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HR Chief: Google Sexual, Racial Diversity "Not Where We Want to Be"
theodp (442580) writes "In 2007, Congress asked Google, "How many [Google employees] are African-American?" "I don't actually have that data at my fingertips," replied Google HR Chief Laszlo Bock. Seven years later, Google finally disclosed diversity data for the first time ever, revealing that 17% of its tech workforce is female, and only 1% is Black. "Put simply," wrote Google's Bock, "Google is not where we want to be when it comes to diversity." To put things in perspective, it looks like the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers — commemorated in last year's Google Doodle of Jackie Robinson — put up better Black diversity numbers than Google was able to muster 67 years later. Things could have been worse, but the EEOC doesn't ask for and Google chose not to disclose anything about the age makeup of its workforce, aside from a mention of the existence of Greyglers, a group "for Googlers 'of a certain age.'""
What happened to hiring the best person for the job?
The whole "there aren't enough females in the tech industry" seems like a manufactured issue to me. What exactly is the problem? How is it a problem? Etc.
Gotta love when 30% of the non-white asians don't count whatsoever into the diversity formula for these nitwits. Does anyone know what the correct mix should be btw?
We’re not where we want to be when it comes to diversity. And it is hard to address these kinds of challenges if you’re not prepared to discuss them openly, and with the facts.
All of our efforts, including going public with these numbers, are designed to help us recruit and develop the world’s most talented and diverse people.
So.. where does Google really want to be? Do they have a defined quota? How soon will such affirmative action be used against them by white males and asian males?
I'd go into a long tirade on the subject so I'll sum it up that you either understand the argument or you're just wanting a Utopia at the cost of someone else who is the right choice for that company.
It's not just Google,now, is it? Silicon Valley is a strange place, as is much of the programming "computer science" community. It's as uniform as the top of the financial industry. There's this pretense that it's one big meritocracy and, as with all lies, there's a kernel of truth to that. Smart people come up with a new idea and are able to bring in other smart people to implement it. That's the end of the meritocracy story. Then comes the larger part of the cycle. Not-very-smart people -- but people who have a lot of unjustified self-confidence and excellent salesmens' smiles -- are brought in to run things and market the "dog food" and do "strategic planning." For a few years -- it used to be a decade but it's probably a shorter time frame now -- their association with the great name their company built when it was young hides the fact that, mostly, these newcomers are spectacularly incompetent. Then, the company, founded by smart people but running on reputation, eventually disappears.
The very question is racist. Why does it matter how many of a certain color there are? If I get hired for a job, I want it to be because I was the right fit for the job, not because my skin was the appropriate color to meet some quota.
...culture does.
If the wrong skin colors are coming into Google, look towards the *cultures* of the people who don't make it, rather than the skin color. Backwards urban cultures (where sadly most self-identified blacks and latinos live), are anti-intellectual and actively discourage those who try to make it out through education by shaming them as not being "real".
So, the question is, should Google be in charge of destroying thug gansgsta culture, and forcing urban youth to speak proper english, work hard in school, treat women with respect, and avoid violent destructive behavior?
As for men/women, they've got different brains, so you'll get different outcomes. There is no shame in being a man with less empathy than a woman, and no shame in being a woman with more empathy than a man.
80% of NBA players are black, 70% of NFL players are black. Is anyone asking them for more "diversity"? Yeah I thought not.
And 100% of the top sports leagues are male. Where's the outrage over this lack of sexual diversity?
From the Washington Post's Blog section: Eugene Volokh, On google's employee demographics
... non-Hispanic whites are 61 percent of the Google work force, slightly below the national average. (That average, according to 2006-10 numbers, is 67 percent.) Google is thus less white than the typical American company. White men are probably slightly over-represented; assuming that the 30 percent number it gives for women Google employees worldwide carries over to the U.S. (the article gives no separate number for U.S. women Google employees), white men are 42 percent of the Google work force, and 35 percent of the U.S. work force — not a vast disparity. ...Google can only accomplish that by firing well over three-quarters of its Asian employees, and replacing them with blacks and Hispanics (and a few whites, to bring white numbers up from 61 percent to 67 percent).
Indeed, if the goal is “reflecting the demographics of the country” as to race...
Also - what percentage of Google's workforce are of Indian descent? What percentage of applicants have been Indian? Here in the US, people of Indian descent would certainly be considered members of an ethnic minority, a large number them (even a disproportionate number, perhaps?) being professionals in the IT field. I suspect that Google's workforce is representative of the qualified candidate pool from which they can hire.
Google has sexist/racist hiring policies....that's the cause of this TFA
now...I'm not supporting the notion of "quotas" or forcing Google to hire unqualified workers...I"M AGAINST THAT
I favor **affirmative action**
Affirmative action in the context of a large corporation means *acknowledging society's inherent inequality* and taking steps to offer ****equal opportunity****
how does a company like Google take "affirmative action"?
let's take the Pittsburgh Steeler's super bowl winning head coach Mike Tomlin's hiring process
which was so successful that it lead to the Rooney Rule: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
NO QUOTAS...NO FORCED HIRING
all the rule does is require the company to let minority applicants get their foot in the door
without affirmative action, Tomlin would have never got his interview...they did it b/c they wanted to be fair...they got a super bowl out of it
**THIS IS THE SOLUTION TO SILICON VALLEY'S SEXISM/RACISM PROBLEM**
it's not a panacea, but it works...it gives people who are *qualified* a chance
Thank you Dave Raggett
I have to tell my friends to apply for jobs at Google. Yes, expect to be hit hard with the lawsuits if you choose "white cracker" over for the job. It's time to milk Google
Based on Google Doodles, most human technological advancement is already women and minorities-driven. Google's actual numbers are thus doubly perplexing -- why do they continue to hire almost exclusively white male engineers which Doodles clearly suggest are inferior.
Oh, of course! They are practicing affirmative action to redress past wrongs against white male engineers. Duh, n/m.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
the EEOC doesn't ask for and Google chose not to disclose anything about the age makeup of its workforce
Of course not - you didn't think they were actually serious about age discrimination, did you? Besides, everyone under 35 knows that everyone over 35 is not just obsolete, but senile. Except for top management of course ... no, them too, but it's acceptable if you're one of the anointed class.
