
Diversity at Amazon - martco
http://www.amazon.com/diversity
======
FD3SA
I find it fascinating that this new wave of post-modernist "equalism" demands
segmenting and dissecting every group into ever smaller minorities. Black,
Asian, Latino, Gay Asian, Lesbian Latino, Hetero Black Woman, etc.

Ignoring for a minute that post-modernism is an absurd philosophy based on the
denial of empirical science, how is this in any way productive? Would it not
make more sense to focus on an employee's skills and experience, rather than
their genetic and ethnic backgrounds?

It is increasingly obvious due to the irrationality of these initiatives that
this is indeed a form of political posturing, and nothing more.

Ironically, a community of entrepreneurs such as HN would pay the highest
price for ignoring empirical evidence in favor of political posturing. Small
companies can't trade political posturing for special treatment by the
government. That practice is firmly reserved for established monopolies such
as Amazon.

~~~
throwaway5752
Ignoring for a minute that you're the one that inexplicably brought post-
modernism into the discussion (and even more inexplicably tie it to anti-
empiricism)...

What empirically shows diversity is bad? Empirically speaking, certain groups
are underrepresented in hard science. Empirically speaking, intelligence
differences between those groups is somewhere between highly disputed and
nonexistent. Therefore, a well-managed company would seek to exploit that
arbitrage opportunity.

edit: Empirically, good working environments improve business results. Most
decent people see the benefit in a diverse workforce in furthering that goal.
And it would be beneficial if it just weeded out the types of personalities
that are strongly averse to diversity.

~~~
FD3SA
_Empirically speaking, certain groups are underrepresented in hard science._

And this is wrong, why? Post-modernism is at the heart of the entire
"equalist" movement precisely because it ignores the scientific process of
modernism.

It begins with an a-priori assumption: racial and sexual representation in all
disciplines must be in proportion to the population. If the representations
are even slightly off, there is discrimination, racism and sexism. Proponents
of this line of thought then look for statistics and conjure up conspiracy
theories to explain these deviations from their own asserted optimum.

This line of thought is absurd to anyone with basic training in scientific
reasoning. Unfortunately, scientific literacy is a rarity in the modern world
which was built by it.

~~~
waps
> This line of thought is absurd to anyone with basic training in scientific
> reasoning.

Not at all. You're only giving part of the story ...

racial/sexual imbalances -> racism -> laws -> money transfers into specific
(small) ethnic groups. (and lots of things that come down to money transfers)

So how exactly is this line of thinking absurd ? It provides a clear advantage
to minorities to fight for these kinds of "absurdities".

------
RealDiversity
([http://gasstationwithoutpumps.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/pe...](http://gasstationwithoutpumps.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/percent-
bachelors-degrees-women-usa.png?w=873&h=907)) Shows that < 20% of CS &
Engineering Degrees go to females in the US

Google employs 30% females ([http://www.google.com/diversity/at-
google.html](http://www.google.com/diversity/at-google.html)) Facebook employs
31% ([http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/06/building-a-more-
diverse-...](http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/06/building-a-more-diverse-
facebook/)) Amazon employs 37%
([http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=tb_surl_diversity/?node=10080092...](http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=tb_surl_diversity/?node=10080092011))
LinkedIn employs 39% ([http://blog.linkedin.com/2014/06/12/linkedins-
workforce-dive...](http://blog.linkedin.com/2014/06/12/linkedins-workforce-
diversity/))

Obviously these companies need to hire employees to do non-engineering tasks
and in an effort to seem "diverse" They likely hire only females for these
jobs. It would make sense that the company had 20%/80% doing actual
engineering work as there is no reason females cannot do just as good a job
with the same experience. That means that half the females hired at these
companies are doing non-engineering work which pays lower. This would account
for the pay gap. When people ask for further diversity at these companies and
equal pay what they are asking is to give an unfair advantage to the less
qualified.

I am aware this is an unpopular opinion but I felt I needed to post it as I
saw someone else posted it and then took it down after being harassed.

~~~
skybrian
Please do some research. What you're missing is that the pay gap is measured
between people in similar jobs.

~~~
lotharbot
I recently did some research on exactly this topic.

What I discovered is that the pay gap for people doing the same/similar job
with the same level of experience and working the same hours is fairly small
if it exists at all. Different studies measure it as between 0 and 7 percent
"unexplained" pay gap (ie, not a result of degree, experience, hours worked,
or other legitimate differences.) And it's not like these were all right-wing
studies; some were coming from left-wing women's labor organizations and still
saying they couldn't detect a wage gap after controlling for the relevant
factors.

The one "counterexample" someone tried to post for me was about freshly hired
women in medicine, who make less than freshly hired men in virtually every
medical specialty -- but the study they cherry-picked data from actually
discussed how the pay gap between men and women in the same specialty had
widened recently, specifically because women were negotiating more non-salary
perks (like family-friendly hours) in exchange for lower salary.

The actual amount of proveable wage discrimination in the US is very small --
I was looking at labor department statistics, and the total for discrimination
settlements was measured in millions (in an economy measured in trillions).
This included both out of court settlements and court-mandated settlements.

I don't deny that some wage discrimination exists. But the data suggests it's
not nearly as widespread or systematic as commonly believed. (And IMO it's
self-evident that it's not -- because if it was, the economic opportunity for
companies paying women fairly would be staggering. They could get the cream of
the crop of women for average male salaries.)

------
gambiting
I am being completely serious with this question - how is caring about "race
diversity" not racist? It always strikes me as such - if you care about race
diversity that means you perceive race as having a meaning, while in reality
it doesn't have any. Am I the only person with such an opinion?

