
Is Palantr discriminating against Asians? - dannylandau
http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/26/technology/palantir-labor-department-lawsuit/index.html
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maxharris
Why has no one gone after the Ivy League schools? It is an open secret that
they discriminate against Asian applicants.

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automatwon
Disclaimer: The plural of anecdote is anecdotes.

Context #1: I am Asian.

It was during intern recruiting season, at a campus recruiting fair, when I
talked to Palantir. I felt the 'interview' with the campus rep went well. In
the ensuing weeks, I receive 'real' follow-up interviews from every other
company present at the career fair that I made an active effort of applying
for. By that, I mean research the company's financials, history, products and
culture, then writing catered personal statements and resumes. Every company
except Palantir. I, being young and conspiratory, just assumed Palantir, being
an enigmatic blackbox analytics engine, ran my resume through a government
sponsored quantum computers and decided I wasn't a fit. And that was okay.

Context #2: The CS department I attended is well-regarded. (If selectivity is
any indicator, whether causally or correlational, the average underclassmen
GPA to get admitted into the major is around a 3.8. US News ranks the
department in the 'top 10' CS programs, albeit that's also a proxy since these
rankings are based on graduate programs). Not to rest on these laurels, but my
resume also include things beyond school: student organizations, volunteering,
personal projects, etc.

After college, I left my carefree internship days behind for a 'real job' at
FinTech company doing BIG DATA and Data Science, wooooo. Again, I applied to
Palantir.

Context #3: I've received job offers from big four tech companies, startups,
as well as financial institutions in Chicago / NY / Hong Kong / Singapore /
London. This is not intended to brag or show that I am exceptional. To the
contrary, this reflects that I am the very antithesis of an aberration,
insofar that I fit the job qualifications that employers seek.

At least I got an automated response from Palantir this time. Yay, I exist.

 _We regret to inform you that we do not have a position which currently
matches your background and experience at this time_

Let's not presuppose Palantir uses a machine to select candidates. Assume
Palantir has some statistical / classification / decision model in the
abstract, which could be implemented in the form of human recruiters, company
culture / managerial, or an actual machine.

What would Palantir's preference for the false-positive versus false-negative
rate of this model be? I currently work at Google which is notorious for its
high false negative rate (turning many suitable candidates away). Is
Palantir's false negative rate so high such that I can land a job at Google
and many other places, and not even get a phone screen at Palantir? Palantir
makes software for counter-terrorism, surely they are cognizant of the
implication of these Type I, Type II errors. Landing a job at a company X, and
a company Y, are not statically independent events. So this outcome is just
odd to me. Maybe I'm on a terrorist watch list?

Context #4: In my Software Engineering capstone during college, I was
(assigned) to a group of 7 students, including myself. We were supposed to
work on a quarter-long project. Everyone got along. Everyone contributed.
Everyone was willing to compromise. Except for one person. This person
contributed zero lines of code. They bossed everyone around. Where the rest of
the team were vectors moving in relatively the same direction, this person was
a drag force. This designated, errr, assigned "leader" constantly derailed the
team's direction. Halfway through the quarter, this person dropped the course
and didn't inform anyone on our team. I had to fill in for this person's hand-
wavy role (mostly bureaucratic requirements the course instructor set forth to
make sure people were working: a student managing another student and writing
reports about it....). I've worked with a hundred people over the years, but
this was the first and only time I've met someone who added negative value. I
was STUCK in a handful of courses with this person, aswell. They would
constantly ask selfish questions during lecture just to show off how smart
they are. They cheated on the exams, too. This person went to work at Palantir
right after college.

What features / variables / factors does Palantir select for in Software
Engineers? CS Degree? A good school program? Relevant work experience? Last
name? Treating me as a data point, there must be some other factor that far
negatively outweighs the positive points on my resumes. Whatever this scarlet
letter was, my irresponsible selfish classmate did not possess this. This
classmate was not Asian (this isn't too important of a detail to me , but I
anticipate someone to ask a follow-up question on this). I'm not even that
upset about the accusations of racial discrimination. I'm more personally
irked by the fact that companies have this veil of stupidity in their hiring
process where many qualified people do not make it through for whatever reason
while dishonest, selfish, incompetent, irresponsible, non-team players slip
through the HUGE cracks.

