
Silicon Valley's 'bro culture' locks out many minorities - timr
http://www.sfgate.com/politics/joegarofoli/article/Silicon-Valley-s-bro-culture-locks-out-many-5211993.php#photo-5837971
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msutherl
> The Silicon Valley touts itself as a meritocracy where people climb the
> economic ladder based on the power of their ideas.

Maybe it's not worth pointing this out over and over again, but a meritocracy
is _not_ a system whereby you climb the economic ladder based on the "power of
your ideas". It's a system in which you climb a hierarchy by scoring well in
some externally defined "unbiased" evaluation process. The irony, which was
intended in the coining of the term, is that such a test can never be unbiased
and the institution that defines the test has power over everybody (read: The
College Board).

There cannot exist even a model of a society where people succeed based purely
on how "good" they are that also doesn't discriminate, since sorting the
"good" from the "bad" is itself an act of discrimination.

~~~
api
> It's a system in which you climb a hierarchy by scoring well in some
> externally defined "unbiased" evaluation process.

Getting deeply into evolutionary theory and learning theory destroyed my
belief in naive meritocracy, and not for the typical reasons either. What you
learn is that defining merit in any complex system is often as difficult as
actually achieving it. If the fitness landscape is non computable then
defining merit globally _IS_ precisely as difficult as achieving it. The two
reduce to the same problem!

... and of course any real world problem domain that is worth doing and
profitable to solve is almost definitely non computable, complex, shifting,
chaotic, all those nasty things ...

Moreover, if you define merit via any "merit function" that does not properly
model your problem domain then the system will optimize to your merit
definition rather than for actual merit. I watched this happen over and over
again with genetic algorithms, simulated annealing, and other learning
algorithms. Sometimes it's comical... I watched a damn genetic programming
system evolve to predict the behavior of my operating system's kernel thread
scheduler to predict whether they would receive an "A" or "B" category item (I
had a multithreaded fitness function) instead of classifying the item for
example. Nature always prefers the lowest-complexity solution for fundamental
second law of thermodynamics type reasons.

I think this is why things like stack ranking, etc., result in superficial
short-term improvements to company performance followed by long-term collapses
in creativity and deep performance over ensuing years. When you implement
stack ranking then your company's culture optimizes itself for stack ranking,
not for the market. Stack ranking captures a small aspect of the overall
fitness function of the market -- namely tenacity and work ethic -- but fails
to capture anything more than that. So you get gerbils, not engineers.

It's a hard problem. Be suspicious of sound-bite answers, fads, and simple
ideologies in these waters.

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whbk
Dumb headline. "Bro culture" doesn't lock out many minorities, the crappy
schools we're forcing them into that leave them unprepared lock them out.

"[they] aren't connected to the social and educational networks where
companies recruit talent"

Bingo. This should have been reflected in the title, especially because it
seems to be the crux of the article. Blaming "bros" is an intellectually lazy
way to gloss over the larger issue.

~~~
sethish
I disagree. Companies should allow and embrace cultures other than those of
their founders. Not doing so is ignoring the issue. Yes, schools need to
reform and a majority of the blame lies there well before SF companies have a
chance.

~~~
nickff
Why should they "allow and embrace cultures other than those of their
founders"?

And should they do it for themselves, or out of a sense of obligation?

~~~
sp332
Segregation and discrimination create suffering, and those doing the
discriminating are responsible.

 _But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years
later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of
segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the
Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of
material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in
the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.
And so we 've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the
architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and
the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which
every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes,
black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights"
of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that
America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of
color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has
given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked
"insufficient funds."_

~~~
nickff
I personally dislike discrimination because I find it to be one of the lowest
forms of collectivism, and it is usually invoked by lazy fools in a vain
attempt to see themselves as superior to someone. Racism has also been used to
steal from the targets of discrimination, (usually by acts of parliament,) but
this has become less common.

Your reason seems to be that your normative beliefs dictate that it is immoral
for others to discriminate. I apologize if this is an unfair characterization
of your point, but I am trying to accurately understand your post. This is a
good explanation of why you would not discriminate, but does not mean you
would embrace other cultures.

You did not answer my basic question though; why should corporate leaders
"allow and embrace cultures other than those of their founders"? A failure to
"allow and embrace cultures other than those of their founders" is not
tantamount to discrimination or segregation.

