Diversity At Google Hasn't Changed Much Over the Last Year (cnet.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: Not much changed at Google over the last year when it came to the diversity of the tech giant's workforce. Google released its annual diversity report on Thursday detailing the composition of its workforce. The percentage of female employees rose by .1 percent to 30.9 percent. The percentage of Asian employees grew by 1.6 percent to 36.3 percent. The number of black and Latino employees grew by .1 percent to 2.5 percent and 3.6 percent, respectively.

"Google's workforce data demonstrates that if we want a better outcome, we need to evolve our approach," said Danielle Brown, chief diversity and inclusion officer at Google, in the report. "That's why from now on ownership for diversity and inclusion will be shared between Google's leadership team, People Operations and Googlers. Our strategy doesn't provide all the answers, but we believe it will help us find them."

Comments

Who Cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the purpose of this article supposed to be?

Re:Who Cares?

[blindseer]

The story is that white employment at google fell over 8 percent in only 4 years!

I agree, that is amazing. To do that they'd have to do some serious "diversity" hiring. I assume that Google will be reluctant to fire productive workers, that is unless they expose their racism in a document that was leaked outside the company. Therefore the shift in demographics must come from natural attrition (people die, take different jobs, retire, etc.) and new hires. Unless a company is growing rapidly, and there's a pool of untapped "diversity" to draw from, they can shift only so fast.

I suspect that this pool of diverse employees must be very thin because graduates in fields like computer science is still dominated by white Christian males. There's a 2 to 1, or perhaps as high as 4 to 1, ratio of men to women graduating in these majors, depending on who you ask. I found out that women owned small businesses can get preferential treatment in Illinois. Unless your business is located where this kind of preferential treatment exists then your pool of hires will be less diverse.

That brings a saying I heard to mind, diversity is such a great idea that it takes the force of government to create.

Good job, Google! You are now well on the way to "diversify" yourself into oblivion. Keep this up and in maybe 4 or 8 more years you'll be begging for your "diversity" to move to Illinois where the government can pay for their reduced output at increased wages.

Re:Who Cares?

[hackel]

Where the fuck do you get "Christian" from? White male, yes (in the US and Europe), but the vast majority of computer scientists I've met are atheist—particularly the white, male ones. Obviously the field attracts people who tend to be very analytical and rational. Of course you get the occasional religious freak, but it's rare.

Re: Who Cares?

[ArmoredDragon]

It's not so much about feminism, it's social justice, and I'm not using that term pejoratively here or anywhere in this post, and I'm being sincere about this. The complaint about Google is that they aren't meeting enough diversity quotas that social justice warriors say they should. For example, they don't have enough black engineers. This used to annoy me, and normally I'd say what's wrong with merit based hiring? But no more. Google is obviously trying to push social justice with the way they delete and demonetize YouTube videos that have otherwise benign content, including two transexuals that committed the crime of not being left leaning, and two black ladies that were guilty of the same crime. That, and the way Google instills a culture of fear against employees don't de-diversify and join the echo chamber. I think it's time Google ate its own shit.

Silicon Valley is progressive, and California is as well, right? So why doesn't progressive California together, with progressive San Francisco (and its surrounding progressive cities) force progressive Google to start hiring on more diverse talent? Would it not be the progressive thing to do? I'm being serious here. Would that not promote social justice? In fact, why not force them to replace their Chief Diversity Officer with a notable civil rights leader? Obviously their existing CDO isn't doing her job. Really, how can it be argued that she is? Google's diversity numbers are even worse now than they were last year.

Google is mostly white males, which means it is in need of a re-balancing. Not enough black people? Fire enough white guys to make room. Don't worry, they're progressive, they'll understand that this is for the better good, because they also support equality. Not enough latino guys? Fire more white guys. Not enough native americans? Pacific islanders? You know what to do. Asians are over-represented? Don't worry about it, they're minorities, just don't hire any more until their numbers go down to meet the ratio. When dismissing white guys, make sure that the cisexual ones are the first to go. Once the ratios are representative of the population, you can hire white hetereosexual males again, just make sure the ratios remain intact. Again, they're progressives, in progressive California. They'll understand. The progressives know that white males got there from white privilege, and all of this is necessary. Having removed enough white males, this should help balance out the male to female ratio. If not, begin dismissing the minorities of most privilege, i.e. homosexual white males. Don't worry though as it won't come to that, the white population makes up quite a big percentage of the overall population.

