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Setting clear diversity targets has become a common practice in tech, whether it’s to ensure that women of c...
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I would rather disagree. Diversity isn't only about numbers and quotas, those are secondary. I'd rather work in a company that has low numbers of diverse people but has nice treatment towards them than working in a company that has high "diversity" numbers where people are there just to fill in quotas.
I would also love to see an anonymous unbiased hiring system.
OK, what groups get quotas? Gay developers? Bisexual developers? Trans developers? How about Muslim, Mormon, Jewish, and Sikh developers? Should it be regional, where there are quotas for Asian developers in Des Moines but not Seattle? Is the concept of "Asian developers" kind of reductive and, in itself, a racist slur?
Of course, the most important quota is never mentioned: Poor people. People from poor backgrounds. Wouldn't that kind of quota have a much better impact on society?
Good points!
Also the quota you refer to is largely the purpose of graduated tax systems. So fixing the issue for the poor is often a matter of higher tax burdens and increasing social and health security.
Do you have any thoughts on an alternative?
When I first published this article on Key Values, I also shared it on Hacker News. Unfortunately, the post was quickly flagged. Conversations around diversity are difficult for many people, but I think it's incredibly important that we talk about it.
Even if we don't agree that diversity is generally a good thing, we can't escape the fact that many of the companies we work at, sell to, partner with, and rely on are actively working to promote D&I. We don't need to agree, but we should be open to discussing what the value of diversity is, the underlying goals behind efforts to increase it, and how it impacts employees and the community at large.
Why am I not surprised? :-(
I oppose censorship and I support freedom of speech.
I think the acronym in vogue now is DIE, to better reflect a renewed focus on outcomes.
Ideally there should be no quotas, the best person for the job should get it. Even if that results in a high percentage of a certain race, sexual orientation or age in a certain workforce. But we don't live in an ideal world. Quotas can be useful within reason. If they are too severe they result in people getting the job for reasons other than being the best person for the job. Absolutely aim for equality of opportunity but not equality of outcome.
This is pretty much exactly what I was going to say, so thanks for saving me the time of typing it out!
Though, I'd also note that I've personally observed these types of severe quotas promote the same divides they're created to prevent when team members begin to question whether new hires are getting the job as a result of their abilities or the companies required quota.
IMO, this quota idea is kind of racist/sexist in a different way. Equality means that nobody is treated differently, not better or worse.
If a company chooses not to have a diverse team and that hinders it, then that's most appropriate.
p.s. I'd also like to see some kind of anonymous recruiting system like one of the commentators said.
p.s.2 I also like to point out two groups of people tech companies shy away from--the poors and the seniors.
Anonymous recruiting tends to result in less diversity in that it avoids the differently brilliant.
I view diversity and generative difference not only as moral imperatives but as smart business.
The question I'm curious to gather from my fellow founders is when. From day 0? Post product-market fit? Growth stage?
(and, hi 👋 @lynnetye !)
I'd say it's kind of narrow-minded to think two people of the same origin and same sexual orientation do not reprensent a form of intellectual diversity
This quote sums up the whole thing.
All quotas do is create resentment among the races or genders (or whatever criteria you chose for division) by tokenization of individuals. We don't want humanity to be divided, do we? Diversity isn't something that could be forced upon someone, neither should you try to do so.
I think positive reinforcement has a lot of power to change things than negative reinforcement. For example, the government can provide tax deductions, export benefits, other incentives, etc. to those companies who best maintain the diversity, isn't it?
Aline Lerner, I think this is why having hackerrank tests, or similar, to weed out candidates helps, because you could make something like that a non-biased test. Granted there are still steps along the way that can cause good candidates to drop out, but it gets us closer to a more fair system. I think the "Cultural" fit part of the interview needs to be non-biased somehow too, but difficult to gage without sitting next to someone face to face. Most importantly though, we have to come up with an inclusive culture before we can start to allow a truly diverse team to be created or survive turnover.
Great response Aline. All the responses were great, yours just struck a cord with me I guess!
Diversity is racist! Applying quotas means that one race/gender/group of people is preferred over another and actual skills are set aside....
I am ready for some real diversity.
Software development is made up of people who all generally think the same way. People like me who have a different cognitive makeup have a hard time in this field. The field has narrowed down to those who troubleshoot well, who work with precision technologies well, and who can understand poorly written code. Creative people, people who care about meaning, people who can work with things that are imprecise, and people who want to work at higher levels find themselves isolated, unsupported, unhired, and misassigned.
For some real diversity we need to understand the cognitive differences between developers, identify what cognitive spread we want in our organizations, and support those who think differently. While color of skin diversity helps with better marketing and service, 'color of mind' is far more important in that it helps with creating new opportunities, new ideas, new products, new services, and new businesses (and, color of mind diversity helps with the other kind also). I have developed a model that can be used to do this. So I do have a solution.
Software development is stagnating and we need to build systems that can enable the differently brilliant.
Absolutely not. We have to focus purely on hiring the BEST person for the job, regardless of any other factor. Anything else is ironically massively discriminatory.
Treating people as whole people rather than just people with a set of skill sets with a diversity status certainly makes sense.
No.
This is a great post - thank you for taking the time to do all of this research!
No.
Thanks for this discussion.
No. You don't end inequality by treating people unequally.