What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft • Hacker News Board

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#511

Post by jimmygrapes » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 10:12 PM UTC

adamwk wrote: post #472

nonethewiser wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ya you are, but you know white people and Asians are less likely to be poor compared to Hispanics and African Americans so reality is fighting against your argument. Yet there are more white people in poverty than black people in the US. If we are trying to give opportunity to impoverished people we would judge by poverty. If we want to live in a racist society then we would judge by race.

> Yet there are more white people in poverty than black people in the US Where are you people getting these stats? This is being repeated elsewhere and is not based in reality at all.

https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2022/demo/income-poverty/...

You may be thinking of poverty rates or proportional percentages if you think the above is untrue. The data is there for you to manipulate for your purposes as you wish, though.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#512

Post by notch656a » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 10:12 PM UTC

pedrosorio wrote: post #394

notch656a wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been coding for over a decade including things 1000x as complicated as that (think embedded systems from the ground up). I could easily take 20 minutes or even fail doing such a task because I'm literally never asked to code things in a professional environment with 3+ strangers breathing down my neck and judging me based on some simplified fizzbuzz. I'm convinced white board / live coding interviews don't do mu…

I have never been in an interview with 3+ strangers. Is that common?

It's extremely common beyond the new grad / junior level, from my experience.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#513

Post by tablespoon » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 10:13 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #505

omegaworks wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent comment literally said "D&I should be rejected outright" and uselessly categorized the pain of driving institutional change as "pointless problems." There is a point to trying to change a system that only sees white people at the end of the hiring pipeline. We can debate where it needs to change, but the change is necessary.

> Parent comment literally said "D&I should be rejected outright" Nope, they didn't. A direct quote: "If D&I is operating at the wrong end of the pipe, it should be rejected outright because it won't work". Note the "If". If you disagree that D&I wouldn't work under these conditions, or that stuff that doesn't work should be rejected as pointless, you're still welcome to make that argument. But please be careful not…

>> Parent comment literally said "D&I should be rejected outright"

> Nope, they didn't. A direct quote: "If D&I is operating at the wrong end of the pipe, it should be rejected outright because it won't work".

Yeah, it's also worth noting that "rejected outright" is actually omegaworks's own language, which he is now taking issue with. I was only echoing it back to emphasize a point in his own terms.

Also, I suspect there's some sloppiness with definitions going on here. When I was using "D&I," I was referring specifically to kinds of corporate hiring polices the OP was talking about and this thread is discussing. I suspect omegaworks may be interpreting the term more broadly at times.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#514

Post by NoImmatureAdHom » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 10:14 PM UTC

thegrimmest wrote: post #475

implements wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m prepared to believe that those differences exist wrt reproductive role ie that humans have some sexed instincts around mating and child care, but, as per what right-thinking people believe about about race and intelligence / personality / emotionality (viz ‘races’ don’t actually have different characters or abilities) I don’t think the sexes are fundamentally different mentally. It used to be the case until fairl…

Lots of it boils down to risk. For sexual/reproductive reasons, men are more prone to risk - both behaviourally and generically. Evolution doesn't tend to favour risk-taking in the sex that carries and rears offspring. The number of women (not men) in a group is also the bottleneck to the group's ability to reproduce/recover population. Males are more fundamentally disposable, and have developed traits to fit into th…

This is correct.

A couple hairs to split: I wouldn't say more "prone to risk", I'd say they have different risk preferences. It's not like one or the other attitude towards risk is better or worse, they're just more or less adaptive given a certain environment.

I also wouldn't say men are disposable, as the story you tell at the group level is weak selection compared to at the individual level, but the gist is correct. Another way to look at it is: it's possible for males to win the genetic lottery, but impossible for females. The most reproductively successful men have had thousands of children, but women are limited to ~13 max. The upshot is that men have evolved to prefer risk more than women because the ceiling on payoffs is very high (i.e., you could get really rich, have lots of kids, multiple wives, tons of cattle), but for women the benefits of those huge lottery-winnings payoffs are much smaller in comparison to the costs (because you can only have 13 kids, and only slowly).

In my head, this is the explanation for ~80% of the differences in behavior by sex.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#515

Post by maldev » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 10:15 PM UTC

All this does is make it so certain groups appear to be REALLY dumb at certain companies. In my experience at my work places, only one in 10 women are actually qualified, and the rest are so utterly incompetent that they just end up taking up money. It's not because they're women, it's because they just don't belong there due to their skill level, but got a diversity hire.

