Alphabet shareholders reject diversity proposal backed by employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Alphabet shareholders reject diversity proposal backed by employees

#71

Post by dominotw » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 4:22 PM UTC

dokein wrote: post #5

To what extent should diversity be the responsibility of companies? I would argue the responsibility is in proportion to added-discrimination, so to speak (kind of like your profit should be in proportion to your added value). So, as an example, if 90% of your applicants are male and 10% are female, presuming quality is randomly distributed, the default assumption is that the company ends up with 90% male employees a…

I think this is known as "Pipeline problem". Has been discussed to death all over the internet.

Re: Alphabet shareholders reject diversity proposal backed by employees

#72

Post by daveFNbuck » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 4:23 PM UTC

adamnemecek wrote: post #62

daveFNbuck wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And pls don’t misunderstand this argument, but could the same argument not be used for say diversity of skill? Like how come a company can reject me due to lack of skill? The argument is that it's unfair and harmful to the individual, your company, and society to not hire someone because their skin is too dark. Do you think that's true of not hiring someone who isn't qualified?

> society to not hire someone because their skin is too dark. In SV, I can't imagine this being that common. However let's take an example. There's an interview for a position and the interviewer is a white American. Two applicants of equal skill apply. One of them is African American who's attended the same high school as the interviewer. The other one is a recent emigrant from Russia who is skilled technically howe…

You're changing the subject. Let's stick to your first question for now. You were asking whether the arguments for diversity of race and gender could be applied to diversity of skill.

Does the argument I gave for diversity of race apply to diversity of skill? If not, do you think I gave a non-standard argument for diversity of race?

Re: Alphabet shareholders reject diversity proposal backed by employees

#73

Post by mseebach » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 4:24 PM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #54

mseebach wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because "society" is made up of (among others) companies, and Google is a large company. The way things change in a society is when the members of society start to change them. If a company with the weight and power of Google feel something is wrong and isn't doing their damnedest to try to fix it, then it won't change. Now, from the linked piece, it's unclear exactly what has been proposed, so I'm not offering an op…

The thing is, though, all companies are drawing from the same talent pool. Google hiring an above average number of diverse applicants doesn't raise the percentage of diverse tech workers. Those diverse tech workers came from somewhere. Google's act of hiring them in turn reduced another company's pool of diverse workers. Or if they came from a university, it reduces the number of diverse candidates that other compan…

Hence, my sympathy for the idea that the real fix lies upstream: in order to get more women and minorities into tech, more members of these groups need to choose to study the relevant degrees in college. There are reasonable points to be made about the visibility of role models from these groups, but nothing much will happen to diversity hiring until the pool itself is more diverse.

Re: Alphabet shareholders reject diversity proposal backed by employees

#74

Post by dokein » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 4:24 PM UTC

stormbrew wrote: post #60

dokein wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is an aside, but speaking as a physician the treatment of fever doesn't actually do much of anything [1]. The rates of certain injuries e.g. febrile seizures are the same with or without Tylenol [2]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1488736/ , https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12076499/ [2] http://adc.bmj.com/content/88/7/641

That's definitely interesting! I didn't know that. Still, I think the point is still valid that symptoms are still often worth treating, even if you are also working on the root cause, right?

You're right. Fever often feels bad, and like pain, is often worth treating. I just ask the patient if it's bothering them, and treat it if it is; the only exception is sometimes leaving a fever unmasked is useful to determine if one's treatment is working.

Re: Alphabet shareholders reject diversity proposal backed by employees

#75

Post by adamnemecek » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 4:24 PM UTC

daveFNbuck wrote: post #72

adamnemecek wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> society to not hire someone because their skin is too dark. In SV, I can't imagine this being that common. However let's take an example. There's an interview for a position and the interviewer is a white American. Two applicants of equal skill apply. One of them is African American who's attended the same high school as the interviewer. The other one is a recent emigrant from Russia who is skilled technically howe…

You're changing the subject. Let's stick to your first question for now. You were asking whether the arguments for diversity of race and gender could be applied to diversity of skill. Does the argument I gave for diversity of race apply to diversity of skill? If not, do you think I gave a non-standard argument for diversity of race?

