Black and Latino representation in Silicon Valley has declined, study shows • Hacker News Board

Re: Black and Latino representation in Silicon Valley has declined, study shows

#21

Post by outand_up » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 7:11 PM UTC

_m8fo wrote: post #14

outand_up wrote: post #12

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." We're tired of obsessing about race. We're tired of having accusations of racism, sexism, whatever-the-next-trendy-ism crammed down our throats at every opportunity. The reality is, urban black (and to a similar extent latino) CULTURE does not valu…

There's plenty of evidence that people care about skin color, irregardless of race. Are you serious? Talking about Asians is a red herring. Asians actually suffer similarly to blacks once you look at Asians other than eastern ones (e.g. Japanese, Korean). The idea that Asians are a model minority is simply propaganda used to victim blame Hispanics and Blacks as well as create a division between them. This also happen…

I think you're a racist.

Am I changing hearts and minds yet?

Re: Black and Latino representation in Silicon Valley has declined, study shows

#22

Post by tlb » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 7:15 PM UTC

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #11

Sometimes I wonder if the tech industry should adopt the orchestral model of auditions: prevent the interviewers from seeing the candidate, knowing their name, or hearing their voice. Judge them entirely on their code and text responses. Sure something like this would probably result in complaints about "hiring for culture fit," but isn't someone who provides the correct answers and code a culture fit in the first pl…

There exist people who are good at providing correct answers and code, but are incredibly toxic to a human organization. They're fairly rare, and if you work in a healthy well-run company, you may never have met one. But if you interview a lot, you surely have (they get a lot of interviews, because they look good on paper.) The risk is that you'd end up with a lot of these types.

I'm not saying a pure audition model can't work, just that you should know what the pitfalls are.

Re: Black and Latino representation in Silicon Valley has declined, study shows

#23

Post by ashark » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 7:15 PM UTC

_m8fo wrote: post #13

dominotw wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> inorities friends to remove their pictures from LinkedIn and use American sounding names. i assume minorities here doesn't include Indians.

When I say minority I mean anyone who doesn't have a European or American sounding name. Even white people with "strange names" benefit.

This is one reason why I advocate giving your kids (if in America, at least) really boring names. Just scratch anything remotely strange off the list, and forget about it.

If you can't imagine a Kennedy or a character on 1950s US TV having the name, don't use it. Having a "special" name is unlikely to bring any benefit, and may well have significant social costs (plus having always to repeat yourself and spell your name, correcting misspellings on forms, et c.)

With my three young kids I already regret the very, very slightly unusual name we used for the first one (ordinary spelling for the name, name has a long history but it's almost homophonic with a 20x more common name, which we should have just used instead). Just don't do it.

Re: Black and Latino representation in Silicon Valley has declined, study shows

#24

Post by outand_up » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 7:16 PM UTC

marindez wrote: post #18

tlb wrote: post #7

Every underrepresented group represents an opportunity to start a company, hire some great people from that group, and succeed together. A single company, perhaps one you start this year, can make a huge impact. YC funding applications are due today. https://www.ycombinator.com/apply

What this means is that someone should start a company and become completely racist about who they hire.

Thank you! What are these people smoking?

Fight (assumed) racism! With (actual) racism!

Re: Black and Latino representation in Silicon Valley has declined, study shows

#25

Post by Jach » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 7:16 PM UTC

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #11

Sometimes I wonder if the tech industry should adopt the orchestral model of auditions: prevent the interviewers from seeing the candidate, knowing their name, or hearing their voice. Judge them entirely on their code and text responses. Sure something like this would probably result in complaints about "hiring for culture fit," but isn't someone who provides the correct answers and code a culture fit in the first pl…

> isn't someone who provides the correct answers and code a culture fit in the first place?

