
Apple’s diversity chief out after outcry - subie
https://nypost.com/2017/11/17/apples-diversity-chief-lasts-just-six-months/?a=2
======
minimaxir
The article title is misleading as it implies causality. Per TechCrunch
([https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/16/apple-vp-of-diversity-
and-...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/16/apple-vp-of-diversity-and-
inclusion-denise-young-smith-is-leaving/)):

> Young Smith had been talking with Apple CEO Tim Cook about the next phase of
> her career and life since about a year ago, according to a source. Over the
> last few months, Apple has been searching for a successor to replace Young
> Smith. It’s not quite clear, however, when exactly Young Smith decided she
> would leave Apple. But based on that timeline, it seems as though Young
> Smith made up her mind before those comments in Bogotá, Colombia for which
> she later apologized.

~~~
danso
Obviously it is wrong to _assert_ causality without proof, but why is it wrong
to imply causality if no other official explanation is offered? TechCrunch
refers to an anonymous source who, for all we know, could be Tim Cook or any
other Apple official wanting to reduce the embarrassment for the company and
for Denise Smith, who had been at the company for 20 years and in the job for
6 months.

Yes, journalists are too quick to argue causality when there is only
correlation. IMO, the burden more on the TC reporter to explain why she
accepts her anonymous source's claim, which implies Apple was incompetent
enough to hire someone for a highly publicized position who had planed to quit
2-3 months __after getting the job __, as opposed to being pushed out for not
being wanted in the position, even if she had never made those controversial
comments.

Harder to swallow is that if this really were the case, then why is an
_anonymous source_ pushing this angle. Why would Apple try to hide the
_innocuous_ explanation for Smith's departure?

------
rdtsc
> they “were not representative of how I think about diversity or how Apple
> sees it.”

Indeed, diversity is about filling a quota on visible traits like genders,
shade of skin color and so on.

> “More importantly, I want to assure you Apple’s view and our dedication to
> diversity has not changed.”

Well it's good to know what Apple's view of diversity is.

Sometimes it can be ambiguous and one might actually believe them when they
say "We deeply believe that diversity drives innovation". But this cleared it
up. Yeah they don't really believe it drives innovation. If they did every
manager in the chain and team member would go out of their way to hire
"diverse" people because it would directly improve the product and the bottom
line, but they don't believe that as institution.

Neither does Google or other big tech company. They wouldn't need a "diversity
president" if they did. Diverse candidates would find their way to their new
positions pretty easily, helped by stock options, good salaries and so on.
Look how efficiently these companies seek and find leaders in various
technologies or project or areas of interest.

What they believe is avoiding bad PR. They don't want to be criticized by some
tech gossip blog about not being "diverse" and deep down they know how that
tech blog measure "diversity".

Also tangentially related, notice how many times age is included in
"diversity" spectrum? Somehow hiring people of various ages is not seen as
improving diversity because well, it's not about gender or skin color, so
gossip tech blogs won't notice and still criticize them.

In light of that, it makes complete sense that Denise had to apologize. But it
was a very useful move as well simply because it made the true values more
transparent. Given everything else, at least it's good to have more
transparency and clarity.

------
lovich
Whatever your views on diversity are, I think we can all agree that the
subject is so politically charged right now that this job is going to be like
the Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts

~~~
tscs37
Curiously, I think the DADA is probably a safer job consider you survive most
of a year on average.

------
cgore
I'm a white guy. I'm a software engineer. I'm totally cool with hiring people
who aren't white guys (assuming they can do the job.) It seems that Denise
Young Smith understands that, but there's a weird fringe of the extreme left
that only sees headcounts by color and gender, and only sees me as "a white
guy", and only sees others as "an <enthnicity> <gender>", and it's sad that a
black woman got fired for being reasonable instead of having a specific and
idiotic political agenda.

~~~
jasode
To use the fired Apple employees idea that diversity is _multidimensional_ ,
you might have the following situations:

Group 1:

    
    
      1) white man (Democrat Stanford grad)
      2) white woman (Democrat Stanford grad)
      3) black man (Democrat Stanford grad)
    

Group 2:

    
    
      1) white man (Democrat Stanford grad)
      2) white man (Libertarian Kansas kid self-taught)
      3) white man (South Africa bootcamp grad)
    

Depending on what's important, Group 2 would be seen as "more diverse and
representative" even though the skin color is all the same. In that case,
diversity of _thought_ is valued more than diversity of _skin color_.

If that was the idea that Denise Young Smith was trying to get across, that
nuance got lost in the backlash.