I'm being serious about that. I'm a white male and I honestly couldn't care less. Do this with facebook too. Facebook and Google, more than all, should be the first movers, and fine them hard if they don't do this. So be honest, whom among the social justice warriors (again, not being pejorative here) and progressives would not want this? It sets out to accomplish one of your biggest goals. If not, why not?
.

What James said

[Anonymous Coward]

"Google's workforce data demonstrates that if we want a better outcome, we need to evolve our approach," said Danielle Brown, chief diversity and inclusion officer at Google

If you had listened to James Damore instead of doing the same illegal things over and over again, you might get a better result.

What is the goal?

[Jarwulf]

Is the goal to have a 50% female workforce even though there's almost no chance of that happening in terms of interest in the general population for the foreseeable future so they'll have to resort to lowering standards or upping hires for more diversity officers and other nontech positions basically defeating the supposed reason they're concerned? What happens if they overshoot the goal and men dip under 50%. Are they just going to not care and ignore it like for how women now earn significantly more college degrees and dominate middle bureaucratic management and nobody gives a crap?

Shocking...

[MikeRT]

Who wants to bet their next paycheck that Google's recruiters have never darkened the door at a career fair at a HBC? Where do they think they're likely to find a huge group of black Computer Science majors who aren't African or Caribbean immigrants outside of that?

Google's not stupid. They know where they could aggressively recruit young black people trying to get engineering degrees, but HBCs are too prole for a company that typically only recruits "from the best." And Google doesn't want proles because they might bring truly shocking perspectives like telling Mr. I Identify as a Dragon that he's a total whack job who needs to stop mixing crystal meth and D&D instead of nodding along. (Working and middle class black people tend to be refreshingly willing to call you on your bullshit compared to the upper class yuppies that dominate places like SV)

Re:Shocking...

[grasshoppa]

Forgive me, but if Demore's essay really had such an effect, doesn't that prove him right?

Re:Shocking...

[Hognoxious]

We know that some female applicants withdrew in the wake of that shitstorm.

If they withdrew over that then good riddance.

Or perhaps Google realised that everyone else is also trying to recruit from that limited pool of candidates

Limited pool? I thought they made up 50% of the universe, which is the whole basis for claiming that if you employ less than 50% of them you're literally worse than Hitler.

Re:Shocking...

[penandpaper]

The inertia of the insanely unfair and uncivilized treatment of blacks in USA is still underestimated.

That doesn't explain the historical trends. Before the civil rights era and during Jim Crow, most if not all measures of success for black people in the US were going up. Graduation rates, jobs, money, strong family, civic participation, etc. They were even trending better than whites in some regards. Something happened after the civil rights era and a victim culture took root in addition to the loss of family structure. A culture developed to resent white people, disregard strong family values, and be a victim that relies on the government handout.

You can't and shouldn't blame slavery for your lot in life. I think (god help me I am referencing this guy), Kanye West said it best to the effect: "If you think you have been a slave for 400 years when slavery ended ~200 years ago, that's a choice to be mentally enslaved. ". At some point, you have to be responsible for your own actions and not blame the past for your current situation. If you want a better future for your children you have to work for it.

Asians had a similar history in the US yet they are doing better than whites in almost all categories because of their culture of work and family values.

Are they discriminating against whites?

[Anonymous Coward]

62% of the population, but only 53% of Google employees... how would this come about except through strong discrimination in hiring practices?

I want Google to be very 'diverse'

[Anonymous Coward]

I want Google to be as 'diverse' as possible. That's because I'd personally like to see them fail as a business, because in my opinion they aren't good for the Internet, and for the software industry in general. And if there's one guaranteed way to make a company irrelevant, and eventually a total failure, it's to hire based on 'diversity' instead of skill and merit.

Re:I want Google to be very 'diverse'

[blindseer]

Interview with a manager that saw his company die from diversity hiring:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Scott Adams, the same guy that writes Dilbert, has a similar story. Scott Adams was driven to writing comics because he saw his career hit a dead end from diversity hiring policies where he worked. Ignoring the inherent unequal distributions of qualities among different genetic populations is dangerous. Reality always wins out.

Consider this... If women did the same work as men but for 75% of the wages then a company consisting completely of women would beat all the rest. I have seen small companies run entirely by women but they've been veterinary clinics, medical clinics, and schools, but that's because women naturally gravitate to occupations where a strong nurturing personality is beneficial.