~~~
smtddr
Let's try this from another angle:

1) Do you believe racism exists?

2) Do you believe we should do anything about it?

3) What would you do about it? _(Hint: "Nothing", is the wrong answer)_

~~~
TTPrograms
I don't think counting how many of each they have in each bucket is the right
answer, regardless.

~~~
lotharbot
counting buckets is a _potentially useful metric_ , not a solution. If your
counts are very far away from the expected distribution (based on your area's
demographics, the demographics of people with relevant degrees, etc.) then it
suggests further research.

------
sbilstein
This has less information than the numbers Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn
released. There manager vs non manager breakdowns but what about tech vs not
tech? I'm fairly disappointed to see so little information from Amazon.

[http://www.google.com/diversity/at-
google.html](http://www.google.com/diversity/at-google.html)

[http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/06/building-a-more-
diverse-...](http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/06/building-a-more-diverse-
facebook/)

[http://blog.linkedin.com/2014/06/12/linkedins-workforce-
dive...](http://blog.linkedin.com/2014/06/12/linkedins-workforce-diversity/)

~~~
dreamweapon
Good call, but the Amazon post wasn't meant to be "informative." It was meant
to give you a warm, fuzzy feeling.

------
mattparcher
Note: The two donut charts for "Race and Ethnicity" are visually misleading.
The color assigned to each race or ethnicity is not consistent between the two
charts, so a visual comparison of the two is much less useful. ("White" is
represented by blue on both charts, but green is "Black" on the overall chart
and "Asian" on the Managers chart.)

~~~
martco
You're right that they're not consistent between the two charts. That can be
misleading.

They are ordered by percentage descending, so you can quickly understand which
is the 2nd most populous, 3rd most populous, etc. The ethnicity name is right
by the percentage so you can quickly grok it, even though the colors don't
match across pie charts.

~~~
benrudolph
You can still sort the pie charts by percentage and keep the same colors. This
would aid in understanding the differences between the US and Amazon
workforces which I believe is the point of using the two pie charts.

------
mtalantikite
I wonder if these numbers are actually just their full time employees or if
they're including their migrant workers that they employee part time at
fulfillment centers.

Harper's ran a great article on Amazon's elderly migrant workforce back in
August (paywalled): [http://harpers.org/archive/2014/08/the-end-of-
retirement/](http://harpers.org/archive/2014/08/the-end-of-retirement/)

~~~
superuser2
Amazon does not actually own any warehouses, and it also likely doesn't employ
any migrant workers. That is all contracted out. (Provides, among other
things, plausible deniability and a liability shield for abuse claims/lawsuits
by non-technical workers.)

~~~
pattisapu
Some of the contractors they work with like ABM violate labor laws like the
FLSA for overtime pay, making janitors work off the clock.

~~~
ultimape
Could you get more information on this?

~~~
pattisapu
[http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/ABM-Security-
Service...](http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/ABM-Security-Services-
Lawsuit-Guards-Break-Periods-161994885.html)

[http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/global-cleaning-company-
inve...](http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/global-cleaning-company-investigated-
improperly-pa/nftnH/)

[http://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txndce/3:2014cv03215/...](http://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txndce/3:2014cv03215/251267)

------
donatj
"Look at us, we're not racist, watch while we single out and show off our
ethnic people" scoff/sigh.

~~~
blazespin
You have to wonder what their diversity looks like when you factor in salary.
HQ versus Fulfillment centers.

------
Animats
Diversity at Amazon would mean having more than one brand of warehouse robot.

------
waterlesscloud
Amazon posts a very positive and promising story on diversity, HN finds a way
to post negative comments about Amazon.

Makes ya think.

~~~
influx
Hackernews used to be full of people when shown something new would say, "yes
AND!". Now it's full of people who shout, "no BUT!"

I came from /. to k5 to hn. Anybody ready for the next iteration yet? I am.

~~~
japesinator
You might be looking for [https://lobste.rs/](https://lobste.rs/)

~~~
duncanhill
Yeah, I'd be interested in an invite if at all possible. I'll be the first to
admit, though, that I tend to lurk and read more than actively comment.

~~~
japesinator
No problem, just give me an email and I'll add you

~~~
reitanqild
I'd be interested as well. can you get one for me as well?

~~~
japesinator
Not a problem. Just let me know what email you want it to

------
bennetthi
It's unfortunate they don't include any total numbers, just percentages, on
the donut charts.

------
dreamweapon
"We're Amazon. Our global workforce is incredibly diverse, but the working
conditions and real take home pay for our rank-and-file fulfillment workers
are uniformly miserable."[1]

[1] Type "amazon workplace conditions" in any search engine.

------
amaks
It must be really frugal diversity;-)

