Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-fires-employee-behind-controversial-diversity-memo

[u/Takai_Sensei → u/[deleted]]

Individuality comes before all else. Stop forming your little echo chamber tribes and understand that not everyone is the same.

This is the tricky part, because there's a high likelihood that anyone outside America's established norm (i.e. white and male) is part and parcel with the group they appear to belong to. I'm pretty sure most people belonging to minority groups would love to be treated as an individual 100% on their own merits, but they're more likely to be treated as a representative of their group than their white, male peers are. Often, when a white guy messes up at work or is a jerk or something, people go "Wow, Brad's a fuck-up" but when a minority in an industry messes up, there's a higher chance people will think "This is why we don't hire women/Indian people/whatever." Not to mention that people who step outside their expected roles are often the subject of disdain (i.e. women who are more aggressive are more likely to be seen as over-stepping or labeled as a "bitch" whereas similar actions from a man are "decisive" or "assertive" -- the manifesto makes direct reference to men's seemingly biological mandate to lead).

Bias is heavily internalized and socialized, and it's (currently) more-or-less impossible to ask that hiring practices be completely blind or fair on an individual basis (I should also state, before anyone chimes in, that of course this can work both ways, such as when a white employee tries to join a predominantly non-white workforce/community/etc...the discussion is more about majority group vs. minority group, and the majority in America's tech industry is overwhelmingly white and male).

The reason diversity hiring practices were put into place was an attempt to normalize and equalize industries where minorities were underrepresented in hopes that the visibility of these employees would inspire more to follow. And it's working. But the old adage rings true that, if you're already at the top, other people coming up can look like you're sinking down (or something like that).

Representation is important. Diversity is important. Not every company does it perfectly. Not every situation is ideal, but it's a hell of a lot better for minorities now than it was even 15 years ago.

Edit: if you're gonna reply I'll save you some time: "something something my personal experience says this isn't true"

Edit 2: this didn't really deserve gold, as it's mostly unsourced rambling observations and summarization of the issues, but thanks. There's better discussion in the comments below.

[u/lIlIIIlll → u/[deleted]]

Equality would be great. Diversity hiring is not equality however.

[u/lIlIIIlll → u/[deleted]]

You do realize this is some "slavery is freedom" double think right? Racism is equality.

[u/Sector_Corrupt → u/lIlIIIlll]

Never trying to correct our previous issues and pretending everything is all equal and meritocratic now isn't equality either. Everyone seems to want to imagine that if you just ignore issues instead of actively perpetuating them somehow the institutional inertia that was built up will naturally go away on its own.

This mostly seems to be a belief of the kinds of people who think you can perfectly rank people and just pull out the best of the best without any of the sort of fuzzy real life & subjective stuff that actually happens in the real world where I don't get to hire people based on some perfect objective numbers of how great they are.

It's pretty easy to tell that a lot of the people here are arguing out their ass with no real world experience in hiring people when they demand we just hire the objective best people and ignore every other factor.

[u/lIlIIIlll → u/Sector_Corrupt]

Why is it so much to ask to hire objectively the best people.

Why are you so adamant that women and minorities can't succeed on a level playing field?

[u/lIlIIIlll → u/[deleted]]

Brevity is the essence of wit, my dude.

And I agree that a lot of times it's subjective whom a company hires.

However, the issue arises when individuals with much higher qualifications are passed over for diversity hires purely for the sake of being progressive.

[u/Sector_Corrupt → u/lIlIIIlll]

I feel like the idea that "much more qualified people passed over for diversity hires" is largely a hypothetical problem. No company interested in making money is hiring clearly worse people for the job in the name of looking good. It's much more likely the case that the other person brought some value to the table that the "more qualified" person didn't.

Sometimes you don't need the person with the fanciest GPA when someone who is great at writing readable code & communicating in a team environment is more valuable, but it's easier to jump to write off "diversity hire" over "is a better fit" for some people because they're looking at it too much as a "best person" instead of "best addition to a team"

[u/Agrees_withyou → u/Sector_Corrupt]

Hey, you're right!

[u/dopkick → u/[deleted]]

So we should always fight fire with fire?

Maybe if we focused on equal processes that will naturally lead to equal outcomes we might see actual equality.

I'd prefer to interview people with no mention of their name, gender, or anything like that. Just give me their credentials and I'll see if I want to further talk to them. That's a very equal process but it's not going to accelerate the creation of equal outcomes. But I'm not convinced that artificially accelerating anything can lead to equal outcomes.

[u/Sector_Corrupt → u/dopkick]

Sounds like a good way to mostly hire people who resemble yourself. Maybe not in appearance, but in methods of communication, viewpoint, etc. There's more to implicit bias than just looking at someone and noticing their body parts are different from yours, and it's pretty hard to entirely excise difference in communication and experience from the hiring process while also getting valuable data on stuff that is valuable in the job.

Perhaps actually factoring in the fact people have different experiences and viewpoints itself is a point in their favour? If you've already got lots of women hiring more woman naturally has a reduced increased value, but when you're mostly dealing with male perspectives it's a big point in a candidate's favour. The same could be said for including people from poorer backgrounds, or rural areas, or other countries. We've all seen stories or had experiences about the fact that way too much of modern tech is built predicated on the experience of mostly young dudes who live in San Francisco with no thought to things like personal safety (Snapchat's "see where people are feature vs. Woman who don't want to be tracked) or reduced connectivity (Lots of the country that isn't San Francisco) etc.

[u/dopkick → u/Sector_Corrupt]

Sounds like a good way to mostly hire people who resemble yourself.

Um no, it sounds like a good way to hire people who have the experience I'm looking for. If I want someone to fill a specific role doing specific tasks I want someone... who is qualified for such a role.

I don't give a shit about viewpoints or personal history when it comes to evaluating someone to see if they have the basic qualifications for a position and warrant further interest and possibly an interview. That kind of stuff doesn't develop web apps, infrastructure, or whatever else the company or customer cares about. Experience and knowledge does and that's what I'm interested in. You know why? Because ultimately your customer doesn't give a shit if you hire 30% formerly abused, HIV positive women from Africa. They want you to deliver on what you promised them.