
Why Doesn’t Silicon Valley Hire Black Coders? - Ice_cream_suit
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-howard-university-coders/
======
lvoudour
_That fall, when Facebook’s Williams came to campus with colleagues, the visit
didn’t go over well. In a meeting with students, one Facebook employee brought
up diversity so often that students say they felt uncomfortable—as if she
wanted to talk only about the color of their skin and not programming. The
event had been advertised as focused on diversity, but students had been eager
to talk about jobs_

Is it so damn hard to understand that selecting skilled people based on their
physiology rather than their abilities, is extremely offensive and demeaning?

Yes there are many who will say nothing and take the job (a salary is a salary
after all) but I don't know if there's a skilled person out there who wouldn't
feel disrespected

~~~
mbaha
Seeing comments like yours today on this Bloomberg piece is quite reassuring.

I technically count as a "minority" and I have no other way of phrasing this:
it is extremely irritating to see companies push for diversity by hiring based
on skin colour or gender.

Luckily, I live in a country that strongly opposes these kinds of policies, so
I get to feel proud of my ( _very_ modest) achievements in this field.

To see these students and other minorities never being able to experience that
feeling makes me quite sad.

------
jstewartmobile
This kind of made me throw up in my mouth a little.

It's like every smart kid who knows something about computers is chomping at
the bit to become a mercenary-in-training for soulless megacorps, and their
keepers are every bit as gung-ho on making that happen.

Instead of making overtures to Google and Facebook, they should be making the
next big thing that kicks them square in the nuts. If anyone from Howard
University is reading this, get started on it. I believe in you.

------
ghostcluster
> The slow progress reflects the knottiness of one of Silicon Valley’s most
> persistent problems: It’s too white.

That's not true. Whites are underrepresented at Silicon Valley companies
compared to their share of the US population. Asians are massively, massively
over represented. Why?

There is no way to answer the question without opening the can of worms that
is test scores, IQ, etc. So instead of being honest, the story paints a
politically convenient narrative that is not actually true.

~~~
danso
OK, I'll bite. Maybe it is wrong that SV companies have proportionally more
Asians than whites. Not "morally wrong", but wrong in the sense that Asian
communities have optimized for certain metrics (tests, school performances,
college aspirations) and SV companies have just gone along with what's in the
pipeline. Despite the fact that SV has a long history of highly successful
companies being started by dropouts and other kinds of "miscreants".

So these SV companies should alter their recruiting process so that their
hiring pool isn't basically a mirror of Stanford's application pool. (full
disclosure: I'm Asian. I also work at Stanford. I also play no part in
Stanford admissions and probably have less clue about it than the average
outsider)

That's fair enough. So what's wrong with making an effort to examine the ways
that the SV hiring process systematically -- but not intentionally or
maliciously -- filters out blacks, Hispanics, and women from engineering
positions?

~~~
coldtea
> _Maybe it is wrong that SV companies have proportionally more Asians than
> whites. Not "morally wrong", but wrong in the sense that Asian communities
> have optimized for certain metrics (tests, school performances, college
> aspirations) and SV companies have just gone along with what's in the
> pipeline._

How is that wrong? Let the other communities optimize for those metrics too.

And if those other communities have a history of systemic oppression, poorly
funded school districts, legal bias against them, etc, attempt to fix that too
(which would be even more important for the community overall than getting
more people from the community to work in some specific industry).

> _Despite the fact that SV has a long history of highly successful companies
> being started by dropouts and other kinds of "miscreants"._

That's just a myth based on a few selective cases, which even count people
like Zuckerberg with a Stanford education or Bill Gates as "drop-outs" because
they didn't finish their degrees.

Besides, a founder can be of any potential background as they are not to
answer to anybody else nor do they have to have any specific technical skills
(a DB admin position however, or a data science one, does have to have them).

And even then, they are usually from well educated, well connected, and
usually well white, backgrounds. I'm not so sure we want to take them as
example of with which criteria to hire.

~~~
danso
Any time there are metrics for success, there is potential for unhealthy
incentives to arise in a system, which results in an overall decrease in
whatever the metrics were supposed to optimize for. If this is the premise,
then having other communities optimize for the metrics is not going to result
in a positive outcome for Silicon Valley or society in general.

