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Intel Pledges $300 Million To Improve Diversity In Tech

Posted by Soulskill on from the will-add-your-biological-and-technological-distinctiveness-to-his-own dept.

AmiMoJo writes: Intel CEO Brian Krzanich announced plans to improve diversity not just at Intel, but in the wider tech industry. Krzanich wants "to reach full representation at all levels" of the company by 2020. For instance, Intel's workforce is currently four percent black; if the company were to adjust its numbers to reflect the number of qualified workers in the tech industry, that number would increase to about six percent.

To help address one of tech's underlying diversity problems — that there are fewer qualified women and minorities available to hire than there are white or Asian men — Krzanich pledged to spend $300 million over the next three years. According to the New York Times, much of that money will be allocated "to fund engineering scholarships and to support historically black colleges and universities."

"I have two daughters of my own coming up on college age," he said to the NYT. "I want them to have a world that's got equal opportunity for them."

28 of 341 comments (clear)

  1. Waste of money by aglider · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you don't understand the problem first, there will be no real solution later. Why don't we have "diversity"?

    --
    Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
    1. Re:Waste of money by jythie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't know, it is hard to go wrong with scholarships. It may not address underlying issues, but it will get more people into the pipeline that might not have been able to otherwise, which means more mentors and role models down the road. A crude solution, but still stands a chance to do some good.

    2. Re:Waste of money by Nemyst · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It also further exacerbates jealousy and a feeling of inequality from the disgusting straight white males (do I need to add more adjectives there?) we keep bashing. Perhaps this'll come as a shock, but not all white males are rich. By having a scholarship for pretty much every state of being but white males, you're going to segregate the people who already love what they're doing and do it because of that in spite of the monetary problems. You're telling them that they're not worth fussing over.

    3. Re:Waste of money by jythie · · Score: 3, Insightful

      True, not all white males are rich, but all other things being equal, they still get preferential treatment when it comes to jobs, career advancement, internships, etc. That tends to be the problem with invisible privilege, it is not absolute so it can be hard for individuals (who will always have others better off than themselves) to see it even exists, and thus any help that does not include them feels like a loss. In fact it often gets wrapped up in entitlement, the feeling that whatever they do get they simply deserve thus it is not an advantage and giving other people a leg up is undeserved.

      But yes, it will further exacerbate jealousy, there is not much you can do about that outside sliding back or going as far as returning to 'only white protestant land owning ethnically local males are legally people' system, which naturally then you had jealousy in other directions. But as long as a dominant group with a diverse membership sees others rising, there will be jealousy and they feeling that they should be better off than they are and if those uppity minorities were not in the way they would be wealthier within their own demographic. Even though they would not actually be. Ok, I tangented quite a bit ther ^_^

    4. Re: Waste of money by kaliann · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nursing is hard. Veterinary medicine is hard. Biological sciences, particularly at the graduate level, are hard.
      All of these are heavily female dominated.

      Women don't avoid hard fields simply because there is challenging material.

      It's almost like the situation is more complex than "Tech is just too tough for delicate ladybrains".

    5. Re: Waste of money by Penguinisto · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ...and at least some assurance that motherhood wouldn't throw them completely off their career track.

      And therein lies the rub. Unless he mandates a hysterectomy before hiring at Intel, that biological clock will be there, ticking. There isn't shit that you (or the Intel Corporation) can do about it, either. I know quite a few women in tech (including Intel employees) - the highly successful ones are childless, and have no inclination of having kids (the only exception is a former manager of mine - and she has an MBA, not a CompSci degree). The reason why? They forewent the child-rearing thing and went all-in when it came to technology - just like the guys do.

      When you bear a child, your priorities change - hard. All the sudden, that project/application/datacenter/whatever doesn't seem so damned important anymore, and your life's focus changes. It's not sexist to say that women in general are affected by this a hell of a lot more than men are. Guys are generally used to sucking it up and getting on with the business of focusing back on that whole hunter-gatherer thing - it's how we're wired. There are exceptions in either direction of course, but they're not the general rule. Generally, the business of getting that little snot factory raised, educated, nurtured, and prepared for the world becomes a woman's focus much quicker than it does for a guy.

      Even with compromises (day care, schools, etc), it still changes the top priority for most (not all - most) women. This in turn throws the statistics off pretty hard for careers that require constant education and constant renewal.

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    6. Re: Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      You mean hard wired to sacrifice themselves to take care of their family?

    7. Re: Waste of money by Penguinisto · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's the thing - it isn't that they put their careers "over" their families - they do it because of their families. That woolly mammoth isn't gonna kill itself, you know (or the modern equivalent? 'That mortgage ain't gonna pay itself.')

      Most guys would love to stay home all day and help raise the kids, enjoying every moment - instead they have to get out there and make double-damned certain that the wife and kids were provided for, and kept secure, safe, fed, and warm. That's the hard-wiring I'm talking about. Some guys manage to do it (e.g. stay-at-home dads) - good for them! (no, really - I'd be totally envious of such a situation.) Most guys however don't get to do that - they have to get out there and work for the long haul, for the family.