It isn't Google's job to feel guilty for the lack of qualified black tech workers. Universities these days are falling down over themselves trying to be inclusive, promote diversity, etc.; promising black students in technical fields are highly sought after... yet there are almost none of them. I'm in computational physics, not in computer engineering, so it's a slightly different field. However, the university I'm at now is extremely diversity-promoting -- and located in a city that is ~50% black... and there is one black physicist there. She's not African-American, either; she's Ethiopian (and competent as all hell, and headed for industry). At my previous university, there were folks from all around the world: a few Afrikaaners, Dutch, Russians, Germans, Brazilians, French, Chinese, Indians, Native Americans, Koreans, Mexicans, and so on... and no black folks at all. At the physics and astronomy conferences I go to, there are almost no black people. Yes, this is physics, not tech engineering, but I imagine the situation is about the same there.
For whatever reason, blacks (and especially African-Americans) are underrepresented in the tech sector. This is definitely worth some concern: it could be for innocent reasons, it could be for ones that need to be addressed (having to do with substandard schools in black areas, for instance), but whatever it is it's not Google's problem. By all means, let's make sure tech classes in black schools are up to standard, but it's not Google's job to worry about this.
Forcing Google at Al Sharpton-point to seek out and hire black folks, regardless of whether they are able to do their jobs well or not, is only going to make things worse, as people will ask "Is that guy over there able to do his job, or is he a quota hire?"
When Google says "Not Where We Want to Be" , what they are saying is that it is time to start discriminating against white males and hire other less qualified candidates because some groups are getting uppidy. We never hear similar claims of needing "more diversity" from the NBA or the National Felons League, but when we find an area where white males excel by working hard, it is time to put a stop to it.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Congress to Google: Why aren't there Democratic voters in your workforce?
You do realize that Republicans control the House, right? Or does that not count because of the perpetual victimhood of the right wing?
How about we see if there's really a problem here before we fix it with a jackhammer?
In America "racial minority" means "black or Hispanic".
There's a deficit of Chinese people in football and Jews in growing soybeans but nobody really worries about that.
My team here consists only of white males. Why? Because only white males applied for the jobs.
If a black, gay, transsexual Jewish woman applies AND displays the necessary skill set, I'll hire her. But certainly not just because she's a black, gay, transsexual Jewish woman.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
We just look for qualified people? Who really cares what color/sex/orientation they are?
If you end up 'diverse', great, but if not, who cares? ( other than busybodies that operate off entitlements and the government )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The Rooney Rule is not a fsking "jackhammer"
it's an *interview*
that's all...no "jackhammer"
if Google did it *voluntarily* there would be no need for legislation, would there?
let me punch you in the nose...the ask you if your broken nose is a "problem"
Thank you Dave Raggett
As a computer engineering student, after five years of the program I've had exactly three black classmates. All three described being ridiculed and physically beaten by their black peers for being 'nerdy' and being into science and math. All three had friends with similar interests that gave them up due to peer pressure.
In high school I frequently recall black and Latino students who were literally afraid to turn in homework in front of their peers. They'd wait for the hoodlum kids to leave first and turn in papers with a whispered apology to the teacher. This happened all the way from 8th grade to 12th grade. I've seen kids get beaten up after a teacher announced they got the highest score on a test (this was back in the 90s when you could still single out students for their accomplishments).
So what is the problem here? A culture that equates educational success with selling out or otherwise punishes people for excelling. It's the same culture that called Bill Cosby a sell-out because he want from a teen in the projects to a millionaire with a Ph.D, despite his life-long efforts to help his own people and encourage education and success. This is a culture associated with poor people of ANY ethnicity, including whites. Believe me I've seen enough pot-smoking tatted up white trash hitting their children to know we can do it too.
BTW my campus is one of the most diverse in California, and whites are the minority, with Latino students in the middle and the majority is Indian and Asian, mostly Chinese. So diversity and support of non-white students is definitely not an issue. We have tons of black students too, just not going into the hard sciences.
So let's not talk about "Google needs to hire N amount of black employees" and say "How do we reach out to the black community and remove the stigma on educational success". THAT is the issue.
I'm a boss. There are lots of right people. The right person is someone who can get along with all the OTHER people. Aptitude is not as important as attitude. Yours is kind of selfish and cynical. I'd hire a woman over you. She's more likely to be a team player. It's a stereotype, but....
I don't think I can stress this enough. For the vast majority of positions, there are plenty of people who can do the job I need them to do. There are no rock stars needed. We have rock stars. They cause problems and unneeded stress. I need bright motivated people who get along well. One asshole ruins motivation for everyone.
That's why we need diversity. That's why we need people with emotional intelligence. Then there's the whole "diversity of experiences helps come up with clever solutions to the problems we are trying to overcome." thing, which is really really important.
the best way to call out a bigot is to then slur white people, because we all know racial slurs to white people don't count as racism
.look at the 20th century;s worst...all white men
If your focus is on north america sure. I'm willing to bet a few of the many war lords in various African countries attempting genocide would have made the list
I grew up in an anti-intellectual culture, and was persecuted for "trying to be white" when I focused on academics, proper english, and polite behavior.
I made it out. Many others I knew didn't.
If you can't understand how "urban" culture, with their thugs, gangstas, misogyny, violence and victimhood mentality, cause massive problems for those stuck in it, either you've never been there, or you're part of the problem.
Sorry for being cynical, but they may be trying to take the eyes off an even worse number.
The major thing they left out of their diversity statistics is how many people are over the age of 40. It's pretty clear that ageism is pervasive in the tech sector - and the internet. Last time I mentioned this, there was a serious sneer response to my post saying that "old people" (i.e. people over 40) should be discriminated against, "because they have issues."
There you have it slashdot. You had better be looking over your shoulder! You aren't getting any younger!