I enjoy having women in my office, but because of DI&E I don't interview at places that have to many, since 9/10 times it's a big indicator the department or company is going under due to incompetence. Exact same thing applies to skin color. This shouldn't be the case, but this is all policies like this do, and it's going to whiplash REALLY hard once the cultural pendulum is over.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#516

Post by hintymad » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 10:15 PM UTC

Dig1t wrote: post #382

I work at a different FAANG and it seems like more and more the only news that we get from corporate is related to DEI. Also a lot of hiring details are now hidden from ICs. It used to be that you would be apart of the interview panel as an interviewer and then you would get together with your team afterwards and everyone on the team would vote yes/no and that would pretty much be it. Now it’s made by a manager elsew…

I was wondering why the US is so obsessed with diversity alone the line of race and gender instead of social-economical status, education background, career background, and etc? If I'm developing a statistical model, wouldn't it make more sense if my diversity means having in my team people who have statistics background, people who study statistical physics, people who are great at maths, people who are great at building a team, people who are creative, people who communicate and market and sell well, people who are amazing engineers, and people who are experts in the domain for which I develop my model? Why would I be interested in my team member's sex orientation, their gender, or their race? Or on the other hand, why would give up Quoc Le for Gebru if I have only one opening for developing the next generation of NLP model? Just because Quoc is an "over-represented" Asian and Gebru is the vanguard of righteousness and checks all the boxes of diversity?

Or why not by my birth origin? Say, India? India is a huge country with diverse languages, cultures, histories, religions, and social structures. I guarantee you that I had such a unique background among the other 10,000 ones in India because I grew up in this particular family in this particular town of this particular state in this particular union territory.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#517

Post by notch656a » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 10:16 PM UTC

peter422 wrote: post #323

notch656a wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The beauty of capitalism is the process that farms for the most net value extracted from the employees is more favored to win. I'm all for competitor companies hiring based on diversity (aka progressive-approved racism) , it creates market opportunities for the firms I work for.

Perfect, so you have no problem with Microsoft having this policy! Problem solved.

I don't follow the logic that suggests that because I have no personal problem, a problem doesn't exist.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#518

Post by csmpltn » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 10:16 PM UTC

BryantD wrote: post #448

csmpltn wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But here you have a multi-national corporation, with offices globally and ability to hire from any culture on the planet - and despite waiting months, actively searching for a "diverse" candidate, they were unable to find a single candidate who was "diverse" enough. What conclusions do you draw from this? That "people are racist"? That the pipeline is broken? This feels like ignoring the elephant in the room.

I think that if he had to do the LinkedIn searches himself, you can conclude that his recruiters weren’t all that great. I’d be annoyed at them in his shoes.

Oh, whatever. Blame it on the recruiters.

I guess we're just looking for any excuse now to NOT talk about the actual source of the problem.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#519

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 10:18 PM UTC

BryantD wrote: post #444

hintymad wrote: post #117

Maybe the question is why the leftists are so influential that for-profit companies are willing to comply with their ideology. Isn't the best way to increase the representation of minorities is to increase the funnel? Better schools, better teachers, more rigorous curriculum for all instead of for the elite students, a whole new culture that values curiosity and geekiness in general, and eventually a larger number of…

Oh, that’s easy. Because you wind up with a better, more productive company when you put forth the considerable effort necessary to increase diversity. It’s winning in the marketplace because it’s better. You’re 100% right about the funnel, but here’s the thing: junior positions are part of the funnel. About ten years ago I realized that I was screwing up massively by interviewing for current skill level instead of p…

[deleted]

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#520

Post by omegaworks » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 10:18 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #505

omegaworks wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent comment literally said "D&I should be rejected outright" and uselessly categorized the pain of driving institutional change as "pointless problems." There is a point to trying to change a system that only sees white people at the end of the hiring pipeline. We can debate where it needs to change, but the change is necessary.

> Parent comment literally said "D&I should be rejected outright" Nope, they didn't. A direct quote: "If D&I is operating at the wrong end of the pipe, it should be rejected outright because it won't work". Note the "If". If you disagree that D&I wouldn't work under these conditions, or that stuff that doesn't work should be rejected as pointless, you're still welcome to make that argument. But please be careful not…

It makes no sense to debate the meaning of "rejected outright" with you. Just because a strategy doesn't work when it is applied at a particular point in the process, doesn't indicate that the strategic goals are wrong to pursue. Even the idea that it won't work is debatable, I question whether the strategy was applied in good faith by the people responsible.