Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From a business perspective, I can't see how it makes any sense to exclude an entire 50% of the workforce from a single job category. Your competitors who figure out how to tap into the talent of women are going to have an advantage.

Top CS/engineering programs are overwhelmingly male. Top companies hiring tech talent would be dumb to not hire the best. I don't think anyone would look at the top 100 engineers who are lets say 90 male and 10 female and not hire the 10 females. What doesn't make sense is why would you hire say 10 more females and only 80 males. Those 10 more qualified/talented males are going to go to a competitor and eat you alive.

This attitude 100% explains why people are so threatened by affirmative action for college admissions. The mistaken belief that where you go to school is the only predictor of success in the real world. As a hiring manager in tech, yes, candidates who attended a top program are likely to be stronger than the general applicant pool. But, no, the best candidates did not all go to the best programs. In fact, the best programmer/engineer I ever had the pleasure to work with started off as a diversity hire of sorts. He was a poor, white, male without college role models, who was hired into a coop program by a big engineering firm and worked through his undergrad and masters, which he received from an average public university (not even the flagship conference). I would hire this guy any day, any time. But without that corporate coop program focused on hiring from non-standard pools of candidates, he would never have gotten the opportunity to shine the way he has.

I 100% agree with this

The problem is there are two kinds of affirmative action

1. Finding and seeking out QUALIFIED candidates from unusual/overlooked places

2. Hiring LESS qualified candidates from underrepresented groups

Do you disagree with point 2? If you get rid of 2 I think almost everyone would support Affirmative Action 100%

I don't think #2 exists in any significant part.
You may ASSUME that a woman or minority candidate is hired because they are less qualified, but that's not typically true and shows your assumptions and biases, not reality.

More importantly, how you define "LESS qualified" is very subjective and in many cases not appropriate/relevant to the job.

Let's not pretend that there's some consistent and easily measured standard to be used in hiring or promoting. Will the person with a 3.6 do better in their career than the person with the 3.4? It's obviously impossible to know that, and in many cases the skills measured in GPA aren't the same as those that are needed to be successful at work. So the ubiquitous "good fit" is often code for "looks/acts/thinks like I do" and is far more often used against a woman or minority candidate than an old white guy.

Have you been in staffing meetings #2 is what diversity initiatives are. We have to higher a woman and URM in each entering class now.

Its bs

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wage gap is a myth (agree)
Diversity for diversities sake is a joke should hire the best (agree)
Women are different than men and are better at certain things (agree)

Anyone not agree with those 3?

I disagree with all 3.

Wage gap is real

Diversity "for diversity sake" is not a joke, we need different viewpoints depending on the job. I am not going to hire a white dude from Vermont who graduated from an Ivy league school to market products to black customers in Chicago, even if his GPA and class rank is higher than the black chick from Chicago who graduated from a Chicago state school.

NO women are not "better at certain things" ... some women are better at certain thing, some women are not, some men are better at certain things, some men are not. I don't think every man would make a better Army soldier than every woman. We need to look at everybody as an individual regardless of their gender.

Outliers don't make the rule. According to certain studies, men on average have one standard deviation higher spatial intelligence quotient than women. This domain is one of the few where clear sex differences in cognition appear (likewise the brain structure associated with this type of intelligence, the parietal lobe, differs between male and female brains). However, in some studies, once time constraints were removed, women did as well as men. It has also been found that spatial ability correlates with verbal ability in women but not in men, suggesting that women may use different strategies for spatial visualization tasks than men do. Spatial intelligence is often a requirement to make it through engineering courses, as one needs to flip the orientation of objects in ones head to visualize designs, and understand a summation of forces at moment in basic engineering classes like engineering statics.