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
The government may want to care about diversity because it wants to affect social change. So might cultural institutions. If Google was hiring editors for content, they would need to be aware of cultural diversities. But why would they need to do that to create better technical solutions? Does being a minority member make one a more competent engineer? Please, don't make the "all other things being equal" arguments, by the way. All things are never equal when it comes to human beings. Why wouldn't Google want to find the best technical people to solve technical problems? Let's be clear, Google is very good at doing what they do. So anyone making an argument that Google is deliberately rejects minorities is actually racist. They are making the argument that rejecting minorities is what makes someone technologically better. This is not an argument worthy of minority-rights advocates. It's an argument worthy of white supremacists. In fact, I have heard white supremacists make arguments just like that. Google finds people who are best at developing technology. The proof is in the pudding.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
It is getting increasingly hard to tell when culture is being sarcastic from when it is just being incredibly stupid.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
We have to hire idiots who can not read or write to satisfy the requirements of race-bating lawyers.
Similar problems occurred during the World Wars. In the first, employers had to hire black idiots. It got worse in the second one, where they also had to hire woman idiots. On the bright side, we won both wars, in spite of the idiots working for the Arsenal of Democracy.
I'm all for hiring the best person for the job, but if you think prejudice is always explicit, or that people are even always aware of their prejudices, then you're in la-la land. I honestly don't know about women and black people in SV, but there are all sorts of ways to inject prejudice. "Not a good culture fit" (meaning over 35) is one of them. I also wouldn't be surprised if there is a bias in favor of South and East Asians, because everybody these days is inundated with the idea that they're all so smart. Remember, it isn't a stereotype if it's a positive stereotype.
look at the 20th century;s worst...all white men
Yes Uganda was full of white people.
Either that or the Native American nation that used to call itself Inde and now shares a name with a widely used open-source web server.
(Obvious CMTP-bait.)
No, sex is not the same thing as sexuality.
Gender and race are the two most commonly cited diversity factors, but what of age? Google is widely known to have an average age that is distinctly lower than most other companies, are they working to hire additional workers with greater experience?
I'd estimate that roughly 17% of my computer science classes in University were female and roughly 1% were black. I understand that Google doesn't ONLY hire people who studied computer science, but I think this could be a good representative sample.
What they should be doing is comparing these diversity statistics against how diverse their labour pool is. If only 1% of the students that are hired by Google are female but Google ends up with a 50% female work force, I think there's discrimination.
But really, I think society needs to do something about removing any barriers that exist that are preventing interested minorities from entering certain fields of study.
Have you worked with women? Women are no more team players than men. I've observed women back-stab, gossip, manipulate, ostracize, and generally destroy team dynamics plenty of times (and I've seen men do it too). There are a lot of features which contribute to who would be best for a job. Gender, race, biological sex, none of it is relevant to a job in the tech world. By saying "I'd hire a woman over you" because "she's more likely to be a team player" you are either being inflammatory, or your boss needs to reevaluate your own position as a "boss".
The final solution will have to come from within the backwards cultures themselves. We cannot impose a solution upon them, and cannot be held responsible for their lack of a solution.
For example, backwards islamic countries that treat women poorly will need to be reformed by internal leaders who manage to point out that flaw, and galvanize people around reforming it. Similarly, backwards urban cultures that objectify "bitches and hoes" will need to be reformed by internal leaders who manage to point out that flaw, and galvanize people around reforming it.
So, if you don't want to be part of the problem, and you're internal to the backwards culture, stop trying to protect it from reform and growth. Become a leader, and move them away from the self-destructive parts of culture.
Ultimately, it may be hopeless - islam has managed to stifle reformation for hundreds of years, for example. But I certainly understand that our responsibility to be honest and open about the failings of backwards cultures, is a small step in the right direction. Being dishonest, and blithely asserting that all cultures are of equal value or deserve equal respect, is poisonous and detrimental.
If your company demographics are significantly different from general demographics, you are probably not hiring the best person for the job - probably, your hiring is skewed towards some demographic, for whatever reason (number of canidates, subtle unconcious or even open racism or sexism). If you want to have the best people for the job, you should have a strong interest figuring out if you have such a bias in your hiring and to eliminate it.
Further, diversity is healthy, especially in jobs that require some creativity. Many different people with many different approaches beats a bunch of people who all work roughly the same way.
Sounds like a new social media product offering. Sign me up.
by this logic, white people are the craziest most fsked up "culture" in history...look at the 20th century;s worst...all white men
Pol Pot (killed 20% of his population) and Mao Tse Tung (70+ million dead) would be cases for the opposite, as the former rates as the worst from a percentage standpoint and the latter as the worst from an absolute numbers standpoint...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
The "Best Person" is highly subjective.
As I have seen many many times over the decades in this business, one person's moron is another person's genius.
I have also seen highly qualified people do a shitty job because they were bored. Employers have a tendency to over hire for a job. Like demanding BSEEs /BSCS for a business programming job - you know, data in, data out, data update, etc .... - when a CIS or even a tech school grad is more than enough for the job.
Or having these ridiculous "tests" and questions for job candidates. I have seen excellent people get turned away because they failed one of those trick interview questions that are so famous on the net to see how a candidate "thinks"
The best interviews I have is when I am given a programming assignment and of course, the talking parts to see what a "fit" I'd be.
And that's the other thing too - all too often I see great candidates turned away because they don't "fit" the company culture - whatever that means. I take it it's because they're old or black or have a zit - all too subjective.
Anyone who thinks that they are cold and rational when it comes to hiring people is delusional.
We'll hire less qualified non-white candidates to bring up our fake numbers for PR purposes.
I guess that's ok? That is a specifically race-prejudiced action.
The situation is now that they have actually DONE what is the most meritorious race-blind action which is to hire based on qualifications. I guess in today's obama world, that's not good enough.
"No good deed goes unpunished"
It's people who think like you who will forever keep us from addressing these problems.
Race is not tied to culture, and criticizing a dysfunctional culture is not racist, bigoted, or an action to be shamed. Your need to tie the self-destructive culture that is held by some urban people (of all races) to a specific race, and imply that they are unable to change their culture, is what is racist.
