways.

Your friend is one of those cases. I am not blaming him or his kids for utilizing the current situation to their advantage, and I don't feel particularly bad about someone getting a lucky hand and playing it well either. Good for him and his kids.

But on the flipside, imagine being an asian-american kid coming from a poor family. Not only you get disadvantaged by the financial situation in your household, you then get screwed over by the DEI initiatives on top of that. Too bad, kid, shoulda aligned with the "stereotypes" assigned to your group by DEI better and had well-earning and educated parents. And given how DEI policy supporters often use the "it is for the greater good as a society" argument, it feels doubly dirty and insulting to those individuals.

Even the factual outcomes and effects of such policies aside, officially assigning those "economic stereotypes" to various ethnic groups and treating individual people in those groups based on those "stereotypes" (derived from the aggregate data for that group) just feels icky.