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Tech's DEI backlash is here

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Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here

#151

Post by narutosasuke »

nec4b wrote: post #135
narutosasuke wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not clear to me that it is either good or bad for business. Why is this stated as a matter of fact. And please spare me links to studies funded by special interest groups. Not the poster and going to try to read the last sentence with positive intent. You can find the benefits in most industries where you are providing a product to be used by the general public. The design of products come from the vantage of…

It is funny that all the biggest and most successful companies in the USA became such, before there was something like DEI. Or if you look at foreign successful companies which are basically monoliths in regards to DEI.

Success isn't binary, I'd argue many could have been more successful.

NASA was doing some good work for years before Katherine Johnson came along. Heck, I'm sure people at the time would say that NASA would accept anyone that was hardworking and intelligent. Would NASA have collapsed without her? Likely not, but it was made better because of her involvement. You don't know what you miss out on by not accepting people.

Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here

#152

Post by Manuel_D »

gmm1990 wrote: post #137
nec4b wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If a young woman was interested in STEM and saw your comment it would be a reason for them not to go into STEM. That is bad. It pushes someone away from what they might be interested in.

So a woman is going to see a comment along the lines of "just let people study whatever they're interested in, don't try to socially engineer arbitrary outcomes" and that's going to dissuade them from going into STEM? I don't really see the cause and effect here.

Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here

#153

Post by Manuel_D »

aydyn wrote: post #129
dhriekeb wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

No, there’s absolutely no proof that racial diversity directly benefits a company. I searched HARD for the evidence. Lots of articles claim it is true but purposely mistake correlation for causation.

People often cite the 2019 McMinsey report as evidence that racial diversity improves company performance. However, when you dig into the details Asian representation is positively correlated with company performance, but Black and Latin representation is negatively correlated. The Asian positive correlation was so strong that on the whole, lower White representation was positively correlated with company performance. That's the supposed benefit of diversity, but media outlets rarely report on the negative correlation of non Asian minorities.

To be clear, I don't at all endorse the idea that Black and Latin representation negatively affects company performance. This is a textbook lesson of "correlation does not imply causation". These disparities are reflective of differences in education outcomes and employment between these groups, not that hiring an otherwise identical Asian is better than an equally qualified Black or Latin candidate.

Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here

#154

Post by [deleted] »

narutosasuke wrote: post #118
annexrichmond wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Diversity is good for business. It's not clear to me that it is either good or bad for business. Why is this stated as a matter of fact. And please spare me links to studies funded by special interest groups. > You want people from different backgrounds and different ways of thinking. Define "different backgrounds". Why is only reduced to the color of someone's skin or sex? Why not people who grow up as Atheist, Ch…

> It's not clear to me that it is either good or bad for business. Why is this stated as a matter of fact. And please spare me links to studies funded by special interest groups. Not the poster and going to try to read the last sentence with positive intent. You can find the benefits in most industries where you are providing a product to be used by the general public. The design of products come from the vantage of…

[deleted]

Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here

#155

Post by KaiserPro »

xvector wrote: post #63
KaiserPro wrote: post #29

I don't quite understand the anger that DEI gets, unless people assume that people are only hired because they belong to a certain group. I'm not US based, so I only see that "safe for UK" view of what $Company blast over to us. Musk and Thiel see the world in very specific ways. Because they are who they are, and the people that surround them, they will not change their view unless something drastic happens. They si…

> Done properly, most people wont notice. I guess that's the problem. When it's not done properly, you can't criticize it, because you'll get fired. And when it's not done properly, it's catastrophic (ie lowering hiring bars, hiring no-hire candidates, etc.)

> it's catastrophic (ie lowering hiring bars, hiring no-hire candidates, etc.)

I mean yeah, but everyone hired after me is a low bar hire. Thems the rules.

Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here

#156

Post by xvector »

archagon wrote: post #115
Tommstein wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one wants to post some James Damore screed decrying the longhouse . . . . Did you read what he actually wrote, instead of just the whines of Googlers and the journalists who amplified them? I ignored the whole thing for a long time, but when I finally read it word for word out of curiosity well after the shitstorm, I thought it was one of the most reasonable and blatantly obvious things I had ever read.

Clearly, it made a number of women at the company very uncomfortable. So maybe you’re missing something.

It's ridiculous to fire someone because they make other people "uncomfortable."

Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here

#157

Post by archagon »

xvector wrote: post #156
archagon wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly, it made a number of women at the company very uncomfortable. So maybe you’re missing something.

It's ridiculous to fire someone because they make other people "uncomfortable."

It’s ridiculous to publish a manifesto at work that alienates 15%+ of your coworkers.

Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here

#158

Post by xvector »

unwise-exe wrote: post #114
jnaina wrote: post #109

I support merit based DEI. What worries me is that for "diversity" candidates, the hiring bar is usually set low (at least in my company). And nobody is brave enough to talk about the consequences of these decisions. Have lost lucrative projects due to poor delivery, team mates having to do additional work to cover for the lapses, overall team performance pulled down leading to variable compensation impact, etc. One…

> merit based DEI what even does this mean

It means you prioritize hiring diverse candidates over regular candidates, but without lowering your hiring bar.

Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here

#159

Post by acdha »

Tommstein wrote: post #100
sdsd wrote: post #11

Oof. I bet people are reticent to post any comments here. That's good - it's hard to post about this topic in a way that doesn't detract from the overall tone and quality of HN. No one wants to post some James Damore screed decrying the longhouse, nor some 2010s style social justice screed. No matter which side you argue, you'll get a 1,000 very uninteresting comments from uncurious ideologues doing their duty to def…

> No one wants to post some James Damore screed decrying the longhouse . . . . Did you read what he actually wrote, instead of just the whines of Googlers and the journalists who amplified them? I ignored the whole thing for a long time, but when I finally read it word for word out of curiosity well after the shitstorm, I thought it was one of the most reasonable and blatantly obvious things I had ever read.

I did, but being familiar with the space helped identify all of the areas where the reasonable sounding prose was hiding shoddy reasoning in service of old tropes.

Here’s a long but useful read if you haven’t looked at the studies commonly cited before:

https://medium.com/@tweetingmouse/the-truth-has-got-its-boot...

Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here

#160

Post by xvector »

archagon wrote: post #157
xvector wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's ridiculous to fire someone because they make other people "uncomfortable."

It’s ridiculous to publish a manifesto at work that alienates 15%+ of your coworkers.

Coworkers can get alienated by anything. If someone that looks disfigured makes their colleagues uncomfortable, should they be fired? What about someone that holds a religion that makes their colleagues uncomfortable? Should they be fired?

Firing people because they make you uncomfortable is ridiculous. It's possible to be a grown-up adult and move on with your life if something makes you uncomfortable.

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