
Black and Latino representation in Silicon Valley has declined, study shows - mdlincoln
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/03/silicon-valley-diversity-black-latino-women-decline-study
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sctb
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jahewson
Studies, data, conversation, and thoughtfulness around these issues are
welcome and needed but this news article is, frankly, junk.

I always like to look at data from the source, so I downloaded the original
report, which The Guadian couldn't be bothered to link to.

Let's start with the title of the article:

> Black and Latino representation in Silicon Valley has declined, study shows

However the report is about Asian representation, and although it includes
some data on other groups it states:

> Although we include the figures for black and Hispanic men and women, we do
> not use them for comparative purposes because EPI figures for those cohorts
> are highly sensitive to small changes.

This is right in the executive summary.

The next problem is that the article represents the study as being of "Silicon
Valley" and the "tech industry", but the study is of just five companies:
Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, LinkedIn, and Yahoo. These are all large
corporations and there is no evidence given to suggest that this is a "Silicon
Valley" problem and not a "Corporate America" problem. That's not to say that
you can't draw conclusions from studying these companies, but you can't make
sweeping statements about the tech industry based on them. Especially when so
much of Silicon Valley is made up of startups. The valley is a dynamic place:
two of those corporations no longer exist.

Obviously problems exist, but I see no reason here to single out the tech
industry for special blame, especially when no attempt is made to compare tech
with other industries and "tech" is taken to mean a handful of large
corporations. Worse still, by misrepresenting the nature and origins of these
problems, we set ourselves up to fail when we try to address them. Uber's
appalling culture, for example is firmly rooted in that of finance, why don't
we talk about that? What do the finance industry's diversity statistics look
like?

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minikites
>Studies, data, conversation, and thoughtfulness around these issues are
welcome and needed

I posted a top level comment that links to a study and another link to an
article which links to several studies and got downvoted to oblivion. I don't
think this sort of thing is _actually_ welcome here.

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tabeth
Unsurprising. I tell all of my minorities friends to remove their pictures
from LinkedIn and use American sounding names. The increase in callbacks
always shocks me. You can do this experiment in reverse yourself if you
already have an American sounding name.

Unfortunately the real solution, anonymity, will probably never be adopted
because there are groups who benefit from being identified. There's way too
much many in tech to for the incumbents to leave it to merit.

~~~
talad
It's not really as clear-cut as that, Australia for instance had some study
results* led by a Hardvard Grad show the opposite, that blind recruitment
generally favored the white male majority as it precluded affirmative action
hires.

*[https://pmc.gov.au/resource-centre/domestic-policy/going-bli...](https://pmc.gov.au/resource-centre/domestic-policy/going-blind-see-more-clearly-unconscious-bias-australian-public-services-shortlisting-processes)

~~~
tabeth
If a truly anonymous (which I'm skeptical that study was, but I'll give them
the benefit of doubt) hiring method yields more white people, then that's 100%
OK. The goal IMO should be to prevent bias with respect to gender, race, etc;
not to implement a quota resulting in a certain percentage of people from
backgrounds being hired.

~~~
alexasmyths
"The goal IMO should be to prevent bias with respect to gender, race, etc"

One would think, no?

But there's a considerable number of people who don't feel that way - they
think that 50/50 gender balance is a 'moral imperative' for example.

Surely, it's their right to think that, even promote it. But I'm weary of that
kind of ideology being used to shut down other voices - which I think happens
frequently.

I believe that the Guardian article (and the Graun as a whole, I read it every
day and see the pattern) speaks to this: that specific minorities are
underrepresented in certain roles 'must be due to racism' I think is unfair.
Surely it plays a part, but there are so many other factors.

We need cool, rational heads on this subject.

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tlb
Every underrepresented group represents an opportunity to start a company,
hire some great people from that group, and succeed together. A single
company, perhaps one you start this year, can make a huge impact.

YC funding applications are due today.
[https://www.ycombinator.com/apply](https://www.ycombinator.com/apply)

~~~
TheCoelacanth
It's not a very plausible assumption that your competitors are racially biased
but your investors and customers aren't.

~~~
geofft
Not only that, it's much more _legal_ to be racially biased in who you choose
as your customers. The laws in the US that require nondiscrimination in
hiring, regardless of how effective they may or may not be, don't apply at all
to choosing a NoSQL vendor or whatever.

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rm_-rf_slash
Sometimes I wonder if the tech industry should adopt the orchestral model of
auditions: prevent the interviewers from seeing the candidate, knowing their
name, or hearing their voice. Judge them entirely on their code and text
responses.

Sure something like this would probably result in complaints about "hiring for
culture fit," but isn't someone who provides the correct answers and code a
culture fit in the first place?

~~~
emodendroket
It seems like a good idea, but how do you make sure you don't hire someone
with a complete lack of social skills?

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Maybe a blind interview should satisfy technical requirements, and then the
candidate meets the team in person.

~~~
emodendroket
But then you're back into the old cultural fit/bias questions, right?

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Perhaps, but at least by that point one can't weasel out by saying that the
candidate wasn't technically qualified.

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frgtpsswrdlame
Time for today's most incendiary post. (;

I think feelings on this are going to depend on whether you consider a silicon
valley job as more "outcome" or "opportunity." I'd say making sure that
black/latino people can obtain these jobs is just as important as making sure
they have equal opportunity to attend a good college or good highschool. That
puts me in a bit of a predicament though because I come to the conclusion that
what's in the best interests of society requires these companies to go against
what's in _their_ best interests and pass up more qualified whites/asians.
Thoughts?

