Uber Releases Diversity Report Amid Turmoil

[Underverse]

Link to article

On Tuesday, the company released its first ever diversity report. Unsurprisingly, it revealed that female techies aren't the standard at the firm: Just 15% of its technical workers are women.

That's the same percentage as Twitter (TWTR, Tech30), but smaller than Facebook (FB, Tech30) (17%) and Slack (24%).
Uber's culture -- and its treatment of female employees -- has been in the spotlight after a former female engineer alleged sexism and harassment at the company last month.

When it comes to ethnic diversity, Uber has zero technical leaders who are black or Hispanic. That's only bumped up slightly when looking at non-technical leadership positions: (3.7% are black and and 1.2% Hispanic). However, the report noted that in the last 12 months, it's increased its hiring of black and Hispanic employees.

Last week, Kalanick met with civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson to discuss diversity. Uber has also pledged $3 million over the next three years to organizations helping women and underrepresented groups in tech.

What do people think about this? Personally, I wasn't surprised that only 15% of their technical engineers are female.

What was more surprising to me was the second bolded statement: that Uber is 'increasing its hiring of black and hispanic employees'. Now, this can mean one of two things:

1> Either Uber was engaging in racist hiring practices and these practices were largely responsible for the nonexistence of black and hispanic technical leaders

or

2> Uber is going to now start giving preferential treatment to blacks and hispanics, in comparison to non-minority competition.

To me, it seems like both of these are shitty options. There should never have been any racism, but fixing unequal outcomes with racist policies is just as bad. If the latter case is true, then new minority hires will discredit existing hires, as other companies looking to hire ex-Uber engineers will be left to wonder if they're good for the job, or if they just got it because they hold minority status.

Thoughts?

[Independent voter]

Uber has had lots of trouble lately. One of their driverless cars in Arizona got into a wreck. But surprise, surprise the wreck was fault of the other driver, or the human driven car who failed to give the Uber car the right of way.

There has been a big campaign to delete the Uber app off your phone but mostly this is just in Silicon Valley.

I guess they are hoping that making big changes will help out with their public opinion.

[Forgettable]

It's racist to give preferential treatment to *insert any race here* when it comes to hiring. Uber really shouldn't do that.

[Molis]

It's racist to give preferential treatment to *insert any race here* when it comes to hiring. Uber really shouldn't do that.

*not directed at you*

Ahh but it is OK to use this sentiment when hiring more minorities, or accepting them to college.

We have too many white people here so lets just hire minorities for 6 months to even things out. I hate this practice.

My brother couldn't go to a local Law School because he was an over qualified "white"

[Forgettable]

*not directed at you*

Ahh but it is OK to use this sentiment when hiring more minorities, or accepting them to college.

We have too many white people here so lets just hire minorities for 6 months to even things out. I hate this practice.

My brother couldn't go to a local Law School because he was an over qualified "white"

Also not OK. Bullshit in fact.

[Very Tired]

In an ideal world, saying you are going to give people of certain ethnicity preferential treatment would actually been seen as a bad thing... Not the other way around.

[Deleted]

Pretty ridicilous and social engineering at its finest.

If there are too few women working there, it's not the company's fault. If there are too few minorities working there it's not the company's fault.

It's those groups' fault.

Women are women, and hispanic and black men can't compete with Whites and Asians, for economic and cultural reasons.

[A dot Ham]

*not directed at you*

Ahh but it is OK to use this sentiment when hiring more minorities, or accepting them to college.

We have too many white people here so lets just hire minorities for 6 months to even things out. I hate this practice.

My brother couldn't go to a local Law School because he was an over qualified "white"

That's not exactly how affirmative action works.

In theory your student body, or workforce should reflect the demographics of a given census year.

So assuming the student body was comprised of 63% white. He was simply not as qualified as the other white people that applied.

That being said I can appreciate the sentiments. It does have the potential of weeding out people that are better suited for a position in favor of a person less suited but better fitting of their projected demographics.

In the information age it should be pretty easy to defend that (x) group isn't applying and that (y) person was the most qualified for the position.

[Sky High]

I don't really care about their corporate workings so much as how they need to get their shit fixed when it comes to their drivers. liiiiike charging their customers a "tip fee" but keep it for themselves and don't add that to the drivers earnings. who knows I think that might help their public image a bit more.

[Molis]

That's not exactly how affirmative action works.

In theory your student body, or workforce should reflect the demographics of a given census year.

So assuming the student body was comprised of 63% white. He was simply not as qualified as the other white people that applied.

That being said I can appreciate the sentiments. It does have the potential of weeding out people that are better suited for a position in favor of a person less suited but better fitting of their projected demographics.

In the information age it should be pretty easy to defend that (x) group isn't applying and that (y) person was the most qualified for the position.

I was being a little over the top, but yeah I get you.
My work literally showed a slide of our demographics to the Managers and we were biased towards female and minoritys in leadership positions.
The message was hire more white males.
I was like (Jesus Christ) I will hire the most qualified candidate.

[Knolan]

As someone who works at tech, that is not unusual at all, there are far less women than men in the field (think of nurses in reverse).

Unless you have some proof that they have a wide spread order not to hire women, I see no case here (and if that was the case, there wouldn't be 15% women anyway).

Equality of opportunity does not means equality of outcome.

[Deleted]

Diversity report? I really couldn't care less. I do not think its a problem if only 15% of their workers are female or whatever. The only way i'd care is if tehre was evidence to show that they specifically turn down people based on gender/race. It lowers my opinion of a company when i hear they set out to specifically try and hire more people from a certain group rather than just who is best for the job.

[TwoNineMarine]

Did anyone consider that it could very well be that there just aren't that many qualified women, blacks, Hispanics, *insert race here* so they have no other options?

Or is it automatically they are all misogynistic racists?

[Knolan]

Did anyone consider that it could very well be that there just aren't that many qualified women, blacks, Hispanics, *insert race here* so they have no other options?

Or is it automatically they are all misogynistic racists?

SJWs do not understand what a market is... or competence for that matter.

[TwoNineMarine]

SJWs do not understand what a market is... or competence for that matter.

Certainly comes across that way. Or maybe these incredibly successful companies should lower their standards and quality of employees to appease the SJW's. Seems like the right course.

[Very Tired]

Did anyone consider that it could very well be that there just aren't that many qualified women, blacks, Hispanics, *insert race here* so they have no other options?

Or is it automatically they are all misogynistic racists?

Actually they assume all minorities were given a hard life and therefore need to be handed a handicap, and assume the opposite for all the other non-minorities. If there's one thing I know, it's how good vast generalizations are. To hell with the negative consequences... like Mass Effect. No one even plays video games anymore.

[TwoNineMarine]

Actually they assume all minorities were given a hard life and therefore need to be handed a handicap, and assume the opposite for all the other non-minorities. If there's one thing I know, it's how good vast generalizations are. To hell with the negative consequences... like Mass Effect. No one even plays video games anymore.

Right? That also seems like a valid possibility. I'm just amazed at this. None of these people that complain about this stuff have ever ran high level companies like the ones mentioned in the OP. Why do they think they are qualified to tell these companies who they should and should not be hiring?

[Illuminance]

Now, this can mean one of two things:

1> Either Uber was engaging in racist hiring practices and these practices were largely responsible for the nonexistence of black and hispanic technical leaders

or

2> Uber is going to now start giving preferential treatment to blacks and hispanics, in comparison to non-minority competition.

My reaction was more like a #3: they hired 3 black/hispanic employees in the past 12 months instead of 2 in the 12 months prior to that, and then used that to bolster their diversity statement. In reality I suspect it's an implementation of #2.