Test scores were seen as a fairly efficient way to determine academic skill
and intelligence. Obedience to school authority is seen as a metric for
character. Also, being penalized by school authorities makes it significantly
harder to be an active participant/leader in school activities, which is seen
as an important metric for well-roundedness, talent, etc.

Imagine how much of SV wouldn't exist today if the prevailing mindset -- in
society and among venture capitalists -- was that a good-tier college degree
was an important metric for tech workers and entrepreneurs. Not to sound like
Peter Thiel here (and admittedly, showing some serious survivor bias here in
this line of reasoning) but SV has shown that huge success can be made from
folks who didn't go through formal college. Would Steve Jobs and Steve Woz
even be taken seriously as entrepreneurs in today's environment, where college
degrees are significantly more common than they were in the 60s and 70s?

> _And if those other communities have a history of systemic oppression,
> poorly funded school districts, legal bias against them, etc, fix that too._

This has been an ongoing fight for decades. You think SV should wait on
political overhaul before making decisions regarding optimization of their
workforce>

~~~
coldtea
> _but SV has shown that huge success can be made from folks who didn 't go
> through formal college_

From all industries I know of, SV is probably the poorest example of that,
close to medicine for needing a degree to get anywhere in fancy SV companies.

Commerce, the hospitality, the restaurant business, and tons of others are way
ahead in that regard...

Besides, shouldn't we demand more engineering and computer science, and less
ad-hoc crap and reinvention of the wheel from self-taught programmers?

More Xerox Park and Bell Labs, and DEC, and SUN, and SGI, and so on, that is,
and less "dropout that builds some social BS app"?

~~~
danso
> _From all industries I know of, SV is probably the poorest example of that,
> close to medicine for needing a degree to get anywhere in fancy SV
> companies._

You must not be familiar with journalism, which has a long storied history of
amazing journalists who never went to college. Today, it is nearly impossible
to land any kind of internship without a college degree, or some other extreme
qualifications (being very wealthy, or from a very important family). I think
it's a function of the commonality of a college degree and the significant
reduction of available jobs in journalism.

> _Besides, shouldn 't we demand more engineering and computer science, and
> less ad-hoc crap and reinvention of the wheel from self-taught programmers?_

As someone with a CompEng degree myself, I'm not going to argue with you
_against_ the benefits of an engineering degree. And I won't make an argument
based on the existence of Woz (a college dropout who managed to be a stellar
self-taught engineer and programmer). And there are obviously successful SV
startups that have been started by people with formal educations, as well as
complete disasters from dropouts (e.g. Theranos). But you think the main
driver of innovation in SV is coding/engineering aptitude and discipline?

------
csa
> "Silicon Valley is rife with Stanford and MIT graduates who started coding
> during childhood, won programming competitions in their spare time, and
> spent their summers interning at startups. At Howard, few of Pratt’s
> students fit that profile."

> "None had programmed before college."

I think these two quotes answer the headline question.

Specifically, give one group of people a 4+ year head start in the field in
addition to engaging in activities that will build confidence for the person
when engaging in those activities (e.g., participating in and/or winning
programming competitions in high school), is it really a surprise that the
less-experienced group is grossly underrepresented in hiring?

To make the above comparison not about race, how well are low-SES white people
represented in Silicon Valley? Probably at equally low proportion for similar
reasons -- they just don't have the same amount of experience as the highly
competitive applicants.

What's the solution? Reach out to underrepresented populations and get them
started on programming much earlier. It's expensive and time consuming, but
it's totally doable.

~~~
lvoudour
_Specifically, give one group of people a 4+ year head start in the field in
addition to engaging in activities that will build confidence for the person
when engaging in those activities (e.g., participating in and /or winning
programming competitions in high school), is it really a surprise that the
less-experienced group is grossly underrepresented in hiring?_

I think the assumption that to qualify for employment in SV you need to hack
full products in your garage, participate in coding/science school
competitions and have a MIT/Stanford degree, doesn't hold under scrutiny

~~~
csa
Agreed. It wasn't my comment -- just a summary of the article. I almost wrote
a parenthetical in my original reply to the effect that I doubted the
ubiquitousness of the first quote.

