> 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.
> 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.
>"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."
I think this is a very important point, that optimization is inseparable from distribution. Daron Acemoglu also makes this point very well (when he talks about different political regimes).
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.
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.
As I understood it, "bro culture" was supposed to be about overly techno jerks treating other people (most notably women) badly. Exaggerating to explain the point: bro culture means putting picture of naked lara croft on the wall and then pretend last women changed the job cause she was too weak.
The first half of the article is about minority candidates not even showing for interviews cause of structural problems in education (two quotes):
* (page 1) too many kids of color who think that they're going to be basketball stars or entertainers or Barack Obama,
* (page 1) By the time kids are applying for colleges, they're virtually out of the game.
Then the article shows stats that tech employs mostly white people, which is not surprising given education failures described on the first page. So far so good.
Out of nowhere, there is complain about bro/frat culture, as if the same article would not describe those minorities "out of the game" well before even applying. (Assuming you search for tech job after college). No relation between previous content is shown.
Then another jump and it turns out the article is just an advertisement for some startup hackatlon.
So, yes, companies should allow and embrace cultures other than those of their founders. No, this article still has bad title.
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."
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.
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.
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.
>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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
'Culture' is too flexible a word to be useful. It carries with it connotations that muddy issues. It should be retired as a useful way to describe any group of people smaller than a few dozen thousand.
'Culture fit' means sharing a common approach to problem solving. It means people are not there to just occupy a seat and collect a salary but to have an impact on the company they work for and, by extension, the world at large. It means having a consuming curiosity that drives them to learn. It means not being afraid of change and upheaval but a tendency to embrace it. It means treating other with kindness even when it is hard. Or jump into solving problems without fear. Those kinds of things.
It is easy to get saddled with a cube dweller who has no interest in pushing things but enjoys the status quo and collecting a check. That is poison. That is what people mean by 'cultural fit' not whether they like to play ultimate frisbee or like the Beatles or afternoon drinking.
So, instead of 'cultural fit' I'd say 'aligned with the company's approach'.
As soon as you attach 'culture' to anything it evokes some sort of impenetrable collective-mind behemoth that takes on different attributes based on who is thinking or talking about it. It is a waste of time.
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.
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.
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.
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)?
> 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?
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.
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.
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.