Silicon Valley, Seeking Diversity, Focuses on Blacks

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/technology/silicon-valley-seeking-diversity-focuses-on-blacks.html

by aaronbrethorst • 11 years ago

27 25 11 years ago

draw_down• 11 years ago

"If you look at the scale and speed with which the Valley moves, if they wanted to solve this problem, they could," Dr. Womack said.

That's basically an argument for "the Valley" not having any problems at all. It's said in the context of a wider talent shortage, so does it mean that there is a huge glut of engineers (black or otherwise) currently being ignored/underemployed?

Or it could mean that throwing money at the problem would fix it in short order, which I generally doubt, though I have no issue with the notion that companies complaining about a talent shortage should consider paying to get what they want.

Or it could mean that companies should throw money at the problem in the form of training up engineers, but that is not a speedy-scaley proposition, unfortunately. Hard problems still exist in the time of Uber.

seiji3• 11 years ago

Yeah, it's a huge culture issue, but not a technical problem companies can engineer solutions towards. Tech companies don't exist as government regulators of natural philosophy. On the other hand, tech companies do suffer from monoculture and it hurts them when they only play to their own ivory towers instead of understanding the world as it exists.

When it's expedient to engage different groups it does happen though. Apple didn't buy Beats because their headphones are the best designed things in the world. Apple saw a company that managed to manipulate an entire (racially motivated) youth subculture and wanted to steal some of that power for themselves. Apple also wanted that elderly executive guy who dresses as if he's a teenager from the south and rambles incessantly, unprepared and unrehearsed, at keynotes.

The future of America is clearly not-white (over 50% of children born in the US are now "non-majority") so the problem will self correct within the next 15 years. Be prepared for 15 years of news reports about how everything isn't diverse enough until, one day, things just end up being diverse by the force of history.

adventured• 11 years ago

Shifting demographics won't inherently change diversity issues in places like Silicon Valley. The problem is far wider than numerical distribution; it's education, home stability, environment, poverty, etc etc, and 15 years isn't going to correct all of that just because national demographics are gradually shifting.

The proof for that is all around: black people are 15% of the population, but a fraction of that in major tech companies. The same holds true for latinos. There's a reverse example that makes the point as well: asians as a percentage of the national population, versus representation in tech companies in Silicon Valley. That more than makes it clear it's about skills and education, not demographic percentages.

Baltimore is ~65% black. Do you think 65% of the programmers in Baltimore are black?

If your theory were correct, we'd have seen a lot more black people working for Twitter, Apple, Google, etc. a long time ago.

It doesn't matter if the future is 80% non-white, if people that are non-white don't develop the education and skills required for the jobs in Silicon Valley. That's the issue, and it won't change just because the percentages on demographics do - ie it is not self-correcting. If it were self-correcting, you'd see proof of that in US cities that have had very large black populations for a long time.

andyl• 11 years ago

Majority of the programmers I work with in the valley are Indians and Asians. It's been that way for years.

I'd venture a bet that my silicon valley co-workers are much more diverse than the NY Times writers who love to preach about diversity.

Quick check:

    - NYT Executive Leadership: 90% white
    - NYT Board of Directors: 92% white
    - NYT Opinion Writers: 91% white

Media has a diversity problem!!

seiji3• 11 years ago

my silicon valley co-workers are much more diverse

Twitter had a neat turn of phrase in their recent diversity document: "these new goals focus on increasing the overall representation of women and underrepresented minorities"

underrepresented. You don't count as a minority if there's already too many of you being successful.

magicalist• 11 years ago

Twitter had a neat turn of phrase in their recent diversity document: "these new goals focus on increasing the overall representation of women and underrepresented minorities"
underrepresented. You don't count as a minority if there's already too many of you being successful.

why would you focus on minorities that are overrepresented?

cgy12• 11 years ago

Asian-Americans simply don't count when it comes to racial diversity. If tech companies are not diverse because the vast majority of workers are white and Asian, isn't the NBA similarly non-diverse because the vast majority of players are black and white? Would there be a similar uproar about the lack of racial diversity in tech if the representation of Asian-Americans and blacks working in tech were reversed? I very much doubt it.

nolite• 11 years ago

I don't think anyone would qualify the NBA as "diverse". Its had a high majority of black players for a while now. You don't see a ton of asians or hispanics however.

spamizbad• 11 years ago

The media most certainly does have a diversity problem. It's self-inflicted though - aspiring journalists are expected to "grind it out" and "pay their dues" via years of unpaid internships and underpaid Jr/associate work. Complicating matters, orgs prefer hiring candidates from pricey tier-1 private liberal arts colleges. This means the only demographics that can participate are people who come from financially-secure families who provide a measure of patronage for their children starting out in these industries.

doctorpangloss• 11 years ago

writers who love to preach

God forbid reporters do some reporting.

I'd venture a bet that my silicon valley co-workers are much more diverse

You're welcome to publish that research. If you look at the tech workforce at Facebook, where they use extremely generous 1% rounding, the sum of black and hispanic employees is 4%. [0] In one sense, comparing the least generous 8% nonwhite figure with NYT Board of Directors, their board has twice (200%) the proportion of minority members than Facebook has across their tech workforce.

Venture that bet. You'll lose the bet.

Media has a diversity problem!!

Media may be the only place where an African American like Oprah, Beyonce or Kanye West can run multi-faceted business empires. You're ignoring what a huge cultural, intellectual and business presence African Americans have in a lot of media, certainly far more than their influence in Silicon Valley.

[0] http://www.wired.com/2015/06/facebook-diversity-2015/

cgy12• 11 years ago

Yeah let's just ignore Asians.

generic_user3• 11 years ago

Its not just hypocrisy, the old money north eastern Liberal Elite that get these Urinalit media jobs have always hated the tech industry because it has bootstrapped Middle Class people into positions of power and wealth regardless of there background. Not through hereditary patronage and family connections but hard work and vision.

If New York Times Urinalism wants to look for "diversity problems" they should look out the window and in the mirror.

NYC has country's most segregated public:

http://nypost.com/2014/03/26/nyc-has-countrys-most-segregate...

generic_user3• 11 years ago

^^^ public schools:

trhway2• 11 years ago

there are disproportionally more blacks in prisons and disproportionally less in Silicon Valley. Doesn't it hint that the root issues lie earlier, that bifurcation point happens well before that in time and causal chain, like in school and the environment where the childhood is spent.

dajohnson892• 11 years ago

Yes, so let's ignore the issues facing adult blacks. It's not like the success of black children depends on that of their parents or anything.

trhway2• 11 years ago

I don't understand. Are there black programmers who can't get a job?

sprash• 11 years ago

This Norwegian documentary tells you why:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOnQPXuU81Q

davidf18• 11 years ago

I know of an Asian man who graduated from an Ivy League law school. Neither of his parents had gone to college (they were immigrants from Asia) and yet he was penalized because his ethnic group is successful. He was upset about that.

You will find that there are many blacks in undergrad, MBA, law, medical schools but not so many in engineering/science schools. I believe it is simply that blacks are not interested in engineering/computer science and choose these other fields instead.

MattGrommes• 11 years ago

I've thought for a long time that by excluding black people from so many tech companies they were, among obvious other problems, missing a lot of business opportunities. Most white tech workers/founders are simply not going to know about a lot of products or services that are common in black society, such as specialized hair care that's already producing a number of startups.

Silicon Valley, Seeking Diversity, Focuses on Blacks

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