White and male, Google releases diversity data

[Mistress Stowastiq]

Ok so this is not eureka stuff but its interesting enough for discussion. I was surprised that companies are not required to list/release diversity info so kudos to Google for at least having the nads to do so.
Also, I wonder why they did not include Asians in the data.

White and male, Google releases diversity data
By MARTHA MENDOZA
— May. 28, 2014 9:19 PM EDT

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — In a groundbreaking disclosure, Google revealed Wednesday how very white and male its workforce is — just 2 percent of its Googlers are black, 3 percent are Hispanic, and 30 percent are women. The search giant said the transparency about its workforce — the first disclosure of its kind in the largely white, male tech sector — is an important step toward change.

"Simply put, Google is not where we want to be when it comes to diversity," Google Inc. senior vice president Laszlo Bock wrote in a blog.

The numbers were compiled as part of a report that major U.S. employers must file with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Companies are not required to make the information public.

The gender divide is based on the roughly 44,000 people Google employed throughout the world at the start of this year. The company didn't factor about 4,000 workers at its Motorola Mobility division, which is being sold to China's Lenovo Group for $2.9 billion. The racial data is limited to Google's roughly 26,600 workers in the U.S as of August 2013.

Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg recently said the social networking company is headed toward disclosure as well, but it was important to share the data internally first.

Apple Inc., Twitter, Hewlett-Packard Co. and Microsoft Corp. did not respond immediately to queries about possible plans to disclose data.

Bock said Google has been working to diversify, not just its offices but in the broader tech sector. Since 2010, the firm has given more than $40 million to organizations working to bring computer science education to women and girls, he said.

The company also is working with historically black colleges and universities to elevate coursework and attendance in computer science, he said.

"But we're the first to admit that Google is miles from where we want to be, and that being totally clear about the extent of the problem is a really important part of the solution," he said.

Gender and ethnic disparities are reflected throughout the tech industry. About 7 percent of tech workers are black or Latino in Silicon Valley and nationally. Blacks and Hispanics make up 13.1 and 16.9 percent of the U.S. population, respectively, according to the most recent Census data.

In the coming months, Google said, it will work with the Kapor Center for Social Impact, a group that uses information technology to close gender and ethnic gaps in the Silicon Valley workforce. The center will be organizing a Google-backed conference in California focusing on issues of technology and diversity.

Co-founder Freada Kapor Klein, who started the Level Playing Field Institute 13 years ago to teach and mentor black and Latino students in science and math, said Google is showing leadership "which has been sorely needed for a long time."

"Google is the company known for the moonshot, and applying that part of Google DNA to this problem is a breath of fresh air," she said.

Earlier this year, the Rev. Jesse Jackson launched a campaign to diversify Silicon Valley, asking to meet with leaders of several iconic technology companies about bringing black and Hispanics into their workforce and leadership.

Since then, he's been leading delegations to annual shareholder's meetings at firms including Google, Facebook, eBay Inc. and Hewlett-Packard.

On Wednesday Jackson said Google is to be commended.
"It's a bold step in the right direction. We urge other companies to follow Google's lead," he said.

"Silicon Valley and the tech industry have demonstrated an ability to solve the most challenging and complex problems in the world. Inclusion is a complex problem — if we put our collective minds together, we can solve that too."

Iris Gardner, a manager at nonprofit Code2040, which places high performing black and Latino software engineering students in internships with top tech companies, said Google's disclosure could mark a pivotal moment in the push to diversify Silicon Valley.

"It is a big deal for them to be transparent about something that most companies haven't in the past been willing to share," she said.
___
Follow Martha Mendoza at https://twitter.com/mendozamartha

[Koul]

This type of stuff is always curious to me. I'm probably just naive but couldn't it just be that they aren't finding qualified black or latino people to work for them...? Since white males are the majority they would of course have a higher ratio of them in their workforce.

It reminds me of when SNL got called out for not having a black woman in the cast. The said they just didn't find someone who fit the role and then finally did and lo-and-behold. She's terrible. I guess forced diversity is still diversity

[Hatedregret]

I've never been a fan of forced diversity either. I like to believe it comes down to actual talent more often then not.

