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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

#701

Post by ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 »

lbrito wrote: post #664
yoavm wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an outsider looking at the US, this looks so dangerous. It feels like the whole democratic system is bending to the power of money. Just a few weeks ago, an American friend was making the comparison between the number of billion $ companies in the EU vs the US. I was trying to tell them that it isn't necessarily a bad thing to have less of that - I rather have 1,000 million $ companies than a billion $ one. The co…

>I rather have 1,000 million $ companies than a billion $ one Except in the real world the bn $ company will dump and outright buy the puny million dollar companies. It will do everything in its power, which is a lot, legally and illegally, to destroy the competition. That's just the way capitalism works.

I thought monopolies were bad for capitalism?

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

#702

Post by jjulius »

jmcdowell wrote: post #531
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?

I'd recommend listening to the first hour of the podcast this is taken from just as he was more candid than I thought he would be. Zuckerberg at points brings up how the EU as is very defensive and has taken social media companies to court for the sum of 30 billion (never mentioning why). He laments how the US government need to be more protective of US tech companies overseas specifically naming the EU. When talking…

This requires us to trust what comes out of his mouth. If folk are still doing that after all this time, I've got a mighty large bridge you'd likely be interested in purchasing.

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

#703

Post by crystal_revenge »

A few years ago I worked for a company obsessed with DEI. But, as a 40+, I knew their DEI programs where complete BS because they forgot the most important protected group: old people!

At this company we had plenty of groups for Muslims, blacks, Jews, Asians, etc, but I was one of the only people over 40.

People would laugh when I mentioned that we needed a DEI group for people over 40... but I wasn't entirely kidding. It's frankly bizarre that you can have 1000+ employees and only 2-3 are over 40!? I had worked in industries prior where the median age was > 40 and it did sincerely shock me that a publicly traded company would have almost 0 people in that age range.

The funny part is that while I will not ever be black, everyone of my younger coworkers (baring serious tragedy) will be in the 40+ protected group. So in theory, if anyone cares at all about DEI in a sincere way, they should care about people who are 40+ because they will be there.

So while we celebrated Ramadan with multiple company activities, there wasn't much respect for "I have to leave a bit early to pick up my teenage kid from my ex-wife's place".

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

#704

Post by smrtinsert »

renegade-otter wrote: post #325
OnionBlender wrote: post #248

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

"master" was not a thing even before. While I get the farce of renaming it for "social justice" reasons, it's still a stupid name. It's "trunk", as in "trunk and branches".

Yep master never made any sense

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

#705

Post by MathMonkeyMan »

eweise wrote: post #698
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…

[flagged]

You might put "they/them" next to your name if you prefer not to be referred to by a gendered pronoun.

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

#706

Post by smrtinsert »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #33
ColdTakes wrote: post #5

That title image looks like it is from the set of a sitcom starring Mark Zuckerberg. DEI initiatives have always been a dog and pony show, not a thing executives have ever truly cared about and they are now in a political environment where they can show what they believe in. People will learn the hard way these companies have never cared about you.

They may have been a dog and pony show but were definitely real and forced executives to change how they hire and promote in illegal, discriminatory ways.

I think the only "dei" hire i saw was an administrative assistant that got fired ultimately. Let's not pretend eng hasn't had a massive gap in available hires for a very long time.

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

#707

Post by bushbaba »

gibbety wrote: post #636
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…

As a mid-level manager in a prominent tech company, my VP (not current) explicitly asked me if there were any women or minorities for whom we could accelerate promotion. Not that were ready, but may be ready soon and we'll take the benefit of the doubt. I know that lots of women, minorities, and LGBTQ employees benefitted from that, but white male employees learned there wasn't budget for them. Execs given a goal wil…

Confirming Google did this.

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

#708

Post by MathMonkeyMan »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #370
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…

Jeez, the most I ever got was called aside by the VP of Engineering on my last day to give him my opinion of their Diversity program ("since you're leaving, I figured you could be brutally honest with me"). Loved him for that, BTW :-) But seriously, congratulations! The negative effect of "fake diversity" is that it leaves everyone else wondering if the minority employees actually know what they're doing or if they w…

> The negative effect of "fake diversity" is that it leaves everyone else wondering if the minority employees actually know what they're doing or if they were hired to make the company look good.

This is the most insidious thing, in my opinion. If you're already a hater, now you can unabashedly claim the moral high ground. "Did she interview well, or was she a diversity hire?"

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

#709

Post by bigmattystyles »

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…

Your story reminds me of my friend, also Black, went to engineering college with an overwhelmingly white population (me included). He was in more than half of the pamphlets pitching the school they give out to prospective students. It was so blatant.

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

#710

Post by ianhawes »

Animats wrote: post #104

So far, Zuckerberg (Meta), Pichai (Google), Bezos (Amazon),Cook (Apple), and Sarandos (Netflix) have all personally made the pilgrimage to Mar-A-Lago to kiss the ring. That's all of the FAANG CEOs. Nadella and Altman phoned it in. The Wall Street Journal has a long list.[1] It works for Putin. [1] https://archive.is/ozPQi

The CEOs you identified are all associated with for-profit companies (with the notable exception of OpenAI lol). Investors expect them to "make nice" with the current regime; this is a part of being a CEO of a public company worth billions.
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