Lawsuit: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer led illegal purge of male workers • Hacker News Board

Re: Lawsuit: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer led illegal purge of male workers

#391

Post by awesomerobot » Tue, Oct 11, 2016, 12:39 PM UTC

jfoster wrote: post #183

awesomerobot wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've seen the performance review process in large companies allows you to mask a personal vendetta as a performance issue (and you'll get away with it). Your manager can say "based on feedback everyone says you suck" and you can't really do a whole lot to look into it. You don't know where the feedback is coming from, or if it's even valid. At a smaller company a manager seems more responsible to look at pe…

I don't know how common it is, but some companies have a process whereby your peers supply the feedback, and a management team reviews it. Surely this must address the issue of a manager who doesn't like you, right?

Yes, and there are some problems with that system as outlined by others — I've also seen instances where the system was really only half-implemented:

Peers supply the feedback, but one manager has the time/resources to review it... so basically they can interpret it however they decide.

Re: Lawsuit: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer led illegal purge of male workers

#392

Post by Grishnakh » Tue, Oct 11, 2016, 2:54 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #311

Grishnakh wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds pretty much like my experience with Google. I'm an embedded programmer with a EE degree, not a CS degree, and they hammered me with a bunch of algorithm questions like you said. I'm not even interested in (nor qualified for) heavy-CS type work; I thought maybe they'd want me for more low-level stuff or doing some kind of work with hardware, custom OS or driver development, etc. But as I said above, don't paint…

Haha, yeah, I do systems development, not far from your area of work, I imagine. I have a CS degree, but I hated doing it. Google seemed to be aiming for CS experts, and I just want to make computers do cool/useful stuff. Of course, there's other disadvantages to working for big companies. Lots of dead weight (see: that recruiter I worked with), lots of rules, a lack of trust, lots of bureaucracy... I'd do it if I ha…

There's advantages to big companies too: better pay usually, better benefits, more structure, and in my experience more professionalism. Also the ability to move laterally is useful. If you're a female or minority you'll probably do better in a big company too because they're very intolerant of harassment and discrimination because they can get in legal trouble for it, so they're very proactive about addressing these things early on, providing training for it, etc., whereas some small companies I've been at seem to have a "good-ole boy" culture still hanging around. If you can get into the right workgroup, a big company can be a good experience, but different groups and departments can be run very differently from each other within the same company.

Re: Lawsuit: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer led illegal purge of male workers

#393

Post by oh_sigh » Tue, Oct 11, 2016, 9:00 PM UTC

EJTH wrote: post #387

oh_sigh wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

reverse discrimination is a specific type of discrimination.

Wouldn't it just be discrimination really? Its the same with reverse racism, it doesn't exist because it is just racism, nothing more nothing less.

That's like saying because turning exist, left turns aren't a thing. "Reverse discrimination" is a bad name, but it represents a specific type of discrimination. That doesn't mean it isn't discrimination.

Re: Lawsuit: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer led illegal purge of male workers

#394

Post by int_19h » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 3:11 AM UTC

st3v3r wrote: post #388

int_19h wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not meant as a rhetorical comment, I'm afraid you'll need to explain it in a bit more detail, pointing out where exactly my reasoning is wrong. In particular, if you object to the statement that there's no substantial harm in being rejected from a job for discriminatory reasons, when the job market has thousands more equivalent (i.e. same pay, same career opportunities etc) jobs that are yours for the taking…

The action is either harm or it's not. If I have a fence, and you run your car through it, the harm is not judged on whether I can replace the fence quickly. Further, your statement goes a step further and seeks to normalize and legitimize discrimination. You're saying that it's perfectly ok for this to happen, borderline encouraging it by removing any and all penalties for the action. The onus is not on me to show h…

Sure, but refusing to hire you is not an action, it's the lack of one. Hiring you would be an action. That's exactly the problem with such laws - you are not prohibiting people from doing something, you're forcing them to do something. That needs to meet a much higher and/or nuanced bar of social need to override the inherent infringement of individual liberty.