Thug gangsta culture is not a productive and viable culture, regardless of the color of the practitioner's skin. My saying that is not racist, but your implying that thug culture is an intrinsic part of being black is racist. We get to call out dysfunctional cultures and your attempts to make everything about race and shut down the conversation only make the world an uglier place.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
I'm a boss. There are lots of right people. The right person is someone who can get along with all the OTHER people. Aptitude is not as important as attitude. Yours is kind of selfish and cynical. I'd hire a woman over you. She's more likely to be a team player. It's a stereotype, but....
but what? but it's a good stereotype, so you can act like you're "one of the good guys" without having to admit to your fundamentally prejudiced and patronizing worldview?
well played. cynically saying whatever you believe people want to hear in an attempt to keep and justify your grasp on power, LIKE A BOSS!
I'm out of mod points, (and you posted as AC), but someone should mod this up.
I've discovered quite an amazing amount of sexual diversity through Google. Much of which is also racially diverse.
Google actually lists the Asian percentage on their page, at 34%. Apparently they consider Indians to be Asian though, because they lump the two categories together.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
We should stop having scholarships for athletics. It should only be for academic achievement. That way the motivation to do good in school will be higher.
So you bring out some examples of crazy people from the past and hold them up as your definitions of everything. Impressive argument.
Race is involved, in that participation in that culture is responsible for the failure of many black people to do well in our society, but the problem isn't race. Race is tangential to the entire issue, which is correcting dysfunctional cultures, and only figures into this because you care more about the color of people's skin than their behavior. There are plenty of white people caught up in thug culture, too, but they don't figure into your thoughts because their skin is the wrong color for you.
You don't seem to understand... you are the racist. You are the one who is making everything about the color of people's skin, even when it isn't.
Your whole post is just a long string of ad hominem attacks and attempts to associate the opposing viewpoint with something nasty that it is not. Are you the same person who always jumps into debates about Israeli foreign policy crying "antisemitism"?
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
It's going to be one or the other.
Welfare runs about 18,000 a year.
Prison runs about 31,000 a year.
If you won't protect people over 45 from age discrimination (over two decades from retirement and social security) then you are going to end up supporting them on welfare or in prison.
Age discrimination has grown enormously since 2009 when SCOTUS gutted protection from age discrimination. Many companies now openly require the actual high school graduation date for positions that require advanced degrees. The ONLY reason you need that information is so that you know the age of the candidate. That should be made illegal immediately.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
in other words, you are being told to break the law and hire based on race. Simply disgusting, I wont ask because i dont expect an answer, but id like to know what company so I can avoid them in the future
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
It's also worth mentioning that for some reason it's still politically correct to be racist against east-Indians. I've heard more angry racism against Indians (mostly by idiots who couldn't program their way out of a paper bag) than against every other race in my entire life combined.
The worst is that it still gets modded up here.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
A 7 is "nearly" a 9? You may have a different definition of "nearly" than the tech folks asking you to hire staff for them. If your rankings accurately reflect the candidates' competence, a 7 will be unable to handle the top 20% of the tasks a 9 can do.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
> The final solution will have to come from within the backwards cultures themselves. We cannot impose a solution upon them, and cannot be held responsible for their lack of a solution.
That's a convenient way to shirk your responsibility. Ghetto culture does not exist in a vacuum. It is part of American culture. What the powerful do has all kinds of indirect effects on the powerless. For example, underfunded police departments because the rich live in gated communities and hire private security means not only not enough cops to police the poor neighborhoods it also means bad quality cops there too. There are thousands of ways the powerful crush the powerless without even thinking about it.
Hell, look at those islamic countries you are talking about. They all suffer greatly under US foreign policy. Mostly putting oil profits ahead of local good governance, encouraging corruption because "that's the local's problem" which is ridiculous when you hand the corrupt leaders millions of dollars.
Clearly. He said he was a manager.
They're right where they want to be actually. They're at "who cares about race and gender, hire the most qualified person and fire them if they don't do their job well enough." That's the polar opposite of racism. Hiring a few people from certain groups to look better from the outside is the most racist thing they could possibly do. If they were hiring only white males and ignoring talented black females for example, they'd be doing as well as Oracle or Blackberry. But they're not! They're doing Google-well at the moment so that means the people working there are the best people who should be working there.
No responsibility without authority.
Asia is a fairly large and diverse region. India is considered part of Asia as is most of the middle east. The vast majority of Russia is also considered part of Asia.
Using "Asian" as a racial identifier is ultimately silly given that the concept of race is primarily driven by physical descriptions, which vary by a lot throughout Asia.
Once you get enough women, they start to club up and discriminate against men too.
And there isn't a lawsuit/reeducation class to stop them.
I saw a manager filter through a half dozen male supervisors and end up with an entirely female supervisory staff in six months. She was always pissed off that they didn't communicate the same way she did. They were too direct and too black and white. She liked to give very "soft" commands. She would never give a direct order. She made a lot of "requests"- some of which later turned out to be orders while others were not.
Once she had a few female supervisors, they would go to lunch and exclude the males. At lunch, they would discuss business and project plans. Then later, she would bust the males for not knowing what was going on.
People tend to group up on some basis unless you actively discourage it. She and another female executive grouped up based on gender.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
"How is a 9 comparable to a 7?"
I'd hire Jeri Ryan any day...
> Aptitude is not as important as attitude.
Depends. If you want a good developer, for example, aptitude is pretty much everything (as long as you can additionally somehow find it within yourself to more or less obey instructions from superiors, and avoid killing your coworkers).