~~~
omegaworks
* Why assume Group 2 has, or can produce, higher-valued _thoughts_?

* Why are there only three seats at the table?

Diversity and inclusion is about _analyzing_ and _addressing_ systemic
assumptions and the arbitrary, exclusionary constraints we put on ourselves as
an industry.

Contrived hypothetical scenarios fail to frame the real problem because those
contrived scenarios are exactly what good policies push back against.

~~~
dictum
I don't see where the parent comment implies Group 2 is expected to produce
"higher-valued" thoughts.

Neither _more diversity of thought between members of a group_ OR _a single
leaning, shared by all members of a group_ imply higher value.

~~~
omegaworks
The parent comment doesn't just imply that Group 2 has more valuable thought-
diversity, they state it out right:

> In [Group 2's] case, diversity of thought is valued more than diversity of
> skin color.

~~~
zaarn
No, that simply states that the diversity property of the thought is higher,
not that the value property of the thought is higher.

And you claimed, quote, "Why assume Group 2 has, or can produce, higher-valued
thoughts?"

Value of Thought and Diversity of Thought are two independent properties that
can coexist independently.

~~~
omegaworks
>Value of Thought and Diversity of Thought are two independent properties that
can coexist independently.

Sure. But that's not what parent is claiming. Parent is claiming that the
company that prefers to hire Group 1, values diversity of thought over
diversity of skin color.

The assumption there is that Group 2 can't offer that same "diversity of
thought." Parent doesn't consider whether "diversity of thought" _actually
follows_ from how parent defines Group 1, or that valuing "diversity of
thought" in the way that it's claimed will make the company better.

~~~
zaarn
There is no assumption since in this thought experiment the two groups have
been defined to be how they are as an example which does not necessarily
reflect reality 100%.

This means diversity of thought necessarily follows form the example given as
it was defined as such (group 1 has diversity of thought, group 2 not).

The importance of diversity of thought can be illustrated by using machine
learning; if your learning factor (diversity of thought) is too low, not all
solutions are explored, instead a local minima is found and then reinforced by
the ML algorithm. If the learning factor is higher then the algorithm can
freely explore for other local minima and maybe even find the absolute minima.
(If it's too high then you also don't get anything useful either but that's
not quite the point)

Diversity of thought is important for a company that wants to make better
product, if you only have people who think alike, regardless of their other
properties, they will not find the best optimal solution, only a local optimal
solution.

------
exabrial
The more stuff I see like this, the more I'm convinced the only way to
actually help diversity along is a free market solution. Instead of demanding
quotas, just have the data available publically.

The reasons are many, but the biggest is that I feel that hiring people that
are bad at their job but have some physical characteristic, will make the
problem much worse in the long run by "proving the biased people right" about
their biases.

~~~
yedava
People can learn on the job and can become not 'bad', right? Or is it the case
that some set of people have some innate quality that makes them always be bad
at a job?

~~~
tscs37
Some people don't understand computers at all. Teaching them to engineer
software, for example, can be a long and expensive undertaking. Which these
people might not be interested in since they are good in other things.

I think it's not good to simply assume that you can insert any random person
in a job and they'll "just become not bad" at it.

And this is not restricted to any nationality, gender, etc, either, you can
take any two random humans and they'll (with high probability) like and
perform at a job at different levels, irrelevant of the amount of learning
performed (respective to the learning level atleast)

It's not some innate quality, it's just how people all over the globe are
made: different.

~~~
danso
> _Some people don 't understand computers at all._

"Some people", as in, anecdotally? Or some _groups_ of people? I don't think
any diversity initiative calls for random people to be inserted into jobs.

~~~
tscs37
Not anecdottaly, provably.

>Or some groups of people?

I've deliberately not singled out any specific group of people but there is
some evidence from Sociology and Biology studies that certain genetic or
social groups of people will not have as much interest or understanding of
computers.

Of course the social groups can "fix" this much easier, provided they have a
desire to do so.

But again, not mentioning any specific groups specifically because it is not
necessary. You can get the same results by replacing "computer skills" with
any other skill or job and repeat to get the same results.

>I don't think any diversity initiative calls for random people to be inserted
into jobs.

The assertion of the comment I responded to was that "People can learn on the
job and can become not 'bad'" and asking if maybe there is something that
makes some people bad at computers naturally, to which I responded as you have
seen.

------
interfixus
This surrealist diversity fascism is getting scarier day by day. And poses, in
full dystopian ironic splendor, the greatest imaginable threat to real human
diversity.

------
Johnny555
I thought skin color didn't matter and it's what inside that matters? So skin
color _is_ the most important factor when determining diversity?