Discrimination is already legal in many contexts - private individuals can discriminate in most countries, private membershib clubs can discriminate in many places etc. Furthermore, even in areas where discrimination is illegal (e.g. public accommodation), there's generally a very limited list of traits on which it is illegal - race, religion, gender etc. Anything not on that list is not illegal to discriminate on - for example, it is perfectly legal to refuse to serve someone on the basis of their political view in US.

Do you believe that all forms of discrimination should be illegal, including private and personal? Do you realize the implications of that?

And yes, the onus is, in fact, on you to show harm. That's how legal system works in most cases. I don't see why it should work any differently here. Do you really want to people to be able to just claim discrimination on the basis of any random thing, and demand that the other party prove the lack of discrimination?

Re: Lawsuit: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer led illegal purge of male workers

#395

Post by int_19h » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 3:13 AM UTC

st3v3r wrote: post #388

int_19h wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not meant as a rhetorical comment, I'm afraid you'll need to explain it in a bit more detail, pointing out where exactly my reasoning is wrong. In particular, if you object to the statement that there's no substantial harm in being rejected from a job for discriminatory reasons, when the job market has thousands more equivalent (i.e. same pay, same career opportunities etc) jobs that are yours for the taking…

The action is either harm or it's not. If I have a fence, and you run your car through it, the harm is not judged on whether I can replace the fence quickly. Further, your statement goes a step further and seeks to normalize and legitimize discrimination. You're saying that it's perfectly ok for this to happen, borderline encouraging it by removing any and all penalties for the action. The onus is not on me to show h…

Also, you still haven't explained what, exactly, the harm is in being refused a job when other equivalent jobs are available. Is it material? If so, what exactly is the nature of the loss? Or are you claiming some sort of psychological harm?

Re: Lawsuit: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer led illegal purge of male workers

#396

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 3:13 AM UTC

st3v3r wrote: post #388

int_19h wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not meant as a rhetorical comment, I'm afraid you'll need to explain it in a bit more detail, pointing out where exactly my reasoning is wrong. In particular, if you object to the statement that there's no substantial harm in being rejected from a job for discriminatory reasons, when the job market has thousands more equivalent (i.e. same pay, same career opportunities etc) jobs that are yours for the taking…

The action is either harm or it's not. If I have a fence, and you run your car through it, the harm is not judged on whether I can replace the fence quickly. Further, your statement goes a step further and seeks to normalize and legitimize discrimination. You're saying that it's perfectly ok for this to happen, borderline encouraging it by removing any and all penalties for the action. The onus is not on me to show h…

[deleted]

Re: Lawsuit: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer led illegal purge of male workers

#397

Post by ArkyBeagle » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 5:14 PM UTC

gspetr wrote: post #335

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's basically in the spot Fiorina was in - the ship is slowly taking on water for Schumpeterian life cycle reasons.

I'm not sure why you wish to remove agency and assign victimhood here. She knew the job was difficult when she took it. Speaking of Fiorina, there was a guy who was a CEO of a company taking tons of water too. He turned it around. And then he won the primary in which Fiorina also ran.

I wasn't assigning victimhood that I know of - Yahoo is just an older company. My read is that they'd have had to have pivoted pretty sharply. We tend to assign praise or blame on people who pivot depending on how it works out, but it's just not clear that anyone ( except perhaps a very select few ) is simply better at that than anyone else. It's as much gambling as it is playing a game.

I am not 100% sure which primary you refer to, but McCain never turned any company around and Trump has just pivoted to being a floating brand. He's left a trail of wreckage in his wake but still gets to claim otherwise. I don't hold bankruptcy against anyone but you don't then get to construct an "I'm a winner" narrative from that. At least his communications style is that of a con man.

Now, in America, the phenomenon of Perfesser Harold Hill is really a thing - a "jasper" who does good without being good - but the narrative there doesn't work, either.