1. Whenever I talk about Linux/computer programming, there are a very small number of people that have been interested in the topics. Some are women, the vast majority are men. 2. Computers are expensive as a hobby. Sure they've gotten a lot cheaper, but you're still paying several grand to enjoy the hobby properly. Now I don't profess to know the US situation (Australian here), but in my experience, I had to use my computer constantly while growing up in the 1990's (I'm 28 years old) Computers when I started (1993/1994) cost $4000+ and have dropped significantly over time. Is it possible that we see less use of computers within groups within America that didn't have as much money in the 1990s? It's hard to use a computer every day if you don't have the money to buy one? I think lack of access has been the primary reason for these gender imbalances. I also think that there's been a rapid shift in the last decade. I remember about 10 years ago noone used Linux, only nerds and CS people. But in the last 5 years the use of it has grown dramatically. I think the same has been happening for women using computers. I think that in the next 10-20 years this issue will go away, purely because people can now afford and use computers on a daily basis, so anyone can get into the hobby. As a child my sister was very athletic and I was more into using and hogging the computer. I think now that computers have gotten so cheap, most people are buying computers for all their kids, so none of them gets left out (a boy can't monopolise his sister's machine if he's using his own). I think that this is what will end the gender/racial imbalances in computing.
I don't believe in the "great white savior" trope, thank you very much. Asserting that people outside of ghetto culture, or islamic culture, have some sort of responsibility for reforming ghetto or islamic culture is shamefully insulting to the people in ghetto or islamic culture.
If things are going to be changed, they have to come from within those culture communities, not from the outside.
Start with the man in the mirror.
Some cultures are better than others, period. All cultures have problems, no doubt, but thug, ghetto culture definitely has more problems than mainstream culture.
Asserting that disparate outcomes are mostly due to racism, rather than mostly due to culture, misidentifies the root cause of the problem, and actively works *against* any future progress. If your arm is broken, and you've got a hangnail at the same time, you don't focus on the hangnail as the reason why you can't lift your arm.
When you're in the ghetto, it isn't the guy in the suburbs that you never see in person that is holding you back - it's the gang of thugs that beats you up if they see you carrying a chemistry textbook, or if they hear you speak proper english. Blaming some mythical "whitey", while you're beat down by the thug culture around you, is giving a pass to the cultural violence perpetrated, and unfairly scapegoating someone who doesn't deserve it.
It's time to get past the idea that "being real" means being uneducated, criminal, illiterate, misogynistic, and violent.
so by your logic, since the pastors have stopped (almost, a few churches still openly preach Biblical slavery)....since they stopped, then the racism & their influence just vanishes into thin air
the racist attitudes are the constant...racism was present before the preachers came to justify it with the Bible
if I punch you in the face repeatedly, will your pain stop when I stop punching?
Thank you Dave Raggett
To anyone doubting there is a problem, look at the comments in this post. There are a LOT of:
There's no problem
There's no women or minorities anyway!
Why don't you just hire the best person for the job?
This is just people being oversensitive.
Women aren't interested in this stuff anyway.
Etc etc etc. There are worse comments in here too. The entire tone of all these posts is a big "fuck off" sign. You wonder why there aren't many women in tech? Look around you. That's why.
The problem is VERY real, and kudos to Google for recognizing it and trying to do something about it. These kinds of efforts make the world a better place.
I've tended to notice that whenever someone does something to make the world better, a certain segment of the population will naysay and heap shit upon it, all while not lifting a finger to fix the problem themselves. Armchair Generals are a drag on the efforts of people with initiative.
Your tirade can be shortened: correlation does not imply causation. While disproportionate representation is correlated with personal bias of those hiring, it does not even as much as suggest that such bias is present. Just as high correlation of left-handedness and talent does not imply that there is a left-handed conspiracy to promote their own.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Who cares if a small percentage of the IT workforce is women? I sincerely doubt that a 50/50 split of men and women are applying for these jobs. Now, if the percentage of male/female applicants WAS 50/50, then something would definitely be wrong. I'd be interested to see data on that.
For the record, I realize I may be privileged (and I cringe using that term, to be honest). I'm reading back on some comments about students getting picked on for taking an interested in science and technology, and that never happened to me. Even though I was pretty much always the only girl in my tech-related endeavours, I was never picked on for it (I was picked on for other things though, but I'm sure it would have still happened even if I liked more "traditionally female" things).
That being said, even if there wasn't a perceived stigma attached to those interests, I doubt the numbers would be much higher.
1) How many African Americans apply every year?
2) How many women apply every year?
3) How well do either female or African Americans interview?
4) Can you demonstrate given this information that your ratio of females to males and Caucasians to African Americans makes sense?
That is a simple way to judge if the work place is being restrictive or fair, you can't hire more women or diversity if they don't apply and if they don't interview well.
I support equal opportunity employers. That being said, I belive that we sould not hire someone for PR reasons. You should not discriminate someone because they are black, but you shouldn't hire them for that reason alone either. If a white male, and an African-american female apply for a job, and the white male is hired because he is better qualified, that is not racist or sexist, it is just selecting the better candidate for the job. Now this should also work the other way around as well. We should not be hiring based on gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or disabilities. We should hire based on qualifications (as well as a few other factors).
The reason is that most women choose children and kitchen work over I.T., :-)
and most blacks choose Basketball over I.T. Look at *those* statistics.
I guarantee you I am right, like it or not. There, I said it.
I also bet the 17% women force at Google are for the most part secretarial
or whatever is Politically Correct to call those workers nowadays.
I'd hire a woman over you. She's more likely to be a team player.
You have clearly never actually worked with a woman.
how do you know "the time for it (is) LONG past?"
by what criteria do you make that decision?
explain in detail
Thank you Dave Raggett
So, how many Southern Christian preachers work in the Google HR department?
I'm a hiring manager for a Fortune 100 Tech company (my boss reports directly to WW HR VP) and have been told point-blank that all hires must pass the "if all else is nearly equal" rule. In other words, when presented with two applicants who are "nearly" equally qualified for a position, that we are to hire the one that best addresses a minority concern. Period.
So if Jack rates a 9, and Jane rates a 7 in our interview results, Jane will always be hired. Any manager hiring Jack over Jane in this scenario will not be one much longer.
So which racist and misandry company do you work for so we can all avoid buying their products and services? Tell us so none of you can be there much longer.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
I'm a boss. There are lots of right people. The right person is someone who can get along with all the OTHER people. Aptitude is not as important as attitude. Yours is kind of selfish and cynical. I'd hire a woman over you. She's more likely to be a team player. It's a stereotype, but....