~~~
sp332
Not allowing other cultures is discrimination.

~~~
nickff
Firstly, the earlier post said "allow and embrace", not just allow.

Second, I am not even sure how you can unfairly discriminate against a
culture, and the problem here seems to be that there is not enough positive
discrimination to accommodate differing groups.

------
chegra
I'm black. So, I think I can speak a bit about the issue. What I notice is
that a lot of black kids are/were afraid as being classified as being
geeks/white. So, we basically lost them as kids. Way before anything about bro
culture comes in.

Now they are older, they probably see Q from world star hip hop raking it in
and probably wonder how do they get into that gig. But, they see the tech
beyond their reach. So, I guess what they lack now is the education to get
into tech.

Personally, when I'm finish working on Akasha(a programming language for
genetic programming), I will dedicate some of my time teaching programming for
free. It will be project based, come with an idea and we will develop it. And
it will be a kind pay-it-forward system where they in turn teach someone else.

~~~
s_baby
>I'm black. So, I think I can speak a bit about the issue. What I notice is
that a lot of black kids are/were afraid as being classified as being
geeks/white. So, we basically lost them as kids. Way before anything about bro
culture comes in.

As a white guy who went to predominantly black schools I have to concur that
the treatment these kids received was brutal. Any kid "speaking white" or
having alternative interests was essentially alienated from his/her peers.

------
vezzy-fnord
First of all, once again we have that dreaded AP CS exam where the media
voluntarily ignores the fact that the rates for the whole country were abysmal
and instead focusing on a particular minority where it's statistically likely
that they have virtually no representation whatsoever.

Second, they're fallaciously assuming that the AP CS exam accurately reflects
technological literacy and social demographics of people pursuing careers in
CS. In reality, the exam is little more than an idealized Java course and is
often an afterthought in many places.

 _Organizers say their goal is "a Silicon Valley that lives up to the dreams
of Dr. King."

Stats prove that it doesn't._

I'm not very familiar with MLK's philosophy in detail, but wasn't he for equal
_opportunity_? Equal opportunity != equal representation.

Then we seem to have a misunderstanding of what a meritocracy is. I'm not
saying we have one, but even if we did, that wouldn't magically mean that we
would have affirmative action and ridiculously high rates of minorities in
certain professional areas. That makes no sense. The ideals of a meritocracy
are that those who have more knowledge and skill will advance higher. If no
one is pursuing such knowledge and skill in the first place, that's not the
fault of the meritocracy itself. They should not be pushed to participate in
things which they have no interest in, either.