Here's another thing, women don't really want equal distribution in all occupations. Women make up a small portion of prisoners. Should we lock up women to make up for that? Women make up a small portion of the people that die in war, should we send more women out to fight and die? There's a small ratio of women that dig ditches, clean out sewers, climb power transmission towers, hang siding and shingles, pour concrete, pick up trash, stack bricks, and on and on. We shouldn't have women doing these occupations just to keep things "fair". Just as we shouldn't demand more women engineers to keep things "fair". What's "fair" is allowing people to get the jobs they are suited to by personality and merit. When we do that we have many males in engineering and many females in medicine.

We can have a meritocracy and prosperity or we can artificially enforce "diversity" and see civilization fall apart. Google will have to learn this one way or the other.

Re:I want Google to be very 'diverse'

[mukinrestak]

If they aren't more skilled, why are diversity hiring practices divergent from meritocratic ones?

Re:I want Google to be very 'diverse'

[R3d M3rcury]

If women did the same work as men but for 75% of the wages then a company consisting completely of women would beat all the rest. I have seen small companies run entirely by women but they've been veterinary clinics, medical clinics, and schools, but that's because women naturally gravitate to occupations where a strong nurturing personality is beneficial.

Comments like this sort of stick in my craw.

I don't disagree that the idea that a company should hire a woman for every man hired in order to have some magic 50-50 ratio is ridiculous.

The question is whether or not a company is not hiring a woman for a position she could do because she's a woman.

There are plenty of examples of companies calling in John for an interview and not calling in Susan (or Enrique or Javon) even though they have duplicate resumes. And, to me, it's worthwhile to make certain that this isn't happening. "Oh, this is all low-level device driver stuff. Not something a woman would be good at, so I won't waste my time. Women developers are better at UI because women have an 'eye' for that sort of thing..."

That's the part that sticks in my craw: "Oh, women/men are better at..."

Heck, there are plenty of cases where courts have assigned child custody to women because, "women are more nurturing." Then they discover that Mom's a coke addict and the kids live in squalor. But, hey, that's better than living with Dad (y'know, the guy who left her because she was a coke addict).

Now the common response is, "Okay, but for the most part, women/men are better at..."

That may be true or it may not be. But you're potentially discounting a fantastic candidate because "most women wouldn't be good at that..." But what about the one who is?

I always hear people bringing up the paucity of male elementary school teachers. And they're right--imagine if you wanted to teach in elementary school but you couldn't even get an interview because you were male? And the reason is that, "most women are better with young children than men are." That's wrong--and I agree with that wholeheartedly. So why should it be different for women wanting to be developers?

Re: I want Google to be very 'diverse'

[Ocker3]

So, writing code is the Only thing Google wants people to do?? Not work as a team? Present a persuasive series of slides? Be able to focus for six/twelve months on a mission critical project that doesn't show results until the end?

Re:I want Google to be very 'diverse'

[Stolovaya]

Here's what SJW (regressive) means:

The difference between progressive and regressive (SJW).

A progressive wants to improve life for all, usually with a focus based on class. A regressive wants to mainly focus on those ranked higher on the "regressive stack" (based on things like skin color and sexuality); if something is detrimental to someone lower on the regressive stack, but it benefits someone higher on the regressive stack, then it's okay ("the ends justifies the means").

A progressive tries their best to be "color blind" (as in, all people should be treated the same, everyone should have the same opportunities). A regressive believes that things like skin color and sexuality are more important than values or content of character.

A regressive will place those higher on the regressive stack on pedestals; you cannot joke or criticize these people, but you can joke, criticize, or wish death upon those lower on the regressive stack.

A regressive thinks in black-and-white terms with little nuance. You are either 100% with their cause, or you are 100% against. There is typically very little middle ground in their mind.

A progressive uses "privilege" to make people think about their position (i.e. "You (male/female) never have to think about which bathroom you have to go into. Other people would like to feel that way too."). A regressive uses "privilege" to shame and guilt, much like bad religious institutions (i.e. "Check your privilege!").

A regressive is fine with segregated spaces, but only for those higher on the regressive stack (such as black-only college dorms); anyone lower must 100% not have any space only for their group.

A progressive might respect culture but understands it can be fluid and not everyone celebrates all aspects of cultures the same (especially in melting pots such as the US). A regressive believes cultural appropriation is everywhere and that there is an inherent "cultural copyright" that only members of said culture can participate or allow others to participate in (while being uneducated about the origins of certain things, such as dreadlocks, or believing that only Mexicans can wear sombreros).