I'm not actually, I'm pointing out a type of diversity that the commonly accepted notion of diversity doesn't quite capture.

Re: Alphabet shareholders reject diversity proposal backed by employees

#76

Post by adamnemecek » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 4:25 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #52

adamnemecek wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you reject candidates based on race, the probability of that having happened is very high.

Sorry, but that's simply not true. There are plenty of qualified candidates, all of whom can do any given engineering job. The probability of hiring an under qualified candidate is entirely unaffected by refusing to interview white/Asian people. Edit: Replying here, since I'm now rate limited... I can see how you might think you're not selecting the "most qualified candidate" by limiting who you interview based on di…

That is how that works. Like if you look at the possible distributions and the outcomes, you'll see it.

Re: Alphabet shareholders reject diversity proposal backed by employees

#77

Post by daveFNbuck » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 4:29 PM UTC

adamnemecek wrote: post #75

daveFNbuck wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're changing the subject. Let's stick to your first question for now. You were asking whether the arguments for diversity of race and gender could be applied to diversity of skill. Does the argument I gave for diversity of race apply to diversity of skill? If not, do you think I gave a non-standard argument for diversity of race?

I'm not actually, I'm pointing out a type of diversity that the commonly accepted notion of diversity doesn't quite capture.

Yet when I press you on your concrete example of diversity of skill, you immediately move on to a different example without responding to what I said.

Re: Alphabet shareholders reject diversity proposal backed by employees

#78

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 4:29 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #23

adamnemecek wrote: post #2

This is an honest question to people who side with the proposal. At what point would these measures become unnecessary? What are the conditions? Btw what is the name of the ideology that one would use to justify this?

This is a hard question to answer. But I'd consider something like racial bussing in the 60s. This was a positive step and was enacted without explicit exit conditions. Such exit conditions are not necessarily a requirement for these sorts of initiatives.

[deleted]

Re: Alphabet shareholders reject diversity proposal backed by employees

#79

Post by rdtsc » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 4:31 PM UTC

mseebach wrote: post #18

dokein wrote: post #5

To what extent should diversity be the responsibility of companies? I would argue the responsibility is in proportion to added-discrimination, so to speak (kind of like your profit should be in proportion to your added value). So, as an example, if 90% of your applicants are male and 10% are female, presuming quality is randomly distributed, the default assumption is that the company ends up with 90% male employees a…

Because "society" is made up of (among others) companies, and Google is a large company. The way things change in a society is when the members of society start to change them. If a company with the weight and power of Google feel something is wrong and isn't doing their damnedest to try to fix it, then it won't change. Now, from the linked piece, it's unclear exactly what has been proposed, so I'm not offering an op…

> If a company with the weight and power of Google feel something is wrong and isn't doing their damnedest to try to fix it, then it won't change.

Great point. If any company is in position to spend resources and have an effect on society, Google is definitely one of them. And of course it is a great goal.

However they need to spell that out in plain and simple language and not hide it between the lines or say they are doing it because (as the article quotes) it would otherwise "make it difficult for the company to hire and retain workers, posing a long-term risk to its ability to innovate".

If innovation and ability to retain was directly tied to diversity each business unit down the lowest level would eventually figure it out in a few years. There would be no need for diversity chairs, advocates, executive positions. These groups would go out, seek, hire and accordingly compensate people just like they seek, hire and accordingly compensate experts in those fields.

Re: Alphabet shareholders reject diversity proposal backed by employees

#80

Post by manfredo » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 4:35 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #52

adamnemecek wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you reject candidates based on race, the probability of that having happened is very high.

Sorry, but that's simply not true. There are plenty of qualified candidates, all of whom can do any given engineering job. The probability of hiring an under qualified candidate is entirely unaffected by refusing to interview white/Asian people. Edit: Replying here, since I'm now rate limited... I can see how you might think you're not selecting the "most qualified candidate" by limiting who you interview based on di…

> The probability of hiring an under qualified candidate is entirely unaffected by refusing to interview white/Asian people.

But the probability of false negatives for white and Asian candidates rises drastically. There is a very high probability that the most qualified candidate was rejected immediate on the basis of race.