This might explain why so many products and services today cost too much and fail to deliver. Attitude without aptitude is worthless unless your goal is to throw a sterile party for the perpetually offended. People who are 'team players' are far less likely to come up with unique ideas about anything. They're too busy spending their cycles on social conformance.
I don't think I can stress this enough. For the vast majority of positions, there are plenty of people who can do the job I need them to do. There are no rock stars needed. We have rock stars. They cause problems and unneeded stress. I need bright motivated people who get along well. One asshole ruins motivation for everyone.
or maybe you're causing your 'rock stars' unneeded stress by surrounding them with intellectually mediocre but nice people. These situations are quite common, usually with the 'rock star' doing 90% of the workload while the 'nice' people spend most of the day talking instead of working. Of course, when it's time to take credit, these 'nice' people line up, and being photogenic and 'nice', they fool idiot bosses like you into thinking they did the work. Eventually, you fire the 'negative nancy' and then wonder why suddenly you're behind schedule. You beg the guy to come back, and he agrees, for 2.5x the pay as a consultant. It's managers like you who should be fired.
That's why we need diversity. That's why we need people with emotional intelligence. Then there's the whole "diversity of experiences helps come up with clever solutions to the problems we are trying to overcome." thing, which is really really important.
The definition of 'diversity' used by these PC professional victims only works one way. They have no problem with all female run organizations, just all male run organizations. 'emotional intelligence' is newspeak for feelings-before-logic. That's hardly a talent worth seeking. Rooms full of 'emotionally intelligent' people spend most of their O2 talking instead of working. The most insufferable kind are the faux intellectual types who sophistize about everything, telling the 'rock star' how to do his job when they know almost nothing.
wow, what do you use to make those half-hispanic androids? latin cadavers, arduinos and stepper motors?
Well, India is in Asia. So there's that.
The best way to go about hiring is to find the best people you can for whatever salary you're offering, based solely on merit. Do so by ensuring all interviewers have undergone training on non-discrimination - they should know what questions they can and cannot ask. When interviewers discuss a candidate, they cross check one another's opinion to help minimize subjective bias. The evaluation should never involve the candidate's gender and race, among other things.
After that it shouldn't matter what the composition of your workforce is.
No one said there are not personality differences. The assertion was that women are neither "on average" better team players, nor better employees in general, in the context of tech jobs. Pointing out there are "personality differences on average" does not counter the argument.
And what percentage of qualified applications were black or female?
If they never apply, they can never get the jobs... That's nothing to do with "diversity" or "racism", indeed most people who fling around accusations of racism in the industry conveniently ignore that theres a lot of asians working in the field.. The reason for this? They actually apply for the jobs and are qualified to do them.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
As am I. And I well understand the benefits that diverse perspectives resulting from diverse backgrounds brings to a team. But when I have a chance to hire a 9, I hire the 9. I only hire the 7 when I can't afford to wait for a 9 to become available. I'd rather pay the 9 to automate the 7's work down to nothing than pay the 7 to do the repetitive work he can handle.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
That's why we need diversity. That's why we need people with emotional intelligence. Then there's the whole "diversity of experiences helps come up with clever solutions to the problems we are trying to overcome." thing, which is really really important.
That makes for a nice sitcom plot, but the reality most of the time it's just a job, and you want someone who will fit in with the existing team. If that fit is a different age/colour/sex than the others than so be it, but there's no magic formula that says to get the best results the team must comprise exactly one of each type of human on the planet.
They probably consider India to be part of Asia because it is. I can only assume by your embarrassing lack of geographic knowledge that you must be American. This is why you guys shouldn't get involved in International disputes.
I believe all humans are equally valuable and respectable regardless of race and sex. I do not, however, believe that humans are all created equal in terms of predisposition of physical skills and intelligence.
Differences in physical skills between race and gender is not much of a taboo. It is generally accepted that men are stronger than women, and in sports we don't let men compete with women because that would be unfair and pointless. The 100m sprint is dominated by blacks. Should we think of women as less than men because of this? Or whites to be inferior to blacks? Obviously not.
Differences in "intelligence" between race and gender is a huge taboo. It is not accepted that men are generally predisposed to be more able to abstract and plan ahead than women, and that whites and asians are predisposed to have better abilities to abstract and plan ahead than blacks. Perhaps the difference may be caused by poverty, less opportunity, cultural differences or racism. Or perhaps its the other way around: less ability to plan and abstract causes poverty and cultural differences.
This would be a racist and highly controversial, politically incorrect position to take. In my view, this is exactly where the problem starts. Apparently, intelligence is the one measure by which we must judge a human being. It seems that against all evidence we want to continue to pretend we are predisposed to be all equally smart, implying that people that would be predisposed to be less smart are somehow inferior. This is infuriating and obviously not the case. Intelligence is an arbitrary measure just as physical skills or beauty is. There are many traits to a human being, and it would be better if we'd accept that there are differences in terms of predisposition between gender and race. It would mean conceding that some races are predisposed to be physically superior and others to be predisposed in terms of ability to plan ahead and abstract. Then we can accept that, yes, no surprise, we see a lot of white men in doing things that demand math-like skills such as finance, programming and research. A great many of these jobs that require abstraction and planning are the higher paying ones.
My karma ran over your dogma
So question, do you consider Jews to be Asian?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
perpetual victimhood
The irony. Negroes have the market cornered on this, no shares to buy.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
lol
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
It's not because they are genetically idiots
Sure about that? Sub-saharan IQ average is 70. Here in the US that's straddling the legal threshold for mental retardation.
More diversity always leads to greater economic growth and productivity.
Libtard lie. Evidence is 100% to the contrary. Diversity is a civilization killer.
You fucking shitlord.
Libtard moron skidmark.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
By the standards of the Democrats today, this is racist.
What they have in mind would go:
"priveleged by the color of their skin, and anyone who notices the poor content of their character is a dirty racist"
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
If you want to make the argument that native american culture is just a facet of British culture, is just a facet of islamic culture, is just a facet of Kenyan culture, is just a facet of ghetto culture, is just a facet of midwestern culture, is just a facet of native Hawaiian culture, I suppose you could try...but that seems like a useless semantic argument.
