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

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

#741

Post by lolinder » Sat, Jan 11, 2025, 4:59 AM UTC

unclebucknasty wrote: post #734

lolinder wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. What too few people realized was that the rollout of DEI was driven by what was trending at the time, designed to win political points with the groups that were politically ascendant. These programs were never a victory for the principles or the people, they were marketing. So it should come as no shock whatsoever that now that another political group is politically ascendant the marketing that is valuable has c…

I think your analysis is missing some nuance. There are countless instances throughout history of lasting change being sparked by a single moment. Sure, that moment is frequently the culmination of some period of struggle, but you have to remember that the issues that came to a head and sparked those DEI initiatives a few years ago were exactly that—the product of literally centuries of struggle. Or, perhaps more acc…

The methods chosen to push this and other recent changes assumed that those advocating change would stay in power, if not in government at least in the culture. They assumed that they could keep up the pressure to act in a particular way in spite of the fact that those so pressured didn't really believe in any of it. That was a critical and fatal flaw. You can't plan change on the assumption that you'll be able to apply pressure indefinitely.

You're right that there are tipping points, but they don't come at will, they come when the culture is ready for them. Push too soon, and as you note, you may actually undo progress that had already been truly won.

Culture behaves like a non-Newtonian fluid: manipulate it gently and it flows smoothly. Apply too much stress too fast, and it turns into a solid and resists you. Trump did not invent that resistance, he simply untapped it and rode it to power. The progressive movement created the resistance by applying too much pressure to a culture that wasn't ready.

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

#742

Post by rayiner » Sat, Jan 11, 2025, 5:00 AM UTC

seadan83 wrote: post #413

lolinder wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. What too few people realized was that the rollout of DEI was driven by what was trending at the time, designed to win political points with the groups that were politically ascendant. These programs were never a victory for the principles or the people, they were marketing. So it should come as no shock whatsoever that now that another political group is politically ascendant the marketing that is valuable has c…

I agree with most of your points. Though with respect lasting change, where is your impression coming from that the gains are in the last 10 to 15 years? Or even that is a widespread belief? According to reporting at the guardian [1], FBs DEI program increased black and brown employees from 8% to 12%. Seems abysmal. My perspective, US society is still fighting for gains that _started_ 160 years ago. Still painstaking…

America is a country where the majority even of “white” people belong to ethnic groups that never had anything to do with African American slavery (German, Italian, Irish, etc.) And the non-black non-white people (Asians, Hispanics) didn’t either. So nobody will do anything that costs themselves anything. The best you can hope for is color blindness and a very slow homogenization and equilibrium.

There was a gambit to achieve change by getting the non-black non-whites to identify with black people, but it looks like that is going to fail. As you would expect. The income mobility of a Guatemalan immigrant today is similar to that of Polish or Italian immigrants a century ago, and German immigrants 150 year ago. The folks who hit economic parity with whites when their grandparents who are still alive came here in poverty aren’t going to be easily persuaded that they need to upend a system that works well for them.

Indeed, in that environment, the longer you keep the concept of “race” alive, the worse things will be. You’re never going to use the concept of race to undo past harms; so it’ll only be used to stir up resentment and disharmony.

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

#743

Post by 0xbadcafebee » Sat, Jan 11, 2025, 5:00 AM UTC

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…

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

#744

Post by gr3ml1n » Sat, Jan 11, 2025, 5:06 AM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #670

kenferry wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mm. It’s certainly good to work at the other end of the funnel (thank you!) but it also won’t help address pattern matching that people do in hiring. It’s an incredibly natural thing for people to hire people like themselves, or people they meet their image of what a top notch software dev looks like. It requires active effort to counteract this. One can definitely argue about the efficacy of DEI approaches, but I di…

If the goal is to prevent people from being biased, why not anonymize candidate packets? Zoom interviews can also be anonymized easily. If it's the case that equally strong, or stronger, candidates are being passed over anonymization should solve this. Rather than working to anonymize candidates, every DEI policy I've witnessed sought to incentivize increasing the representation of specific demographics. Bonuses for…

If you anonymize applications you don't hire the 'right' ratio.

