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Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

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Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#381

Post by curtisblaine »

random_i wrote: post #353

I previously assembled & managed a team of engineers at Microsoft. Out of 10 employees on my team, I had: - male and female (80/20 split) - black, white, asian, latino - engineers in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s - east coast, west coast - ivy league, college and high-school graduates That level of diversity was very rare at Microsoft, and even rarer at other tech companies. It took a *lot* of work; with less effort I wou…

How did you get there? Did you have to make a conscious choice, for minority candidates, to prefer them to majority candidates?

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#382

Post by daveidol »

segasaturn wrote: post #96
ceejayoz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone unfamiliar: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/meta-new-hate-spee... > “We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird,’” the revised company guidelines read.

Additionally they've unbanned the use of some slurs, such as calling other people "retarded". Not a nice feeling having grown up with that word directed at me almost every day.

Serious question: why does everything need to be banned? Why not just select for better friends or forums, and avoid people (not platforms) that say things you think are bad?

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#383

Post by int_19h »

pkkkzip wrote: post #276
barrenko wrote: post #270

[flagged]

I disagree. DEI has nothing to do with an ancient empire.

Not in an obvious way, but "meninist" far right is obsessed with the whole "Rome was great until them libruls ruined it" trope.

Ironically, Rome was actually unusually diverse for its times, and not just by virtue of having conquered so many different peoples: https://acoup.blog/2021/06/11/collections-the-queens-latin-o...

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#384

Post by iforgot22 »

firefoxd wrote: post #184

I wrote about my experience working as a software developer and being black in the industry and I was lucky to have it published on BBC [1]. What immediately followed, every large company reached out to have me work as a consultant for their diversity program. I found it fascinating that they had a team of DEI experts in place already. Like what makes one an expert? In addition to my job, I spent nights developing pr…

Is this because truly doing race-based hiring has been illegal for a long time? I've noticed they'll target certain demographics for interviews and other opportunities, but identity can't be a factor in the interview itself. It's a fine line.

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#385

Post by specialp »

gorgoiler wrote: post #124

Diversity in tech hiring never felt like the right end of the funnel. It’s why I went into teaching and I’m proud to say after what seems like a ridiculously short amount of time (“they grow up so fast” etc.) the girls from my classes are now entering the work force as SWE and ML interns. Not many, but more than none. When we focus diversity efforts on high school kids then we get a turnaround at the funnel entrypoin…

The start of the funnel is also the most racist and class discriminatory. Almost every school in the USA takes pupils from districts where the property owners pay the taxes for the schools. Rich areas get much more resources and support. Poor students get put into less funded schools and suffer from not having mentorship or peers to look up to.

I live on Long Island and we have a majority white population. Despite that we have 2 school districts that are almost 100% black. That is where the problem is. You are not giving these students a chance. When I am going through resumes I am not getting a diverse pool of qualified candidates because these poor people have been historically oppressed into a caste of poor schooling and neighborhoods.

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#386

Post by cbeach »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #361
cbeach wrote: post #320

> At Meta, we have a principle of serving everyone. This can be achieved through cognitively diverse teams, with differences in knowledge, skills, political views, backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. At last, a corporation acknowledges it's _cognitive_ diversity that matters. Most other forms of diversity are superficial, inherent human characterstics that are already equal under law, and make no difference t…

> two young boys who are white, heterosexual and normal in every way, I found it disturbing to know they'd be discriminated against in the workplace. At least they will always feel welcome in their own country. I had that feeling about 10 years ago and I miss it.

I don't think that's true. I've lost count of the number of times I've heard "pale, male and stale" as a racist, sexist, ageist slur in the UK - against its own native population.

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#387

Post by slg »

curtisblaine wrote: post #346
slg wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in part because of the "political landscape," People really should be more explicit about this. The "political landscape" here is the desire to pay fealty to an incoming administration in hopes of currying favor. American culture didn't drastically change. Trump got 3 million more votes in 2024 than he got in 2020 which is largely in line with overall population growth. That 3 million also amounts to less than 1% o…

> The "political landscape" here is the desire to pay fealty to an incoming administration in hopes of currying favor. Exactly as it was when DEI practices were introduced.

You must have a short memory if you actually believe that. Diversity programs didn’t all coincidentally spring up in January 2021 the way they are coincidentally disappearing in January 2025. I won’t argue if you call them performative, but they absolutely weren’t just blatant appeals to an incoming presidential administration.

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#388

Post by arghnoname »

random_i wrote: post #353

I previously assembled & managed a team of engineers at Microsoft. Out of 10 employees on my team, I had: - male and female (80/20 split) - black, white, asian, latino - engineers in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s - east coast, west coast - ivy league, college and high-school graduates That level of diversity was very rare at Microsoft, and even rarer at other tech companies. It took a *lot* of work; with less effort I wou…

From a business perspective, did it work? Was the team more, less, or equally effective than one where you didn't expend the time and expense of hiring a more homogenous group? Was turnover better or worse?

I know you can't absolutely know the counter-factual, but I've always wondered this. Incidentally, when I was a young man and CS major, I changed majors and went into a different field because I wanted to be around more women, but I've never known if being outside that kind of monoculture actually is better for the business or not.

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#389

Post by iforgot22 »

gigatree wrote: post #343
firefoxd wrote: post #184

I wrote about my experience working as a software developer and being black in the industry and I was lucky to have it published on BBC [1]. What immediately followed, every large company reached out to have me work as a consultant for their diversity program. I found it fascinating that they had a team of DEI experts in place already. Like what makes one an expert? In addition to my job, I spent nights developing pr…

Has anyone asked why so many companies seem to care so much about the appearance of DEI? And all at the same time? I know there’s cultural shifts towards that sort of thing, probably to fill the void left by religion, but does that explain why the world’s largest private equity firms push them so hard? Seems like something everyone just accepts without question, even though it’s completely out of character for people…

Yes, this is asked a lot, and I've always assumed it was legal pressure. If a company doesn't have enough of X demographic, they can be sued for discrimination, while at the same time it has been illegal to hire based on race. This time the legal pressure in the opposite direction is more obvious.

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#390

Post by phdavis1027 »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #312
jlhawn wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... who owned the land ... they didn't use the word "owned", only "occupied". The indigenous groups probably didn't even have anything like our modern concept of land "ownership" and would think of it more like land alienation. As a Georgist, I'm personally very annoyed by these sort of empty indigenous land acknowledgements. I'm more excited about stuff like this Squamish Nation housing development in Vancouver, B…

Well, I feel like the "traditional way of life" argument is okay for why they should get special treatment. But why should anyone get special treatment if they are going to just, essentially, treat it as way to siphon tax revenue from the larger society?

Because that society committed what are at least atrocities and probably more fairly described as genocide against those societies for like 400 years. A small casino empire seems like the least we could do lol
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