      That's why I specifically wrote "sucking it up" - not because they want to, but because they have to.

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    8. Re:Waste of money by malkavian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Ok, and let's get equal leave for paternity, money spent getting males into Vetinary sciences etc. where they're underrepresented, and a whole host of things that are directed at women. Plus, the same chance of being the stay at home partner when children arrive (males are vastly under represented here. Oh, and compulsory genetic testing at childbirth (so every male will have the same knowledge that the child is theirs as the mother has), so on, so forth.. But you know what, a male will never have the same bond with a child as the mother, because that's biologically impossible. What's the big picture here? The sexes aren't equal in all things; one sex has advantages in some areas. People make their own choices along the way. This insistence that there must be equal everything at each step, and that the company must have x people in post to match a general demographic of population by discriminating based on sex or skin colour is atrocious. I'm all for meritocracy (hell, my hiring practices of the past decade have had me hiring in approximately 50% ethnic minorities, as they were flat out the best candidates for the job that presented at interviews). This "discriminate against one group so we can get a demographic match up" is just plain silly.

    9. Re:Waste of money by a+whoabot · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The Department of Labor commissioned a study on the gender pay gap. None could be determined to be caused by discrimination. They could not even conclude that there was any pay differential when all non-discriminatory factors were accounted for. "An Analysis of Reasons for the Disparity in Wages Between Men and Women"

    10. Re: Waste of money by Penguinisto · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Funny how single moms manage to do both, isn't it?

      ...usually because they have to, not because they want to. I was raised by a single mother who would have vastly preferred to have not had to hold a full-time job.

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    11. Re: Waste of money by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Interesting

      To all the people who say "women don't want to work in tech", note that women were the MAJORITY in the early days of computing, right up until the advent of personal computers.

      Most of those jobs were for data entry clerks. A man would write a program with pen and paper, hand it to a woman, and then she would sit at a card punch machine and type in the program. Once personal computers became common, the man could type in his own program, the paper and pen went away, and so did the woman "tech worker".

      So it's quite probable women WOULD go into tech fields ... if they had encouragement

      The problem with this hypothesis is that it doesn't explain why woman have been so successful in fields like law and medicine, where they not only faced blatant discrimination, harassment, and discouragement from their peers, but also institutional barriers. Yet women fought through all of that and prevailed. So if you think that "discouragement" is the explanation, you need to explain why it only happens in tech.

    12. Re:Waste of money by a+whoabot · · Score: 3, Informative

      I have read the paper many times, thank you for trying to belittle me. I was objecting to your particular claim that women are paid less for the same work. Now you are raising completely different points about men and women doing DIFFERENT work. I don't deny that men and women do different work and that societal expectations about gender roles is the primary cause of this. I fully agree with that.

      There were many claims that women were being paid less for the same work. The Department had a legal obligation to prevent this as a civil rights issue, so they tried to discover what exactly was happening. They could not determine that such a thing was happening. Of course, every economist was saying the same thing: Investors almost universally invest in the highest expected return. If women were doing the same work for less pay, investors would invest in firms that primarily or solely used women as workers, thus increasing demand, and pay, until an equilibrium is reached.

      The final conclusion: "As a result, it is not possible now, and doubtless will never be possible, to determine reliably whether any portion of the observed gender wage gap is not attributable to factors that compensate women and men differently on socially acceptable bases, and hence can confidently be attributed to overt discrimination against women. In addition, at a practical level, the complex combnation of factors that collectively determine wages pad to different individuals makes the formulation of policy that will reliably redress ay overt discrimination that does exist a task that is, at least, daunting and, more likely, unachievable." (pg. 36)

      The Department of Labor has not done an equivalent study since this 2009 one.

    13. Re: Waste of money by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So how do you explain all those single moms who manage to do both?

      Disclaimer: I was brought up by a single mother...

      The truth is, the vast, VAST majority do no such thing. They typically have others (friends, daycare, relatives) take care of the kids during the day/afternoon/evening whilst mom is working. They are "out of the picture" as much as a father who goes to work to earn money and comes home at night to spend time with the family, eat, and sleep. The concept of a "hero-mom" who works 8+ hours a day AND is home for the kids all the time is a highly-flawed one.

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
  2. Hire the best person by master_kaos · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How about hiring the best person for the job, and fits well with the rest of the team regardless of gender, race, religion, sexual preference, etc? If it happens to be someone who is white, hispanic, or black who cares?

    1. Re:Hire the best person by halivar · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think the goal here is to try to make more women and minorities "the best person for the job" via education, which I find far more laudable than quota-driven diversity-by-fiat that degrades team and product quality.

    2. Re:Hire the best person by fey000 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How about hiring the best person for the job, and fits well with the rest of the team regardless of gender, race, religion, sexual preference, etc? If it happens to be someone who is white, hispanic, or black who cares?

