I’m An Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader And I’m Sick Of Our Approach To Diversity!

[Livnthedream]

We must stop fucking it up for the amazing women in tech!

This post is to highlight how sick I am about our approach to diversity and what we could do instead to dramatically improve the situation.

In the copious hiring I did at Google, 97% of the people I hired were men. I wrote reams of appeals to the hiring committee to make cases for cross-functional candidates who would be great assets to Google, even though a (typically) male dominated software engineering interview crew did not find these candidates up to snuff. I had a 90+% success rate changing the hiring decision for these candidates. Almost every one of these hires made an amazing difference to the company. 98+% of these candidates were men.

It’s not like I wasn’t trying to hire women. But I was working with a candidate pool composed of 90% men. Try software engineers with experience in sensors, wireless and hardware stacks before angrily correcting my stats there. There was no way I was going to come out of that with a larger percentage of women hires than I did.

[LoLcano]

yeah problem is woman want to study feminist dance therapy in university instead of STEM fields and then want a high ranking tech job cause hur dur diversity !

[Video Games]

One chick isn't going to sway the mind of anybody on here. I don't have a single problem with tech jobs being 100% men and nursing jobs being 100% women. But people don't like that because diversity is super important for no reason other than to make people feel good they helped a minority.

[Deleted]

Diversity is great. And no, I am not talking about Echo Chambers in which people share 95% of the views of each other. I am talking about people from different backrounds, working class, middle class, different upbringing, different regions or religions (non invasive views) and so on.
Having had quite a lot of experience with different people it really opens one up to things you haven't noticed before.

[Very Tired]

Just a note, a quick poll of Google employees showed the majority of them actually agreed with the stance the guy who spoke out and got fired.

[PC2]

Many of these companies became successful overwhelming with male entrepreneurs. Many Western organizations have been leaders in their domain for the last 100 years with low levels of diversity. But all of a sudden diversity is crucial for success? History doesn't back that up.

[PACOX]

One person doesn't speak for the entire group, amirite alt-right?!

[Rustedsaint]

Personally I find diversity works when it's natural , hire the person with a good attitude and the proper skills. If the person is a minority in the work place nice, don't just hire for appeance sake.
I don't understand why more women don't go for tech courses, I know my tech school has like 2 dozen minor scholarships for women that don't go out cause we lack the people

[Etselion]

I wonder why the "ex" part

[Synros]

Diversity of thought is far more important that gender and race quotas. These companies are going to have to take a big hit before they come to realize that Identity Politics is not a good business model.

[Livnthedream]

I wonder why the "ex" part

You should try actually reading the piece. She quit to form her own business.

[Graeham]

Diversity for the sake of diversity has always been a flawed model. Employees should be hired based on merit rather than irrelevant aspects of their being such as their ethnic background, their gender, their religious views or their sexuality.

It's very interesting that the push for more diversity in the workplace only seems to revolve around pleasant, well paying jobs. I don't believe that I've ever seen people push for more diversity in regards to jobs involving garbage disposal and sewer maintenance. I wonder why that is?

[Kolbjorn]

Many of these companies became successful overwhelming with male entrepreneurs. Many Western organizations have been leaders in their domain for the last 100 years with low levels of diversity. But all of a sudden diversity is crucial for success? History doesn't back that up.

That's not actually true. Startups with at least one female founder tend to outperform all-male startups.

https://hbr.org/2016/05/4-factors-th...ne-that-doesnt

[Etselion]

It's very interesting that the push for more diversity in the workplace only seems to revolve around pleasant, well paying jobs. I don't believe that I've ever seen people push for more diversity in regards to jobs involving garbage disposal and sewer maintenance. I wonder why that is?

Because minorities already do all the shitty jobs?

Very interesting indeed.

[Mizix]

Frankly, I don't see the problem. She wasn't forced to hire women, just asked to keep an eye out for excellent women candidates and make an effort to look for one instead of settling for the first man that fit the profile description. It was Google, I bet they get hundred of application every time they open a new position, they can be picky and they can be asked to make a small effort in their hiring process.

I strongly disagree with the quota mentality, as I feel it is discriminatory and dangerous but it doesn't seem to me that this is what is happening at Google or in the tech industry in general. All this employee was asked was to make an effort in her hiring practices, not to discard men application because genitalia. She herself admits of having hired almost exclusively men and that's fine (if the pool is strongly composed by men one cannot invent tech women where there aren't any) and it's also fine if they were better candidates. Where is the problem, really? It bothers her that there is a discussion about diversity in the workplace or that she needs to spend more time on recruitment? As long as it doesn't become something stupid like a quota-system, there is absolutely no issue with trying to hire women or minorities for diversity, if that's what your employer ask of yourself.

[PC2]

That's not actually true. Startups with at least one female founder tend to outperform all-male startups.

https://hbr.org/2016/05/4-factors-th...ne-that-doesnt

That's not even what I said. My statement was on the higher ratio of male entrepreneurs, not on the performance of companies when they have a female founder.

[Daws]

You missed off the important bit of the article which states after being fed up with the state of affairs and trying to get her own company going the problem was:

"We get upset about the state of gender diversity in tech
We make a pact to hire more women
The pool has (a lot) more men than women
After some rounds of low to no success, we start to compromise and hire women just because we have to
These women show up at work and perform not as great as we want them to
It reinforces to the male population that was already peeved by the diversity push that women aren’t that good at tech after all
They generalize that observation on the entire women in tech community
Sooner or later, some such opinions get out there
The feminists amongst us go crazy
The diversity advocates are caught in a frenzy and make a pact to hire more women (again)
This loops. Infinitely."

So pretty much with the current level of qualified women applying for jobs in tech it's never going to work.

[Graeham]

Because minorities already do all the shitty jobs?

Very interesting indeed.

Not from what I have seen.

[Deleted]

yeah problem is woman want to study feminist dance therapy in university instead of STEM fields and then want a high ranking tech job cause hur dur diversity !

Tbh if I were to relocate in US since I'm already in the tech industry, I would just become a drag queen and get a sweet "diversity spot". So what if I have to dress like a women at work, I would make big bucks!

[PC2]

So pretty much with the current level of qualified women applying for jobs in tech it's never going to work.

Not anytime soon. One pattern I've noticed among feminist tech writers is that they downplay the pipeline problem. Ceding a pipeline issue reduces the impact of their work, therefor there's no personal incentive behind the explanation.