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Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts

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Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts

#21

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

alt227 wrote: post #16
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The OP was questioning why these companies are doing what this man is asking them to. I feel the reason is because this man is the president. The fact is relevant to the statement, which is why I wrote it.

The OP was actually not questioning that at all. It was lamenting that they are bending the knee to someone unworthy of it, in furtherance of a culture war spearheaded by said someone. In particular, a glorified reality show egomaniac who treats their current job as a glorified reality show.

It certainly isn't useless information that the person is currently president, but that alone doesn't say much, because no presidents have ever acted this way before. The difference here is that this president is also a power-tripping glorified reality show egomaniac. Thus, the operant term is the latter, not the former.

Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts

#22

Post by alt227 »

whynotminot wrote: post #12

While there’s a lot of this era that’s deeply unfortunate, this kind of question on my yearly review would be incredibly vexing to me: > What impact did your actions have in contributing to a more diverse and inclusive Microsoft? What does this even mean? How do I show I did this? If I don’t interpret the meaning of this question correctly, do I fail the test and end up some HR watchlist? If I don’t succeed at whatev…

I feel like the general answer is going to be 'None', and that Microsft is not really going to care about that very much.

Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts

#23

Post by shadowgovt »

shortrounddev2 wrote: post #14
RankingMember wrote: post #5

I'm continually blown away that the modern titans of industry readily bow down to a glorified reality show egomaniac. Allying to price-fix is one thing, but surely they can ally to resist culture war nonsense from making its way into their employee handbooks?

Nobody in the tech industry cares about DEI (most people I've met are downright hostile to the idea). All those companies in 2020 who hired DEI consultants and made big announcements about DEI and changed master to main were just buying cheap good will

I caution against extrapolating to the entire tech industry from an individual sample of experience.

Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts

#24

Post by cmcaleer »

RankingMember wrote: post #5

I'm continually blown away that the modern titans of industry readily bow down to a glorified reality show egomaniac. Allying to price-fix is one thing, but surely they can ally to resist culture war nonsense from making its way into their employee handbooks?

MS (or any large company for that matter) didn’t participate in BLM discussions and get speakers to describe themselves and list their pronouns because they thought it was virtuous or right, they were just following the cultural zeitgeist in a way that they thought would make them more money.

Walking it back is just the same behaviour manifesting in a different way. Investors don’t value DEI in the same way they did before so it becomes an expense with no value to shareholders, so it gets cut.

It’s very cynical but nothing about this should be particularly shocking.

Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts

#25

Post by TheTaytay »

shortrounddev2 wrote: post #14
RankingMember wrote: post #5

I'm continually blown away that the modern titans of industry readily bow down to a glorified reality show egomaniac. Allying to price-fix is one thing, but surely they can ally to resist culture war nonsense from making its way into their employee handbooks?

Nobody in the tech industry cares about DEI (most people I've met are downright hostile to the idea). All those companies in 2020 who hired DEI consultants and made big announcements about DEI and changed master to main were just buying cheap good will

You could argue that they were pandering to certain powers then and are pandering now.

Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts

#26

Post by heeton »

whynotminot wrote: post #12

While there’s a lot of this era that’s deeply unfortunate, this kind of question on my yearly review would be incredibly vexing to me: > What impact did your actions have in contributing to a more diverse and inclusive Microsoft? What does this even mean? How do I show I did this? If I don’t interpret the meaning of this question correctly, do I fail the test and end up some HR watchlist? If I don’t succeed at whatev…

If you remove a reaction to politics and/or management practice, this is quite an obvious question, no?

Hypothetically: Substitute Microsoft for a company with “zero downtime” as one of their company values.

Now imagine you were asked “What impact did your actions have in contributing to zero downtime at Hostingsoft?”

That wouldn’t be a controversial question.

Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts

#27

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

whynotminot wrote: post #12

While there’s a lot of this era that’s deeply unfortunate, this kind of question on my yearly review would be incredibly vexing to me: > What impact did your actions have in contributing to a more diverse and inclusive Microsoft? What does this even mean? How do I show I did this? If I don’t interpret the meaning of this question correctly, do I fail the test and end up some HR watchlist? If I don’t succeed at whatev…

Imagine the person asking this question to be a soviet commissar, and you get an accurate mental model to work with.

Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts

#29

Post by mc32 »

RankingMember wrote: post #5

I'm continually blown away that the modern titans of industry readily bow down to a glorified reality show egomaniac. Allying to price-fix is one thing, but surely they can ally to resist culture war nonsense from making its way into their employee handbooks?

Whatever they do, companies should not be doing quotas other than bringing in the people who will propel the mission.

Instead, they should put their effort on pipeline. From kindergarten, drive kids to want to participate in a dynamic economy instead of pursuing selling themselves short and perhaps getting involved in the underground economy, dead-end jobs, etc. Go give it a go in all areas of the nation that are under-served. That is the way to do it. If you do it any time later, like at hiring time, then you risk hiring on things other than merit.

Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts

#30

Post by shadowgovt »

delichon wrote: post #15

Due to current admin policies, failing to do this would limit Microsoft's ability to drink from the federal trough. Whatever value they put in diversity is less than they put in large contracts.

And it is interesting to see how different organizations are reacting to this administration depending upon what percentage of their bottom line is directly tied to government or military contracting.

Python Software Foundation telling the NSF they had too many strings attached to their money is another interesting spotlight on the current situation.

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