That said, I do think that the prior experience is a real issue. Rather than
"winning programming competitions"or "hacking full projects in your garage", I
do think it's safe to say that the vast majority of the folks who are
competitive applicants to AppAmaGooFaceSoft started programming and were
exposed directly or indirectly to CS ideas before they entered college. This
may have been as simple as making a website for a school club (although
frankly it was probably quite a bit more than that), but even actions as small
as making a website open the door to a new world -- it is the beginning of the
process of exploring new ideas and new problem spaces.

------
buro9
The answer to all of these questions are the same uncomfortable truths that
people don't wish to admit:

* Classism

* Racism

* Sexism

* <other>-ism

The problems for the under-represented isn't just the end of the tunnel where
people are quick to claim "But <insert minority> is not applying!"... it's the
entire tunnel.

It's really hard to be a <insert non-cis white male> in tech. Because at every
step there is an obstacle.

Those obstacles may be in your face (racism when you move to an area that is
predominantly something else), or subtle things like you not being able to
afford to live in SF because your minority doesn't have the implicit network
strength of being the average white male and it's hard for you to find a place
to live.

The average developer that you may have seen from a minority background has
already overcome more obstacles than their peers. But importantly, the vast
majority never made it so far. The obstacles reduced their numbers long
before.

I look around at those who have made it, and the majority are white males from
stable middle-class backgrounds. This stability and security, this confidence
that a supportive family gives, this safety that a low-crime area brings,
access to materials and space in which to learn, this reinforcement at every
step that you are surrounded by "people like you" and that you deserve to be
there... is such a huge thing that is taken for granted. If you're a white
male in tech, consider whether you could have made it to where you are without
all of that. Of course there are lots of individual exceptions (I spent 2.5
years sleeping rough and come from a background of poverty and abuse)... but
by and large, this is your privilege and it is also why the numbers for
<minority> aren't there.

For those that do make it... support them and help them. They've had it hard
and deserve not just what they've achieved but more too.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
> I look around at those who have made it, and the majority are white males
> from stable middle-class backgrounds. This stability and security, this
> confidence that a supportive family gives, this safety that a low-crime area
> brings, access to materials and space in which to learn, this reinforcement
> at every step that you are surrounded by "people like you" and that you
> deserve to be there... is such a huge thing that is taken for granted.

You imply that white people are privileged because they're white, yet look at
this sentence. It seems to me like poor white people _don't_ go into tech.
Couldn't socioeconomic/cultural differences explain the discrepancies and not
systemic racism/sexism/-ism?

Just because statistically more white people grow up middle class does _not_
mean that all white people are privileged. Acting like they are is
discriminatory.

------
expertentipp
It’s essential to take such articles with grain of salt, because the
„empowering black people” problem exists mostly in US/UK. It’s surreal to work
in low cost center of American company somewhere in developing contry being
paid and treated like shit, then one opens the company’s intranet and sees
articles like „we empower black Americans!”. I couldn’t care less. There are
awful culture problems in the industry, yes, but they have very litte to do
with hiring or not hiring black Americans.

------
echan00
Tonnes of kids from great CS programs apply to jobs at
Google/Facebook/Pinterest/etc, the reality is that it is difficult to secure a
job at these companies straight out of college. Call me ignorant, but I don't
think race is the reason why black coders aren't given a chance at these
companies. All these companies are looking to "diversify" their workforce
(they even have teams focused on this issue!), they are just having trouble
finding quality talent within non-represented groups.

------
andrewstuart
Because they interview them but they aren't a "cultural fit".

Nothing is more important than protecting "the culture".
[https://medium.com/@bchesky/dont-fuck-up-the-
culture-597cde9...](https://medium.com/@bchesky/dont-fuck-up-the-
culture-597cde9ee9d4)

The article above says that "Culture is simply a shared way of doing something
with passion.", but in fact means "same as us: young white/indian/asian boys".

