Well, that sucks for the 3/4 of HN commenters on the Kixeye thread who came to the conclusion that the contractor's writing style was damning to the story's veracity.
Startups in the valley seem almost by definition, segregated places to work. I don't think it is intentional (or maybe in the case of Kixeye it was), but the vast majority of companies seem to have straight white males in their 20's as employees. What this means is that people who do not have "critical mass", ie any few numbers of minorities, are going to count the number people just like them. It will also mean stereotypes will be at their worst. Do startups hire programmers in their 50's? Do startups that make products "for women" try to hire women to work on that product? Why is it that black engineers and non-native English speaking engineers are in positions like QA and testing, but not program management? These are just a few of the trends I've noticed.
As much as I was expecting a spineless "a few bad apples" response from Kixeye, I'm still pleased to see them responding openly to the accusations and taking at least some action to correct the issues, instead of just trying to make it all go away. Hopefully this leads to larger reform.
<i>“...I did discover examples of embarrassing behavior that I find inappropriate for Kixeye or any other work environment."</i><p>I don't like that he leads with the word "embarassing". It suggests a focus on how this makes <i>Kixeye look</i>. I would have liked to've seen a word like "horrifying", "unconsciounable", or "evil" in it's place.
Well, there may or may not have been racism occurring (sometimes it is difficult to distinguish a joke). Now if you are the type of person who thinks a racist joke is a "bad" joke, then I guess you also hate South Park and love to bathe in politically-correct self-righteousness. I have friends of every race, and we joke openly about our respective races/religions/ethnicities.<p>The one thing I will say is that the author is clearly racist towards white people (yes, this is possible), or at the very least grossly lumps all white people into the same category. A few quotes from his article (linked below):
-- "Beyond culture = hipster racism = neoliberal white supremacy"
-- "Dumbwhite<i></i><i></i>*"
-- "A brief moment of clarity only to be again submerged in the sea of white privilege and supremacy"
-- "white men always telling which way is up because they feel they are the “authority” when it comes to any and everything, most often when they don’t know shit about shit except how to protect their privilege by telling me my life experience is false"<p>The author takes (at most) minor infractions, and uses them to demonize the entire white race.<p>On the other hand, it would be stupid for a company with a culture like this to hire a gay black guy, they are just asking for a lawsuit.<p><a href="http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/02/kixeye-takes-substantial-corrective-action-after-black-contractor-calls-out-racist-behavior-at-social-gaming-firm/" rel="nofollow">http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/02/kixeye-takes-substantial-c...</a>
I think this story brings up an interesting point about startups and "startup culture". It's nice to have an environment that is friendly and comfortable, but at the same time, lines have to be drawn. Unfortunately, some people see having no HR department as an excuse to disregard inclusiveness or respect.
What a terrible article. There's no reference to the actual allegations, not even a link to the original post. Nothing but repetitions of the company's press release.