

Surprise: Silicon Valley Doesn’t Employ Minorities - bigsassy
http://www.blackweb20.com/2010/02/22/surprise-silicon-valley-doesnt-employ-minorities/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+BlackWeb20+(Black+Web+2.0)

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maxklein
That's utter nonsense. The reason blacks and hispanics are not employed in
silicon valley is that there are not as many skilled in IT blacks and
hispanics as there are from other races in the United States.

Whatever the reasons are, it is a socio-economic problem, it's not a problem
caused by any form of systematic discrimination in silicon valley.

I do not believe that I have ever seen any youtube video of a black person
complaining about how he is fighting to get a job in silicon valley, but
nobody is hiring him, even though he has a great number of projects online and
everyone agrees his code is great.

It IS a meritocracy. If you put a bunch of bad black programmers in silicon
valley and expect them to learn the tools on the job, then this will be an
even greater disservice to the black community - as it would result in a
negative stereotype about the quality of 'black programming'.

~~~
miloshh
Indeed, mastery of technology is the last thing that most blacks and Hispanics
want to achieve in life. Why is this so is an important question and the
answers will, sadly, often point to discrimination. But none of it has
anything to do with Sillicon Valley.

~~~
albemuth
Feeling pretty insulted by that comment, what life achievement would you
recommend us then?

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iheartmemcache
Wow. OK, I'm a little tired of all these recent "I'm Indian so I won't get
funded", "We need women for Web 3.0" and blog-posts. I've got a little time on
my hands so excuse this little diatribe:

>> "As I’ve mentioned many times before there is no innovation without
diversity"

OK, well I agree with the general premise, I'd like a little elaboration on
what kind of diversity you're talking about. I'm going to make the assumption
that the writer's talking about racial diversity, and pose the question: How
does having black skin automatically mean you're going to bring a different
outlook to the table? Why shouldn't I go to Russia and find someone with an
entirely different culture, background, language and religion? By that logic,
that candidate will increase the diversity in my workplace far more than a
Harvard educated black guy who grew up in Greenwich.

As an aside, organizations like TiE are absolutely absurd. You're trying to
fight a "boys club" by forming your own boys club. The battle of racism(1) was
never won with additional racism. Additionally, you're further isolating
yourself from the community as a whole. Assimilate, infiltrate and smash the
system from within if you really think you're being discriminated against(2).

In terms of practicality though, outrage isn't going to get you ultimately
anywhere. If you don't think the Valley employs enough minorities in startups,
then _start your own_. The barrier of entry is literally a 15$ Dreamhost
account and a weekend reading the Django docs(3). Fork a project on Github and
do something clever with it. The valley wont care if you're a philandering
albino, you'll get job offers left and right if it's clever enough.

(1) I'd argue you'd have to be actively searching for instances of racism in
the Valley to actually find it. I'm a second-generation Indian-American. The
startup community least discriminatory group of people I've ever encountered
bar crust-punks and hippies.

(2) Hint: Odds are you aren't.

(3) I'm well aware of Norvig's <http://norvig.com/21-days.html>, this is just
for the sake of argument.

~~~
plinkplonk
"As an aside, organizations like TiE are absolutely absurd. You're trying to
fight a "boys club" by forming your own boys club."

Amen. I am Indian but I think TIE perpetuates a racist/ethnic mentality and I
would never take a cent (or rupee :-P) from them. Indians can be very
racist/exclusionary

I don't want to be judged on my skin color dammit, just judge me on how well
(or not) I code (or do product design or marketing or whatever).

In one company I worked at (ThoughtWorks) the owner was a kind of weird
socialist (he was a nice guy just had these weird political beliefs - he
thought the USA had too many conservatives but China had a very nice political
system and that Reagan was a tyrant but Chavez was cool and so on) who
believed in "Affirmative Action" and many dumb folks (carefully not specifying
ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion etc here, to avoid a conflagaration)
were promoted based not so much on any skills or successes but because they
fit into a predetermined "diversity" slot.

Soured me on the whole concept (No, I didn't want a promotion to management. I
was (and am) happy being a dev).

Thankfully , to date, programming remains a field where affirmative action and
other half baked political fantasies don't apply.

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johnohara
_Why is Affirmative Action okay in every other industry and region but somehow
when we take into account Silicon Valley it should be ignored. Bogus. As I’ve
mentioned many times before there is no innovation without diversity._

Agreed. How 'bout it. And while we're at it let me say that I'm appalled by
the over-representation of black sprinters in track and field too. How can it
be that they are so consistently and completely the best? There's obviously
something amiss. The total number of gold medals and world records they own is
astonishing and a perfect example of why more diversity is needed. How can
there be any innovation in the sport without slow white guys like me adding my
perspective 80 meters behind in a 100 meter race ?

Pure human athletics and complex digital systems are very unforgiving in many
of the same regards.