"Culture" is a get out of jail free card that allows anyone to deny a job to
anyone at all whilst sounding entirely credible and important.

If you really want diversity then you would require reasons for rejecting any
candidate, but you're not allowed to say "they weren't a cultural fit".

~~~
vasco
My experience of "culture fit" is that it's actually used much more often for
"can code well but is a jerk" than anything else. Anecdotal though.

~~~
jstewartmobile
My field report on "culture fit" would be child of academic or fussy
schoolteacher. There's a sort of pedantry in their communication that will
take you further than your abilities in academia, yet _really_ rubs everyone
else the wrong way.

------
focaldev98
I'm black myself(although just African not American). Science and technology
are my ethos. With that out of the way, I think that a major contributor is
the prejudice and stereotypes deriving from both the black & white
communities.

------
wyclif
The same reason they don't like hiring women coders and coders over 30
(because of ageism). They use "culture fit" to shield them from diversity.

I hate to be cynical, though. It's just that I know too much about how tech
companies operate. There's no doubt in my mind that there are more black
coders working now than there were when I got into this industry, and that's a
good thing. They just don't have much visibility now, but I think that too
will change. Baby steps...

~~~
danso
If it makes you feel better, most companies in every industry have similar
biases.

~~~
expertentipp
so those culturally unfit, once on the other side, where do they go?

~~~
danso
Where do job applicants who don't get hired normally go?

------
stormbeard
I'd be curious to see how the proportion of students hired into Google or FB
from Howard compares to a normal school (not Stanford or MIT) with a CS
program. Out of 30 students in the senior class, only 1 or 2 were hired on
full time, which comes to be about 3-6%.

I'm more concerned about whether the other 95% of students are finding
technology-related jobs at all. If not, that would be a bigger problem in my
opinion.

------
nova22033
>Silicon Valley is rife with Stanford and MIT graduates who started coding
during childhood, won programming competitions in their spare time

They've identified the problem.. Maybe fund a program to teach programming to
economically disadvantaged kids? in 10 years, those kids will be on a little
more level playing field.

------
staticelf
The US is crazy about race as always. Just hire the most qualified person for
the job.

~~~
wyclif
You make it sound as if every other Western country with a tech footprint
doesn't do the same thing. They do.

~~~
retrac98
Not to the same extent.

~~~
wyclif
Sounds like a classic form of selection bias to me. Most high tech companies
are in the US.

------
johngrefe
I've thought about this a lot. If we're going after the most affected, it's
going to be inner city youths. They have a lesser chance of making it through
a 4 year, because their support structure isn't there because of historical
injustices. K-12's can change their curriculum to focus more on tech for a
specific type of application, instead of just "build an app, write node, learn
python" generics. Especially if they can turn out talented students before HS
graduation. >Microcontrollers >Auto Engine Management Systems >Civil
Infrastructure >Utility Infrastructure I know these are by and large not the
'sexy' pie in the sky stuff most 'hot' investors chase, but these are upper-
middle class jobs that there is less competition in, and are actually vitally
important, meaning they will be around longer than SNAP inc. I think with
intensive focus, the people who are placed in these programs, their kids will
be completing CS 4 years and competing for 'creative applications in the
valley', but the foundations need to be built up first.

------
shidoshi
This article was originally published in 2016, and HN had a lot to say then as
well
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10944966](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10944966)

------
gotofritz
Because there aren't as many, sadly, and many convince themselves SV is not
for them, or they have no chance

~~~
Cthulhu_
I don't think anyone fresh out of college could afford to live there, not even
in a shared house.

When are the big SV companies doing what's right and creating new offices in
other cities where there's talented developers that can't afford to move to /
live in SV and/or its shit conditions?

~~~
minhazm
Everyone I know who got a job out of college in SV/SF got at least a 100k
total comp package (usually more). Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, and all
of the bigger companies offer ~150k total comp or more to new grads. That
said, some start-ups definitely do pay less, but it's not so bad that you
can't at least get a room mate.

------
cup-of-tea
I think there is a good reason. I'm not going to say what it is, but it's
wrong to hold white people accountable for it.

