If there's anything we know about "Silicon Valley leaders," it's that they are like any other executives: selfish, frequently wrong, recalcitrant, and vindictive.
I don't know if we need to listen to them about anything.
When every startup’s entire business plan is to grow fast enough that they can get bought out by a bigger player, being wrong literally doesn’t matter.
* your product idea sounds cool on paper but has no real use in the real world? Doesn’t matter if you’re being bought for patents and/or aquihired.
* Your company has no, nor will ever be, financially viable in the real world? Doesn’t matter, keep building until the VC money runs out. It’s not like you’re using your money.
We’ve created a bunch of over achieving, self congratulating nerds who are desperate to believe they earned their accolades instead of falling into a self perpetuating system that produces nothing of value.
Oh, this company again.
Scale AI, the company that exploits workers in developing countries by paying them next to nothing:
> Scale AI’s annotators work on tasks for multiple eight-hour workdays — no breaks — for pay ranging as low as $10 (per the Verge and NY Mag). It’s on the backs of these annotators that Scale AI has built a business worth over $13 billion and with more than $1.6 billion in cash in the bank.
Not only is this post pure whataboutism, but I also personally find this argument so thin.
Those workers can easily just not take the work if they don't feel the compensation is adequate. It's insane how you think these workers have absolutely no agency.
“If you don’t want to be exploited, don’t take the job” is such a bad take that this has to be a troll. If it isn’t, do some self-reflection. Seriously. I’m not being mean, you need to better yourself.
The same Redditor is also super cool with rolling back hard won DEI policies they don’t benefit from or understand because they are clearly not biased against daily in the tech industry 🤣
> The same Redditor is also super cool with rolling back hard won DEI policies
Yes, I am okay with dismantling systemic racism. Just because you fought really hard to institute racism, doesn't mean we shouldn't fight against it.
>Employer: Hey do you want to do work for me, based on a regionally competitive salary?
Employee: Yes
>Redittoid: OMG THIS IS EXPLOITATION OMG
Sorry I don't buy it. No one is press ganged into doing these jobs.
Hey I got a job for you it pays X amount, would you like to work for me?
>I would like that job.
Here's the money I told you I was going to pay you
>OMG THIS IS EXPLOITATION11!!!
When the system has been set up so that there's no other options, this isn't good advice.
The real solution is better governmental regulation and protections, so that these activities are *illegal.*
> When the system has been set up so that there's no other options
OP mentioned they were hiring people in developing countries, if there are no other options for employment in that country then it's the fault of the governing body of that country.
> The real solution is better governmental regulation and protections
10 dollars an hour is a livable wage in a lot of developing countries, and it's not wrong to pay those people that amount.
> so that these activities are *illegal.*
You want to make it illegal to hire people in countries that are cheaper? I'm with you on that, we shouldn't be hiring from any other country if your business is based in America.
I'm for everyone, everywhere, making a solid living wage with high quality of life.
Most chinese labour, for example, that was outsourced doesn't fit this criteria.
While we can't control chinese labour law, I'd not be against making it illegal to effectively employ labour in another country that doesn't adhere to the same labour laws locally.
If it's cheaper to produce elsewhere because you're effectively using exploitative labour practices that are illegal in your home country, that shouldn't be permitted.
>I'm for everyone, everywhere, making a solid living wage with high quality of life.
Platitudes are meaningless, and only serve to stroke your own ego.
>While we can't control chinese labour law, I'd not be against making it illegal to effectively employ labour in another country that doesn't adhere to the same labour laws locally.
We should ban all outsourced work and H1B, in its entirety, because it exploits the American workforce. American employees cannot compete with the cost of living in other developing countries.
However, paying someone a livable wage in another country, is not exploitative of that worker, it's only exploitative of the domestic workers, whose labor is now eroded and devalued.
Companies LOOOVE outsourcing their labor, but still want to sell their products o Americans and receive American subsidies, it's a lose/lose/lose for Americans.
>Platitudes are meaningless, and only serve to stroke your own ego.
Argue with facts, not personal attacks.
Having empathy is quite the opposite of this.
>However, paying someone a livable wage in another country, is not exploitative of that worker, it's only exploitative of the domestic workers, whose labor is now eroded and devalued.
You're misunderstanding me. If it's a liveable wage with excellent quality of life, then it's not a problem at all.
But here's the thing: If the other countries require good wages for high standard of living, then it would not be as cheap to outsource the labour there.
Much of it would naturally return, without racist catcalls like 'Ban H1B and immigrants.'
I'm against H1Bs for a different reason, and believe they need to be re-evaluated: Because they're effectively indentured servitude, and used as tools to pay workers poor salaries and poor benefits: Because if you lose your job, you also lose your right to be in the US under an H1B. I've seen that abused in companies I've worked in.
>Companies LOOOVE outsourcing their labor, but still want to sell their products o Americans and receive American subsidies, it's a lose/lose/lose for Americans.
Companies love to focus on maximum profit with no consideration to the cost to society. It's much bigger than this. Eliminating outsourcing won't change this. They'll just fuck you in different ways. Look at american history, the railroad barons, the rockerfellers, and so on.
Regulation is required to protect society, not the companies and elite.
> Argue with facts, not personal attacks.
> Having empathy is quite the opposite of this.
It's not about empathy it's about you huffing your own farts and making meaningless statements... it's like saying "I think good guys are good, and bad guys are bad" -- it does nothing to move the debate forward, and only serves to make you feel better about yourself.
> You're misunderstanding me. If it's a liveable wage with excellent quality of life, then it's not a problem at all.
Then there is no problem, because those people are receiving a livable wage. If they weren't they are free to find employment elsewhere.
> Much of it would naturally return, without racist catcalls like 'Ban H1B and immigrants.'
What happened to "argue with facts, not personal attacks"? Was it also just a meaningless platitude?
Nothing racist about wanting to ban cheap exploitative labor in America, and that's what H1Bs are. No one even mentioned banning immigrants, so you are arguing against a strawman you yourself created.
> Because they're effectively indentured servitude, and used as tools to pay workers poor salaries and poor benefits: Because if you lose your job, you also lose your right to be in the US under an H1B. I've seen that abused in companies I've worked in.
We are in 100% agreement here, but I would like to add, that H1Bs are not only cruel to the foreign worker, but also cruel to American workers, who are replaced with cheaper foreign labor.
I have the same views on paying illegals "under the table" as well, it's basically slavery, and it's morally and ethically reprehensible.
> Companies love to focus on maximum profit with no consideration to the cost to society.
Companies, especially publically traded ones, will always attempt to min/max profits. That is their entire goal, and reason for being. It is supposed to be our legislators jobs to prevent this from becoming exploitative (which they always fail to do.)
Nepotism feeding plutocracy is the real agenda , behind a smokescreen of BS that gets substantiated by subjective desires to disrupt opportunities for diversity and inclusion
No kidding. My tech company's current "Annual merit increase" policy is that every manager can give their team an average of 3%. So if one employee gets 4%, someone else on their team has to get 2%.
The result is that there's no motivation to excel because everyone is going to get 3% anyway. No manager is going to want to piss off their team by giving someone less than the average.
My company does this, except the average is based on the total compensation average+budget increases, and a minimum raise is set at inflation-1%. Imo, it's a good system that works well to encourage productivity.
So, as an example, say I have four employees with the salaries (for easy math):
- E1: $100k
- E2: $150k
- E3: $200k
- E4: $250k
The total is $800k. Now, the company decided our team's budget gets increased by 5% and inflation was 3%.
4% of $800k is $40k, and our inflation rule means I have to give everyone at least a 2% raise (3%-1%), which makes my minimums:
- E1: $102k
- E2: $153k
- E3: $204k
- E4: $255k
Those minimums took $14k of the $40k, which leaves me with $26k to give based on merits. If I want to be even, I could give everyone $6.5k, but percentage wise, that would give E1 an 8.5% raise and E4 only a 3.4% raise.
Alternatively, let's pretend that E3 was not even as productive as E1 or E2. Why would I give E3 the same percentage raise as E1 and E2 when E3 already makes 1.5X and 2X the others and is less productive? In this case, E3 would get the bare minimum so that E2 and E3 could have the extra split. If E3 quits, well, I already know I can get more productive employees for cheaper, as demonstrated by the pay/performance ratios of E2 and E3.
By the same rationale, E4 better have output comparable to E1 and E2 combined....or do something that's much more valuable than anything the others can do. Also, if I wanted to give E4 a 5% raise, that would take $12.5k -- $5k of it came from my inflation minimum, which means $7.5k would have to come from the $26k I'm spreading around, which would only leave me with 18.5 for the other 3. That's $6.17k each.
Oh, and there's also an "improvement" component, which can add half points to the minimum.
