> And frankly I'd rather have the black woman on the team to offer that perspective, especially for product decisions, because they might have interesting things to say.

I'm trying to imagine how this would work in practice but products aren't usually designed by committee in giant brainstorming sessions where everyone gets to provide their opinion from their little expert/experience positions.

That usually happens through research and feedback loops. Being flexible and adapting. It doesn't require having to hire from every demographic and expert group, and putting them directly on your product/engineering teams.

If you're targeting a specific demographic or niche market is typically helps to be from that group or at a minimum be constantly talking to them (ala what Steve Blank talks about endlessly). It also helps with sales/marketing when communicating, etc.

But this stuff doesn't seem like a rule you can apply generally when composing a team or building a company like choosing the right Lego blocks by demographic profile.

It's not like building a team in an RPG video game where you're trying to find the right balance of race/gender/religion/culture.