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GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

businessinsider.com

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Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#301

Post by Spooky23 »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #226
mjbh7k wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- "This is not work for white folks to lead" Well, it's not. It's kind of missing the point if your diversity initiative is being run by white people. - "Some of the biggest barriers to progress are white women" Second wave feminism, largely led by white women, often leaves out women of color. I mentioned this below, but the publishing industry is 79% white and 78% female. This has a huge impact on the types of stori…

>>It's kind of missing the point if your diversity initiative is being run by white people. How can anybody who advocates equality say no white person can lead a diversity movement? Just because somebody is white doesn't mean they aren't an oppressed minority (female, transgender, Jewish or some other oppressed group like a furry). I think we collectively need to declare it's not okay to say "people with skin color _…

Who said anything about equality?

When the discussion is about "social impact", the conversation is about diversity. Diversity != equality. In the view of many, equality isn't enough, because the "un-oppressed" are fundamentally privileged. The concept of "reverse racism" is there to deflect the inevitable awkward questions that arise, when clearly biased statements are made and practices get institutionalized.

IMO, all this stuff is problematic. I wish we could all embrace the golden rule and move on.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#302

Post by fweespeech »

mjbh7k wrote: post #183
malandrew wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you even need to see the whole presentation. A few of the full sentences on that one slide are more than enough to project a strong us vs them attitude of hatred and victim versus oppressor, especially the following bullets: - "This is not work for white folks to lead" - "Some of the biggest barriers to progress are white women" - "we need solidarity with our Asian friends and colleagues" This is blat…

- "This is not work for white folks to lead" Well, it's not. It's kind of missing the point if your diversity initiative is being run by white people. - "Some of the biggest barriers to progress are white women" Second wave feminism, largely led by white women, often leaves out women of color. I mentioned this below, but the publishing industry is 79% white and 78% female. This has a huge impact on the types of stori…

> Well, it's not. It's kind of missing the point if your diversity initiative is being run by white people.

1) Diversity isn't just about race and the fact you think it is is why I'm honestly horrified by you.

2) Sexual orientation, transgender issues are serious problems and not really protected classes in many respects and they have as much of a "fixed" bag from genetics as you do.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#303

Post by rhizome »

1123581321 wrote: post #280
rhizome wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is saying they can't have an opinion?

To be prevented from participating in a process is to be prevented from having a meaningful opinion about that process.

I don't agree that if they can't lead the program, that means they are being prevented from having a meaningful opinion about it. That's all they're talking about, right? Who leads the program?

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#305

Post by mcguire »

ryanackley wrote: post #90

This is standard stuff for a growing company. Right down to the disillusionment of the rank and file. I'm curious if anyone in the HN community has worked for a > 500 person company with a flat structure. What a lot of commenters seemed to miss is that the remote work policy applies exclusively to senior managers. Senior managers are no longer allowed to live afar and must report to the office. These are the people t…

HN seems to have a white-male persecution complex. No one here is talking about the interesting parts of the story:

"10 or more executives have departed in recent months."

"In addition to previously reported executive departures, Business Insider has learned that Ryan Day, VP of business development; Adam Zimman, senior director of technology partnerships; and Scott Buxton, controller, have all left in the last six months."

"Out with flat org structure based purely on meritocracy, in with supervisors and middle managers. This has ticked off many people in the old guard."

"...key technical people from the old days like CTO Ted Nyman and third cofounder PJ Hyett are mostly absent from the office and not contributing much technically."

Github is very likely going to be a different company by the end of the year. The question is, is that going to be good or bad for its current leadership position? I'm a pessimist: I'll go with bad.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#306

Post by douche »

DasIch wrote: post #283
douche wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems to be humanity in a nutshell - fuck you, got mine. Most of us are not altruistic enough to put other people ahead of us and ours. Self > family > clan > tribe > race > everybody else. However you choose to segment your identity up and what characteristics you base it upon, that's generally the hierarchy of fucks you give about other people.

That's a problem that needs to called attention to, critizied and addressed but not accepted.

It's a hard problem we've been working on for at least a couple thousand years. When we find the universal solution, the philosophers can pack it in.

Meanwhile, I've got to live as best I can in the world as it exists, rather than as I might ideally like it. There's a lot of smaller, more manageable windmills out there.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#307

Post by 1123581321 »

rhizome wrote: post #303
1123581321 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be prevented from participating in a process is to be prevented from having a meaningful opinion about that process.

I don't agree that if they can't lead the program, that means they are being prevented from having a meaningful opinion about it. That's all they're talking about, right? Who leads the program?

Yes, presumably the leaders are to issue orders and everyone else is to follow them. That is not the kind of participation that allows opinions.

You may be saying that the non-white leadership is the kind of leadership that allows collaboration and influence from followers, which is what I would do, but the evidence in the Github case is to the contrary.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#309

Post by OJFord »

If they pursue this genuinely, they'll be perpetually flip-flopping between states - it won't take long under this leadership for the hard-done-by minority to change to white/male, and then 'reverse sex/racism' would be sex/racism towards non-white/female...

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#310

Post by fweespeech »

toufka wrote: post #190
malandrew wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you even need to see the whole presentation. A few of the full sentences on that one slide are more than enough to project a strong us vs them attitude of hatred and victim versus oppressor, especially the following bullets: - "This is not work for white folks to lead" - "Some of the biggest barriers to progress are white women" - "we need solidarity with our Asian friends and colleagues" This is blat…

It's actually written into GitHub's Open Code of conduct. (The 'Open' Code has not accepted any changes for quite some time even though this particular issue was under discussion [1].) The Open Code expressly excuses discrimination against some races and genders, specifically by explicitly ignoring any critique which might fall under a 'reverse'-ism; 'reverse-racism' or 'reverse-sexism' [2]. This line in the Open Cod…

> (6) Some of the biggest barriers to progress are white women.

I'm just glad I dumped Github. I'm pretty sure they'd find my white female friends [some of whom needed to transition] being discriminated against as okay based on those slides.

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