

Meritocracy and Discrimination in Tech - marcia
http://bjk5.com/post/43249906199/meritocracy-and-discrimination-in-tech

======
rjknight
One of the commonly-stated reasons for why discrimination persists in a field
is that people making hiring decisions are biased. They might not know that
they're biased, but they have some notions about the kind of people they want
to see working for their company, and they disproportionately hire those
people. This is quite an insidious form of discrimination because it's hard to
prove, but it is possible to catch people out - for instance if they display a
preference for talking to or dealing with male colleagues over female ones, or
give more rewards, perks or encouragement to male colleagues. There doesn't
need to be a "guys only" sign above the door for this to be a discriminatory
environment.

Now, the original "Girls, girls, girls" post talks about how "super exciting"
it is for KA to have hired twice as many female interns as male ones, how the
women at KA network together, how there are exclusive events for female staff
where female leadership is advocated. I know what Jessica was trying to say
there, but damn if it didn't wind up looking somewhat like the stuff I
described in my first paragraph. Now, _I do not believe that KA has done
anything wrong_ , but I don't think it's unreasonable for some people to
question this.

This (as I post every time there's a sexism thread, I really should just get a
blog or something) is all controversial because people are applying different
ethical rules. Some people are applying deontological ethics, which says that
there are rules about how to behave, and we should follow those rules (e.g.
don't discriminate based on gender). They look at the "Girls, girls, girls"
post and see things that look like they might break the rules against doing
the stuff I described in my first paragraph. They're not actually looking at
the "big picture" because they don't believe that, philosophically speaking,
the ends can be used to justify the means. If bias is wrong, being biased in
favour of a minority group is still wrong, in this view.

There's another more pragmatic view, which says that we should care mostly
about outcomes, especially if no particularly great harms are being inflicted
in order to achieve better outcomes. Although I generally lean more towards
the rule-based view, in this case, I think KA is pretty clearly producing a
good outcome and even if there is some bias[1] then it's not really the end of
the world. But I wouldn't condemn or insult someone who thought differently.

[1] A key point about bias and discrimination is that people aren't (and often
can't be!) aware of their own biases. If people from KA want to claim that
they're totally without bias, that's going to make it hard to accuse other
people of bias in the future. This is, sadly, just a Hard Problem and the
various problems inherent in solving it are why we keep having lengthy
discussions like this.

~~~
LockeWatts
"how there are exclusive events for female staff where female leadership is
advocated."

Can someone on HN give me a level headed explanation, for why this is more
appropriate than the opposite (An event exclusive to men)? It's never made
sense to me why one is accepted and the other isn't.

~~~
pmorici
It is a private organization is probably why; so they are allowed to
discriminate. In government if they had a female issues oriented event there
would be a foot note stating that men are welcome to attend.

edit: to respond to the below comment, I don't think it is socially
acceptable. It just isn't something that affects people too adversely yet so
while they may shake their head and fire off a tweet no one really cares
enough to bring significant pressure to bear.

~~~
LockeWatts
I wasn't really thinking about the legality of the issue so much as the social
acceptability.

------
cantastoria
I'm curious to know what aspects of Khan's recruiting/admission policies
resulted in such a large number of female admissions. It would be nice if the
authors' response included some description of their policies.

 _As the person who stands at the end of our hiring process’s pipeline, I find
“Mark“‘s idea that we’re sacrificing quality to fill some quota merely very
insulting. If I were one of the women who has successfully navigated our
brutal interview process, I’d be furious._

This is said as if there is no basis for "Mark's" belief. Affirmative action
programs are notorious for establishing two-tier admissions policies for the
sole purpose of fostering "diversity". While official quotas are illegal, it's
well known that minority students are admitted to prestigious universities
with far lower SAT and GPA's that their white/Asian counterparts. What's to
make us think that's not what's at work here? Especially given that increasing
female enrollment was a high priority given that there are so many "big
smiles" when it was achieved. Again, some transparency would be nice.

Edited for spelling and grammar

~~~
kamens
Transparency about our interviewing process:
[http://bjk5.com/post/3340326040/in-any-language-you-want-
kha...](http://bjk5.com/post/3340326040/in-any-language-you-want-khan-academy-
interviews) (which comes from the hiring cultures at Fog Creek and Google, see
[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html)).

Transparency about all past internships, their expectation and
accomplishments: [http://bjk5.com/post/36067210182/khan-academy-internship-
sum...](http://bjk5.com/post/36067210182/khan-academy-internship-summer-12)
[http://bjk5.com/post/8826207372/khan-academy-internship-
summ...](http://bjk5.com/post/8826207372/khan-academy-internship-summer-11)
[http://bjk5.com/post/15500332273/khan-academy-internship-
fal...](http://bjk5.com/post/15500332273/khan-academy-internship-fall-11)

Transparency from previous interns about their work, which I believe speaks
for itself: [http://david-hu.com/2011/11/02/how-khan-academy-is-using-
mac...](http://david-hu.com/2011/11/02/how-khan-academy-is-using-machine-
learning-to-assess-student-mastery.html) [http://dylanv.org/2012/09/14/the-
khan-academy-internship-exp...](http://dylanv.org/2012/09/14/the-khan-academy-
internship-experience/) <http://jamie-wong.com/2012/08/22/what-i-did-at-khan-
academy/>

If any piece of evidence from the above points to an organization that values
quotas over excellence in interns and the work expected of them, well please
raise the alarm.