Whether or not rich people do bad things, or if western oil companies do bad things, is frankly, irrelevant. Underfunding police does not force ghetto culture to write misogynistic songs about "bitches and hoes". Western oil companies supporting islamic regimes does not make them veil their women, or engage in honor killings. For all the terrible things you can blame *others* for, the fact of the matter is this - on a cultural level, regimes like thug/gangsta culture and islamic culture are their *own* worst enemies.
So sure, it's indisputably true that life sucks - but what you do with that, and the culture you create and abide by, is *your* responsibility. You cannot blame the "great white savior" for not providing enough money for your police department - but you can reject a culture that glorifies violence, misogyny and denigrates hard honest work. You cannot blame the "great white savior" for having business deals with islamic governments sitting on cheap oil - but you can reject a culture that stifles free speech, denigrates women, and kills innocent civilians in the name of their violent god.
There are plenty of places in this world, with *good* culture, and underfunded police.
There are plenty of places in this world, with *good* culture, and western oil companies giving them money.
Their outcomes are different not because of the police or oil companies, but because of the *culture*.
Perhaps the reason "Google chose not to disclose anything about the age makeup of its workforce" is that the company, like MOST other technology companies these days, is profoundly prejudiced against older (50+ years old) workers, even those who have kept up with the latest software technologies. So it appears that Google is overwhelmingly male, overwhelmingly white, and overwhelmingly young -- yes, they should be very concerned about diversity.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
Casteism
You can't tell what color a person is from a forum post, but it's safe to say that there are not going to be a lot of posts from blacks on the original News for Nerds site.
So it's safe to say that most of what we're reading here is "our" opinion, "us" Nerds being a bunch of white and asian males.
My posts are surely some of the most radical, I have reclaimed the original definition of the word "racist" and can bear the label (I'm taking it back.)
If you take back the original definition of the word "racist" (race-sm, as in an *ism pertaining to race) and apply it equally and objectively, the results are very different from the "racist" meme promulgated by the left/msm since the 1960's.
Everyone is a racist, in one form or another. Think asians are smart? Racist. Think blacks are good at sports? Racist. White girl who prefers black men? Racist. Affirmative Action? Racist. Democrats? Nothing but racism.
I love white people, and I work to protect us. We have been the target of systematic, pervasive, instiutitional, legalized racism for the period of time that I've been alive, lied about, demonized, attacked and persecuted, and we've been denied even a voice to tell the truth about it.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
If Google employed twice as many % of blacks as in the population they would be celebrated for their Diversity, could expect even more glad-handing and pork from their Democrat masters.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
A 7 can configure backup software so that a 4 can change the tapes. A 9 can automate the backup process so that there are no tapes to change. And when I go to restore a file from the 9's backup it'll have actually worked. The 7's backups will be more iffy, especially if the 4 neglected to change the tapes.
I'd rather hire the 9. Then I don't need the 4 or the 7. And since the 9 is paid less than the sum of the 4 and 7's salaries, I save money to boot.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I was a manager at Home Depot for years and can tell you they do the same thing. When I got hired we had a man as a regional manager who didn't give a shit what race or sex you were. He hired the best people he could and our team became the envy of the entire company. We literally wrote the book on how to do our jobs better and most things considered 'best practices' came from our regional team at some level. Then his boss was changed to a woman who decided their were too many white men in our region things got really bad. When hiring the last three lower level managers under me I wasn't told if candidates were nearly the same, I was told I HAD to hire more females and minorities. After giving interviews for three months, and finding zero decent female or minority candidates, my new regional manager pulled me aside and basically accused me of being a racist and a sexist. I was told I had two weeks to fill the position or someone would be found to do it for me. The best of the bunch was a black woman who had been an HR department head. I had to fire her six months later for theft and was then blamed for hiring her in the first place. I ended up leaving HD because I got tired of the stupidity. At every level of the company they have gone off the rails. Management at the upper levels of the company have decided that anyone but a white male should be hired and most of the time that means not hiring the best candidate. Men are more physically capable of doing the bottom end jobs so more men are hired for those jobs. When it comes time to hire for their boss should I hire one of them who knows every aspect of his own job plus most aspects of his boss' job or a female who knows nothing about either position as an outside hire? In nearly every case it was better to hire from within but that meant I was a racist and a sexist for thinking people most capable of doing the job were the ones I should hire.
They're both over 40 already.
yeah i got crazy b/c of how racist /. commenters are...
you were just pointing out one error...it doesn't change anything to my central point at all
the thing is, this is the internet...and it's slashdot which allows anon comments...so that all has to be taken into account...
*those factors included* the level of racism or blatantly ignorant ideas of race relations and culture on this thread are truly ridiculous and disappointing
what you kids don't understand is, the media of the spectrum has shifted far, far to the right...the poles have re-aligned such that two groups that usually do not overlap: geeks and ignorant white racists, have converged and been empowered by tech money...just look at Peter Theil
usually the only people who express the ideas of racism I've seen on slashdot are un-educated, downtrodden whites who are just being bullies due to their own sad life circumstances...
this is different...this is educated, rich, white people talking like rednecks...it's fsking disgusting
Thank you Dave Raggett
We need more whites/asians (and latinos, which are typically white and asian) in the NBA! I'm down with this hiring practice discrimination against the best-candidate-for-the-job, when the NBA starts blocking the best black athletes for whites and asians.
http://www.accountkiller.com/en/delete-slashdot-account Stop visiting Slashdot.