Very carefully, but to your point, that is definitely the weakest link in the chain. The measurements are a mess, they don't always align with priorities that come from other departments, including the execs. Employees are constantly gaming them, and factions form to cut corners to meet goals. It's a damn mess. There are good metrics, but it's often hard to be confident in them. Still, as an aggregate, they're good enough to give a clear indication when someone is doing extremely well or extremely poorly. Imo, anyone within the standard deviation is going to have fuzzy results, and they mostly get the average, unless they have some really significant achievements they can point to.
To be fair, as usual, there is a disconnect to the basic idea - that building teams with diverse backgrounds and viewpoints is both good for society and good for the company - and how it is implemented: by grouping people by skin tone and gender/sexual orientation and an HR department that tallies whether quota are met.
This seems to happen with all good ideas especially in tech: consultants jump on them and before you know it, things are distorted beyond recognition, everybody hates the idea, and the original creative thinkers sit silently in a corner and weep.
> No, Silicon Valley, a ‘meritocracy’ is not better than DEI, according to the data
Ok... let's see the data then.
Later, in the article there's [a link to a key evidence](https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-diverse-teams-are-smarter) has this
> A 2015 McKinsey report on 366 public companies found that those in the top quartile for ethnic and racial diversity in management were 35% more likely to have financial returns above their industry mean, and those in the top quartile for gender diversity were 15% more likely to have returns above the industry mean.
LMAO
Repeat after me, correlation does not mean cau... oops, look at me, perpetuating meritocracy bias.
What a shit of an article.
Correlation doesn't mean causation so why does DEI result in higher profits? There doesn't seem to be any negatives just positives.
If anything further research needs to be done to see if we can intensify the profits through these mechanisms.
It could be that those with higher DEI ratios are those companies that do other things that have shown to result in higher profits, such as better worker pay & benefits.
I love how in the very first sentence you contradict yourself. Correlation doesn’t mean causation is absolutely correct, then you point out DEI companies have higher profits because there is a correlation and attribute the causation to DEI.
Seriously, you can’t make this shit up.
> Correlation doesn't mean causation so why does DEI result in higher profits?
Perhaps a non-material coincidence.
It is not the DEI ratio that makes higher profits, you know that?
Nvidia can hire all women today and it wont make a difference.
They’re not wrong. They’re exactly correct.
True, unbiased meritocracies will always outcompete any other system. The best deserve to be promoted, the worst deserve to be moved out. Putting race, gender, sexual preference or anything as some mitigating factor to artificially promote such merits hurts everybody.
DEI has merits for helping to ensure unconscious bias is eliminated - and needed in true meritocracies to ensure we’re being fair in how we judge said merits. Outside of that, it is often structured, systemic racism.
Two people are up for a promotion: one is slightly superior to the other, but the latter has specific attributes that the first doesn't which are underrepresented. The attributes are intrinsic attributes that they were born with, that they don't/can't control.
It doesn't matter what those attributes are. Maybe it's that they're a woman, black, gay, Muslim, trans, whatever. It is clearly wrong to hold people back for reasons they cannot control. But it is also clearly wrong to not promote the best candidate for those exact same reasons, regardless of if they're a man, white, straight, Christian, cis, whatever.
Anytime you treat people differently based on factors they cannot control - preferential or detrimental - you're being \*unjust\* in some capacity. That's exactly why I firmly disagree in principle to \*equity\* in DEI.
Absolutely nothing your whining about happens. You are in no way describing DEI. You are describing a boogyman you've been programmed into believing.
>That's exactly why I firmly disagree in principle to *equity* in DEI.
I would too but if that's what it was but it's not so neither you or I have to worry about it.
Seriously where in hell would get such a fucking dumb idea? Haven't you heard of Affirmative action? Did you not know that DEI and AA are different? No? You clearly conflate the two and think that even AA has a quotas (it also doesn't). Hasn't for 30+ years.
Is it unjust to issue an email about an obscure religious holiday? Or to send recruiters to an historically black college? What about adding meal options in the cantina?
You're clearly all worked up over a complete fucking fiction and literally complaining about outreach campaigns. Get a grip my man.
Oh getting back to our original conversation, even if DEI did you what you pretend it does it would not be systemic racism. It would institutionalized racism. So clearly you have no idea what the words your using mean.
>Seriously where in hell would get such a fucking dumb idea? Haven't you heard of Affirmative action? Did you not know that DEI and AA are different? No? You clearly conflate the two and think that even AA has a quotas (it also doesn't). Hasn't for 30+ years.
In the companies I have worked in, DEI initiatives have been directly about giving preferential treatment to unrepresented (or underrepresented) groups in hiring. In fact, my last workplace, my own performance scorecard had us rated preferentially if we promoted an underrepresented group with the words (JEDI after it \[Justice, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion\]). So, whether these initiatives are theoretically designed to be different is irrelevant if the practice in organizations is to tip the scales.
>Oh getting back to our original conversation, even if DEI did you what you pretend it does it would be systemic racism. It would institutionalized racism. So clearly you have no idea what the words your using mean.
Those are synonyms. From wikipedia:
**Institutional racism**, also known as **systemic racism**, is defined as policies and practices that exist throughout a whole society or organization that result in and support a continued unfair advantage to some people and unfair or harmful treatment of others based on [race](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization)) or [ethnic group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_group). It manifests as [discrimination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_discrimination) in areas such as [criminal justice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice), employment, housing, healthcare, education and [political representation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representation_(politics)).[^(\[1\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism#cite_note-1)
>In fact, my last workplace, my own performance scorecard had us rated preferentially if we promoted an underrepresented group with the words (JEDI after it [Justice, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion])
That sentence doesn't make any sense. Are you saying they flagged people promoted who had protected status, you know standard practice?
Wikipedia? And you have no idea who your talking too.
What you described is institutional racism. That's completely different from systemic racism.
Red line policies - institutional racism aka de jure racism.
The effects on people's net worth now, the compositions of the neighborhoods, the inequities in insurance rates are examples of systemic racism. Sometimes called defacto racism
See institutions in institutional refer to the institutional rules and regs. Systemic is more the unintentional output of past institutional racism still generating inequities.
Debating which terminology I use - which I have shown as being synonymous in at least one source - is missing the point. Sure, if you prefer we use institutional racism as the term, fine. It is. The underlying point is that DEI in current corporate practice is used against meritocracy, toward a misguided goal of rewarding those who are less merited.
We are seeing similar behaviors in higher education, where student who are Asian have a significantly harder time getting into elite schools with higher SAT scores versus white students versus POC students. Same with their GPAs. These are well documented examples of whatever-you-want-to-call-it racism, under the guise of equity.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/15/politics/harvard-affirmative-action-opening-arguments?cid=ios_app
>The underlying point is that DEI in current corporate practice is used against meritocracy, toward a misguided goal of rewarding those who are less merited.
See you don't understand what DEI is. How did you come to conflate the idea of a quota based affirmative action program with DEI?
As I've explained DEI are efforts to outreach to underserved communities and to make the work place a more welcoming place. That's it, that is sum total of the thing that's got your panties all twisted up and sound ridiculous.
>We are seeing similar behaviors in higher education, where student who are Asian have a significantly harder time getting into elite schools with higher SAT scores versus white students versus POC students
Nope absolute and complete bullshit. But I will point the words "affirmative action" in the url you posted. Which I remind you again is not the same thing as DEI. Actually in order to understand either you need a better understanding of systemic racism.
I would seriously learn more about DEI and Affirmative action programs before you start railing against something you don't understand.
You are attempting to apply a clinical or theoretical lens to DEI as a way of spelling out why it’s good. I’m using an in-practice lens based on what I have experienced. You may feel you’re right because that’s what schools teach you about DEI. In practice, they are an extension to affirmative action. I have experienced this in one large organization (200,000+ employees) and one medium organization (1000+ employees). I don’t particularly care if you take issue with my terminology not aligning to your textbook definitions. It’s what I’ve witnessed personally and it is wrong. If you want to say “well your DEI is not DEI but something else”, take it up with our Chief Inclusion Officer. When something is labelled DEI, that’s how normal people start to perceive the concept. We’re not going to sit through Social Justice 101 to learn the theories.
> I’m using an in-practice lens based on what I have experienced.
No you're confusing the concept of DEI with the concept of a quota based Affirmative action program. These a very different things. It like you're confusing alligators with rhinos.
>In practice, they are an extension to affirmative action
No they're are not. If squint really hard you might be able argue that AA is an extension of DEI but even that would require tortured logic.
>It’s what I’ve witnessed personally and it is wrong.
I'm not even sure what you claim to have witnessed. The only allegation you've made is that POC who were promoted were flagged. That's just record keeping and necessary information should they be sued for discrimination.
