The norm in Silicon Valley is treat D&I with an inordinate level of skepticism, if not reject it outright as "anti-meritocratic." What we have here is not explicit racial segregation, but a system operating via capital and clout that has elevated a small group of mostly white men into positions of extreme power and influence over the most vibrant segment of the American economy. This creates huge bind spots and carries the risk of building systems that reinforce oppression.
>D&I may very well be operating at the wrong end of the pipe.
Then that should be the argument at hand. Not rejecting the idea outright.
>she was pressured into hiring an incompetent person
That there is no system in place for addressing concrete performance issues in any employee is the failing of the organization. The requirements for any role you hire for should be clear, expectations should be set and when they are not met there should be consequences. If this is not the case at the organization she worked at, she was bound to burn out, irrespective of the DEI objectives.
>> D&I may very well be operating at the wrong end of the pipe.
> Then that should be the argument at hand. Not rejecting the idea outright.
That doesn't follow. If D&I is operating at the wrong end of the pipe, it should be rejected outright because it won't work and will cause pointless problems in the meantime.
> That there is no system in place for addressing concrete performance issues in any employee is the failing of the organization.... If this is not the case at the organization she worked at, she was bound to burn out, irrespective of the DEI objectives.
There was a system in place, but if you couldn't read between the lines: the bar was far higher for firing a "diverse" employee with performance issues, which followed from the DEI ethos in place.
>If D&I is operating at the wrong end of the pipe, it should be rejected outright because it won't work and will cause pointless problems in the meantime.
So instead of discussing ways of making D&I work, we should throw it away. Sounds like a newbie dev throwing a tantrum over having to build on a system with legacy code.
>the bar was far higher for firing a diverse employee with performance issues, which followed from the DEI objectives.
That statement doesn't simply "follow from DEI objectives." Was that bar for performance standards explicit? implicit? or, like a lot of other replies here, hyperbole?
> So instead of discussing ways of making D&I work
Parent comment didn't say anything like that. Please assume good faith in discussions. They said that D&I efforts are more likely to work if focused on other parts of the education/industry pipeline, which seems at least plausible.
Parent comment literally said "D&I should be rejected outright" and uselessly categorized the pain of driving institutional change as "pointless problems."
There is a point to trying to change a system that only sees white people at the end of the hiring pipeline. We can debate where it needs to change, but the change is necessary.
> Parent comment literally said "D&I should be rejected outright"
Nope, they didn't. A direct quote: "If D&I is operating at the wrong end of the pipe, it should be rejected outright because it won't work". Note the "If". If you disagree that D&I wouldn't work under these conditions, or that stuff that doesn't work should be rejected as pointless, you're still welcome to make that argument. But please be careful not to misquote other users' comments.
>> Parent comment literally said "D&I should be rejected outright"
> Nope, they didn't. A direct quote: "If D&I is operating at the wrong end of the pipe, it should be rejected outright because it won't work".
Yeah, it's also worth noting that "rejected outright" is actually omegaworks's own language, which he is now taking issue with. I was only echoing it back to emphasize a point in his own terms.
Also, I suspect there's some sloppiness with definitions going on here. When I was using "D&I," I was referring specifically to kinds of corporate hiring polices the OP was talking about and this thread is discussing. I suspect omegaworks may be interpreting the term more broadly at times.
It makes no sense to debate the meaning of "rejected outright" with you. Just because a strategy doesn't work when it is applied at a particular point in the process, doesn't indicate that the strategic goals are wrong to pursue. Even the idea that it won't work is debatable, I question whether the strategy was applied in good faith by the people responsible.
> That statement doesn't simply "follow from DEI objectives." Was that bar for performance standards explicit? implicit? or, like a lot of other replies here, hyperbole?
The person simply couldn't do the job and was profoundly incompetent, and the response was to that was to repeatedly be told to spend more time training them. My friend had previously successfully terminated a white employee who was under-performing but turned out to be more competent than this one.
> What we have here is not explicit racial segregation, but a system operating via capital and clout that has elevated a small group of mostly white men into positions of extreme power and influence over the most vibrant segment of the American economy
Microsoft - Satya Nadella
Google - Sundar Pichai
Twitter - Parag Agrawal
None of these men is white or even born in the USA, and somehow they managed to arrive at positions of extreme power and influence through this system of "capital and clout".
So, what's the mechanism here? The white Americans in power are fans of the caste system established by the British colonizers and decided to make an exception to their white supremacy to allow some Brahmins to control some of the most important US tech companies?
I'm simply pointing out that your three examples don't negate the fact that we have a system here that taken whole rewards and uplifts whiteness. White colonialism literally crafted the system that elevated those three non-white people. Do you think that that influence is not relevant just because those three people are not white?
Working in tech, I don't see a system that rewards and uplifts whiteness. Asians (both East and from the subcontinent) are greatly overrepresented relative to their fraction of the US population in SWE jobs. Their skin color was never a factor. Most of the ones I've worked with/interviewed, were hired due to merit, not the color of their skin.
That richer and more well educated Indians are over-represented in tech jobs and as CEOs of major tech companies relative to those with fewer resources and less well educated is not surprising.
I am not sure what's the relevance of the skin color of those who allegedly imposed the system that led to this particular group being at the top of the socioeconomic hierarchy in India today. How did that result in "uplifting whiteness"?
> I don't see a system that rewards and uplifts whiteness.
What you see is little more than your own personal anecdote. Who are the voices centered in the conversations around funding? Why is it easier for some people to secure investment? Who is considered important in the conversations around what tech is developed and who is ignored? Who reaps the rewards and who shoulders the costs?
> with fewer resources
Think a little deeper: why were resources allocated in this way?
>How did that result in "uplifting whiteness"?
The people put in charge of these companies have little interest in critically examining the race and caste-based resource allocation mechanisms that helped to get them there.
>D&I may very well be operating at the wrong end of the pipe.
Then that should be the argument at hand. Not rejecting the idea outright.
>she was pressured into hiring an incompetent person
That there is no system in place for addressing concrete performance issues in any employee is the failing of the organization. The requirements for any role you hire for should be clear, expectations should be set and when they are not met there should be consequences. If this is not the case at the organization she worked at, she was bound to burn out, irrespective of the DEI objectives.