81–90 of 92 posts
Any opinions, thoughts and ideas that are expressed on ycombinator that are not left-wing and don't tow the liberal line are being deleted. It's not that there aren't people who disagree with these bullshit articles, it's that ycombinator mods are literally deleting and banning users who express opinions that aren't "correct".
Studies, data, conversation, and thoughtfulness around these issues are welcome and needed but this news article is, frankly, junk. I always like to look at data from the source, so I downloaded the original report, which The Guadian couldn't be bothered to link to. Let's start with the title of the article: > Black and Latino representation in Silicon Valley has declined, study shows However the report is about Asia…
I posted a top level comment that links to a study and another link to an article which links to several studies and got downvoted to oblivion. I don't think this sort of thing is _actually_ welcome here.
Every underrepresented group represents an opportunity to start a company, hire some great people from that group, and succeed together. A single company, perhaps one you start this year, can make a huge impact. YC funding applications are due today. https://www.ycombinator.com/apply
What this means is that someone should start a company and become completely racist about who they hire.
One could start a business with their family, friends (who are likely to be the same race), or even other interested people in their community. Finding good founders is quite hard, to narrow it by race is even harder, but that shouldn't discourage underrepresented people who share similar values to organize.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. I have tons of Indian , other south Asian and east Asian heritage colleagues. Weird how theres no racism in this case.
'“There have been no changes for Asians or any other minority over time – men or women,” said Buck Gee, the study’s co-author and an executive adviser to Ascend, a US-based research group that advocates for Asian representation in businesses.' The claim is that, despite increasingly visible/vocal attempts at diversity, the industry does not reflect this. We've noticed a regression in black/Latino hiring and stagnancy…
Does it though? Or does it suggest that the problem is not (just) racism, and that all the noise is making it harder to identify and solve the root problems?
Unsurprising. I tell all of my minorities friends to remove their pictures from LinkedIn and use American sounding names. The increase in callbacks always shocks me. You can do this experiment in reverse yourself if you already have an American sounding name. Unfortunately the real solution, anonymity, will probably never be adopted because there are groups who benefit from being identified. There's way too much many…
Sometimes I wonder if the tech industry should adopt the orchestral model of auditions: prevent the interviewers from seeing the candidate, knowing their name, or hearing their voice. Judge them entirely on their code and text responses. Sure something like this would probably result in complaints about "hiring for culture fit," but isn't someone who provides the correct answers and code a culture fit in the first pl…
It seems like a good idea, but how do you make sure you don't hire someone with a complete lack of social skills?
Sometimes I wonder if the tech industry should adopt the orchestral model of auditions: prevent the interviewers from seeing the candidate, knowing their name, or hearing their voice. Judge them entirely on their code and text responses. Sure something like this would probably result in complaints about "hiring for culture fit," but isn't someone who provides the correct answers and code a culture fit in the first pl…
And what happens representation becomes even more skewed?
The fact is the Valley employs gender/ethnicity almost perfectly commensurate with those graduating with CS degrees.
It's borderline bigoted to imply that 'it's all due to racism'.
Yes, surely there are gender/ethnic issues, but the funnel is 90% of the problem.
There's no fair way to hire 50% females if only 15% of applicants are female.
I get there's 'dynamic feedback' (i.e. more women in tech encourages more younger women in tech) but again, it's the responsibility of people to make choices in life.
I have enough East/South Asian friends to roughly grasp the soft-racism they faced growing up, and they've done very well both as individuals and as a group.
This issue needs nuance and few people are willing to speak in those terms.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not really as clear-cut as that, Australia for instance had some study results* led by a Hardvard Grad show the opposite, that blind recruitment generally favored the white male majority as it precluded affirmative action hires. * https://pmc.gov.au/resource-centre/domestic-policy/going-bli...
If a truly anonymous (which I'm skeptical that study was, but I'll give them the benefit of doubt) hiring method yields more white people, then that's 100% OK. The goal IMO should be to prevent bias with respect to gender, race, etc; not to implement a quota resulting in a certain percentage of people from backgrounds being hired.
One would think, no?
But there's a considerable number of people who don't feel that way - they think that 50/50 gender balance is a 'moral imperative' for example.
Surely, it's their right to think that, even promote it. But I'm weary of that kind of ideology being used to shut down other voices - which I think happens frequently.
I believe that the Guardian article (and the Graun as a whole, I read it every day and see the pattern) speaks to this: that specific minorities are underrepresented in certain roles 'must be due to racism' I think is unfair. Surely it plays a part, but there are so many other factors.
We need cool, rational heads on this subject.
Every underrepresented group represents an opportunity to start a company, hire some great people from that group, and succeed together. A single company, perhaps one you start this year, can make a huge impact. YC funding applications are due today. https://www.ycombinator.com/apply
It's not a very plausible assumption that your competitors are racially biased but your investors and customers aren't.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems like a good idea, but how do you make sure you don't hire someone with a complete lack of social skills?
Maybe a blind interview should satisfy technical requirements, and then the candidate meets the team in person.