~~~
_pius
_How can there be any innovation in the sport without slow white guys like me
adding my perspective 80 meters behind in a 100 meter race ?_

Right, because having a diverse team means hiring incompetent people.

Trust me, the fact that you happen to be a slow white guy doesn't mean that
I'm an intellectually slow black one. There are fast white people and smart
black/Hispanic people: the fact that you aren't personally one of them, while
sad, is certainly not an effective argument against a team or company
recruiting from either group, respectively.

Your metaphor is a canard, plain and simple.

~~~
johnohara
Let me make my point more succinct.

Digital systems could care less whether you're black, white, brown, red or
yellow. If it turns out that one group is better than another at innovation,
design and implementation then so be it.

It's simple. Usain Bolt is the best because of hard work, talent, and a belief
in himself. He doesn't need diversity. He's competing in an arena where pure
performance is all that matters. If I could beat him I would. I can't. But I'm
not running around crying foul because I'm under-represented.

If the author of this blasted article wants to be part of some Silicon Valley
success story then let her sit in the library or computer lab for years at a
time like everybody else.

~~~
_pius
_Digital systems could care less whether you're black, white, brown, red or
yellow._

This is a great point but it's not applicable here. I'd agree with your
argument if the article were, for example, insinuating racism because code
written by blacks and Hispanics had more bugs in it or had poor test coverage.
That would be absurd; as you said, digital systems don't care about your race.
Sadly, people usually do.

Metrics like how fast you can run and how many users like your software are
objective and essentially independent of race. The article wasn't talking
about objective metrics like those but rather how many blacks and Hispanics
are being hired — an area in which race-based discrimination is well-
documented.

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jasonlbaptiste
I don't care what color, creed, sex, or sexual preference you have. I care if
you're innovative, can code well, and have unwavering dedication. This article
is silly.

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acg
Different perspective alright: the original article is better balanced
<http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14383730>

This you're-picking-on-me attitude is annoying.

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fizx
Unless you count Asian people.

~~~
genieyclo
I wish there were stats for Eastern-Europeans employed in the tech industry in
Silicon Valley; I'm betting they're classified under "White" in demographic
surveys. Many tend to be immigrants to the US themselves.

~~~
pedalpete
I don't mean to be naive, but aren't Eastern-Europeans white? This is more
about visual minorities than foreigners.

~~~
genieyclo
As a race, yes, but many tend to be immigrants that came to the US after the
breakup of the USSR and come from different backgrounds than American-born
whites, with mainly western-European backgrounds. They constitute a sizable
bloc of their own that would be interesting to see the data from.

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enjo
_As I’ve mentioned many times before there is no innovation without
diversity._

I would love to see that supported. These things are parroted around a lot,
always in relation to race. Is it true? Should VC's only fund companies with
multi-cultural founders?

I'm pretty sure that it's most definitely not.

~~~
pedalpete
I believe if you asked mother nature, she would say there is no live without
diversity. The quote may not be directed strictly at business innovation, but
you find that in most environments, the rule is true, therefore why would a
business be different. As an example, we would agree that a diversity of
skills is necessary to business success. You need a leader, a coder, a
designer, a marketer, etc.

Where this becomes true when related to race and culture is in bringing
different view points and ways of thinking. However, I believe the most
important thing is that we get beyond race as a differentiator. I don't
believe that the color of a persons skin affects their work.

Are we trying to have it both ways, where we say 'skin color doesn't matter',
and at the same time saying 'mixing race is good for innovation'?

I'm confusing myself on this one.

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charlesju
As a counter-example. Out of the 5 people that I tried to hire last year, 2 of
them were black.

There are very good black programmers out there but I don't think any startup
in their right mind will trade skill for diversity. It's strictly business,
not personal.