~~~
ajeet_dhaliwal
But... the article says Asians are the most likely to be hired and least
likely to be promoted so then are they more qualified or not?

You know I think this is actually a good thing. I’ve been working as a dev for
12 years but after interviewing with tech companies more recently I’m done.
I’m doing my own thing. The ‘technical interviews’ made sure of that, I
presumably suck at them but I can’t be sure because no constructive feedback.
Start your own thing, it will be more rewarding, I’ve learned more in 9 years
of side projects than I ever did at the job and recently it’s really paying
off. Oh yeah, there is no engineer shortage and there never has been, pay
people decent and don’t be raise the bar to the point it’s in the clouds and
you’ll see there are earnest, keen hardworking people eager and ready. Oh and
I don’t know, may be invest in people a little instead too, people are life
long learners, they have potential.

~~~
HillaryBriss
> _The ‘technical interviews’ made sure of that, I presumably suck at them but
> I can’t be sure because no constructive feedback ..._

such a good point. i've heard that companies have rules _expressly forbidding_
offering constructive feedback to candidates, because liability (or
something). but it's a wasteful/destructive system. many companies seem to
think working for them is the summation of earthly existence. but they still
have churn.

it reminds me of the fact that the two WhatsApp founders had applied to
Facebook but were rejected. [https://medium.com/the-story-of-grip/5-things-
every-founder-...](https://medium.com/the-story-of-grip/5-things-every-
founder-can-learn-from-the-story-of-whatsapp-b6496bc4f54d)

i wish you extreme success in your independent venture.

------
commenter1
I started a sports betting company that turned into an analytics company. We
had zero women or minority (other than asian) employees or even applicants.
One new employee became vocal about it, so he was made our "diversity
officer". He was made part of our recruiting division and was present in every
interview. We got one (white) woman employee. She quit soon after joining. Now
there is an opening for a "diversity officer" inside the company. No takers
yet.

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misterbowfinger
Couldn't find a link to the study in the article, so I looked it up:

[http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/ascendleadership.site-
ym.com/resour...](http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/ascendleadership.site-
ym.com/resource/resmgr/Research/HiddenInPlainSight_Paper_042.pdf)

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outand_up
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation
where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of
their character."

We're tired of obsessing about race.

We're tired of having accusations of racism, sexism, whatever-the-next-trendy-
ism crammed down our throats at every opportunity.

The reality is, urban black (and to a similar extent latino) CULTURE does not
value education. Until that changes, do not expect to see highly educated and
skilled blacks and latinos bounding through the hiring process. Just ask the
asians about minority discrimination - they outperform everyone and are openly
penalized for it.

CONTENT OF CHARACTER. NO ONE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT SKIN COLOR.

Go ahead and delete this comment, it's not going to change reality.

~~~
JohnFro
You're asking for quite a lot. Black America doesn't value education because
the culture was designed to devalue education. I know no one on this site
wants to talk about it, but a culture was created for Black America during
slavery.

Think about what was valuable in slaves. Physical Prowess (Stronger slaves
means more work can be completed in the fields), and talent (slaves that can
keep other slaves entertained mean they're not planning a revolt).

Keeping the slave master entertained by singing and dancing also brought perks
for the slaves that are able to do so. Being able to produce more value in the
field also brought perks.

Now think about the industries Black Americans dominate today... Athletics and
Entertainment.

Being caught reading would get you killed, being caught writing would get you
killed. Being white and teaching a black person to read or write could also
get you killed.

African immigrants have no problem taking advantage of the education provided
in america, so this isn't a genetic issue.
[https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-10-13/it-
isn-t-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-10-13/it-isn-t-just-
asian-immigrants-who-excel-in-the-u-s-)

The problem is the culture. Simply saying fix the culture when it's the result
of a process that took hundreds of years to create will not solve the issue.

~~~
outand_up
I certainly don't believe it's asking for a lot. It's racist to assert that
minorities don't have any self control.

Every race in the world has been enslaved at some point. We are just animals,
transcend this.

Let's start here: is it too much of a stretch to say that I think it's
ridiculous that the most commonly understood career path for black youth is
drug dealer -> gangster rapper, or athlete? These kids deserve better role
models, for one. This is an obvious truth and should not require citation.

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shadowbanned2
Any opinions, thoughts and ideas that are expressed on ycombinator that are
not left-wing and don't tow the liberal line are being deleted.

It's not that there aren't people who disagree with these bullshit articles,
it's that ycombinator mods are literally deleting and banning users who
express opinions that aren't "correct".

~~~
sctb
What we've done in this thread so far is ban throwaway accounts created by
already-banned users and collapsed threads that violate the guidelines.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

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minikites
This isn't new, limited to technology, or all that surprising if you've been
paying attention to your peers.

[http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873](http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873)

>The results show significant discrimination against African-American names:
White names receive 50 percent more callbacks for interviews. We also find
that race affects the benefits of a better resume. For White names, a higher
quality resume elicits 30 percent more callbacks whereas for African
Americans, it elicits a far smaller increase. Applicants living in better
neighborhoods receive more callbacks but, interestingly, this effect does not
differ by race. The amount of discrimination is uniform across occupations and
industries.

[https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20161011-00/?p=...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20161011-00/?p=94486)

>One of my friends is a woman of color, and not that long ago, she arrived
with three male colleagues in the lobby of a building for a scheduled meeting.
The administrative assistant came out, walked right past my friend, shook the
hands of the three men, and welcomed them. My friend extended her hand to
introduce herself, and the assistant asked, "Oh, you're with them?"