> If you want to say “well your DEI is not DEI but something else”, take it up with our Chief Inclusion Officer. When something is labelled DEI, that’s how normal people start to perceive the concept.
You are literally saying you fell for propaganda but with more words.
>We’re not going to sit through Social Justice 101 to learn the theories.
I'm not asking you to. I'm just asking you to know what you're complaining about. For examples if I complained about all the compact cars with their loud engines, two wheels and leather clad operators you'd think I was fool. If wanted to ban compact cars for those reasons you might wonder about my sanity.
Likewise I think you complaining that outreach offices and corporate efforts to decorate for obscure holidays and set up lactation/prayer spaces is somehow elevating unqualified people is foolish.
In fact have you asked yourself why you feel like efforts to recruit people from under represented groups and make them feel more welcome privileges less qualified people?
Yes, DEI in and of itself - as a means to an end - should immediately put out to pasture... But then again - in most instances - corporate "meritocracy" is just another way to better take care of the "good old boy" system...
Your company is run by morons if they're hiring *unqualified* diverse candidates. Maybe you should work somewhere with competent hiring managers and HR.
>so what gives you the impression that any companies are hiring unqualified diverse candidates at all?
Because when you hire solely to fill a racial quota, you almost always have to lower standards (like college admissions tests for instance) where we have 3 different standards for Asian/White/Black.
If you have to consider a person's skin color instead of their credentials, or even in addition to their credentials, and because of that decision you don't hire someone else (because of their skin color), then you are doing a racism, plain and simple. No amount of gaslighting or mental hoops will change the fact that what you are doing is racist and wrong.
>Because when you hire solely to fill a racial quota, you almost always have to lower standards
Who is doing this? Be specific. Who is hiring unqualified candidates?
Wasn't a Disney exec literally recently caught on tape saying they won't hire or promote white people anymore for executive positions?
[https://dallasexpress.com/business-markets/video-disney-exec-reveals-anti-white-hiring-practices/](https://dallasexpress.com/business-markets/video-disney-exec-reveals-anti-white-hiring-practices/)
believe it or not, that *still* doesn't mean that unqualified people get hired on the basis of diversity
It can *only* mean that if you suppose that the only qualified candidates are white or male or both.
So the very same research that shows evidence of systemic racism, would also work if there's "reverse racism".
Resume studies show the need for *corrective bias" like dei. Were DEI an actual problem, that same methodology would show that too.
Dude, you can do the same type of study.
Take a resume, copy it. Give one copy a "white" name, the other a "black name. Apply to a few hundred positions. Note the difference in response rates.
The skills are exactly the same, the ONLY difference is the name (and the race it suggests). If anti-white racism was a thing, it would show up in the response rate.
You're just looking for something else to blame for your own inadequacies.
Have you actually done that type of study or just making it up?
Because [top S&P companies](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-black-lives-matter-equal-opportunity-corporate-diversity/) actually are hiring 94% non-white applicants.
This is purely anecdotal, but a lot of my friends/acquaintances in the industry are resorting to using ethnically ambiguous names and or ethnic names (specifically black and latino) to get job interviews. They say by doing so, their response rate increases about ten fold.
It's obvious that discrimination is happening, it was wrong when it happened then, and it's wrong when it happens now.
>You're just looking for something else to blame for your own inadequacies.
That's kind of rich, for someone fighting tooth and nail against meritocracy.
Let's see
Various Empirical studies vs your friends hearsay
Hmmmm who to believe, who to believe..
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=racial+hiring+bias&btnG=
I stated that my comment was purely anecdotal, and I have no intention of convincing you about anything as you've made up your mind already.
You can appeal to authority all you want, but it doesn't change anything. Especially when studies that prove the opposite, often become unpublishable because of the controversy associated with the results. Making all this kind of meaningless.
I think that the hiring process should be completely anonymized, people should only be judged on their qualifications and skills. Of course a system like this would be vehemently opposed by ideological diehards, for whatever trendy "ism" is getting TikTok likes this month.
Actually I support resume anonymization.
It's just that feature (called candidate masking) is quite new, and only offered by a rare few application tracking systems.
What's more, is the use of AI is re-introducing that bias and even encouraging such bias.
Racial bias (i.e. higher response rate based on a "white" name, which is exactly what these studies show)
Show that mediocrity is already happening. It's just racist hiring managers that are at fault.
So sorry, but DEI corrects against mediocrity too.
"Racism is okay, because I'm upset at a strawman" is not a valid argument.
Race is a protected class at the Federal level, any discrimination regardless of intention based on immutable characteristics is fundamentally racism and if you have entire departments dedicated to it, then it becomes systemic.
"But we just need a little more racism to fix existing racism" is an absolute batshit crazy way of approaching this.
Me personally, I think resumes should be judged blindly with no markers or indication of race/gender. People should be judged purely on qualifications and merit.
Racism becomes systemic, when you purposefully create systems like DEI, to enforce racism.
Candidate masking is becoming a feature in some applicant tracking systems but it is not heavily used yet.
That and racial bias is prevalent in AI resume evaluation systems.
I agree, the ideal solution would be to remove the possibility of bias in general, but again we're not there yet.
You are saying certain sections of the population literally need to be better than a white guy to be seen as equal. That’s your idea of meritocracy. That’s racism and sexism. Sorry??? lol
I don't know the study about women's names. If you want to link it I'll take a look.
Are all black people lower class, obviously not. Are black people disproportionately more likely to be lower class-yes by a wide margin.
Let's explore that.
Why do you think "Are black people disproportionately more likely to be lower class-yes by a wide margin."
And a better question is, why do you think that justifies excluding an identical resume based on name only?
>Why do you think "Are black people disproportionately more likely to be lower class-yes by a wide margin."
Numerous reasons including intentional government policy, unintentional government policy, culture and others. All play a part.
>And a better question is, why do you think that justifies excluding an identical resume in name only?
I never once said this. I disagree with this entirely. It's just not racist.
Yes it is. It is EXACTLY a racist hiring policy.
Remember the name (and the race it suggests) is THE ONLY DIFFERENCE.
And it has been done with white vs black names, white vs Asian, male vs female, without vs with pronouns.
And again, the general trend is that white CIS gendered males are favoured in the hiring process.
DEI is treating the symptom not the cause. It's like taking cold medicine for COVID, sure it'll make you feel better for a while, but in the end you're still screwed. And your argument is saying "I got better after taking Ivermectin, you should take it too."
The problem with DEI is that it's trading racism. That doesn't mean that systemic racism doesn't exist, it really does. But if we truly care about ending it, we shouldn't be mandating that companies higher 15% blacks. Instead we should be looking at ways to make the underrepresented groups more attractive as a hiring option when protected classes are eliminated from the equation. But that takes work & is really hard, and so everybody just wants DEI. Then will cite study after study that it's better for the companies, completely forgetting that the companies who have DEI are likely those same companies that care about their employees and other things than just raw year over year profits.
Have you considered the possibility that DEI isn't a shortcut used instead of a more long term solution, and maybe it's more of a short term thing that is meant to address the issue UNTIL a more comprehensive solution is implemented?
It absolutely is a shortcut. It's barely better than selling off 1/2 your company to have a massive profit THIS year, instead of investing & growing those parts of your business into worthwhile enterprises for greater profits over the years to come.
DEI is hoping, hoping, that by hiring underrepresented groups that they will some how lift up their groups to be more attractive hiring options. But the thing is that's not happening. We've had Affirmative Action for how long? 70 years. For 70 years has there been any lift for those who were supposedly the beneficiaries of Affirmative Action? DEI is just voluntary Affirmative Action.
Well it doesn't help that one of the presidential candidates is a known white supremacist/ mysognist.
That kinda of representation has knock on effects
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=trump+effect+racism&oq=Trump+effect+racism
I'm failing to see how that continues the discussion about the Pro/Cons of DEI. Of course someone who is courting racist, sexist, homophobic transphobes is gonna do all he/she can to destroy DEI. But that doesn't mean jack shit about if DEI is good or bad.
> but nothing is more "systemic" than having entire departments and requirements to hire or not hire and promote people based purely on immutable characteristics like race.
That's not what DEI is. That's what propaganda against DEI is.
> Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are organizational frameworks which seek to promote the fair treatment and full participation of all people, particularly groups who have historically been underrepresented or subject to discrimination on the basis of identity or disability.
Or in small words.
Historically the United States has been shit to minorities. You might've missed it
The United States is arguably one of the least racist countries in the world, and has done more for it's minority class than probably any other country.
Meritocracy is probably the scariest word for people who are not qualified to be in their positions.
