Silicon Valley's diversity efforts get mired in scandal

Thisman · Nov 27, 2017

What's the latest percentage of white men graduating ready to enter Silicon Valley and other technical Areas compared to women and other minorities. What is the current unemployment ratio of all races and genders considering the number of tech openings right now.

Are tech companies being told to hire based on availability or hire based on demographics based on the push to be more diverse

Lumination · Nov 27, 2017

Chikor said:
The high tech industry don't really have a Chinese and Indian representation problem, in fact, Asians as a whole are over-represented (I don't think that's a problem in and by itself actually, this is merely a reflection of the fact that those countries are really big and have really good schools that produce a ton very qualified people who really want to go to the US). They have a problem mostly with women, African Americans and Latin Americans.

Right, but the person I replied to did not give an ethnicity. Asians in general definitely are minorities in America.

tintskuecha said:
The US is nowhere near 35% Asian. It's like tech companies are hiring Indians to boost their diversity numbers. The US born minorities are left in the dust.

I can only speak from my own life experiences. Growing up in a predominantly Hispanic community, no one's parents aspired for their kids to become programmers. It just wasn't on the radar. Everyone wanted doctors and lawyers. Same thing in college. Over my four years in the department, I could count the number of non-Asian minorities enrolled on one hand. Now, this was not because they showed up and got shooed out by the environment. All of my minority friends were in pre-med. All this is to say that I'm not convinced there's some underlying racism to why American-born minorities aren't being hired. It seems like there just aren't any in the pipeline.

Typhonsentra · Nov 27, 2017

thistooshallpass said:
I guess I work for one of the good companies. Five of us were hired as NOC systems engineers. We have 1 white american, 1 Romanian, 1 Iranian, 1 Chinese and 1 Hispanic and finally the manager is Indian. Not many women or blacks though, we have 1 black guy in upper management, 1 older lady in HR, and 1 girl that does really simple level 1 tech support (like resetting passwords, and stuff like that.) we dont have any women at the engineering level.

From what I can gather, your company would be counted as nondiverse by tge standards used in the article. Within the context of IT hires, Asian and Middle Eastern hires are lumped in with white hires, only Latino/Black/Native American (Non-Pacific Islander) would count. At least going by the metrics we judge companies such as Google and Facebook against. If those hires did "count".

Deepwater · Nov 27, 2017

Lumination said:
Right, but the person I replied to did not give an ethnicity. Asians in general definitely are minorities in America.

I can only speak from my own life experiences. Growing up in a predominantly Hispanic community, no one's parents aspired for their kids to become programmers. It just wasn't on the radar. Everyone wanted doctors and lawyers. Same thing in college. Over my four years in the department, I could count the number of non-Asian minorities enrolled on one hand. Now, this was not because they showed up and got shooed out by the environment. All of my minority friends were in pre-med. All this is to say that I'm not convinced there's some underlying racism to why American-born minorities aren't being hired. It seems like there just aren't any in the pipeline.

Except we know that many companies don't even meet the minority % that's reflective of the amount of minorities in the workforce. It's faulty to compare employment rates to the general population, but rather do they meet the representation of the amount of workers in the field, or even graduate rates.

Taking CompSci for example, 6% of CS grads are black, yet for many companies their representation falls between 0-2%. And while CS isn't the only degree necessary to get into tech, it represents the issue that black grads aren't getting hired. Primarily because (like I mentioned in my other post), majority of black CS grads aren't going to these top programs which means they aren't getting recruited or face time with recruiters.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/...eline-for-lack-of-diversity-in-tech.html?_r=0

Ushojax · Nov 27, 2017

hydrophilic attack said:
the alt-right seems to have infiltrated the Valley so it seems like a pretty big shithole

The alt-right has nothing to do with it. The tech industry has always been stacked with entitled white guys who didn't have much sex in high school.

hydrophilic attack · Nov 27, 2017

Ushojax said:
The alt-right has nothing to do with it. The tech industry has always been stacked with entitled white guys who didn't have much sex in high school.

aka the alt-right

Hollywood Duo · Nov 27, 2017

SweetNicole said:
This is one of the reasons I do not want to work for any company in Silicon Valley. I'm much happier taking other tech jobs elsewhere.

It's strange working in a tech company where I'm the only white male on my team. It's almost all women and 100% minorities other than me. All this stuff coming out of Silicon Valley is like a bizarro universe. Although I'm guessing my experience is in the minority.

mrmoose · Nov 27, 2017

Zoe said:
People always say this, but surely it's a west coast thing. I can count the number of East Asians I've worked with on one hand and South Asians on the other. If we only count Americans, I can't even fill up a hand.

But I thought we were talking about Silicon Valley (ie: San Jose, West Coast)? Or is this for the tech industry as a whole? Although that's a good point if we only count citizens.

Lumination · Nov 27, 2017

Deepwater said:
Taking CompSci for example, 6% of CS grads are black, yet for many companies their representation falls between 0-2%. And while CS isn't the only degree necessary to get into tech, it represents the issue that black grads aren't getting hired. Primarily because (like I mentioned in my other post), majority of black CS grads aren't going to these top programs which means they aren't getting recruited or face time with recruiters.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/...eline-for-lack-of-diversity-in-tech.html?_r=0

I absolutely agree. Like all things in our society, institutional racism probably has a hand in this. But this was not the issue being addressed. The post I replied to claimed that companies were hiring immigrants to prop up "minority" numbers to get away with not hiring local minorities. This implies racism at the candidate selection level, which I don't believe exists in the NYC tech scene.

Messofanego · Nov 27, 2017

kazinova said:
...
Jeeze, man, you sound a little too dogmatic for your own good. Like with all diversity efforts, the biggest change will result from early intervention in education. Does this backlash shock anyone though.

Libertarians and alt-right are quite close, though.

Zukuu · Nov 27, 2017

I skimmed the article and didn't see any figures. What are the actual numbers and what would be a realistic target here? 25-ish percent for non-white?

Dreams-Visions · Nov 28, 2017

Zukuu said:
I skimmed the article and didn't see any figures. What are the actual numbers and what would be a realistic target here? 25-ish percent for non-white?

What's realistic will vary, but the goal is simply more women and minorities in STEM fields. It's something people like myself have been working towards in a variety of ways in and out of the classroom. There are lots of factors working against us.