No, they're merely a technical fit, maybe, depending on what you ask. (Your blinding process would also mean preventing interviewers from seeing any open source contributions which may be far more indicative of technical fit than anything you'd ask in an interview.) Technical fit might be enough for most roles, more blinding at least at the initial filtering stages might be a good idea, but culture fit is important for a lot of firms. At the very least people will want person-to-person interviews to maximize their odds at detecting a permanent asshole (and other toxic types), since typically no one wants to work with one even if they're skilled.

Re: Black and Latino representation in Silicon Valley has declined, study shows

#26

Post by emodendroket » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 7:16 PM UTC

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #11

Sometimes I wonder if the tech industry should adopt the orchestral model of auditions: prevent the interviewers from seeing the candidate, knowing their name, or hearing their voice. Judge them entirely on their code and text responses. Sure something like this would probably result in complaints about "hiring for culture fit," but isn't someone who provides the correct answers and code a culture fit in the first pl…

It seems like a good idea, but how do you make sure you don't hire someone with a complete lack of social skills?

Re: Black and Latino representation in Silicon Valley has declined, study shows

#27

Post by outand_up » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 7:21 PM UTC

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

We're tired of obsessing about race.

We're tired of having accusations of racism, sexism, whatever-the-next-trendy-ism crammed down our throats at every opportunity.

The reality is, urban black (and to a similar extent latino) CULTURE does not value education. Until that changes, do not expect to see highly educated and skilled blacks and latinos bounding through the hiring process. Just ask the asians about minority discrimination - they outperform everyone and are openly penalized for it.

CONTENT OF CHARACTER. NO ONE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT SKIN COLOR.

Go ahead and delete this comment, it's not going to change reality.

Re: Black and Latino representation in Silicon Valley has declined, study shows

#28

Post by shadowbanned2 » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 7:23 PM UTC

Any opinions, thoughts and ideas that are expressed on ycombinator that are not left-wing and don't tow the liberal line are being deleted.

It's not that there aren't people who disagree with these bullshit articles, it's that ycombinator mods are literally deleting and banning users who express opinions that aren't "correct".

Re: Black and Latino representation in Silicon Valley has declined, study shows

#29

Post by noxToken » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 7:23 PM UTC

tlb wrote: post #7

Every underrepresented group represents an opportunity to start a company, hire some great people from that group, and succeed together. A single company, perhaps one you start this year, can make a huge impact. YC funding applications are due today. https://www.ycombinator.com/apply

That's such a big, intimidating risk. I don't mean that to be snarky; starting a business for means of primary income is prohibitively scary to me.

I have a few ideas that I could probably implement to make some passive income. It wouldn't be crazy initially, but it also wouldn't be an amount to scoff at. I think they all have the potential to grow or be bought. The thought of taking that giant risk and failing...

Aside from the ramifications of selectively hiring from my minority group, starting a business makes me shudder.

Re: Black and Latino representation in Silicon Valley has declined, study shows

#30

Post by Consultant32452 » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 7:23 PM UTC

minikites wrote: post #9

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #4

Time for today's most incendiary post. (; I think feelings on this are going to depend on whether you consider a silicon valley job as more "outcome" or "opportunity." I'd say making sure that black/latino people can obtain these jobs is just as important as making sure they have equal opportunity to attend a good college or good highschool. That puts me in a bit of a predicament though because I come to the conclusi…

>pass up more qualified whites/asians That's a pretty common line of attack against this sort of thing but I don't think it holds water. There are plenty of "unqualified" white people who get jobs just by knowing the right person. In many industries (less so in tech because there's a shortage overall) there are plenty of qualified applicants of all races, it just takes some work on a few levels (overcoming your own b…

I don't believe that there are plenty of qualified applicants of all races. I've been in a position to review resumes and perform interviews for over a decade and I don't recall having ever seen a black developer candidate, much less a "qualified" one. The closest I've gotten is I worked alongside a black sysadmin once. My city is nearly 30% black. My city is also about 25% Hispanic. I've worked with a hand full or so of Hispanic devs, I'd guess somewhere in the range of 3-5% of my coworkers have been Hispanic.