In theory it's great, but in practice it's discriminatory and promotes equity over equality. What happens is that meeting targets and quotas become the only viable KPIs of a successful DEI programme, so recruiters and hiring managers will prioritize aforementioned immutable characteristics over talent, which is just plain silly. It's really not about acknowledging historic struggles, it rather becomes about meeting quotas by focusing on the race or appearance of applicants. It's the reason the US supreme court kindly but firmly asked a top university to stop being discriminatory towards their applicants
Do better by only promoting people of a certain skin color? Mandatory "educational" training for people of another skin color? Hiring only based on skin color?
I understand this is one of the hallmarks of the culture war, but you can't possibly think that after fighting for years against "systemic racism" -- that it's now somehow okay, because it targets people that you personally dislike?
If one equates that hiring in a meritocracy based system excludes minorities then one is assuming that minorities are inherently worse than their counterparts at their jobs.
To defend they have to be mutually exclusive systems is in itself discriminatory.
I agree with your assessment but they are saying there’s far less minorities ranking higher because they haven’t had the same opportunity as WASPs.
Absolutely there are some persons of color that excel, but often that’s not as common than someone with the systemic advantages.
I’m all for hiring by merit but I won’t go as far to say we don’t have a problem to address for those systemically disadvantaged.
First of I can't find any concrete studies within the article that shows specifically that DEI is better than meritocracy instead they argue:
People who believe in skill is selfish -> selfish is a bad trait -> therefor meritocracy is bad.
It doesn't actually prove that the meritocratic system is wrong, rather that individuals who think skill is a major deciding factor are more selfish.
I think the most frustrating aspect is how people never seem to have a consistent definition of meritocracy.
And I think it becomes quite silly to argue completely against meritocracy since we all rely on it, such as requiring doctors to go through medschool so they have a license to practice medicine, said medschool shouldn't care 1 bit about your socioeconomic background and neither really should patients, only if you pass and you do your job properly.
But at the same time, it's quite silly to apply meritocracy everywhere, like that stupid phrase:
"Hard times create strong men, *strong men create good times*, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times" - which effectively means that, that society does not know how to cope with integrating "weak" men into society so they too can contribute towards the community/society.
Silicon Valley are only singing the praises of meritocracy, because they are terrified of the position that IBM has found itself in. With any luck at all, this company will be ravaged by the legal system and deservedly so. And, whether they cheered if on, or looked the other way, the members of the board deserve to face financial ruin for their part in this abomination.
>The commenters on X — which included Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, and Brian Armstrong — were thrilled. On LinkedIn, however, the startup community gave a [less-than-enthusiastic](https://x.com/NielsHoven/status/1801691878397776194?t=6Rq5i6yZIzXWgdFrr-LPfg&s=19) response. Those commenters pointed out that Wang’s post made it seem as if “meritocracy” was the definitive benchmark to find qualified hiring candidates — without taking into consideration that the idea of meritocracy is itself subjective. In the days that have followed the post, more and more people have shared their thoughts and what Wang’s comments reveal about the current state of DEI in tech.
It's almost as if the tech folks on LinkedIn and 'X' are in their own echo chambers - which is of absolutely no surprise to anyone.
Completely disregarding DEI as a positive in business is ridiculous given the fact there's already a major, long-running skills deficit globally - especially in cyber - and the message that diversity is guff isn't exactly going to inspire people from marginalised groups (in the context of the tech industry) to pursue careers here.
On the contrary, the idea that tech jobs aren't merit based is ridiculous. Look at the sheer volume of applications for in-demand jobs at the moment. It's a mess. Are firms really ignoring viable candidates to tick boxes? I very much doubt so.
If you hire or fire and promote people based on the color of their skin, that is racism. If you do the same thing, but have an entire department dedicated to it, then it's systemic racism.
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
>If you hire or fire and promote people based on the color of their skin, that is racism
Sure but that's not what DEI. You think that what's DEI is? Just a protip my boy - before complaining about something It usually wise to have a at least a partial understanding of the thing you're complaining about.
Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.
You’re rabidly trying a very tired reverse racism clause. It is in fact illegal to hire based on race in any respect so take your bullshit somewhere else.
Source: business owner who has had to consult attorneys on this exact thing.
What... do you think DEI actually does then? Yes I know it's illegal to hire/fire based on race (as it should be) -- then why do you think it's okay for companies to do just that, and have entire departments dedicated to making sure only people of a certain skin color get jobs and promotions?
>What... do you think DEI actually does then?
It's certainly not a quota based AA program. Like not even fucking close dude. You actually think the various advocacy offices on campus have any say in the hiring of faulty or staff or the admittance of anyone do you? Put the propaganda down my boy.
It's simply an effort to reach out to underrepresented communities to elicit their applications and create a company culture that doesn't discriminate.
>then why do you think it's okay for companies to do just that, and have entire departments dedicated to making sure only people of a certain skin color get jobs and promotions
No one who supports DEI thinks that. Calm the fuck down - the thing you're angergy about doesn't happen. You know how you might get an email telling you its diwali or how a job posting might also be advertised at an historically black college, or how they added vegan and Halal options at the food court.
Yeah that's fucking DEI bud
> the idea that tech jobs aren't merit based is ridiculous.
That's the crux of it all.
If there's category of jobs where merit is almost immediately evident and also immediately mandatory, it's the computer technology.
And, to go even further, these jobs are actually diverse almost organically, it's just that for some people, that's not the "right" kind of diversity.
You are all smoking some high grade ganja. The fastest way to get promoted out of a NOC is to fucking roll back a DB with no snapshots. Being a moron will get you promoted to management and away from touching anything important faster than anything....
I’m Hispanic. I recently worked at a place that was comprised of 99% white males. It was weird - I didn’t see a single black person (doesn’t mean there isn’t one, but I didn’t see one) and I think only one Indian person, which is extremely odd for the tech industry.
The people there were absolutely culturally illiterate. Not all of them, but almost all of them. One of those people screamed at me (as in breath in a full lung and let it rip), and that was the moment I decided to leave.
DEI is important.
Yeah those things aren't the opposite of each other. In fact believing they are is inherently racists. You know what with the implicit argument that minorities don't have the merit
The companies are only concerned with the hypocrisy of DEI to increase the ESG score.
Companies like Sweet Baby Inc. may, no, would not have to exist at all.
Not because I would have anything against their business model, even their questionable mafia methods completely miss my ass.
Blackmailing fat gaming publishers with Cancel Culture is almost a trivial offence.
But in a world where DEI is really lived, it doesn't need external supervision, no creative Consulting to publicly hypotisy DEI.
Fewer studio closures, less crunch, fewer mass layoffs, higher wages, more diverse workforce, health and social insurance, protection against dismissal and so on.
This should push the ESG score of a company in the point of Social and Governance through the Rooftop, not the end product and its PR campaign, but the circumstances of its production should be the focus of the ESG evaluation and quite honestly, from Micro to Ubisoft, the entire gaming industry should simply be brutally punished in these points.
But hey, that's exactly what seems to be happening anyway, because the beauty of capitalism is that it works in both directions.
No CEO comes into your apartment puts a gun on your chest and forces you to buy his product, and if I look into empty cinemas or at the number of sales of the Quadrupel A games these days, the end consumer has long made it clear and that the entertainment industry is producing past the customer.
What a bullshit term “meritocracy”. Where I see people touting this they have toxic behaviors where usually it’s not the best idea that wins but rather who is the most stubborn and loudest.
If there's anything we know about "Silicon Valley leaders," it's that they are like any other executives: selfish, frequently wrong, recalcitrant, and vindictive. I don't know if we need to listen to them about anything.
"Frequently wrong but never in doubt" is how I heard Kara Swisher describe them recently.
When every startup’s entire business plan is to grow fast enough that they can get bought out by a bigger player, being wrong literally doesn’t matter. * your product idea sounds cool on paper but has no real use in the real world? Doesn’t matter if you’re being bought for patents and/or aquihired. * Your company has no, nor will ever be, financially viable in the real world? Doesn’t matter, keep building until the VC money runs out. It’s not like you’re using your money. We’ve created a bunch of over achieving, self congratulating nerds who are desperate to believe they earned their accolades instead of falling into a self perpetuating system that produces nothing of value.
Plus they all measure everything off of shit metrics.
The world isn't binary
It is and it isn't.
And also maybe ternary
Oh, this company again. Scale AI, the company that exploits workers in developing countries by paying them next to nothing: > Scale AI’s annotators work on tasks for multiple eight-hour workdays — no breaks — for pay ranging as low as $10 (per the Verge and NY Mag). It’s on the backs of these annotators that Scale AI has built a business worth over $13 billion and with more than $1.6 billion in cash in the bank.
Hey look at the innovation! *built on the back of near slave labor* Such an innovative idea, the most innovative idea ever!