Interesting. Another question: is there any evidence that the spatial IQ difference (if it actually exists) correlates to differences in on-the-job performance of male v female engineers? I'm guessing that there is not. As we all know, raw test scores are not good predictors of actual success. Generally, there's a sort of baseline IQ everyone needs to have to keep up with a certain job, and after that, other personal qualities likely matter much more.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is interesting to note that in more developing countries women choose to study STEM at much higher rates than in wealthier countries. Those developing countries have much more patriarchial cultures.

That's because of economic pressures.

There are more "fun jobs" in the us that pay decent than in those countries.

op here, I entirely agree. When women aren't subject to the same economic pressures they choose things they are more interested in.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wage gap is a myth (agree)
Diversity for diversities sake is a joke should hire the best (agree)
Women are different than men and are better at certain things (agree)

Anyone not agree with those 3?

I disagree with all 3.

Wage gap is real

Diversity "for diversity sake" is not a joke, we need different viewpoints depending on the job. I am not going to hire a white dude from Vermont who graduated from an Ivy league school to market products to black customers in Chicago, even if his GPA and class rank is higher than the black chick from Chicago who graduated from a Chicago state school.

NO women are not "better at certain things" ... some women are better at certain thing, some women are not, some men are better at certain things, some men are not. I don't think every man would make a better Army soldier than every woman. We need to look at everybody as an individual regardless of their gender.

Outliers don't make the rule. According to certain studies, men on average have one standard deviation higher spatial intelligence quotient than women. This domain is one of the few where clear sex differences in cognition appear (likewise the brain structure associated with this type of intelligence, the parietal lobe, differs between male and female brains). However, in some studies, once time constraints were removed, women did as well as men. It has also been found that spatial ability correlates with verbal ability in women but not in men, suggesting that women may use different strategies for spatial visualization tasks than men do. Spatial intelligence is often a requirement to make it through engineering courses, as one needs to flip the orientation of objects in ones head to visualize designs, and understand a summation of forces at moment in basic engineering classes like engineering statics.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Diversity "for diversity sake" is not a joke, we need different viewpoints depending on the job. I am not going to hire a white dude from Vermont who graduated from an Ivy league school to market products to black customers in Chicago, even if his GPA and class rank is higher than the black chick from Chicago who graduated from a Chicago state school.

I agree. So why aren't marketing and PR departments making an effort to hire more men?

I think in many places they are. What makes you think they aren't? Certainly in education there is a strong push for more male teachers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This attitude 100% explains why people are so threatened by affirmative action for college admissions. The mistaken belief that where you go to school is the only predictor of success in the real world. As a hiring manager in tech, yes, candidates who attended a top program are likely to be stronger than the general applicant pool. But, no, the best candidates did not all go to the best programs. In fact, the best programmer/engineer I ever had the pleasure to work with started off as a diversity hire of sorts. He was a poor, white, male without college role models, who was hired into a coop program by a big engineering firm and worked through his undergrad and masters, which he received from an average public university (not even the flagship conference). I would hire this guy any day, any time. But without that corporate coop program focused on hiring from non-standard pools of candidates, he would never have gotten the opportunity to shine the way he has.

I 100% agree with this

The problem is there are two kinds of affirmative action

1. Finding and seeking out QUALIFIED candidates from unusual/overlooked places

2. Hiring LESS qualified candidates from underrepresented groups

Do you disagree with point 2? If you get rid of 2 I think almost everyone would support Affirmative Action 100%

What is your basis for stating #2 as a fact? I have never seen it. Focusing on only women, who are pretty much the only underrepresented group in tech that has sufficient numbers to say anything meaningful, the women who clear the basic training bars probably move up ranks faster. Because they are good.

I'm excellent by any objective measure. My educational pedigree, my professional pedigree, the things I've accomplished in my jobs, and the public thought leadership I've cultivated. But I'm the only woman in a technical role on our 40 person team. Women shouldn't have to be excellent to make it in tech. I'll know there is equality when mediocre women succeed in tech jobs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From a business perspective, I can't see how it makes any sense to exclude an entire 50% of the workforce from a single job category. Your competitors who figure out how to tap into the talent of women are going to have an advantage.