~~~
hashberry
Yes, skin color does matter, read up on Critical Race Theory. To be colorblind
is to be racist because it ignores the disadvantages one can't see due to
one's own privilege.

The theory states that inequality is due to racism and anyone who is part of
the dominant race not only benefits from racism but unconsciously perpetuates
it. This is why everyone is so sensitive, because this is what is taught in
the humanities in college. "Everything is racist, everything is sexist, etc."

~~~
jamesrom
Serious question, if everyone was colourblind, what disadvantages would there
be?

~~~
danso
You mean, physically? Colorblindness probably wouldn't be a useful trait in
this context as differences in skin color are usually seen as shades of
darkness.

~~~
jamesrom
No, I don't mean physically.

------
burntrelish1273
I don't buy "Apple is a SJW shop" hysteria automagically. If it were the case,
that would be depressing because win-lose, collective-punishment identity
politics is corrosive, victim-bully fascist ideology masquerading as
egalitarian enlightenment. Such behaviors wouldn't add value and encourage
talent to stay. Smith seemed to have the right ideas but perhaps couldn't
implement them and/or had political troubles. Maybe she said other things that
were inconsistent. Only Apple management and her have a better idea of what
transpired.

~~~
TYPE_FASTER
It's always the vocal fringe that's covered and published by the media. When I
was at college during the nineties, the college paper and the news coverage of
the school was usually about some political fracas involving one to ten
people.

The other 15k+ people were trying to pass their classes, partying, or both.

------
Simulacra
I am a woman, and I work for a software company. We essentially hire by resume
only, and we pay a service to scrub resumes and cover letters of anything that
might reveal gender, race, or ethnicity. The outside firm does all of our
interviews, whiteboards, etc. and only at the very end does the hiring manager
get to meet the prospective employee, and say yes or no. To my knowledge,
we've rarely said no, and we let the qualifications speak for themselves. This
has lead to an office of about 45% women, and 40% minority. I think this is
very good diversity.

~~~
gnicholas
Why is there a need to scrub resumes if they're doing all the
interviews/whiteboards/etc?

Also, you mention an office of 45% women and 40% minority. Is the split the
same for your technical team?

------
vixen99
Apple: "We deeply believe that diversity drives innovation”.

The company is certainly innovative but it's predominantly (2017) white and
male but on the other hand Apple don't say what % diversity is needed to do
this driving. Don't they just choose employees on merit irrespective of any
other consideration? They'd be dumb if they didn't.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-
releases-2017-diversity...](http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-
releases-2017-diversity-report-showing-little-progress-2017-11)

~~~
jabretti
Honestly, that "diversity drives innovation" is a total goddamn lie. Hiring
the best people available drives innovation. Diversity itself has never been
shown to be of any value.

If you look at some of the most innovative places in history, they weren't
particularly diverse. It doesn't seem to have held them back. Renaissance
Florence wasn't especially diverse, it was a bunch of Florentines sitting
around doing Florentine things. Victorian London wasn't all that diverse,
either, but they were innovating at an astounding rate.