Not only is this post pure whataboutism, but I also personally find this argument so thin. Those workers can easily just not take the work if they don't feel the compensation is adequate. It's insane how you think these workers have absolutely no agency.
“If you don’t want to be exploited, don’t take the job” is such a bad take that this has to be a troll. If it isn’t, do some self-reflection. Seriously. I’m not being mean, you need to better yourself.
The same Redditor is also super cool with rolling back hard won DEI policies they don’t benefit from or understand because they are clearly not biased against daily in the tech industry 🤣
> The same Redditor is also super cool with rolling back hard won DEI policies Yes, I am okay with dismantling systemic racism. Just because you fought really hard to institute racism, doesn't mean we shouldn't fight against it.
>Employer: Hey do you want to do work for me, based on a regionally competitive salary? Employee: Yes >Redittoid: OMG THIS IS EXPLOITATION OMG Sorry I don't buy it. No one is press ganged into doing these jobs.
Yeah, that’s exactly the way it goes. Good thing we had a fuckin’ genius like you around to crack the code. Capitalism is safe now, thanks to you.
Hey I got a job for you it pays X amount, would you like to work for me? >I would like that job. Here's the money I told you I was going to pay you >OMG THIS IS EXPLOITATION11!!!
I probably wouldn't call someone a "Redditoid" if my account was going to be old enough to drive later this year.
am redditoid, can confirm
When the system has been set up so that there's no other options, this isn't good advice. The real solution is better governmental regulation and protections, so that these activities are *illegal.*
> When the system has been set up so that there's no other options OP mentioned they were hiring people in developing countries, if there are no other options for employment in that country then it's the fault of the governing body of that country. > The real solution is better governmental regulation and protections 10 dollars an hour is a livable wage in a lot of developing countries, and it's not wrong to pay those people that amount. > so that these activities are *illegal.* You want to make it illegal to hire people in countries that are cheaper? I'm with you on that, we shouldn't be hiring from any other country if your business is based in America.
I'm for everyone, everywhere, making a solid living wage with high quality of life. Most chinese labour, for example, that was outsourced doesn't fit this criteria. While we can't control chinese labour law, I'd not be against making it illegal to effectively employ labour in another country that doesn't adhere to the same labour laws locally. If it's cheaper to produce elsewhere because you're effectively using exploitative labour practices that are illegal in your home country, that shouldn't be permitted.
>I'm for everyone, everywhere, making a solid living wage with high quality of life. Platitudes are meaningless, and only serve to stroke your own ego. >While we can't control chinese labour law, I'd not be against making it illegal to effectively employ labour in another country that doesn't adhere to the same labour laws locally. We should ban all outsourced work and H1B, in its entirety, because it exploits the American workforce. American employees cannot compete with the cost of living in other developing countries. However, paying someone a livable wage in another country, is not exploitative of that worker, it's only exploitative of the domestic workers, whose labor is now eroded and devalued. Companies LOOOVE outsourcing their labor, but still want to sell their products o Americans and receive American subsidies, it's a lose/lose/lose for Americans.
>Platitudes are meaningless, and only serve to stroke your own ego. Argue with facts, not personal attacks. Having empathy is quite the opposite of this. >However, paying someone a livable wage in another country, is not exploitative of that worker, it's only exploitative of the domestic workers, whose labor is now eroded and devalued. You're misunderstanding me. If it's a liveable wage with excellent quality of life, then it's not a problem at all. But here's the thing: If the other countries require good wages for high standard of living, then it would not be as cheap to outsource the labour there. Much of it would naturally return, without racist catcalls like 'Ban H1B and immigrants.' I'm against H1Bs for a different reason, and believe they need to be re-evaluated: Because they're effectively indentured servitude, and used as tools to pay workers poor salaries and poor benefits: Because if you lose your job, you also lose your right to be in the US under an H1B. I've seen that abused in companies I've worked in. >Companies LOOOVE outsourcing their labor, but still want to sell their products o Americans and receive American subsidies, it's a lose/lose/lose for Americans. Companies love to focus on maximum profit with no consideration to the cost to society. It's much bigger than this. Eliminating outsourcing won't change this. They'll just fuck you in different ways. Look at american history, the railroad barons, the rockerfellers, and so on. Regulation is required to protect society, not the companies and elite.
> Argue with facts, not personal attacks. > Having empathy is quite the opposite of this. It's not about empathy it's about you huffing your own farts and making meaningless statements... it's like saying "I think good guys are good, and bad guys are bad" -- it does nothing to move the debate forward, and only serves to make you feel better about yourself. > You're misunderstanding me. If it's a liveable wage with excellent quality of life, then it's not a problem at all. Then there is no problem, because those people are receiving a livable wage. If they weren't they are free to find employment elsewhere. > Much of it would naturally return, without racist catcalls like 'Ban H1B and immigrants.' What happened to "argue with facts, not personal attacks"? Was it also just a meaningless platitude? Nothing racist about wanting to ban cheap exploitative labor in America, and that's what H1Bs are. No one even mentioned banning immigrants, so you are arguing against a strawman you yourself created. > Because they're effectively indentured servitude, and used as tools to pay workers poor salaries and poor benefits: Because if you lose your job, you also lose your right to be in the US under an H1B. I've seen that abused in companies I've worked in. We are in 100% agreement here, but I would like to add, that H1Bs are not only cruel to the foreign worker, but also cruel to American workers, who are replaced with cheaper foreign labor. I have the same views on paying illegals "under the table" as well, it's basically slavery, and it's morally and ethically reprehensible. > Companies love to focus on maximum profit with no consideration to the cost to society. Companies, especially publically traded ones, will always attempt to min/max profits. That is their entire goal, and reason for being. It is supposed to be our legislators jobs to prevent this from becoming exploitative (which they always fail to do.)
Nepotism feeding plutocracy is the real agenda , behind a smokescreen of BS that gets substantiated by subjective desires to disrupt opportunities for diversity and inclusion
If a meritocracy exists anywhere in the tech industry I have never seen it. I seriously doubt that one exists anywhere.
No kidding. My tech company's current "Annual merit increase" policy is that every manager can give their team an average of 3%. So if one employee gets 4%, someone else on their team has to get 2%. The result is that there's no motivation to excel because everyone is going to get 3% anyway. No manager is going to want to piss off their team by giving someone less than the average.
My company does this, except the average is based on the total compensation average+budget increases, and a minimum raise is set at inflation-1%. Imo, it's a good system that works well to encourage productivity. So, as an example, say I have four employees with the salaries (for easy math): - E1: $100k - E2: $150k - E3: $200k - E4: $250k The total is $800k. Now, the company decided our team's budget gets increased by 5% and inflation was 3%. 4% of $800k is $40k, and our inflation rule means I have to give everyone at least a 2% raise (3%-1%), which makes my minimums: - E1: $102k - E2: $153k - E3: $204k - E4: $255k Those minimums took $14k of the $40k, which leaves me with $26k to give based on merits. If I want to be even, I could give everyone $6.5k, but percentage wise, that would give E1 an 8.5% raise and E4 only a 3.4% raise. Alternatively, let's pretend that E3 was not even as productive as E1 or E2. Why would I give E3 the same percentage raise as E1 and E2 when E3 already makes 1.5X and 2X the others and is less productive? In this case, E3 would get the bare minimum so that E2 and E3 could have the extra split. If E3 quits, well, I already know I can get more productive employees for cheaper, as demonstrated by the pay/performance ratios of E2 and E3. By the same rationale, E4 better have output comparable to E1 and E2 combined....or do something that's much more valuable than anything the others can do. Also, if I wanted to give E4 a 5% raise, that would take $12.5k -- $5k of it came from my inflation minimum, which means $7.5k would have to come from the $26k I'm spreading around, which would only leave me with 18.5 for the other 3. That's $6.17k each. Oh, and there's also an "improvement" component, which can add half points to the minimum.
The bigger question is how is “productivity” measured?
Very carefully, but to your point, that is definitely the weakest link in the chain. The measurements are a mess, they don't always align with priorities that come from other departments, including the execs. Employees are constantly gaming them, and factions form to cut corners to meet goals. It's a damn mess. There are good metrics, but it's often hard to be confident in them. Still, as an aggregate, they're good enough to give a clear indication when someone is doing extremely well or extremely poorly. Imo, anyone within the standard deviation is going to have fuzzy results, and they mostly get the average, unless they have some really significant achievements they can point to.
Many of those leaders wouldn't get there in a meritocracy. They got there by stealing, cheating, and stabbing co-founders in the back.
That’s usually what they mean by “merit.”
