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Studies, data, conversation, and thoughtfulness around these issues are welcome and needed but this news article is, frankly, junk.<p>I always like to look at data from the source, so I downloaded the original report, which The Guadian couldn't be bothered to link to.<p>Let's start with the title of the article:<p>> Black and Latino representation in Silicon Valley has declined, study shows<p>However the report is about Asian representation, and although it includes some data on other groups it states:<p>> Although we include the figures for black and Hispanic men and women, we do not use them for comparative purposes because EPI figures for those cohorts are highly sensitive to small changes.<p>This is right in the executive summary.<p>The next problem is that the article represents the study as being of "Silicon Valley" and the "tech industry", but the study is of just five companies: Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, LinkedIn, and Yahoo. These are all large corporations and there is no evidence given to suggest that this is a "Silicon Valley" problem and not a "Corporate America" problem. That's not to say that you can't draw conclusions from studying these companies, but you can't make sweeping statements about the tech industry based on them. Especially when so much of Silicon Valley is made up of startups. The valley is a dynamic place: two of those corporations no longer exist.<p>Obviously problems exist, but I see no reason here to single out the tech industry for special blame, especially when no attempt is made to compare tech with other industries and "tech" is taken to mean a handful of large corporations. Worse still, by misrepresenting the nature and origins of these problems, we set ourselves up to fail when we try to address them. Uber's appalling culture, for example is firmly rooted in that of finance, why don't we talk about that? What do the finance industry's diversity statistics look like?
Unsurprising. I tell all of my minorities friends to remove their pictures from LinkedIn and use American sounding names. The increase in callbacks always shocks me. You can do this experiment in reverse yourself if you already have an American sounding name.<p>Unfortunately the real solution, anonymity, will probably never be adopted because there are groups who benefit from being identified. There's way too much many in tech to for the incumbents to leave it to merit.
Every underrepresented group represents an opportunity to start a company, hire some great people from that group, and succeed together. A single company, perhaps one you start this year, can make a huge impact.<p>YC funding applications are due today. <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/apply" rel="nofollow">https://www.ycombinator.com/apply</a>
Sometimes I wonder if the tech industry should adopt the orchestral model of auditions: prevent the interviewers from seeing the candidate, knowing their name, or hearing their voice. Judge them entirely on their code and text responses.<p>Sure something like this would probably result in complaints about "hiring for culture fit," but isn't someone who provides the correct answers and code a culture fit in the first place?
Time for today's most incendiary post. (;<p>I think feelings on this are going to depend on whether you consider a silicon valley job as more "outcome" or "opportunity." I'd say making sure that black/latino people can obtain these jobs is just as important as making sure they have equal opportunity to attend a good college or good highschool. That puts me in a bit of a predicament though because I come to the conclusion that what's in the best interests of society requires these companies to go against what's in <i>their</i> best interests and pass up more qualified whites/asians. Thoughts?
I started a sports betting company that turned into an analytics company. We had zero women or minority (other than asian) employees or even applicants. One new employee became vocal about it, so he was made our "diversity officer". He was made part of our recruiting division and was present in every interview. We got one (white) woman employee. She quit soon after joining. Now there is an opening for a "diversity officer" inside the company. No takers yet.
Couldn't find a link to the study in the article, so I looked it up:<p><a href="http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/ascendleadership.site-ym.com/resource/resmgr/Research/HiddenInPlainSight_Paper_042.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/ascendleadership.site-ym.com/resour...</a>
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."<p>We're tired of obsessing about race.<p>We're tired of having accusations of racism, sexism, whatever-the-next-trendy-ism crammed down our throats at every opportunity.<p>The reality is, urban black (and to a similar extent latino) CULTURE does not value education. Until that changes, do not expect to see highly educated and skilled blacks and latinos bounding through the hiring process. Just ask the asians about minority discrimination - they outperform everyone and are openly penalized for it.<p>CONTENT OF CHARACTER. NO ONE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT SKIN COLOR.<p>Go ahead and delete this comment, it's not going to change reality.
Any opinions, thoughts and ideas that are expressed on ycombinator that are not left-wing and don't tow the liberal line are being deleted.<p>It's not that there aren't people who disagree with these bullshit articles, it's that ycombinator mods are literally deleting and banning users who express opinions that aren't "correct".
This isn't new, limited to technology, or all that surprising if you've been paying attention to your peers.<p><a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873" rel="nofollow">http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873</a><p>>The results show significant discrimination against African-American names: White names receive 50 percent more callbacks for interviews. We also find that race affects the benefits of a better resume. For White names, a higher quality resume elicits 30 percent more callbacks whereas for African Americans, it elicits a far smaller increase. Applicants living in better neighborhoods receive more callbacks but, interestingly, this effect does not differ by race. The amount of discrimination is uniform across occupations and industries.<p><a href="https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20161011-00/?p=94486" rel="nofollow">https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20161011-00/?p=...</a><p>>One of my friends is a woman of color, and not that long ago, she arrived with three male colleagues in the lobby of a building for a scheduled meeting. The administrative assistant came out, walked right past my friend, shook the hands of the three men, and welcomed them. My friend extended her hand to introduce herself, and the assistant asked, "Oh, you're with them?"