Bell Labs in the 1960s was mostly nerdy white dudes with pocket protectors,
and they were _massively_ innovative -- because what drives innovation is
thoughts like "What if we laid down amorphous silicon dioxide directly onto
the wafer and annealed it to reduce electron traps?" rather than thoughts like
"omg, I just saw a person with a different colour skin, my mind is totally
blown".

~~~
alphabettsy
You threw your argument out the window with this; "omg, I just saw a person
with a different colour skin, my mind is totally blown”.

People from different social and cultural backgrounds can bring different
experiences and skill sets. There are many, many examples of this throughout
history.

It would seem many of the diversity programs are in some ways meant to address
past racism in this country. That may be a whole different topic.

------
rurban
Insanity prevails. Why Apple, why?

------
tomtompl
It almost seems like all those diversity preachers are the biggest racists
scums.

------
creaghpatr
More on her comments: [https://nypost.com/2017/11/17/apples-diversity-chief-
lasts-j...](https://nypost.com/2017/11/17/apples-diversity-chief-lasts-just-
six-months/?a=2)

>Denise Young Smith, who was named vice president of diversity and inclusion
in May, made controversial comments last month during a One Young World Summit
in Bogotá, Colombia.

>“There can be 12 white, blue-eyed, blond men in a room and they’re going to
be diverse too because they’re going to bring a different life experience and
life perspective to the conversation,” the inaugural diversity chief said.

>“Diversity is the human experience,” she said, according to Quartz. “I get a
little bit frustrated when diversity or the term diversity is tagged to the
people of color, or the women, or the LGBT.”

>Her comments appeared to defend Apple’s overwhelmingly white and male
leadership at a time when the company’s makeup is markedly uneven.

Wow what a shit show, even if she believes this nuanced, thoughtful view of
diversity, she should have realized that she was hired for one reason only:
racial extortion. Now apple can go out and hire the shakedown artist they
deserve.

~~~
coryl
Racial extortion...interesting term, haven't heard that one before.

~~~
Overtonwindow
Jesse Jackson? Al Sharpton? That's their bread and butter.

~~~
coryl
I suppose as the saying goes, one man's civil rights activist is another man's
racial extortionist.

------
whatyoucantsay
The far left often misses how multi-dimensional concepts like diversity or
privilege are but how can a team without minorities be diverse? By definition,
it would be composed only of people who were in the majority on every
dimension!

Her comment was almost certainly false, though public humiliation and firing
after a 20 year career is a bit of an excess. Why not discuss the matter and
ask for a gracious apology?

~~~
dragonwriter
> The far left often misses how multi-dimensional concepts like diversity or
> privilege are

I think you are confusing the shallow tribal identity groups with weak
ideological consciousness on the left with the far left; the complex
multidimensional nature of diversity and privilege is pretty much the core of
intersectionality, which is a pretty key concept for the left, especially
(much of) the far left.

Or you're talking about the narrowly economic faction of the far left that
sees non-class identity largely as a distraction from class issues, with
diversity as a non-issue, and all privilege and discrimination boiling down to
class warfare. But even they don't really miss multidimensionality, they just
see the multidimensionality as a multipronged distraction.

~~~
whatyoucantsay
I am referring to the way many on the far left speak of intersectionality as a
number of diversity or victimhood points to be tallied. The truth is, like
many multivariate functions, more complex.

Here is an example. Being male is not a privilege for a young black man being
stopped by a police officer in the United States. On the contrary, it greatly
increases the odds he will soon be unjustly killed.

Similarly, being Jewish may well be a privilege for a wealthy London banker,
but is just as easily a death sentence for anyone, including an elite, in
Lebanon over the past 25 years.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I am referring to the way many on the far left speak of intersectionality as
> a number of diversity or victimhood points to be tallied.

IME, to the extent that occurs, that's not at all typical of the far left, but
(to the extent it happens at all), the weakly-ideology tribal-identity left.

> Here is an example. Being male is not a privilege for a young black man
> being stopped by a police officer in the United States.

It actually is in some ways; the ways gender interacts with race in that
scenario is complex.

> On the contrary, it greatly increases the odds he will soon be unjustly
> killed.

It greatly increases the chance of being unjustly subject to non-sexual
violence by the police; OTOH, it very much seems to (though numbers are much
harder to come by) greatly decrease the chance of being subject to _sexual_
violence by the police. Now, police sexual assault gets less attention (for
many of the same reasons sexual assault more generally doesn't, regarding
publicity being retraumatizing for victims, etc.), But it's a serious issue,
with significant racial aspects, too.

~~~
whatyoucantsay
Yes, it's the more tribally motivated who take more simplistic views. Your
comment actually highlights my point by adding another dimension to the
example.

Also, I should admit it's difficult to tell who is further left than whom
these days. The political spectrum itself is very multi-dimensional once one
abandons the lens of a specific tribe. One must look no further than the
reactions to Maajid Nawaz to see a prime example.

