Google reports soaring attrition among Black women • Hacker News Board

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#171

Post by colinmhayes » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

eplanit wrote: post #119

eric4smith wrote: post #97

Unpopular opinion… Could it be that women (in general) want something more in life than working in a big company for a nice wage? Study after study after study show that women want families and other things other than the standard mega corporation employment that society has trained us to expect. I’d bet if one looked at the numbers one would see that women as a whole are leaving google and other companies just as mu…

Google infamously fired a male engineer for speculating on such things. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google's_Ideological_Echo_Ch...

He was fired because many employees refused to work with him. How can you employ someone who can't communicate with his coworkers?

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#172

Post by dekhn » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

blacktriangle wrote: post #114

rocqua wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Summarizing what you said (without agreeing) to see if I understood your point correctly. Marxism is the idea of needing class struggle for progress. Cultural Marxism is transposing that from class to culture / ethnicity. Essentially moving the dialectic from worker / captialist to privileged race / non-priviliged race? And the idea is that this is done, not to engender gradual change, but to engender revolutionary c…

Yes, I'd say that summarizes my statement well, where Marx's definition of progress is moving a society towards communism. This is why any time you see somebody talk about "the right side of history" that's a flag that said person is a Marxist, they view their desired communist end-state as inevitable.

The right side of history was the US immediately after WWII.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#173

Post by slumdev » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 2:37 PM UTC

daniellarusso wrote: post #59

praptak wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The data in this section allows people of two or more races to more accurately state their racial background. For example, Black+ includes all Googlers who identify as Black, plus those who identify as Black and any other race." https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/diversity.google/...

This is almost as thoughtful as Slack enumerating all user skin tones via 5 integer values.

I thought making everyone cartoon yellow was more empowering.

Especially on the Internet, with pseudonymity, we're all nothing more than the ideas we present.

An egalitarian dream was twisted into a woke nightmare for bad actors to earn free PR by pitting people against each other.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#174

Post by eplanit » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 2:39 PM UTC

kache_ wrote: post #170

eplanit wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google infamously fired a male engineer for speculating on such things. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google's_Ideological_Echo_Ch...

The message is clear then, avoid all conversations about this very topic at your work place and let the chips fall where they may.

I completely agree. But there was hypocrisy: Google allowed (maybe still does) conversation on that topic -- but the views he had on that topic didn't agree with the narrative that was/is popular. Those chips fell quite unfairly.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#175

Post by _fat_santa » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

vmception wrote: post #154

eplanit wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google infamously fired a male engineer for speculating on such things. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google's_Ideological_Echo_Ch...

I have found it extremely strange, mostly of "anti-right" crowds, to never see an educational moment in anything. Its just "if you weren't exposed to our views by this point in your life and don't accept them uncritically then you are ostracized" is that useful?

That's because if you actually start digging at some of these moments, you will quickly find that their arguments fall apart. The only way to prevent this is with the assumption "oh well if you don't already understand then you never will"

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#176

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

vmception wrote: post #153

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.

It would be super easy for me to not say anything for two years for a million dollars.

[deleted]

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#177

Post by finnthehuman » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #144

Dracophoenix wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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.

Aren't discriminatory programs insulting to the intelligence the youth? And communicates to them that cultural stereotypes aren't just stereotypes, they're truths that need intervention programs to fix? Isn't it a put-down to tell the targeted group that they need the extra help the program is meant to deliver? Isn't it a disrespect to someone who wants the thing a program aims to deliver, but isn't part of the target population?

These are fringe concerns?

Fuck me then I guess.

Just wondering though: Are we assuming that the youth are too stupid to notice what we're doing? Or are we assuming they already know the score well enough to bite their tongues when we deliberately foist more of their parents culture war into their faces?

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#178

Post by SlowBall » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

grapehut wrote: post #106

I've conducted technical interviews for a FAANG company for several years, and been explicitly told to go easy on and inflate the scores of minorities. On one hand it makes sense as we're trying to hire minority groups on a greater ratio than they're coming out of college. On the other hand, it doesn't surprise me they retention rates a lot lower when often they're thrown into positions they would otherwise not be re…

Isn't that technically illegal according to federal law? I.e. aren't you effectively discriminating against other people based on their sex and/or race (by making their interviews more difficult explicitly because of that reason)?

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#179

Post by zanethomas » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

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…

>This is dangerous territory to comment on perhaps

It's a dangerous time when it's considered dangerous to express an opinion.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#180

Post by ectopod » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 2:43 PM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #102

rocqua wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A problem I have heard female friends speculate about is with promoting women in higher positions. If the female population is too low, and you try to get them into higher positions, two effects occur according to this theory. First of all, with a low female population there probably aren't enough proven and qualified women to fill the desired number of slots. This leads to imposter syndrome / worry about people thin…

You assume that all applicants are of equal attainment, ability, and motivation. However, women have to fight an in-built discrimination. While men are more forced into work because our gender role expects it of us. Thus, women who are candidates for promotion are likely to be more motivated and more ambitious than their male counterparts - they've had to fight harder against more obstacles to get to that point. I se…

In the UK there is an often-repeated statistic: the 20% of girls who take A-level physics outperform the 40% of boys who take it.

And of course they do! It's like saying a team comprised of footballers from the top division will beat a team comprised of footballers from the top two divisions.

The few women who go into tech or board rooms or whatever will typically be the women who are good at it, and they will typically outperform the larger cohort of (necessarily) more average men.

You don't need tales of struggle or diversity to explain this. Minority groups will tend to perform better.