But finally, the icing on the cake... clearly this is all Silicon Valley's
fault and its hideous "brogrammer" culture that everyone talks about, but no
one is really sure if it even exists. I can tolerate all of the other things,
but how the hell do you go from "minorities are underrepresented" to "Let's
blame Silicon Valley!" without any real data to support this?

~~~
penrod
It should be abundantly clear at this point that the established media is
antipathetic to the tech sector. Part of this is economic - journalists (with
some justification) blame the web for undermining their economic security.
Another part is cultural, underpinned by the incomprehension and condescension
of humanities majors towards technologists.

------
thatswrong0
As suggested by one of the comments on the article, I think it would be much
more productive to engage in criminal justice reform before even starting to
worry about 'bro culture'.

50% of black men and 44% of hispanic men are arrested by the age of 23 (not to
mention 38% of white men). These numbers are just way too high. Once you get
into the system, it's hard to get out. And children of incarcerated or
formerly incarcerated persons have a much higher chance of going to prison.
See the vicious cycle here? The only thing this article got right was:

> But many people of color can't even find that ladder

This is the most pressing issue. Minorities can't find the ladder because they
don't even know it exists. We're disproportionately locking them up and
perpetuating criminal activity and poverty. If we want to fix
underrepresentation of minorities at schools and in tech, we should start
attacking the root cause, not a red herring.

------
richsin
Agreed that the lack of minorities in tech can be traced to dismal STEM
programs in high schools, but as a programmer of color, I will tell you, there
is a disconnect in the workplace with minorities and the white 'bro culture'.
Many minorities come from a different upbringing and when attempting to
assimilate into the workplace, you find that you are forced to water down who
you are or be alienated. This is not just a skin color issue, I have a white
Russian friend that faced the same issues.

I have worked for a startup that went on to IPO and I will name a few things
that happened while I was there:

\- Was asked by a peer to bring him and his clients coffee during a sales
pitch. \- Constantly reminded of my lack of white pop-culture knowledge, to a
condescending level. (Most knew nothing of black pop-culture, besides Biggie.)
\- Being shown a picture of a guy they saw in the bar that "looked like me".
The only thing we shared was the color of our skin.

I can go on, but my point is that there is much more to this than just getting
minorities into technology, it's overcoming the stigma that many minorities
face on a daily basis with being treated as novelties. I was born and raised
in America, but many times I feel as if there are two America's. I also see
minorities who have abandoned their identity for something more generic in
order to assimilate and it saddens me, but I respect their decisions. As a
first generation American, this is part of the struggle we go through.

There is a huge problem with exposure in tech. I believe the tech industry
wants to believe we are better than other industries, when in fact, we are
deeply flawed - and this is just one of the many problems we face.

------
normloman
How can you folks say there's no brogrammer culture in silicon valley when I
hear talk about "culture fit" all the time on HN? Some founders admit to
excluding applicants because they wouldn't fit in to the workplace culture.
Which implies these founders hire people who are like themselves. When people
talk about brogrammers, this is what they're talking about.

~~~
gruseom
The word "culture" doesn't mean the same thing in "bro culture" vs. "culture
fit".

To me, "culture fit" is another way of saying "chemistry". It means that
people work well together, and is what you want if you are forming a band,
say, or any other creative endeavour.

~~~
timr
The problem with that, of course, is that "chemistry" is just another way of
saying "people I'm comfortable around", which is a socially acceptable way of
discriminating against people who don't make you comfortable -- usually
defined as "people who are different than you". And so it goes.

~~~
gruseom
One hears that argument, but I think it's shallow. People aren't cogs—some
work better together than others. It isn't just about who you're comfortable
around. Lou Reed and John Cale, for example, were not comfortable around each
other. That's why I said "work well together": the work is what matters, not
comfort.

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return0
Is the article "forgetting" to talk about foreign non-black, non-hispanics who
work in SV and weren't "bros" and didn't go to the same schools as the
founders of the startups they work for (asians, for example)?

------
tzs
> Only 6 percent of U.S. tech workers are African American and 7 percent are
> Latino; 15 percent are Asian American and 71 percent are white, according to
> 2011 census data

Asians make up 5% of the population, yet account for 15 percent of tech
workers according to the article. How come this "bro culture" hasn't kept the
Asians out?

------
joesmo
Having consulted at about a dozen different companies in the last six years,
ranging in size from an "under the radar," 4 person startup with no office to
the biggest behemoths in our industry, I have noticed the lack of black and
even Hispanic minorities (though there is no lack of Asian and Indian
minorities). I have _not_ seen any evidence of a "bro" culture, brogramming or
any such nonsense. Of course, this is anecdotal, but I find it hard to believe
that working at such a diverse and large group of companies would not provide
at least one example or one real story of "brogramming." Regardless, IMO,
"bro" culture and "brogramming" are fictions made up seemingly of other's rare
anecdotal experiences.

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greenyoda
The "bro culture" locks out anyone who isn't comfortable with working in that
kind of environment, which probably includes most white guys. My guess is that
it also holds these companies back. For example, I couldn't imagine an
ethnically diverse company like Google (with an HR department and lawyers who
worry about harassment issues) wanting to acquire a company that was known for
its bro culture; it's just asking for trouble.

Does anyone know if any bro-oriented startups have actually become successful,
i.e., grown beyond a handful of employees? Are they a mainstream phenomenon or
a fringe phenomenon? Just reading stories like this from the outside, it's
hard to tell.

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sebastianconcpt
"Moneycracy" disguised as meritocracy?