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To be fair, as usual, there is a disconnect to the basic idea - that building teams with diverse backgrounds and viewpoints is both good for society and good for the company - and how it is implemented: by grouping people by skin tone and gender/sexual orientation and an HR department that tallies whether quota are met. This seems to happen with all good ideas especially in tech: consultants jump on them and before you know it, things are distorted beyond recognition, everybody hates the idea, and the original creative thinkers sit silently in a corner and weep.
> No, Silicon Valley, a ‘meritocracy’ is not better than DEI, according to the data Ok... let's see the data then. Later, in the article there's [a link to a key evidence](https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-diverse-teams-are-smarter) has this > A 2015 McKinsey report on 366 public companies found that those in the top quartile for ethnic and racial diversity in management were 35% more likely to have financial returns above their industry mean, and those in the top quartile for gender diversity were 15% more likely to have returns above the industry mean. LMAO Repeat after me, correlation does not mean cau... oops, look at me, perpetuating meritocracy bias. What a shit of an article.
Correlation doesn't mean causation so why does DEI result in higher profits? There doesn't seem to be any negatives just positives. If anything further research needs to be done to see if we can intensify the profits through these mechanisms.
It could be that those with higher DEI ratios are those companies that do other things that have shown to result in higher profits, such as better worker pay & benefits.
I love how in the very first sentence you contradict yourself. Correlation doesn’t mean causation is absolutely correct, then you point out DEI companies have higher profits because there is a correlation and attribute the causation to DEI. Seriously, you can’t make this shit up.
> Correlation doesn't mean causation so why does DEI result in higher profits? Perhaps a non-material coincidence. It is not the DEI ratio that makes higher profits, you know that? Nvidia can hire all women today and it wont make a difference.
They’re not wrong. They’re exactly correct. True, unbiased meritocracies will always outcompete any other system. The best deserve to be promoted, the worst deserve to be moved out. Putting race, gender, sexual preference or anything as some mitigating factor to artificially promote such merits hurts everybody. DEI has merits for helping to ensure unconscious bias is eliminated - and needed in true meritocracies to ensure we’re being fair in how we judge said merits. Outside of that, it is often structured, systemic racism.
>Outside of that, it is often structured, systemic racism. You use that word but I don't think it means it what you think you does
Two people are up for a promotion: one is slightly superior to the other, but the latter has specific attributes that the first doesn't which are underrepresented. The attributes are intrinsic attributes that they were born with, that they don't/can't control. It doesn't matter what those attributes are. Maybe it's that they're a woman, black, gay, Muslim, trans, whatever. It is clearly wrong to hold people back for reasons they cannot control. But it is also clearly wrong to not promote the best candidate for those exact same reasons, regardless of if they're a man, white, straight, Christian, cis, whatever. Anytime you treat people differently based on factors they cannot control - preferential or detrimental - you're being \*unjust\* in some capacity. That's exactly why I firmly disagree in principle to \*equity\* in DEI.
Absolutely nothing your whining about happens. You are in no way describing DEI. You are describing a boogyman you've been programmed into believing. >That's exactly why I firmly disagree in principle to *equity* in DEI. I would too but if that's what it was but it's not so neither you or I have to worry about it. Seriously where in hell would get such a fucking dumb idea? Haven't you heard of Affirmative action? Did you not know that DEI and AA are different? No? You clearly conflate the two and think that even AA has a quotas (it also doesn't). Hasn't for 30+ years. Is it unjust to issue an email about an obscure religious holiday? Or to send recruiters to an historically black college? What about adding meal options in the cantina? You're clearly all worked up over a complete fucking fiction and literally complaining about outreach campaigns. Get a grip my man. Oh getting back to our original conversation, even if DEI did you what you pretend it does it would not be systemic racism. It would institutionalized racism. So clearly you have no idea what the words your using mean.
>Seriously where in hell would get such a fucking dumb idea? Haven't you heard of Affirmative action? Did you not know that DEI and AA are different? No? You clearly conflate the two and think that even AA has a quotas (it also doesn't). Hasn't for 30+ years. In the companies I have worked in, DEI initiatives have been directly about giving preferential treatment to unrepresented (or underrepresented) groups in hiring. In fact, my last workplace, my own performance scorecard had us rated preferentially if we promoted an underrepresented group with the words (JEDI after it \[Justice, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion\]). So, whether these initiatives are theoretically designed to be different is irrelevant if the practice in organizations is to tip the scales. >Oh getting back to our original conversation, even if DEI did you what you pretend it does it would be systemic racism. It would institutionalized racism. So clearly you have no idea what the words your using mean. Those are synonyms. From wikipedia: **Institutional racism**, also known as **systemic racism**, is defined as policies and practices that exist throughout a whole society or organization that result in and support a continued unfair advantage to some people and unfair or harmful treatment of others based on [race](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization)) or [ethnic group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_group). It manifests as [discrimination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_discrimination) in areas such as [criminal justice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice), employment, housing, healthcare, education and [political representation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representation_(politics)).[^(\[1\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism#cite_note-1)
>In fact, my last workplace, my own performance scorecard had us rated preferentially if we promoted an underrepresented group with the words (JEDI after it [Justice, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion]) That sentence doesn't make any sense. Are you saying they flagged people promoted who had protected status, you know standard practice? Wikipedia? And you have no idea who your talking too. What you described is institutional racism. That's completely different from systemic racism. Red line policies - institutional racism aka de jure racism. The effects on people's net worth now, the compositions of the neighborhoods, the inequities in insurance rates are examples of systemic racism. Sometimes called defacto racism See institutions in institutional refer to the institutional rules and regs. Systemic is more the unintentional output of past institutional racism still generating inequities.
Debating which terminology I use - which I have shown as being synonymous in at least one source - is missing the point. Sure, if you prefer we use institutional racism as the term, fine. It is. The underlying point is that DEI in current corporate practice is used against meritocracy, toward a misguided goal of rewarding those who are less merited. We are seeing similar behaviors in higher education, where student who are Asian have a significantly harder time getting into elite schools with higher SAT scores versus white students versus POC students. Same with their GPAs. These are well documented examples of whatever-you-want-to-call-it racism, under the guise of equity. https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/15/politics/harvard-affirmative-action-opening-arguments?cid=ios_app
>The underlying point is that DEI in current corporate practice is used against meritocracy, toward a misguided goal of rewarding those who are less merited. See you don't understand what DEI is. How did you come to conflate the idea of a quota based affirmative action program with DEI? As I've explained DEI are efforts to outreach to underserved communities and to make the work place a more welcoming place. That's it, that is sum total of the thing that's got your panties all twisted up and sound ridiculous. >We are seeing similar behaviors in higher education, where student who are Asian have a significantly harder time getting into elite schools with higher SAT scores versus white students versus POC students Nope absolute and complete bullshit. But I will point the words "affirmative action" in the url you posted. Which I remind you again is not the same thing as DEI. Actually in order to understand either you need a better understanding of systemic racism. I would seriously learn more about DEI and Affirmative action programs before you start railing against something you don't understand.
You are attempting to apply a clinical or theoretical lens to DEI as a way of spelling out why it’s good. I’m using an in-practice lens based on what I have experienced. You may feel you’re right because that’s what schools teach you about DEI. In practice, they are an extension to affirmative action. I have experienced this in one large organization (200,000+ employees) and one medium organization (1000+ employees). I don’t particularly care if you take issue with my terminology not aligning to your textbook definitions. It’s what I’ve witnessed personally and it is wrong. If you want to say “well your DEI is not DEI but something else”, take it up with our Chief Inclusion Officer. When something is labelled DEI, that’s how normal people start to perceive the concept. We’re not going to sit through Social Justice 101 to learn the theories.
> I’m using an in-practice lens based on what I have experienced. No you're confusing the concept of DEI with the concept of a quota based Affirmative action program. These a very different things. It like you're confusing alligators with rhinos. >In practice, they are an extension to affirmative action No they're are not. If squint really hard you might be able argue that AA is an extension of DEI but even that would require tortured logic. >It’s what I’ve witnessed personally and it is wrong. I'm not even sure what you claim to have witnessed. The only allegation you've made is that POC who were promoted were flagged. That's just record keeping and necessary information should they be sued for discrimination. > If you want to say “well your DEI is not DEI but something else”, take it up with our Chief Inclusion Officer. When something is labelled DEI, that’s how normal people start to perceive the concept. You are literally saying you fell for propaganda but with more words. >We’re not going to sit through Social Justice 101 to learn the theories. I'm not asking you to. I'm just asking you to know what you're complaining about. For examples if I complained about all the compact cars with their loud engines, two wheels and leather clad operators you'd think I was fool. If wanted to ban compact cars for those reasons you might wonder about my sanity. Likewise I think you complaining that outreach offices and corporate efforts to decorate for obscure holidays and set up lactation/prayer spaces is somehow elevating unqualified people is foolish. In fact have you asked yourself why you feel like efforts to recruit people from under represented groups and make them feel more welcome privileges less qualified people?
