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> There were also the Hiring Committee meetings that became contentious when I advocated for diverse candidates. Candidates who were dinged for not being fast enough to solve problems, not having internships at ‘strong’ companies and who took too long to finish their degree. Only after hours of lobbying would they be hired. Needless to say, the majority of them performed well. Why is it needless to say that?
> There were also the Hiring Committee meetings that became contentious when I advocated for diverse candidates. Candidates who were dinged for not being fast enough to solve problems, not having internships at ‘strong’ companies and who took too long to finish their degree. Only after hours of lobbying would they be hired. Needless to say, the majority of them performed well. Why is it needless to say that?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really? Less than 5% of staff are non-white and you're arguing he needs to explain what "diversity" is? Come on. At under 5% basically ANYTHING ELSE is diversity. Also, he does touch on this in the article. He says that Twitter relies heavily on a few schools for hiring so even if they get 'diverse' candidates from those schools they've still had a very similar experience compared to people from geographically divers…
about 5% of staff are non-white, for a definition of white that includes hispanic and asian people.
Anyone else get the strong feeling that articles like this are a detriment to equal rights movements? If you're misrepresenting facts and statistics people will eventually catch on and simply not trust you anymore, skewering any ability you have to raise awareness and make a difference..
I don't believe this is due to any sort of racism, but rather due to the education system in general. Trying to solve the diversity issue at the hiring end, when the number of qualified candidates is so small, is not the right way to solve the problem. The only way you will hit higher-than-normal diversity numbers is to reduce hiring standards, which is wrong.
The real way to solve it is at the bottom of the funnel, at the elementary, middle and high school levels. By getting more children of all races involved and interested in tech is the only way we truly increase diversity.
And that is on us, those of us that have experience in tech. My goal is to try to volunteer to teach young children in economically disadvantaged areas about technology. Of course, I have no idea how to start doing this, and would love suggestions or pointers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fix the demographics and STEM interest in elementary and pre-K, then we might get a more diverse tech field. Until people start looking at the start of the problem, fixes at the end are limited.
You're right there are problems earlier, but things can still be improved now while the rest of the pipe is fixed.
This guy sort of sort of undermines the standard case for diversity: "Twitter as a platform has empowered underserved and underrepresented people. It has fomented social movements and..." Sounds like twitter is killing it for people of all ethnic groups. It's as if a bunch of White/Asian dudes can actually design algorithms that work for everyone. So, um, why do we need a non-Asian engineer? It's also worth questioni…
(I accidentally down voted you, sorry). The fact that Twitter enables diversity doesn't mean that they have or understand diversity. It may be that they simply haven't accidentally stepped on it. If they don't know why what they're doing is working then they can't successfully improve it further, or avoid squashing it unintentionally and irreparably. Honestly your comment reads very racist to me. "why do we need a no…
But yes, if different races do behave differently, it's valid question to ask whether you actually want that different behavior. As a silly hypothetical to illustrate the point, humans and leopards behave differently. Turns out one of them is a lot worse for the office environment than the other.
If you want to argue that A != B, you are explicitly allowing for the possibility that A But again - I think A == B, which I guess makes me racist.
Removing barriers to particular ethnicities in hiring? Great. Making it clear in marketing and outreach that all ethnicities are welcomed and encouraged? Great. Establishing a quota of X % of employees should be a certain race? Uh... okay. Should asians be turned down from a job because they've hit the asian quota and need more blacks? I didn't realize companies practiced affirmative action like this.
I think this article reads a lot like "we need equal rights, so give us special treatment because we're different". All that lobbying for people who did not meet the technical criteria, that getting upset at the idea of someone not noticing his differentiating blackness. He might have a point in the part about how many minorities are using the service, but I don't see how the tech department should be concerned at al…
I think this article reads a lot like "we need equal rights, so give us special treatment because we're different". All that lobbying for people who did not meet the technical criteria, that getting upset at the idea of someone not noticing his differentiating blackness. He might have a point in the part about how many minorities are using the service, but I don't see how the tech department should be concerned at al…