
Facebook only hired seven black people in 2013, latest diversity report says - DiversityRules
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/25/facebook-diversity-report-black-white-women-employees
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duncan_bayne
FTA: "The company did not provide a breakdown of the exact numbers of people
of different ethnicities in different ranks at the firm. It is required to do
so by US law ..."

Really? Federal law? That's horrendous ... but then I'm continually surprised
by the outright racism of 'affirmative action' programmes and the like; I
suppose if you have those, you need to get some supporting data from
somewhere.

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dudul
"Only seven black people". So how many should they hire? Seriously, what's the
number? 20? 50? Would 50 be Ok?

Liberals and sjw keep whining about not enough diversity, but what is the
concrete target here? When will there be enough black people? Or women? Or
transgender? What's the actual number/ratio to satisfy them?

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lsiebert
I think you make a mistake in suggesting a specific number is what is being
looked for, or that it's a purely external issue which people are "whining"
about.

Facebook says it wants more diversity. Research, which Zuckerberg cites in the
article, suggests that more diverse teams perform better, so you can consider
this a way to improve job performance.

That said, African Americans are 12.2% of the U.S. Population. 12.2% of their
2013 hires (1,231) would be ~150 black people. How about that as a goal? Seems
reasonable.

That wouldn't actually fix the disparity within their company, given the
current makeup has less then 1% black people currently, but it would be a
significant step toward their stated goal.

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dudul
150\. OK. Now how about 140? Is it still OK? 120? Do we still get an article
like this one if it's 120? How about 170? Do we have the opposite problem or
is 170 still good diversity?

And it's not just for black people. We need the same numbers for women,
Latino, native, Asian, transgender, homosexuals, bisexuals, body disabled
people, people with mental disease, people from low income family...

An of course we need to define each category. When are you black enough? Do
you need both your parents to be black or is one enough? How about Asian? Are
Indians considered Asians here? At what stage of your transition should you be
to be considered transgender? Do you have to transition to be included in the
transgender bucket?

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lsiebert
I'm not at all sure what point you are trying to make.

I would say working to increase diversity is a lot like firefox, or the linux
kernel, or another open source project, where you keep working and making
things better, but you never really finish.

As you work, you also develop better tools and metrics that more accurately
reflect performance. It's a process of improvement, not a solution.

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eip
That many? That has to be a record for Silicon Valley companies. Anyone who
has worked in the valley knows there aren't any black people.

