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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

#591

Post by casey2 »

gusfoo wrote: post #227

> Read the memo from Meta in full: That did not seem at all controversial to me. It seems quite sensible, but it alludes to some silly practices that are now being retired. For example "This effort focused on sourcing from diverse-owned businesses" is, in my opinion at least, a very very silly thing to do. I am much, much, more interested in high quality, affordable, stable products when I buy things. Not the skin co…

Quality is determined by the competence of the people running the business. If two companies are of the same or similar quality then the race, not skin color, of the owner can be used as an indicator of their competence. Since it is well known that non-white races get less resources at every stage of personal development. When a company like Meta buys them the growth potential is much higher.

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

#592

Post by [deleted] »

slg wrote: post #143
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…

> 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…

[deleted]

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

#594

Post by Avicebron »

antics wrote: post #311

I am Wasq'u (a tribe in the PNW), I am connected to my tribe, and I am one of a handful of remaining speakers of the language. I am really tired of being caught in the maw of people fighting about my identity, what I am owed, and to some extent what place my identity has in society. To the pro-DEI crowd: I have some hard truths for you. Actual change requires commitment and focus over an extremely long period of time…

> "The problems that afflict my community are running water, drug addiction, lack of educational resources, and secular trends have have made our traditional industries obsolete"

So in my rural, predominantly white "Non DEI target" part of the country, this is the problem too except when these people apply to hundreds of jobs in software engineering they get crickets.

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

#595

Post by Pigalowda »

josefritzishere wrote: post #144

Let me get thsi right... Meta resolved issues with a performative DEI program with an even more performative act pandering to an incoming administration which is openly histile to POC... that's not better, it's worse.

You’re right, it’s all performative. Meta will do what it takes to keep regulators off its back and reduce friction. If Dems are in power then they’ll do fact checks and DEI. If they aren’t then they’ll get rid of it.

They’re like fair weather fans changing ball caps and jerseys based on the favored team. They’ll kiss the ring, throw some cash where it needs to be, make some meaningless changes that satisfy the current political party in power, and get back to making billions.

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

#596

Post by titanomachy »

az226 wrote: post #486
timmg wrote: post #154

From the memo: > We previously ended representation goals for women and ethnic minorities. Having goals can create the impression that decisions are being made based on race or gender. While this has never been our practice, we want to eliminate any impression of it. I don't know how they treated those goals, but: you can imagine a large company. The CEO says "we need to reach X goal in Y. Your executive bonus will t…

At big tech company I used to work for ($3T) they did this in 2017, and my manager did not give a single offer to a man in years even when everyone said hire, and the next 14 of 14 offers were to women, several minorities, despite many having barely any “hire” votes.

Must be Microsoft, I don’t think Apple and Nvidia went hard on this

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

#597

Post by BadCookie »

dmazzoni wrote: post #126
jandrese wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only seems bizarre if you didn't consider DEI programs to be largely symbolic corporate puffery in the first place. For all of the hate they received from some political spheres they were largely just PR initiatives right from the start, especially in larger companies.

Do you actually have experience with those programs? Here's what DEI programs actually do in practice, in my experience. As a simple example, let's say there is an opening for a somewhat senior position, like a director. Your team does some interviews and wants to make an offer. DEI vetos it because every single candidate they interviewed was a white male. They don't tell you who to hire or not to hire, they just say…

What most companies do is interview primarily referred candidates, which is arguably the opposite of DEI. It favors people in the social networks of the population already employed by the hiring company. And most people have social networks that look very similar to themselves in terms of race, gender, and economic class. Is that fair? It doesn’t seem fair.

My fringe belief is that giving an edge to buddies of current employees ought to be illegal (at least at large companies) for many of the same reasons why nepotism is frowned upon.

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

#598

Post by Manuel_D »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #527
timmg wrote: post #154

From the memo: > We previously ended representation goals for women and ethnic minorities. Having goals can create the impression that decisions are being made based on race or gender. While this has never been our practice, we want to eliminate any impression of it. I don't know how they treated those goals, but: you can imagine a large company. The CEO says "we need to reach X goal in Y. Your executive bonus will t…

"We're not discriminating or putting majority candidates at a disadvantage... but for candidates with a diverse background we have some leeway to exceed headcount limits." Or, for a court-documented example of exactly what you're describing happening: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16501663

Dropbox instituted this policy in 2019. We called it "opportunistic hiring". Not sure if it's still in force, as I've since left.

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

#599

Post by insane_dreamer »

It was always a sham anyway.

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming: making $$$

I don't expect BigTech to care about people -- it's clear that they never have. BUT what makes me sick is that they pretend to care, pretend that they are "solving the world's problems", "building communities", etc. They're no better, and perhaps just as destructive, as WalMart.

15-20 years ago I was very excited about and supportive of these companies. I've grown to despise them.

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

#600

Post by [deleted] »

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…

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