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

#745

Post by iaseiadit » Sat, Jan 11, 2025, 5:07 AM UTC

muglug wrote: post #739

iaseiadit wrote: post #723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only speak from personal experience, but since about 4 years ago, every candidate I’ve been asked to interview for a software engineering position has been Black, Hispanic, South Asian or East Asian. Not a single white American. Are there no white people studying CS anymore or looking for jobs? Did they all stop applying? Again, it’s only from personal experience. I never asked any of my coworkers a “hey, do yo…

That has not been my experience working for a big US tech company.

I also work for a big US tech company. If it’s not standard practice, I’m happy to hear it.

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

#746

Post by throwawayq3423 » Sat, Jan 11, 2025, 5:17 AM UTC

linotype wrote: post #256

bko wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people say DEI programs were purely performative and just for political points. But these policies did change the corporate landscape and affect hiring decisions. Of 323,092 new jobs added in 2021 by S&P 100 companies, 302,570 (94%) went to people of color This data came from workforce demographic reports submitted to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by 88 S&P 100 companies Hispanic individua…

So it was racist?

I dont think the people of color that got their foot in the door in tech would agree with you.

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

#747

Post by liontwist » Sat, Jan 11, 2025, 5:17 AM UTC

crystal_revenge wrote: post #703

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 kiddin…

I know this topic has been beaten to death, but the shallow symbolic form Diversity takes in practice (college recruiting photos) confirms it's merely political.

Here are a few forms of "real diversity" I have run into that you will never see initiatives for at big tech, and it would not necessarily be taboo to publicly discriminate against them:

- Number of siblings

- Asian ethnic minorities (Miao, etc)

- Discriminated indian castes

- Parents vs childless

- University degrees

- American 19th century religions (JW, Mormon, 7th day adventists, etc)

- Military experience

- experience in manual labor jobs

- Sunni and Shia Muslims

- Russian ethnic distinctions (russkiye vs rossiyane)

Obviously we can't create programs for every possible form of identity. But you can look at 2 asian men and say there isn't any diversity, when actually their life experiences couldn't be more different.

Similarly, you can have all the skin colors in a room, but if they are all upper middle class, secular humanists, from the same handful of Universities, they aren't bringing new perspectives.

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

#748

Post by iaseiadit » Sat, Jan 11, 2025, 5:17 AM UTC

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #736

iaseiadit wrote: post #723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only speak from personal experience, but since about 4 years ago, every candidate I’ve been asked to interview for a software engineering position has been Black, Hispanic, South Asian or East Asian. Not a single white American. Are there no white people studying CS anymore or looking for jobs? Did they all stop applying? Again, it’s only from personal experience. I never asked any of my coworkers a “hey, do yo…

If you don't take them can you please forward me their resumes? It's extremely hard for me to find a candidate who isn't a 20s-30s white male named Chad.

My understanding is there’s a lot of outreach at HBCUs, so you may try that. Also H-1Bs.

The joke that white men are all named “Chad” is tired. You’ll notice I didn’t say everyone I interviewed was name DeShawn or whatever. Let’s move past that.

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

#749

Post by gr3ml1n » Sat, Jan 11, 2025, 5:18 AM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #685

GiorgioG wrote: post #243

Every time you try to right a wrong like this (DEI), it just makes things worse for everyone involved. Just find the best person for the job, no matter their skin color, sex, age, etc.

That’s the goal of DEI; recognizing that scenarios like two hundred years of all male, all white SCOTUS judges and Presidents and all the other top slots was probably not due to them being inherently better than every non-white, non-male otherwise eligible person in the country.

When I hear these sorts of arguments I'm reminded of this XKCD comic: https://xkcd.com/808/

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

#750

Post by gr3ml1n » Sat, Jan 11, 2025, 5:21 AM UTC

masto wrote: post #451

I'm fortunate enough to have worked for Google during a period of time when Big Tech started to gain at least a modicum of self-awareness of its toxic culture and history of excesses and indiscretions. I arrived on the scene slightly late to witness the worst of it, but the stories were actively circulating, and the structure was very much still present. SRE teams had bars next to their desks, and office parties ende…

> they also told a senior vice president that he had been saying "you guys" a lot and do you know what happened? He thanked them, apologized, and corrected himself.

And you look back on this as a nostalgic memory? Something useful and productive?