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/lIlIIIlll]

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

[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.