
Asian woman who quit Google: 'The culture there is really discouraging' - elsewhen
http://www.businessinsider.com/google-diversity-culture-qichen-zhang-2017-8
======
gedy
> Men hold 75% of Google's leadership roles

Well, I'm of 'leadership age' and when I was young, the only people I saw who
were interested in computers were nerdy boys. We were mocked by jock guys and
ignored by virtually all girls. So, to me it's a matter of focus. They had fun
with romance and sex, we practiced computers. An imbalance seems expected
given what I saw. Maybe that will change in time.

~~~
zem
and what about nerdy girls who had neither athletics, romance or sex, and
would have loved a computer? as npr[1] notes, when the home computer came out
it was marketed heavily to boys; a generation of girls largely missed out on
that step up.

[1]
[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-
women-stopped-coding)

~~~
hello_marmalade
I hate this stupid argument. Nobody ever marketed me to be into computers - my
parents just had one, and I liked it, and wanted to use it. Whenever I saw a
computer I wanted to play with it.

Nobody needed to "market" it to me.

Also, it's a shitty argument, because there are a million and one different
things that could convince you to not be a part of something. Part of being an
adult is learning to sometimes ignore what society expects of you, and also
adjust your understanding of what society _actually_ expects of you.

If the thing that stopped you from working in tech is because "there were too
many boys" then you probably weren't all that interested in the first place.

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throw_aw_ay
There are a lot of Asians at Google, I don't think its a fair complaint about
whiteness at all.

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alexandercrohde
Are these numbers atypical for the industry? I know google is facing a
lawsuit, and am curious because I thought it was fairly common in engineering,
law, finance, etc for a pretty drastic imbalance.

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Overtonwindow
The quotes about Googles positive diversity examples reminds me of quotas in
education. I wonder if we are moving towards a time when someone will not get
hired because a particular quota is filled, or the whole company is subdivided
into neat little diversity blocs. I.e. "Every Google team must be 50% female,
and 20% Black, 20% Asian, 20% white..." Etc.

------
0xbear
>> Several women who worked at the company and quit say their time at Google
was often frustrating

That's the overarching problem with being a member of the designated victim
class: you can blame your misfortune on being a member of the class, rather
than realize that 90% of people at Google aren't really having the time of
their lives either. News flash: people do leave Google. If things were awesome
for them, they wouldn't leave.

~~~
ot
Non-members of the "designated victim class" can instead blame their
misfortune on "reverse sexism" and "reverse racism" of diversity programs.

~~~
0xbear
They sure can, but usually they attribute their misfortune to inadequate
skill, which is mostly wrong as well. Mostly, irrepective of the skin color or
gender, the cause of one's misfortune is not being pals with the right people.
Ironically, people who count themselves as a part of the designated victim
class are much less likely to recognize this universal pattern.