Top CS/engineering programs are overwhelmingly male. Top companies hiring tech talent would be dumb to not hire the best. I don't think anyone would look at the top 100 engineers who are lets say 90 male and 10 female and not hire the 10 females. What doesn't make sense is why would you hire say 10 more females and only 80 males. Those 10 more qualified/talented males are going to go to a competitor and eat you alive.

This attitude 100% explains why people are so threatened by affirmative action for college admissions. The mistaken belief that where you go to school is the only predictor of success in the real world. As a hiring manager in tech, yes, candidates who attended a top program are likely to be stronger than the general applicant pool. But, no, the best candidates did not all go to the best programs. In fact, the best programmer/engineer I ever had the pleasure to work with started off as a diversity hire of sorts. He was a poor, white, male without college role models, who was hired into a coop program by a big engineering firm and worked through his undergrad and masters, which he received from an average public university (not even the flagship conference). I would hire this guy any day, any time. But without that corporate coop program focused on hiring from non-standard pools of candidates, he would never have gotten the opportunity to shine the way he has.

I 100% agree with this

The problem is there are two kinds of affirmative action

1. Finding and seeking out QUALIFIED candidates from unusual/overlooked places

2. Hiring LESS qualified candidates from underrepresented groups

Do you disagree with point 2? If you get rid of 2 I think almost everyone would support Affirmative Action 100%

I don't think #2 exists in any significant part.
You may ASSUME that a woman or minority candidate is hired because they are less qualified, but that's not typically true and shows your assumptions and biases, not reality.

More importantly, how you define "LESS qualified" is very subjective and in many cases not appropriate/relevant to the job.

Let's not pretend that there's some consistent and easily measured standard to be used in hiring or promoting. Will the person with a 3.6 do better in their career than the person with the 3.4? It's obviously impossible to know that, and in many cases the skills measured in GPA aren't the same as those that are needed to be successful at work. So the ubiquitous "good fit" is often code for "looks/acts/thinks like I do" and is far more often used against a woman or minority candidate than an old white guy.

Screw him. There are women engineers who do a hell of a better job than the males.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Diversity "for diversity sake" is not a joke, we need different viewpoints depending on the job. I am not going to hire a white dude from Vermont who graduated from an Ivy league school to market products to black customers in Chicago, even if his GPA and class rank is higher than the black chick from Chicago who graduated from a Chicago state school.

I agree. So why aren't marketing and PR departments making an effort to hire more men?

Women in marketing and PR hold 70% of the jobs but only 40% of the jobs that pay $150k+...who is to say that these places aren't making efforts to hire more men? Seems like there's plenty of men in the top ranks.

If they were focused on diversity, it should be 50% at all ranks. Is Google making an effort to promote diversity in those departments also?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Diversity "for diversity sake" is not a joke, we need different viewpoints depending on the job. I am not going to hire a white dude from Vermont who graduated from an Ivy league school to market products to black customers in Chicago, even if his GPA and class rank is higher than the black chick from Chicago who graduated from a Chicago state school.

I agree. So why aren't marketing and PR departments making an effort to hire more men?

Women in marketing and PR hold 70% of the jobs but only 40% of the jobs that pay $150k+...who is to say that these places aren't making efforts to hire more men? Seems like there's plenty of men in the top ranks.

Anonymous wrote:

Diversity "for diversity sake" is not a joke, we need different viewpoints depending on the job. I am not going to hire a white dude from Vermont who graduated from an Ivy league school to market products to black customers in Chicago, even if his GPA and class rank is higher than the black chick from Chicago who graduated from a Chicago state school.

I agree. So why aren't marketing and PR departments making an effort to hire more men?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:who cares what the black % at google tech is? I know black employees in google on the marketing side that make 300k-400k a year.

Why would you want to be a code geek when you can work in a more fun part the company and still make bank?