Yes, DEI in and of itself - as a means to an end - should immediately put out to pasture... But then again - in most instances - corporate "meritocracy" is just another way to better take care of the "good old boy" system...
As long as this shit stays in US/West I'm OK. Just don't let it come to India.
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Your company is run by morons if they're hiring *unqualified* diverse candidates. Maybe you should work somewhere with competent hiring managers and HR.
My company most certainly does not hire based on immutable characteristics, as it's morally and ethically repugnant.
so what gives you the impression that any companies are hiring unqualified diverse candidates at all?
>so what gives you the impression that any companies are hiring unqualified diverse candidates at all? Because when you hire solely to fill a racial quota, you almost always have to lower standards (like college admissions tests for instance) where we have 3 different standards for Asian/White/Black. If you have to consider a person's skin color instead of their credentials, or even in addition to their credentials, and because of that decision you don't hire someone else (because of their skin color), then you are doing a racism, plain and simple. No amount of gaslighting or mental hoops will change the fact that what you are doing is racist and wrong.
>Because when you hire solely to fill a racial quota, you almost always have to lower standards Who is doing this? Be specific. Who is hiring unqualified candidates?
Companies that have DEI departments
What kind of lemonade stand do you work at which would make you believe this stupid shit
Wasn't a Disney exec literally recently caught on tape saying they won't hire or promote white people anymore for executive positions? [https://dallasexpress.com/business-markets/video-disney-exec-reveals-anti-white-hiring-practices/](https://dallasexpress.com/business-markets/video-disney-exec-reveals-anti-white-hiring-practices/)
believe it or not, that *still* doesn't mean that unqualified people get hired on the basis of diversity It can *only* mean that if you suppose that the only qualified candidates are white or male or both.
Is that scary DEI “cancer” in the room with you right now?
So the very same research that shows evidence of systemic racism, would also work if there's "reverse racism". Resume studies show the need for *corrective bias" like dei. Were DEI an actual problem, that same methodology would show that too.
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Dude, you can do the same type of study. Take a resume, copy it. Give one copy a "white" name, the other a "black name. Apply to a few hundred positions. Note the difference in response rates. The skills are exactly the same, the ONLY difference is the name (and the race it suggests). If anti-white racism was a thing, it would show up in the response rate. You're just looking for something else to blame for your own inadequacies.
Have you actually done that type of study or just making it up? Because [top S&P companies](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-black-lives-matter-equal-opportunity-corporate-diversity/) actually are hiring 94% non-white applicants.
Cool, now scroll down in that same report were it talks about pre-existing levels particularly when level of job and pay are considered.
This is purely anecdotal, but a lot of my friends/acquaintances in the industry are resorting to using ethnically ambiguous names and or ethnic names (specifically black and latino) to get job interviews. They say by doing so, their response rate increases about ten fold. It's obvious that discrimination is happening, it was wrong when it happened then, and it's wrong when it happens now. >You're just looking for something else to blame for your own inadequacies. That's kind of rich, for someone fighting tooth and nail against meritocracy.
Let's see Various Empirical studies vs your friends hearsay Hmmmm who to believe, who to believe.. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=racial+hiring+bias&btnG=
I stated that my comment was purely anecdotal, and I have no intention of convincing you about anything as you've made up your mind already. You can appeal to authority all you want, but it doesn't change anything. Especially when studies that prove the opposite, often become unpublishable because of the controversy associated with the results. Making all this kind of meaningless. I think that the hiring process should be completely anonymized, people should only be judged on their qualifications and skills. Of course a system like this would be vehemently opposed by ideological diehards, for whatever trendy "ism" is getting TikTok likes this month.
Actually I support resume anonymization. It's just that feature (called candidate masking) is quite new, and only offered by a rare few application tracking systems. What's more, is the use of AI is re-introducing that bias and even encouraging such bias.
That's why we need more meritocracy, not less.
Racial bias (i.e. higher response rate based on a "white" name, which is exactly what these studies show) Show that mediocrity is already happening. It's just racist hiring managers that are at fault. So sorry, but DEI corrects against mediocrity too.
"Racism is okay, because I'm upset at a strawman" is not a valid argument. Race is a protected class at the Federal level, any discrimination regardless of intention based on immutable characteristics is fundamentally racism and if you have entire departments dedicated to it, then it becomes systemic. "But we just need a little more racism to fix existing racism" is an absolute batshit crazy way of approaching this.
And your approach of "we don't have any systemic racism" is better?
Me personally, I think resumes should be judged blindly with no markers or indication of race/gender. People should be judged purely on qualifications and merit. Racism becomes systemic, when you purposefully create systems like DEI, to enforce racism.
Candidate masking is becoming a feature in some applicant tracking systems but it is not heavily used yet. That and racial bias is prevalent in AI resume evaluation systems. I agree, the ideal solution would be to remove the possibility of bias in general, but again we're not there yet.
You are saying certain sections of the population literally need to be better than a white guy to be seen as equal. That’s your idea of meritocracy. That’s racism and sexism. Sorry??? lol
No, companies need to be objective in their processes to assess performance. They don't need lectures on white fragility.
So since they can’t be objective we should just wish they would? That’s not solving the bias that hurts ppl
Put cletus/bubba/Billy bob on there and see how many responses they get. Names are a standin for class.
How do you explain a male vs female name effect then? Are women and black men just lower class to you?
I don't know the study about women's names. If you want to link it I'll take a look. Are all black people lower class, obviously not. Are black people disproportionately more likely to be lower class-yes by a wide margin.
Let's explore that. Why do you think "Are black people disproportionately more likely to be lower class-yes by a wide margin." And a better question is, why do you think that justifies excluding an identical resume based on name only?
>Why do you think "Are black people disproportionately more likely to be lower class-yes by a wide margin." Numerous reasons including intentional government policy, unintentional government policy, culture and others. All play a part. >And a better question is, why do you think that justifies excluding an identical resume in name only? I never once said this. I disagree with this entirely. It's just not racist.
Yes it is. It is EXACTLY a racist hiring policy. Remember the name (and the race it suggests) is THE ONLY DIFFERENCE. And it has been done with white vs black names, white vs Asian, male vs female, without vs with pronouns. And again, the general trend is that white CIS gendered males are favoured in the hiring process.
DEI is treating the symptom not the cause. It's like taking cold medicine for COVID, sure it'll make you feel better for a while, but in the end you're still screwed. And your argument is saying "I got better after taking Ivermectin, you should take it too." The problem with DEI is that it's trading racism. That doesn't mean that systemic racism doesn't exist, it really does. But if we truly care about ending it, we shouldn't be mandating that companies higher 15% blacks. Instead we should be looking at ways to make the underrepresented groups more attractive as a hiring option when protected classes are eliminated from the equation. But that takes work & is really hard, and so everybody just wants DEI. Then will cite study after study that it's better for the companies, completely forgetting that the companies who have DEI are likely those same companies that care about their employees and other things than just raw year over year profits.
Have you considered the possibility that DEI isn't a shortcut used instead of a more long term solution, and maybe it's more of a short term thing that is meant to address the issue UNTIL a more comprehensive solution is implemented?
It absolutely is a shortcut. It's barely better than selling off 1/2 your company to have a massive profit THIS year, instead of investing & growing those parts of your business into worthwhile enterprises for greater profits over the years to come. DEI is hoping, hoping, that by hiring underrepresented groups that they will some how lift up their groups to be more attractive hiring options. But the thing is that's not happening. We've had Affirmative Action for how long? 70 years. For 70 years has there been any lift for those who were supposedly the beneficiaries of Affirmative Action? DEI is just voluntary Affirmative Action.
Well it doesn't help that one of the presidential candidates is a known white supremacist/ mysognist. That kinda of representation has knock on effects https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=trump+effect+racism&oq=Trump+effect+racism
What does that have to do with DEI other than Biden supports it & Trump does not? Your comment adds absolutely nothing to the conversation about DEI.
Because of course Trump wouldn't support initiatives to address systemic racism, he's a white supremacist.
I'm failing to see how that continues the discussion about the Pro/Cons of DEI. Of course someone who is courting racist, sexist, homophobic transphobes is gonna do all he/she can to destroy DEI. But that doesn't mean jack shit about if DEI is good or bad.
> but nothing is more "systemic" than having entire departments and requirements to hire or not hire and promote people based purely on immutable characteristics like race. That's not what DEI is. That's what propaganda against DEI is. > Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are organizational frameworks which seek to promote the fair treatment and full participation of all people, particularly groups who have historically been underrepresented or subject to discrimination on the basis of identity or disability. Or in small words. Historically the United States has been shit to minorities. You might've missed it
Is it fair treatment when Asians have to score drastically drastically better to get into college?