      Because then you'll be approached by a frothing at the mouth "journalist", asking questions like "Why isn't your workforce 50% white, 50% asian, 50% black, , 50% hispanic, 50% homosexual, and 50% female?".

      Hiring the best suited candidate is so 1990. Now it's all about the progressive stack and checking your privilege.

  3. And 60% of college students are female by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What are we doing to combat the critical under representation of men in college?

    1. Re:And 60% of college students are female by BobSutan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, the first thing we need is a leadership that doesn't actually _celebrate_ men being worse off in college:

      http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012...

      "“In fact, more women as a whole now graduate from college than men,” Obama wrote. “This is a great accomplishment—not just for one sport or one college or even just for women but for America. And this is what Title IX is all about.”"

      The article continues...

      "So if a 17% deficit was a catastrophe requiring federal intervention, what are we to conclude when that same federal intervention has created a 25% level of inequality?"

      This is a good question, when women had a 17% deficit the govt enacted a host of laws to balance things out, to include Title IX. Now that there's a 25% deficit for men, where's the action to fix things? It'd be bad enough it was just crickets, but instead our president is lauding this even GREATER deficit than what women suffered. In what way does that make any sense?

      And yes, federal intervention most certainly has made colleges more inhospitable to men. Case in point, the Dear Colleague letter and the kangaroo courts that have followed.

      --
      "On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
  4. 5 stages of handling a PR problem by John+Jorsett · · Score: 3, Insightful

    1. Profess shock 2. Start an investigation 3. Promise to do better 4. Apologize and abase yourself to every aggrieved group you can find 5. Throw some money at anything related, esp. self-appointed "community spokesmen"

    Looks like Intel has hit stage 5.

  5. delusion by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "I have two daughters of my own coming up on college age," he said to the NYT. "I want them to have a world that's got equal opportunity for them."

    Yeah, I'm sure a couple of rich white girls whose father is the CEO of Intel are going to have all sorts of problems finding "equal opportunity" in the tech industry unless he acts quickly.

    --
    Do you have ESP?
  6. What this REALLY means by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'll bet they're outsourcing $300M of work o India and China. Best spin ever!

  7. Re:Asian men - not a minority? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why don't Asian men count as a minority?

    Because they accept responsibility for themselves and actually work to succeed, and don't blame others - especially whitey - when they fail.

    Can't have that, now can we?

  8. Why only in Tech? by fey000 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm curious why this type of "diversity" drive only pops up in tech-related office jobs? Where is the drive in getting more men into child care jobs or social services? Why not more women in construction work? Why not more women in the army? Why not more women in sanitation, mining, welding, or fishing?

    As it stands, it doesn't seem like diversity is the goal at all.

    1. Re:Why only in Tech? by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The CEO of Intel can't affect those industries, except, perhaps, indirectly and through example.

      All of those are good questions. Those are all places where we should be striving to see a better mix of genders and races. You tell ME why those industries aren't trying to change. Could it be the institutional sexism that's so pervasive in our culture, starting when children are young, allotting toys on a gendered basis? Is it because we don't discourage construction workers in many of our cities from catcalling really offensive things, making women wonder why they'd ever want to work on a site like that? Is it because when women DO go into the armed forces, they're raped or sexually assaulted at distressingly high rates? Is it because we tell men that caring for children is women's work, and simultaneously tell them it's a horrible thing to be feminine?

      By the time someone is looking for a job, it's probably too late. The people that want to be in construction have already made their choice, male or female.

  9. Re:why the hate by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you work your ass of for 10 years, making sure to be the best, only to get passed by for a rookie on a "diversity" quota,

    Is that any different from working your ass off for 10 years, making sure to be the best only to get passed by because you're not a man? Is it possible for science to identify bias using a randomized, controlled trial?

    Why yes!

    http://blogs.scientificamerica...

    So the thing is you're assuming everything is equal and therefore quotas are hurting men. The thing is that they're not equal and women are demonstrably being passed over in favour of men simply by vitrue of not being male.

    So what do you think should be done. Unless you have a good rebuttal for that study, something is clearly messed up.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  10. Re:Produce More Qualified Workers to Not Hire by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 3, Informative

    Something that helps a lot (in all industries, including academia) is stripping names and gender/race identifying characteristics from resumes and papers. When those documents are assessed in a context absent the nature of the writer, they're considered more equally. They've done experiments where the same paper has been submitted with male, female and neutral names, and the female names see more critical judgement and a higher rate of rejection. This is for exactly the same paper, remember.

    The problem isn't overt racism, it's subtle, institutional discrimination that most of us suffer from. Even female researchers and professors are guilty of discriminating against other women.

  11. Re:why the hate by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Working your ass off for 10 years? Try 30 and fighting age discrimination. It has nothing to do with diversity, people of different cultures, genders, etc. If it's being supported by these companies it's all about increasing the labor supply so they can screw over their workers more easily for less money. For those of you who think otherwise, you're naive and supporting your oppressors' schemes. Employment becomes a zero-sum game if the pool of workers is growing faster than the number of open positions.

    --
    That is all.