A progressive believes that even though people have done bad things in the past (or even present), blame is not to be put upon those that are part of those groups that did not take action in those things. A regressive believes in original sin (particularly for those lower on the regressive stack) and that blame and responsibility should be shared across generations and groups.

A progressive believes that, even if what one says is terrible and disgusting, people have the right to express their views. Bad ideas should be exposed so that they can be critiqued and shown why they are bad. A regressive believes that anything they deem bad should be suppressed at all costs; violence and censorship are perfectly fine to use ("no bad tactics, only bad targets").

A progressive seeks allies; the progressive and the ally may not agree on all things at all times, but will generally share a base set of values. The ally is an individual and is respected as such. A regressive seeks servants, under the guise of seeking allies; servants are not allowed to question anything the regressive says or does, and must always defer/be quiet/give up things or spaces to those higher on the progressive stack.

Why not start at the top?

[Anonymous Coward]

None of the top executives at Alphabet are black or hispanic, Larry and Sergei are both white males. For such an important issue, they should be willing to give up their positions to historically disadvantaged people.

Or is this the usual "diversity for thee, but not for me" situation?

I'm pretty sure there was a memo/manifesto on this

[king neckbeard]

I'm pretty sure there was a memo/manifesto on this that received a great deal of attention...

The funniest thing is that despite not being adept at office and internet politics, Damore was actually pretty empathetic. He pointed out that the job description and environment were optimized towards what white men want.

SJWs responded by assuming that the only rational way to interpret it was that women weren't fit for the job, ignoring the possibility that the job wasn't fit for women.

So, it looks like Damore was right and insightful, even if he's already been converted to full Nazi. I don't really blame him in that scenario, given that his views were rejected by SJWs, and embraced by racist and sexist assholes. People are often going to associate with people that don't treat them as shitty as other people do.

Want to know why Google hasn't achieved nirvana?

[OYAHHH]

Because it cannot be done!

There is NO way you cannot tell me those money grubbing hacks @ Google would not hire 100% purple poka-dotted zebras if purple poka-dotted zebras made them more profitable.

The fact is that there are significant cultural differences between demographic segments. And there is NOTHING wrong with that.

But, ultimately it translates into only 2.5% of the black population cuts the mustard at Google. It's not Google's issue, it's black culture as a wholes' issue.

When the percentage of black people or Latina's or females who value schooling and work ethics like oriental people do then you will automatically see a reversal of these numbers.

Governments, corporations, and educational facilities should not be in the business of cultural modification because we all know, assuming we are honest, that family and extended family/friends are the ultimate cultural arbitrator.

Re: Don't worry Trump traitor, Mueller has plenty

[ArmoredDragon]

Google's feelings of diversity are just like that of California universities:

Multiple skin colors, all 51 genders,* and all 187 sexual orientations.**

* Diversity of opinion is not permitted.
** Cisexual cismales with white skin must choose one of the other 50 genders and/or one of the 186 other sexualities. Your skin color will be decided by your diversity officer fairly using diversity standard skin tone swatches.

Problem is it's even worse than that

[SuperKendall]

Is the goal to have a 50% female workforce even though there's almost no chance of that happening

The goal is probably to have well above average female participation, as a kind of virtue signal.

What no-one seems to think about is that all of these large companies offering very high salary and bonuses for the small pool of potential technical female employees, what does that do for participation in smaller companies?

They simply have no way to complete for female employees, which means that females are inevitably poorly represented in smaller companies. That is really unfortunate because a smaller company is I think a generally nicer work environment for anyone, female or male... you simple have no room for the kind of nonsense that can get by at larger companies because everyone has to be productive and largely professional at a smaller company or they are gone.

If you have any kids just going to college about now you'd have to be insane too have them study anything but computers or some other engineering, they can do really, really well even just on internships over the summer (I have a friend with a daughter who just finished a CS degree and she had companies fighting for her like mad all through school).

She did sadly end up working for one of the large companies in part because of a huge bonus, that's what led me to mention that as a caution as I feel a little bit sad that will be her entry position in the technical world, when I think a smaller company would have suited her better.

Google's Look-Ma-No-Raw-Figures "Transparency"

[theodp]

Can you find any raw figures in the Google diversity annual report 2018? "Sometimes it is percentages that are given and raw figures that are missing," warns How to Lie With Statistics , "and this can be deceptive too." And yet the lack of raw figures doesn't keep Google from boasting, "We are further increasing transparency. Google's publication of workforce representation data in 2014 helped shape the current industry conversation on diversity in tech. We aim to take the conversation-and our work to the next level as we further refine our approach, so this year we've published new and more detailed workforce representation data."

