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Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

reuters.com

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Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#141

Post by matthewaveryusa »

mastazi wrote: post #17

I'm Italian and I speak Spanish and Portuguese relatively fluently. Using the term "Latinx" in my opinion is a form of cultural appropriation, because it imposes a way of using grammatical gender that is typical of the English language (think e.g. about the "singular they") upon neo-latin languages where the perception of grammatical gender is very different. In neo-latin languages such as Italian or Spanish, grammat…

Ha, I always thought the ‘x’ was for eXtended, like the + in LBGTQ+. Anyways, yes all of my South American friends think it’s bullshit corporate speak.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#142

Post by danielrpa »

cudgy wrote: post #134
danielrpa wrote: post #55

I happen to be very familiar with Google's diversity efforts and have many Black and Latinx friends and acquaintances in the company. Google is one of the most racially inclusive tech companies in the world. It really tries hard to fix historical disparities between races in ways that you don't see in most companies, ranging from very active promotion of minorities to programs dedicated to hiring them. The interview…

How do you know Google is working harder than most other companies? Perhaps taking such an active approach is not the right strategy. Would be interesting to hear your insight.

I happen to be fairly engaged in the "diversity" space and I've worked in a few large tech companies myself. Google is not the only company trying hard. But Google is extremely data and metrics centric, and I think this aspect of their culture is one thing making a positive difference here. Also, there are more Google employees working on this problem than the entire staff of some medium sized companies.

What I'm trying to say is that this is a hard problem and perhaps this attrition, paradoxically, is an unexpected consequence of trying to to tackle the problem head on - rather than lack of effort and investment in trying to solve it.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#143

Post by Dracophoenix »

sokoloff wrote: post #93
hdhjebebeb wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this the free market at work? How would all the companies collude to collectively bring in more marginalized people? It's like saying "I want higher wages but I don't think one company raising wages will achieve that". The companies are competing because that's the system they exist in - some of that competition will be zero-sum, but according to arch capitalists some of it will be a net positive

> How would all the companies collude to collectively bring in more marginalized people? Supporting pipeline programs (middle and high school education, summer programs, internship programs, bootcamps and other career-change programs, etc.) seems to be the obvious paths for companies to exert lasting positive influence on the industry and world. Sure, there's some fringe backlash when some company supports a program…

>>Sure, there's some fringe backlash when some company supports a program that is targeted at underrepresented groups, but I think that's the way to create lasting change.

It's not "fringe backlash". It's a recognition that success in the job market isn't determined by skill despite what's claimed but by quota. The companies partaking in these diversity and inclusion ventures however don't want to admit the full depths of their assessment regarding the "underrepresented" but still try to keep the PR benefits that come with it.

>>Unfortunately, it doesn't move the needle on hiring OKRs this quarter or next. Poaching from someone else is the fastest way to move a key result metric. "Show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcome."

Yes. Because any sensible business would take the least risk needed to produce highest payoff. Showing proof of success at a major competitor is a great indicator of that and that also works wonders for employees in the form of massive pay raises.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#144

Post by sokoloff »

Dracophoenix wrote: post #143
sokoloff wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would all the companies collude to collectively bring in more marginalized people? Supporting pipeline programs (middle and high school education, summer programs, internship programs, bootcamps and other career-change programs, etc.) seems to be the obvious paths for companies to exert lasting positive influence on the industry and world. Sure, there's some fringe backlash when some company supports a program…

>>Sure, there's some fringe backlash when some company supports a program that is targeted at underrepresented groups, but I think that's the way to create lasting change. It's not "fringe backlash". It's a recognition that success in the job market isn't determined by skill despite what's claimed but by quota. The companies partaking in these diversity and inclusion ventures however don't want to admit the full dept…

By fringe backlash, I meant to reference programs like "Girls who code", "Black Girls Code", internship programs for under-represented groups, and the like.

I'm 100% supportive of these programs, while being opposed to quota-based hiring models.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#145

Post by joshsyn »

curiousgal wrote: post #80
CydeWeys wrote: post #25

The elephant in the room is the ouster of Timnit Gebru. Regardless of who you think was in the wrong there, a lot of people who left did so because they thought Google was in the wrong, and left in solidarity or maybe even because they thought they might be next for being similarly outspoken.