Google is an ad firm - they have tons of non-tech jobs that are highly remunerative that AA's would be great for.

Woman in tech here. Because some people do not like marketing. I like tech and am actually good out it, despite having a vagina.

you would rather be some drone dev than ruth porat or sheryl sandberg?

No, I would rather be the Woz or Larry Ellison. What I want hasn't come in female form yet. Sanberg and Porat are financial folks.

What's stopping you from making your own start up and then getting funded?

If a fraud like Liz Holmes can get venture cap funding, surely you can

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From a business perspective, I can't see how it makes any sense to exclude an entire 50% of the workforce from a single job category. Your competitors who figure out how to tap into the talent of women are going to have an advantage.

Top CS/engineering programs are overwhelmingly male. Top companies hiring tech talent would be dumb to not hire the best. I don't think anyone would look at the top 100 engineers who are lets say 90 male and 10 female and not hire the 10 females. What doesn't make sense is why would you hire say 10 more females and only 80 males. Those 10 more qualified/talented males are going to go to a competitor and eat you alive.

This attitude 100% explains why people are so threatened by affirmative action for college admissions. The mistaken belief that where you go to school is the only predictor of success in the real world. As a hiring manager in tech, yes, candidates who attended a top program are likely to be stronger than the general applicant pool. But, no, the best candidates did not all go to the best programs. In fact, the best programmer/engineer I ever had the pleasure to work with started off as a diversity hire of sorts. He was a poor, white, male without college role models, who was hired into a coop program by a big engineering firm and worked through his undergrad and masters, which he received from an average public university (not even the flagship conference). I would hire this guy any day, any time. But without that corporate coop program focused on hiring from non-standard pools of candidates, he would never have gotten the opportunity to shine the way he has.

I 100% agree with this

The problem is there are two kinds of affirmative action

1. Finding and seeking out QUALIFIED candidates from unusual/overlooked places

2. Hiring LESS qualified candidates from underrepresented groups

Do you disagree with point 2? If you get rid of 2 I think almost everyone would support Affirmative Action 100%

What about the completely incompetent white guy, who totally oversold his technical skills. He is always around at every company. He has more confidence than skills and would also agree with the google manifesto. Less qualified engineers come in every form but the less qualified white guy is always hired. He is ubiquitous.

And they completely disagree with what other people might view as qualified. Google is kind of infamous for this given how they went after uber brains for the longest time only to find out that uber brains weren't actually what it took to run a successful company.

I hired a woman once who barely met the threshold for technical qualification, though she did demonstrate the capacity and work ethic to pick up new things. I fought for her and unashamedly played the diversity card. She's still not the most technically savvy person on the floor but she is one of the hardest working, has the most breadth of experience (so knows when something is a bad idea), and is an awesome team lead. She's been promoted twice, just moved into a management position, and people love working with and for her. I'll take an awesome team lead who builds up everyone around them over half a dozen guys who want to hoard knowledge and measure their intellectual dicks any day of the week.

Anonymous wrote:It is interesting to note that in more developing countries women choose to study STEM at much higher rates than in wealthier countries. Those developing countries have much more patriarchial cultures.

That's because of economic pressures.

There are more "fun jobs" in the us that pay decent than in those countries.

Anonymous wrote:Wage gap is a myth (agree)
Diversity for diversities sake is a joke should hire the best (agree)
Women are different than men and are better at certain things (agree)

Anyone not agree with those 3?

I disagree with all 3.

Wage gap is real

Diversity "for diversity sake" is not a joke, we need different viewpoints depending on the job. I am not going to hire a white dude from Vermont who graduated from an Ivy league school to market products to black customers in Chicago, even if his GPA and class rank is higher than the black chick from Chicago who graduated from a Chicago state school.

NO women are not "better at certain things" ... some women are better at certain thing, some women are not, some men are better at certain things, some men are not. I don't think every man would make a better Army soldier than every woman. We need to look at everybody as an individual regardless of their gender.