Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs • Hacker News Board

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

#541

Post by mike_hearn » Fri, Jan 10, 2025, 11:49 PM UTC

ADeerAppeared wrote: post #59

JohnMakin wrote: post #3

I'm a PoC, and stuff like this reads extremely bizarre to me. On the one hand, you're acknowledging rolling back DEI initiatives in part because of the "political landscape," and that you were already committed to diversity on your teams. That's all well and good, but then, why the initiative in the first place? It seems to me you're doing at least 1 thing here, and acknowledging that such DEI program was performativ…

> It seems to me you're doing at least 1 thing here, and acknowledging that such DEI program was performative in the first place. Keep in mind that these statements are made to pander to the incoming president. The implication that "DEI is discrimination against white people" is very much a part of that. > why the initiative in the first place? Ultimately this is the same answer as with the broader ESG incentives. It…

> evolution keeps diversity around

Evolution has no built in preference for diversity and certain branches of the evolutionary tree wiping out others is a common occurrence throughout history. For instance, the Neanderthals. That's why there are so many rules about importing foreign plants at the border.

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

#542

Post by dtquad » Fri, Jan 10, 2025, 11:50 PM UTC

baq wrote: post #55

Are they rolling back Chinese and Indian managers only hiring Chinese and Indian folks, too?

Sounds like you want DEI for white people. That is not going to happen. Chinese and Indians in tech was already a stereotype in the 90s.

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

#543

Post by HaZeust » Fri, Jan 10, 2025, 11:52 PM UTC

m463 wrote: post #427

cocacola1 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Costco's always interested me as a company. Still the only place where I pay to be able to shop. It's a personal point of pride whenever I go there and spend less than $100.

> It's a personal point of pride whenever I go there and spend less than $100. so you make two trips?

Ha! I was going to say, I haven't managed to spend less than $100 for weekly grocery since before COVID at Costco, wonder what his secret is.

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

#544

Post by fourside » Fri, Jan 10, 2025, 11:52 PM UTC

Nathanba wrote: post #520

fourside wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> may disadvantage my business by making my own products (build from their components) worse One of the biggest wins for the anti-DEI crowd was convincing people that embracing DEI implicitly meant getting something of lesser quality or value. Here, you assume that focusing on businesses owned by people of color necessitates lowering your standards of your suppliers below acceptable levels.

The irony is that he didn't say that at all and it's actually you who assumed this.

I’ll quote the parent comment again:

> To filter things based on the owner's identity… may disadvantage my business by making my own products (build from their components) worse.

Filtering based on identity can hurt his business by making his products worse. The line between cause and effect that he’s drawing seems pretty clear to me. What other interpretation would you have for that?

And for the sake of completeness let’s ask a 3rd party.

ChatGPT prompt:

“”” Given the following sentence:

To filter things based on the owner's identity… may disadvantage my business by making my own products (build from their components) worse.

To what is the reader attributing a potential lower quality in his products? “””

Response:

“””

The reader is attributing the potential lower quality of their products to the filtering based on the owner’s identity. This implies that restricting components based on who owns them could limit access to necessary or high-quality components, thereby negatively impacting the quality of the products they build. “””

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

#545

Post by jdminhbg » Fri, Jan 10, 2025, 11:54 PM UTC

thefaux wrote: post #269

The really troubling news buried in this to me was the appointment of Dana White to the meta board of directors. Like seriously what purpose does he serve but to appease the new administration?

It's interesting seeing reactions to this. My first take was "of course he appointed Dana White, he's a big MMA dork now." The connection to Trump didn't occur to me til later.

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

#546

Post by ok123456 » Fri, Jan 10, 2025, 11:54 PM UTC

specialp wrote: post #385

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 th…

Yes, class is the root divide. However, rejecting that fact is dogma for the people running these DEI programs.

This is intentional because then DEI is intended to be a self-help religion for the corporate class designed to deflect the externalities that they produce, and not about actual material conditions. And that's at its best. At its worst, DEI is insulting and infantilizing to "marginalized communities."

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

#547

Post by drdrey » Fri, Jan 10, 2025, 11:55 PM UTC

65 wrote: post #335

OnionBlender wrote: post #248

Does this mean we can go back to using "master" as our git repo's default branch?

My controversial opinion is that I think "main" is more descriptive and intuitive than "master."

and shorter

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

#548

Post by jdminhbg » Fri, Jan 10, 2025, 11:55 PM UTC

MattyMc wrote: post #279

> The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made decisions signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI. Does anyone know what decisions he's referring to?

SFFA v Harvard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v...) outlawed affirmative action in public institutions, but I think most legal observers assume that if someone brings a case against the same thing in private institutions to the Supreme Court, they'll outlaw it there too.

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

#549

Post by kristianp » Fri, Jan 10, 2025, 11:57 PM UTC

cocacola1 wrote: post #196

romellem wrote: post #112

Contrast Meta's stance with Costco's, when [Costco responded][1] to a shareholder that proposed Costco prepare a report on "the risks of the Company maintaining its current DEI roles, policies and goals." Our success at Costco Wholesale has been built on service to our critical stakeholders: employees, members, and suppliers. Our efforts around diversity, equity and inclusion follow our code of ethics: For our employ…

Costco's always interested me as a company. Still the only place where I pay to be able to shop. It's a personal point of pride whenever I go there and spend less than $100.

You can go almost anywhere and spend less than $100. What's to be proud of? I went to Tommy Hilfiger and spent < $100.

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

#550

Post by BurningFrog » Fri, Jan 10, 2025, 11:58 PM UTC

jlhawn wrote: post #257

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…

> ... 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…

The institution of land ownership is very important in farming societies, where land is what produces wealth and health.

Societies on the hunter/gatherer spectrum also value their hunting grounds, but in far less strict ways.

I'm pretty sure the indigenous peoples that lived by farming had well developed concepts of land ownership, but they were the minority when Europeans arrived.