BS: People in IT are not generally known for their people skills. Don't confuse diversity of experience with diversity of groups, or even if said diversity will be of use. For IT, you will be looking at IT people. If you're the boss, you know that it's a balancing act between qualifications which include people skills. Diversity of experience seldom is of concern in IT. IT workers quickly split into two main groups. Those who are programmers and want to remain programmers. The idea of moving into management either scares them, or they see it with distaste. The second group slides right onto the management track/ladder. The two groups require a quite different secondary skills set. Even their primary skills differ somewhat. However, what group they come from (Diversity) Race, religion, or life style has very little to do with these skill sets. You are concerned with their skill set, not stereotypes which are often wrong. I think we've all worked with a programmer who had zip for people skills, but were outstanding. As long as their fellow workers could tolerate them, they just stayed in their cubical and did what was asked of them. As a project manager I worked for and with women. In those positions they were the same as men. Those in management and engineering were as different from general society as men in those positions. Getting a bunch of engineers on the same page can sometimes be like herding cats. We are talking, well educated IT people, not "the man on the street". Yes they need IT skills and usually the upper percentile for programmers. They need people skills which are seldom learned in college, and have little to do with gender. If on the upward track, they need to quickly identify problem employees and not be reticent to "have a talk" with said employee, or even terminate him/her. OTOH you don't want the aggressive military drill Sargent approach for most positions. Where I worked, people would burn out. If they had a good history, the company would do all they could to salvage said employee, often returning that employee to their original attitude and position. OTOH there are companies where you follow the "party line" or found yourself being engineered out the door. It didn't matter if you were hourly or a PHD. It was a very clickish atmosphere These minority groups are poorly represented because there are few from those groups in IT.
At least we haven't been straddled with mediocrity...yet. But look at all the useless degrees they keep pumping out. Graduates cant get a job so they spend another 50 grand plus to get an advanced degree in the same useless field.
This is standard policy at most fortune 500 companies.
I was took a standard training course at Sysco foods and we were trained to interview every by asking for X identical "stories" and assigning the interview a rating for each story.
If the total rating was close, we were told explicitly we should hire the "most diverse candidate". I.e. a female over a male, a black over white, so a black female over a black male or a white female, etc.
And after all the training- the reality was that we didn't follow the training at all in the interviews. It was mostly nepotism and then desperately trying to get anyone remotely qualified to hire on (the company had and I think still has a TERRIBLE (and well deserved) reputation.
After working the internal staff for over 2 years at 72 hours a week, they laid 90% of them off and brought in Infosysm. Prior to that, they often worked the staff under sweatshop conditions whenever the economy turned down and jobs were hard to get.
The corp's main challenge was having a lilly white mostly male upper management and board (and even mostly the president and vp levels) in their mid to late 50's and I think that they were desperately trying to promote and develop diverse executive candidates.
But the training course is probably standard for most fortune 500 companies because it's legally defensible.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I'd like to hire two or three 9's, a bunch of 7's and 8's. I'd put the 4's on help desk and in operations.
If I have too many 9's it's either going to blow out my budget or I'm going to have high turnover. Plus 9's tend to be prima donna's when it comes to lower status work. They also tend to be poor at maintenance and documentation.
I want some 9's to hand the "impossible" problems and to learn and introduce new technologies. But I want 7's to handle routine problems, follow procedures, and follow standards. The 4's are to filter and handle the 70% of the work which is mundane or scriptable so that the 7's and 9's are used effectively.
If I was a google- maybe i could afford to have all 9's. But not if I was most companies.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Grr. Sometimes I hate the inability to edit here.
"I was trained" ... Hmmm. Not quite what I mean to say. Ahhh. .. yes I like that better.
"I took a standard"
And the result was of course: "I was took a standard"...
Sigh...
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
You can't just fire white males and replace them with female and minority ethnicities, and if the majority of people applying for a positions are white males you cant fix this imbalance without breaking employment laws. In a large international corporation If 5% of interview job applicants are female then around 5% of those hired should be female, if 50% of those hired are female, then that company is obviously discriminating against applicants based on gender and should be sued our fined for breaking employment laws. Knowing ethnicity and gender ratios of a companies employee base with out knowing the ratio of their applicant base is pointless. A companies goal should to get their employee base ethnicity/gender ratio to match the ratio of their applicants. If their ratios match and there is still a huge imbalance then the problem is with their hiring practices but within the education system
Are you actually implying Indians are not Asians or what?
Where do I sign up. Everyone around here wants to pay for 2 4's.
Cheap storage VM.
as long as people are not being excluded from jobs specifically because of their gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. - what difference does it make? If someone has the skills but doesn't get hired because they are Black or Hispanic or a woman or...whatever...then I have a problem with that. Just like I have a problem with white males who are qualified not getting hired because some mysterious "quota" is not being met.
What is it with this obsession in trying to artificially level the playing field? Imposing hiring quotas comes with the implicit suggestion that you, as the hiring manager, are a racist, sexist bigot and need to be told who to hire.
When I look back to my college days (admittedly quite a while ago) I just don't remember seeing very many black or hispanic kids in my Engineering classes. Could that be because maybe they just weren't that interested in Engineering as a career option? I don't know. But it seems to me that if you have fewer minorities graduating with Engineering degrees then you are naturally going to have fewer minorities working in this field.
The real problem with trying to artificially tilt the playing field is that it truly is a zero sum game. For every minority you "include" you "exclude" a white guy. Does that really solve the problem (assuming there was a problem in the first place)? Or is it just more feel-good, group-hug stuff to make some feel as if they are "making a difference" while all it really does is create resentment where none existed before?
Prima donnas? You misunderstand the nature of 9's. It's not about status, it's about waste. If you waste their time with repetitive work they could eliminate with automation, they resent it. Give them the responsibility AND the authority. Demand that the work be done, but don't set capricious requirements on the how. You'll rarely be disappointed.
As for documentation, 9's document for other 9's and other 9's have little trouble following the work. A 7 can't always follow a 9's thinking well enough to change the code, even when you luck out with a particularly good communicator.
If you follow your approach, you'll have high turnover with any 9's you manage to hire. You don't offer them anyone to learn from and you force them to dumb down every good idea they have. That's why google only hires 9's -- they can't afford not to.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I've never had a ten, but I have had five twos.
George Carlin
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Do you consider a Christian to be Asian? You're question makes no sense. There is no fixed correlation between religion and geographic location.
Interesting. Do you also consider Arab to be Asian?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Dude, give up. If you are unsure where Asia is I suggest you engage your brain and Google it...
Says the guy who doesn't realize 'Jew' is an ethnic group.
Just for your info, there are plenty of places that find it useful to distinguish between Indians and Asians. Apparently you haven't come across that.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."