
Alphabet shareholders reject diversity proposal backed by employees - carapace
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-inc-agm/alphabet-shareholders-reject-diversity-proposal-backed-by-employees-idUSKCN1J22BS
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RpFLCL
Previous discussion yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17251371](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17251371)

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dokein
To what extent should diversity be the responsibility of companies? I would
argue the responsibility is in proportion to added-discrimination, so to speak
(kind of like your profit should be in proportion to your added value).

So, as an example, if 90% of your applicants are male and 10% are female,
presuming quality is randomly distributed, the default assumption is that the
company ends up with 90% male employees and 10% female employees. You might
make some adjustments arguing that diversity is better for work environment /
productivity / decision-making but that's a post-hoc adjustment.

If that is the case at Google (and I have no way of knowing), then I would
argue the burden falls on society for having 90% of applicants be male and 10%
of the applicants be female in the first place. That sharp of a gender gap is
not the case in Eastern Europe.

The solution is obviously best targeted toward the problem and not the
symptom. If you have a fever because of a bacterial pneumonia, antibiotics are
much better than Tylenol.

~~~
vlovich123
I had this misconception too & Google has not had 50/50 parity as a goal
(unsure about specifically what this proposal is but I don't think it
establishes quotas either). The discussion has been centered about reaching
parity with the available talent pool as you describe. It's even in the
article:

> Eileen Naughton, who leads Google’s HR operations, said the company remains
> committed to an internal goal to reach “market supply” representation of
> women and minorities by 2020, which could help bring hiring in line with the
> diversity of the candidate pool.

~~~
sz4kerto
It is interesting though that if are far from market supply parity now but
they want to reach it by 2020 then between now and 2020 they need to apply
really strong positive discrimination (over market supply parity) when
hiring/firing.

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random_user456
Why do companies hire all these diversity administration in the first place?
It burns epic amounts of money, and sows discontent, when there message and
answer to everything is we need more diversity for all leadership and tech
positions,(aka quotas of people with subpar skillsets). Instead of merely
hiring on skill.

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ddppee
The thing is that people aren't hired based solely on skill. There is some
degree of bias that needs to be addressed.

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adamnemecek
This bias goes well beyond racial and gender diversity. Why are these the only
types of diversity that are ever discussed.

And pls don’t misunderstand this argument, but could the same argument not be
used for say diversity of skill? Like how come a company can reject me due to
lack of skill?

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daveFNbuck
> And pls don’t misunderstand this argument, but could the same argument not
> be used for say diversity of skill? Like how come a company can reject me
> due to lack of skill?

The argument is that it's unfair and harmful to the individual, your company,
and society to not hire someone because their skin is too dark. Do you think
that's true of not hiring someone who isn't qualified?

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adamnemecek
> society to not hire someone because their skin is too dark.

In SV, I can't imagine this being that common. However let's take an example.
There's an interview for a position and the interviewer is a white American.
Two applicants of equal skill apply. One of them is African American who's
attended the same high school as the interviewer. The other one is a recent
emigrant from Russia who is skilled technically however his "cultural
awareness" might be lacking. Who is more likely to get hired? This is a
rhetorical question. I actually don't know.

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daveFNbuck
You're changing the subject. Let's stick to your first question for now. You
were asking whether the arguments for diversity of race and gender could be
applied to diversity of skill.

Does the argument I gave for diversity of race apply to diversity of skill? If
not, do you think I gave a non-standard argument for diversity of race?

~~~
adamnemecek
I'm not actually, I'm pointing out a type of diversity that the commonly
accepted notion of diversity doesn't quite capture.

~~~
daveFNbuck
Yet when I press you on your concrete example of diversity of skill, you
immediately move on to a different example without responding to what I said.

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adamnemecek
This is an honest question to people who side with the proposal. At what point
would these measures become unnecessary? What are the conditions?

Btw what is the name of the ideology that one would use to justify this?

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UncleMeat
This is a hard question to answer. But I'd consider something like racial
bussing in the 60s. This was a positive step and was enacted without explicit
exit conditions. Such exit conditions are not necessarily a requirement for
these sorts of initiatives.

~~~
adamnemecek
The two are very different tho. One is in some sense removing a rule, one is
adding it.

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lainga
If we aren't going to mark this as dupe, I'll repeat my comment from the
thread yesterday: Per the article, backed by "several hundred employees" out
of a 2017 Alphabet headcount of 80,110.

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ihsw2
Popularity is not a measure of validity.

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hyperbovine
Sure it is, when the rulemaking procedure is by majority vote.

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jonlucc
The rule making procedure, if I’m not mistaken, is majority vote of shares.
That’s why the article says that the proposals did not pass.

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arkem
For interest here's where you can find the relevant motions being referred to
in the article:
[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000130817918...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000130817918000222/lgoog2018-def14a.htm)

The ones being referred to are:

Proposal Number 6 Stockholder Proposal Regarding a Report on Gender Pay

Proposal Number 9 Stockholder Proposal Regarding Board Diversity and
Qualifications

Proposal Number 10 Stockholder Proposal Regarding a Report on Content
Governance

I'm not that familiar with corporate motions so I might be misinterpreting
what I'm reading but it looks like the motions are for Alphabet to produce a
report about gender pay discrimination, to disclose the qualifications of the
board (including ideological leanings and biographical data), and to produce a
report on the efficacy of Alphabet's terms of service enforcement (in
particular around user uploaded content).

Alphabet's disagreeing statements on the first one is largely of the form "we
think gender pay is an important issue (see existing published reports) but we
don't think this is motion is a good idea". The second one they actually
support saying "sure, a diverse board is a good idea". For the third one their
response is along the lines of "We take this seriously to the tune of hiring
thousands of people to enforce our terms of service".

My biggest surprise after seeing the article and reading the materials myself
was that the second proposal (board diversity) claims that Alphabet is known
to "operate in ideological hegemony that eschews conservative people" which is
not the impression I took away from the article.

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calibas
Seems like there's a lot of internal conflict in Google at the moment.

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ryanmarsh
If Google continues to advertise a strong stance on diversity the problem may
solve itself, for them. I say this because I’ve noticed that my clients with a
strong LGBT pride message tend to further attract people from that community.
Resulting in an amplification. In one such company this was very pronounced.

The reverse (people not from that community self selecting out) might also be
true but I don’t have anything to back that up with.

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eulers__number
diversity promotion is just another system not based on merit but a system
based on discrimination and "affirmative" action

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swebs
I believe these are the proposals in question:

[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000130817918...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000130817918000222/lgoog2018-def14a.htm#lgoog2018def14aa065)

[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000130817918...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000130817918000222/lgoog2018-def14a.htm#lgoog2018def14aa068)

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malvosenior
I wish the article had more details on why the propositions were rejected. It
makes sense though, Alphabet is there to make money not foster an ultra
political working environment. After the Damore incident, I wouldn't consider
working there, but this does offer some hope to those who aren't far-left
leaning.

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peteretep
I wonder how you came to the determination that those who support equality are
_far_ left, rather than just left?

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lawnchair_larry
He didn’t come to that determination. People pushing these _don’t_ support
equality or anything close to it.

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bayfullofrays
I like what we are doing at our company, an unofficial 1:5, where for every
over represented candidate, we aggressively pursue five underrepresented
candidates. It is a lot easier to train people for tech than it is to "train"
someone to come from a oppressed community.