I think it's super hypocritical to be well paid a company while also trash talking them on Twitter. I wouldn't call that being outspoken.

exactly lol. They want google to be government controlled now, wtf

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#146

Post by marcus_holmes »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #138
marcus_holmes wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm learning German at the moment. Everything is gendered. Such a strange way of looking at the world. And the unfortunate "das Mädchen" [0] - the German word for "young woman" is neutral gender (because it's a compound noun and the "-chen" suffix is neutral). I wonder how that affects German society when all young women are objects. Does this de-emphasise their femininity, or increase their "sexual object"-ness? [0]…

Things that are “different” are not “strange.”

they are to me. Is there a problem with being "strange" to someone from a different culture?

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#147

Post by marcus_holmes »

tomp wrote: post #110
marcus_holmes wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm learning German at the moment. Everything is gendered. Such a strange way of looking at the world. And the unfortunate "das Mädchen" [0] - the German word for "young woman" is neutral gender (because it's a compound noun and the "-chen" suffix is neutral). I wonder how that affects German society when all young women are objects. Does this de-emphasise their femininity, or increase their "sexual object"-ness? [0]…

Theres also “das kind” (the child). And I’m sure other examples. You simply don’t understand how other languages work, and you’re projecting your own ideas onto them. And German is a whole different class than Latin and Slavic languages - AFAIK there’s now way to “tell” the gender of a word in German. In contrast, in Spanish, Italian (not sure about French) and Slovenian words actually “sound” either feminine or masc…

Yes. I am projecting my own ideas on them. That's how brains work. Also the wonderful nature of travel is being exposed to other cultures and their strange ideas about the planet. This isn't negative.

Yeah, I gather that Germans intuit the gender of a new word - it just "feels" masculine or feminine (or neutral). Fascinating.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#148

Post by ceilingcorner »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #146
ceilingcorner wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things that are “different” are not “strange.”

they are to me. Is there a problem with being "strange" to someone from a different culture?

The word strange implies otherness and inferiority.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#149

Post by cudgy »

danielrpa wrote: post #142
cudgy wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know Google is working harder than most other companies? Perhaps taking such an active approach is not the right strategy. Would be interesting to hear your insight.

I happen to be fairly engaged in the "diversity" space and I've worked in a few large tech companies myself. Google is not the only company trying hard. But Google is extremely data and metrics centric, and I think this aspect of their culture is one thing making a positive difference here. Also, there are more Google employees working on this problem than the entire staff of some medium sized companies. What I'm try…

I think you may be hitting the nail on the head.

Spending so many resources creates an image or a sense of urgency. This sense of urgency creates pressure within the organization, which also would pressure even more so the employees that Google is trying to help. No quantity of metrics and calculations are going to reach this type of observation. Google is probably one of the least qualified companies to tackle this being that it is driven by a scientific mathematical calculus and is one of the most corrupting organizations in the world mainly due to their major privacy violations and manipulation as it relates to their search products. Other companies particularly those that deal with artistic areas are more likely to come up with useful solutions to this problem.

Google may be better served sending money to another organization to study and research how to achieve the goals of counteracting the under representation.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#150

Post by vmception »

tomp wrote: post #121
sokoloff wrote: post #32

> some people from underrepresented backgrounds have said they continue to feel unwelcome in the tech industry, and they also remain high in demand elsewhere as companies compete to increase diversity. This is dangerous territory to comment on perhaps, but it seems like many policies which seek to boost individual company population ratios to be significantly higher than the comparable tech-industry ratios are prone…

> We do have a diversity problem in tech, no doubt. We should be a bit more exact. We do not have a under representation problem in tech, but a mis representation problem. There’s a lot of minorities that are well-, even over-represented - e.g. Asians, Russian immigrants, autists, people without formal education, … I’m guessing it’s one of the most welcoming and meritocratic industries! But those aren’t the “right” m…

> autists

exhibit a?

underrepresentation is clearly a context, and the context is clear, you missed it and chose to assume everyone else is wrong

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