Re:I'm pretty sure there was a memo/manifesto on t

[king neckbeard]

Are you talking about claims he made or just ones that seem implicit? His main actual sin that I saw was that seemed to be leaning to heavy on claims of the difference between genders being biological, when we are much better able to measure the cocktail of nature and nurture.

Again, I feel a lot of the criticism tends to be not on what he said, but on what was implied by what he said. But drawing conclusions requires preconceptions to fill in the blanks, particularly the overall legitimacy of corporate structure and management.

Now, it's quite possible that he's just a sexist jerk. But the memo is still quite readable if one operates under the assumption that traditional management and business structure is garbage that is heavily biased in favor of "rugged invididualism"-type affluent men. The jobs in question make up some of the main exceptions to overtime laws, and one biological difference between men and women is the women generally need more hours of sleep to not have impairments. Women are socially expected to be the one that takes care of a child, and these positions have horrible work-life balance. The traditions of promotion encourage aggressive behavior, which men are inculcated to engage in while women are inculcated to avoid. It's not hard to see how a lot of higher positions are deeply antagonistic towards women by design. And the obvious solution would not be to throw more women into the pool of candidates, but to alter the environment so that it's not hostile. And I believe that those changes would result in a HUGE improvement for diversity and productivity that dwarfs their current initiative.

Like I said, it's possible that Damore didn't intend for this kind of interpretation, but this makes for a far more interesting discussion than the conventional read on it.

First, who cares? Second, just kill the company.

[Karmashock]

This is mindless SJWism and everyone knows it but the cultists.

But any company that takes this seriously should put their existential future where their stupid mouths are... and just kill their company.

Hire people that aren't qualified merely on the basis of who is more or less statistically represented.

Burn the company to the ground. And when there's nothing left but ashes and finger pointing... the industry can be rebuilt by people with the courage and integrity to stand their ground.

I'm sure there are devotees of the cult that are offended by the statement, I am not an adherent to your religion.

I find the suggestion that I should take it seriously as silly as you would take the suggestion that only Christians following christian doctrine should be hired. Its that absurd.

But obviously fundamentalists are not known for being sensible. So this is going to continue until they burn it down. We already are seeing companies leave not only the bay area but California entirely. And not merely for tax or real estate issues but literally because the culture has gone toxic.

I know I know... The great sage has prophesied that when the planets align your golden age will come to pass... which is why everyone else has to get on the right side of history... because these people on top of everything else think they have an accurate prophesy of the future. Literally. Otherwise how would they know what was the "right side of history"... they're saying that in the end they'll get what they want. And yet the industry is already very international and most of the international partners on top of the domestic companies that are leaving are not ascribing to this stuff.

Its not good for any industry in which it takes over. Its even f'ing up hollywood, journalism, and academia is lousy with it.

But these people are not open to correction. They were told the word of god at some point and anyone that disagrees is a dirty infidel. So this is just going to have to play out to the pain.

I'm enjoying the show.

Re:Trump will die in Federal Prison a traitor

[ScentCone]

It really is fun watching the Shillaries unable to ever actually talk about the substance of any single thing. And then they wonder why they lost nearly a thousand legislative seats, most of the governorships, both houses of congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, and millions of two-time Obama voters who can't stand people like you any more. Carry on! More! It will help again in the next round. Thanks!

and what ?

[Tom]

Diversity for diversity sake is a totally misguided approach to... well, anything actually except maybe winning a diversity trophy.

If any group faces higher obstacles than others, that needs to be addressed. If any group is statistically significantly under-represented, that might justify checking for why it is so.

But intentionally hiring one group over another is actually the definition of discrimination, even if you do it in the name of enriching diversity.

Re:When Trump dies in prison, you'll know bitch lo

[Chas]

Tell us how you REALLY feel.

Seriously, you're going to let something as temporal as the POTUS drive you THIS fucking bug-nuts?

Do you ENJOY flagellating yourself this much?

You don't like him, you don't like his supporters.
FINE.
He's gone in 4 years IF YOU ACT LIKE SANE PEOPLE.
He's gone in 8 if you continue acting this way (and then gets replaced by someone just like him).

Don't you see how this sort of crazed, bitchy, vindictive behavior is simply pushing people in the near left and center ever further right, even as you and your compatriots dash ever further left?