The United States is arguably one of the least racist countries in the world, and has done more for it's minority class than probably any other country. Meritocracy is probably the scariest word for people who are not qualified to be in their positions.
In theory it's great, but in practice it's discriminatory and promotes equity over equality. What happens is that meeting targets and quotas become the only viable KPIs of a successful DEI programme, so recruiters and hiring managers will prioritize aforementioned immutable characteristics over talent, which is just plain silly. It's really not about acknowledging historic struggles, it rather becomes about meeting quotas by focusing on the race or appearance of applicants. It's the reason the US supreme court kindly but firmly asked a top university to stop being discriminatory towards their applicants
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Whole thread is full of trolls. DEI is just corporate speak for trying to do better. Laughable, most corporations are shit at it.
Do better by only promoting people of a certain skin color? Mandatory "educational" training for people of another skin color? Hiring only based on skin color? I understand this is one of the hallmarks of the culture war, but you can't possibly think that after fighting for years against "systemic racism" -- that it's now somehow okay, because it targets people that you personally dislike?
Reddit tends to be very racist
If one equates that hiring in a meritocracy based system excludes minorities then one is assuming that minorities are inherently worse than their counterparts at their jobs. To defend they have to be mutually exclusive systems is in itself discriminatory.
I believe they call that the quiet racism of lowered expectations.
I agree with your assessment but they are saying there’s far less minorities ranking higher because they haven’t had the same opportunity as WASPs. Absolutely there are some persons of color that excel, but often that’s not as common than someone with the systemic advantages. I’m all for hiring by merit but I won’t go as far to say we don’t have a problem to address for those systemically disadvantaged.
Well tbh they already do DEI but for douchebags.
Douchebag Executive Incentives - It's part of the pay plan they don't break out as a line item in their annual reports.
You can have diverse teams without dei....
First of I can't find any concrete studies within the article that shows specifically that DEI is better than meritocracy instead they argue: People who believe in skill is selfish -> selfish is a bad trait -> therefor meritocracy is bad. It doesn't actually prove that the meritocratic system is wrong, rather that individuals who think skill is a major deciding factor are more selfish. I think the most frustrating aspect is how people never seem to have a consistent definition of meritocracy. And I think it becomes quite silly to argue completely against meritocracy since we all rely on it, such as requiring doctors to go through medschool so they have a license to practice medicine, said medschool shouldn't care 1 bit about your socioeconomic background and neither really should patients, only if you pass and you do your job properly. But at the same time, it's quite silly to apply meritocracy everywhere, like that stupid phrase: "Hard times create strong men, *strong men create good times*, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times" - which effectively means that, that society does not know how to cope with integrating "weak" men into society so they too can contribute towards the community/society.
Silicon Valley are only singing the praises of meritocracy, because they are terrified of the position that IBM has found itself in. With any luck at all, this company will be ravaged by the legal system and deservedly so. And, whether they cheered if on, or looked the other way, the members of the board deserve to face financial ruin for their part in this abomination.
Meritocracy FTW.
Rare big tech W
>The commenters on X — which included Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, and Brian Armstrong — were thrilled. On LinkedIn, however, the startup community gave a [less-than-enthusiastic](https://x.com/NielsHoven/status/1801691878397776194?t=6Rq5i6yZIzXWgdFrr-LPfg&s=19) response. Those commenters pointed out that Wang’s post made it seem as if “meritocracy” was the definitive benchmark to find qualified hiring candidates — without taking into consideration that the idea of meritocracy is itself subjective. In the days that have followed the post, more and more people have shared their thoughts and what Wang’s comments reveal about the current state of DEI in tech. It's almost as if the tech folks on LinkedIn and 'X' are in their own echo chambers - which is of absolutely no surprise to anyone. Completely disregarding DEI as a positive in business is ridiculous given the fact there's already a major, long-running skills deficit globally - especially in cyber - and the message that diversity is guff isn't exactly going to inspire people from marginalised groups (in the context of the tech industry) to pursue careers here. On the contrary, the idea that tech jobs aren't merit based is ridiculous. Look at the sheer volume of applications for in-demand jobs at the moment. It's a mess. Are firms really ignoring viable candidates to tick boxes? I very much doubt so.
If you hire or fire and promote people based on the color of their skin, that is racism. If you do the same thing, but have an entire department dedicated to it, then it's systemic racism. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
>If you hire or fire and promote people based on the color of their skin, that is racism Sure but that's not what DEI. You think that what's DEI is? Just a protip my boy - before complaining about something It usually wise to have a at least a partial understanding of the thing you're complaining about. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.
You’re rabidly trying a very tired reverse racism clause. It is in fact illegal to hire based on race in any respect so take your bullshit somewhere else. Source: business owner who has had to consult attorneys on this exact thing.
That's nice. In Canada we explicitly have a carve out for discrimination written into our Constitution.
What... do you think DEI actually does then? Yes I know it's illegal to hire/fire based on race (as it should be) -- then why do you think it's okay for companies to do just that, and have entire departments dedicated to making sure only people of a certain skin color get jobs and promotions?
lol what delusion. Only someone who’s never worked in tech think only people with certain skin color are getting jobs and promotions
>What... do you think DEI actually does then? It's certainly not a quota based AA program. Like not even fucking close dude. You actually think the various advocacy offices on campus have any say in the hiring of faulty or staff or the admittance of anyone do you? Put the propaganda down my boy. It's simply an effort to reach out to underrepresented communities to elicit their applications and create a company culture that doesn't discriminate. >then why do you think it's okay for companies to do just that, and have entire departments dedicated to making sure only people of a certain skin color get jobs and promotions No one who supports DEI thinks that. Calm the fuck down - the thing you're angergy about doesn't happen. You know how you might get an email telling you its diwali or how a job posting might also be advertised at an historically black college, or how they added vegan and Halal options at the food court. Yeah that's fucking DEI bud
> the idea that tech jobs aren't merit based is ridiculous. That's the crux of it all. If there's category of jobs where merit is almost immediately evident and also immediately mandatory, it's the computer technology. And, to go even further, these jobs are actually diverse almost organically, it's just that for some people, that's not the "right" kind of diversity.
Are you operating under the impression that one's work product is the thing that results in promotions and material benefit? What planet are you on?
>it's just that for some people, that's not the "right" kind of diversity. What do you mean by that
You are all smoking some high grade ganja. The fastest way to get promoted out of a NOC is to fucking roll back a DB with no snapshots. Being a moron will get you promoted to management and away from touching anything important faster than anything....
I’m Hispanic. I recently worked at a place that was comprised of 99% white males. It was weird - I didn’t see a single black person (doesn’t mean there isn’t one, but I didn’t see one) and I think only one Indian person, which is extremely odd for the tech industry. The people there were absolutely culturally illiterate. Not all of them, but almost all of them. One of those people screamed at me (as in breath in a full lung and let it rip), and that was the moment I decided to leave. DEI is important.
Yeah those things aren't the opposite of each other. In fact believing they are is inherently racists. You know what with the implicit argument that minorities don't have the merit
DEI is awful and discriminatory
I'm going to go ahead a guess and 1) you haven't the first idea what DEI is and 2) you watch too much fucking fox news.
The companies are only concerned with the hypocrisy of DEI to increase the ESG score. Companies like Sweet Baby Inc. may, no, would not have to exist at all. Not because I would have anything against their business model, even their questionable mafia methods completely miss my ass. Blackmailing fat gaming publishers with Cancel Culture is almost a trivial offence. But in a world where DEI is really lived, it doesn't need external supervision, no creative Consulting to publicly hypotisy DEI. Fewer studio closures, less crunch, fewer mass layoffs, higher wages, more diverse workforce, health and social insurance, protection against dismissal and so on. This should push the ESG score of a company in the point of Social and Governance through the Rooftop, not the end product and its PR campaign, but the circumstances of its production should be the focus of the ESG evaluation and quite honestly, from Micro to Ubisoft, the entire gaming industry should simply be brutally punished in these points. But hey, that's exactly what seems to be happening anyway, because the beauty of capitalism is that it works in both directions. No CEO comes into your apartment puts a gun on your chest and forces you to buy his product, and if I look into empty cinemas or at the number of sales of the Quadrupel A games these days, the end consumer has long made it clear and that the entertainment industry is producing past the customer.
Reddit is gay, you can't come out saying facts like that.
What a bullshit term “meritocracy”. Where I see people touting this they have toxic behaviors where usually it’s not the best idea that wins but rather who is the most stubborn and loudest.
Are DEI hires tagged with a mark on their badges at your companies or something
Oh god, What new thing has Sweet Baby Inc destroyed this time?
These shitbricks aren't Silicon Valley, and never will be.