We need to get past our default response being a knee jerk assumption of
discrimination.

~~~
cantastoria
Fogcreek and Google's interview process both seem to yield a far larger number
of male employees than females yes?

David, Dylan and Jamie are all men yes?

 _If any piece of evidence from the above points to an organization that
values quotas over excellence in interns and the work expected of them, well
please raise the alarm._

No one is accusing you of using quotas and no is saying you do not value
excellence in interns. What's being asked is why was there such a steep
increase in the number of female interns accepted? Were there more female
applicants? Were interview questions changed? How did this result come about?

~~~
kamens
And what I'm asking you is: can you come up with any possible explanations for
an increase in women devs over time that should be celebrated, especially at
an organization that values equal education for everyone, without first
wondering if our _interview questions have changed_?

~~~
cantastoria
Can you come up with any possible explanation period? You're dodging my
question.

~~~
kamens
An increase in women in tech majors and a company mission that strongly
appeals to both women and men.

~~~
cantastoria
I'm pretty sure most universities have a company mission that appeals to both
men and women and they haven't suddenly seen a 2:1 f/m ratio in CS majors.
What makes Khan so different?

~~~
Tichy
He might have a point in that a lot of women seem to aspire to be teachers.
For example when I got my maths degree, 99% (estimated) of the women sitting
in the lectures with me were studying to become teachers. Perhaps working for
Khan Academy somehow seems close enough to teaching.

------
abraxasz
I'm from a minority, and I'm currently enrolled in a phd program (well, about
to enroll in september) in a top university. I've been working really, really,
really hard to get there. Like, really hard. So it does piss me off when
people just waive their hands and say: "pfff, must have been affirmative
action or something".

That being said, I understand their reaction. When I put myself in a white
male's shoes and I hear every day that we should remedy this and this instance
of blatant discrimination, and the next day I hear that a company celebrates
the fact that there are more women/blacks/whatever being hired, then it's true
that the connection: they got hired BECAUSE they where women/black is a rather
tempting conclusion.. and is sometimes true.

I think that some companies are at fault here, using anti-discrimination as a
PR move. This can, and I think, does antagonize a lot of people, and is
counter productive.

~~~
rjknight
"Discretion is the better part of valour" springs to mind. If I hired some
great women for development roles and my first thought was to write a blog
post saying "look at these great _women_ I hired", I'd be doing something
wrong. It detracts from the fact that they're actually great _developers_ ,
and if they weren't then I wouldn't have hired them.

------
HeyImAlex
How can people who claim to be meritocratic immediately cry "discrimination!
misandry!" when women outperform men? Yep, must have been discrimination,
because we all know women can _never_ be better candidates unless there's
something else going on.

And _being excited_ about a historically underrepresented group overcoming
adversity isn't the same thing as "we are favoring primarily women
applications". Anyone who's _actually_ meritocratic would be ecstatic that the
walls in tech are slowly dissolving away.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_Yep, must have been discrimination, because we all know women can never be
better candidates unless there's something else going on._

It's not that women can _never_ be better candidates, it is merely that this
is _unlikely_.

Consider a set of applications, 20% of which come from women (fairly typical
numbers, from what I've read). Assume women and men are equally skilled. If 30
interns are selected without bias, the odds of choosing at least 60% women
(18/30) is quite small:

    
    
        In [1]: from scipy.stats import binom
        In [2]: rv = binom(30, 0.2)
        In [3]: 1-rv.cdf(0.60*30)
        Out[3]: 2.8432472531925157e-07
    

So unless the applicant pool was extremely unusual, it is unlikely that a pool
of 2/3 women was selected due to merit.

Anyone have more exact numbers to plug into this calculation? Perhaps kamens
can give us some more exact numbers?

(Of course, in a much smaller applicant pool, e.g. 6 students, you might
arrive at results like this due to random chance.)

~~~
khuey
Assuming men and women are equally skilled is a big assumption. Given that few
women enter CS, and many who do leave, it would not be surprising to find that
the remaining women who have not been selected out somehow are in fact _more_
skilled than the average male engineer.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Your reasoning contains no fact specific to women. Thus, it should be valid
for me to substitute any other group which is underrepresented in computing:

Given that few retards enter CS, and many who do leave, it would not be
surprising to find that the remaining retards who have not been selected out
somehow are in fact _more_ skilled than the average non-retard engineer.

It also still doesn't make a >60% women class remotely likely - even if women
make up 40% of the _top_ engineers, the odds of recruiting at least 60% women
in a 30 person class is only only 0.83%.

(PC note: I am only asserting that women are similar to retards in the sense
that khuey's argument applies to both of them. No other similarity is asserted
or implied.)

~~~
raleec
If you want to add a "PC" note, it should include an acknowledgement that the
term "Retard" is highly offensive to many even tangentially associated with
the mentally challenged community.

~~~
shrughes
I think he was referring to people that drive under the speed limit.

------
yummyfajitas
Transparency has been requested by several people, and I think it would be
helpful to flesh out transparency.

Here are a few quantitative questions which would help us get closer to the
truth:

What % of the applicant pool was women?

What % of the potentially qualified applicant pool was women? [1]

How many interns were hired? [2]

Are there any objective numbers (i.e., besides the # hired) to suggest that a
large fraction of the most qualified people were women?

[1] These numbers can allow us to do the same calculation I did here
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5233153>), or even a proper Bayesian
probability update.

[2] I.e., if 3 interns were hired, this is a tempest in a teapot caused by a
statistical fluke.

------
spamizbad
Are tech internships a big enough deal with people to merit this controversy?
Don't tell me you need to participate in one these days to break into the
industry(if so, that's sad).

~~~
LockeWatts
I'm in college presently, and to get into the tech world, it's a requirement
from where I'm sitting. Good candidates have multiple ones with big name
companies\hot start ups.

~~~
spamizbad
Boo, that stinks. Personally, I think internships are bullshit unless they're
having you work on genuinely interesting stuff like Google's Summer of Code. I
must have been pretty lucky as I never had to jump through any credentialing
hoops to break into the industry (That was in '05, pre-bubble no less. Didn't
even finish college). If I were you, I'd pair up with a co-founder, come up
with an idea, and apply to one of the incubators while you're still young.
Don't waste your youth trying to impress HR drones. Or, if you want to look-
before-you-leap, just "intern" at a less sexy startup (You'll learn the same
stuff pretty much)

~~~
spicyj
At Khan Academy, we certainly do our best to have interns work on "genuinely
interesting stuff", and we put huge emphasis on good mentorship, more so than
is probably possible with a remote program like GSoC. Here's a bit more info
about our internship program:

<https://www.khanacademy.org/careers/interns>

Don't miss the stories from past interns linked on the left.

------
JDDunn9
The world doesn't have to be evenly divided. Just because you see a group of
people that are under-represented in a field doesn't mean it needs to be
adjusted. We don't need to push for more white people in the NBA. We don't
need to push for more men to become nurses. We need to push for equality of
opportunity, not outcome.

------
tzs
Maybe I overlooked it, but I didn't see any mention of the size of the intern
class. A 2:1 ratio in a very small class has quite different implications than
a 2:1 ratio in a very large class.

~~~
spicyj
At the time of the post, it was 4 women, 2 men. (Now it's 4 women, 3 men.)

------
namank
Meritocracy is like traditional view of objectivity that knowledge exists
without the knower. Truth of the matter is, knowledge exists without the
knower but it is not independent of the knower.

This is why 14 year olds writing app is a reason for celebration and why
encouraging more females is a good thing. By doing so, we allow our work to
expand to incorporate the values that those group represent, which is
important because our work is user-centric, it doesn't stand by itself. If the
work doesn't stand by itself, how can its creators?

~~~
jfim
Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't it the exact opposite of a meritocracy?
If someone makes something awesome, it doesn't really matter if they're 14
year olds, women, men or aliens.

I know at least I'd high five someone who made something cool, regardless of
gender/age/other factors.

~~~
cantastoria
The parent is describing the postmodern definition of Meritocracy where
"merit" is just a point view. In that world all achievements/failures must be
evaluated in light of the person or group's privilege/race/class/gender and
sexuality. People who subscribe to this definition really don't believe in
meritocracy as it's generally viewed as a way to institutionalize white male
advantage. Just a heads up :)

~~~
eshvk
I am not sure whether this is what the parent meant. I mean one way of looking
at it is that the more people from completely different backgrounds do things,
the more interesting the work gets. E.g. it is possible that some people
(teens, women) have a better perspective on solving some problems that affect
them more.

I generally support the success of more people from varied backgrounds in
tech. Mainly because it makes for a wider variance in problems that get
solved. It gets tiring to see every startup out there that solves problems for
20 something people who live in San Francisco (who incidentally might be male,
asian/white...). This does not however mean that I ascribe to the idea that
one should impose quotas or have lower standards for people who don't fit in
these demographics.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_E.g. it is possible that some people (teens, women) have a better perspective
on solving some problems that affect them more._

Is it possible that some people (men, whites, asians) have a better
perspective on solving some problems?

~~~
namank
It is not about the exclusion of some people as much as it about the inclusion
of _all_.