[Cantih]

Also, I wonder why they did not include Asians in the data.

That is somewhat odd. I mean, I don't see how that data could harm them.
Well, if the Asian numbers were higher than the white numbers, the terkerjerbs supremacist crowd might chime up. But fuck those people.

I'm surprised the female percent was that high, it's not equal to demo numbers yet, but it's not bad.
But then I thought, oh, I wonder how many are non-CS positions.

[Mazmaz]

What? They did. It was 30% asian. You just have a bad source.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/google-...orce-1.2657722

[Aksannyi]

This type of stuff is always curious to me. I'm probably just naive but couldn't it just be that they aren't finding qualified black or latino people to work for them...? Since white males are the majority they would of course have a higher ratio of them in their workforce.

It reminds me of when SNL got called out for not having a black woman in the cast. The said they just didn't find someone who fit the role and then finally did and lo-and-behold. She's terrible. I guess forced diversity is still diversity

This is what bugs me, too. Diversity is great and all that but if there aren't any blacks, Hispanics, females, etc. who are able to do what Google needs them to, why would they hire them? That's not really Google's fault. It's not really anyone's fault. I obviously can't presume to know what types of jobs those demographics (on average) are interested in. Do we really need to try to force interest in certain fields just to fulfill some magical number for diversity? Maybe what we need to look at is how many applicants there are. If there aren't a lot of minorities applying, how can they hire them?

I just don't think you can go off who is currently employed. Now if you have a bunch of women, for example, applying for jobs at Google but being passed over then maybe there's a problem (which is almost impossible to prove) but as it stands, I see no real problem. If these minorities aren't interested in Google or any of the fields for which they employ, why force the issue?

Just another example of people making issues where there are none. :/

[Mazmaz]

This just in, the colour of your skin determines your interest in careers in the tech industry! And later, white people confused about the benefits of a diverse work force? We'll have the answers for you after this break!

[Aksannyi]

I'm not saying skin color/gender necessarily impacts interest. Just maybe, there aren't a lot of women, blacks, or Hispanics who even want to work at Google. That's why I'm saying maybe application data in addition to who actually works there would be useful, so there's some basis for comparison. That way you could actually see if there are people applying who are being turned down who fit into those demographics.

And yes I know full well the benefits of a diverse workforce but attempting to force it is ridiculous.

[Byrthnoth]

Your approach to affirmative action depends on what you philosophically believe. I'd basically split it into two groups:
1) We should have affirmative action, because people with different backgrounds (including race) are a little bit different and will bring their own perspective when assessing a given problem. In this case, it makes sense to attempt to create diversity in all social groups from primary school to college to the workplace. You're always addressing problems that you could benefit from another background's expertise. I see this as the "Liam Neeson character" argument. Sure Liam Neeson might be an asocial killing machine, but there's going to be a time when you need a certain set of skills, so it's worth tolerating inefficiency from your Liam Neeson mailman until then.

2) We should have affirmative action, because all people are equal and should be afforded equal opportunities. In this case, affirmative action would be logical for things like college admission, where it likely helps people attain goals that society otherwise wouldn't have let them meet. But what goals is it helping you attain when you're out in the workforce? If affirmative action exists so people can use it to become more qualified for jobs, once you're done upping your credentials, "welcome to the real world, motherfucker."


I'm a #2 kind of guy, in that I think we should have forced racial and economic desegregation at all primary schools in all states. I feel that affirmative action at the corporate level is just a matter of picking winners and losers. That said, we aren't really meeting our obligation until we genuinely provide equivalent education opportunities, and perhaps creating social pressure for companies to hit racial ratio metrics will result in them working to change the school system and eventually effect the right change in kind of a backwards way.

[Cream Soda]

I've never been a fan of forced diversity either. I like to believe it comes down to actual talent more often then not.

This

[Lucavi]

I'm not saying skin color/gender necessarily impacts interest. Just maybe, there aren't a lot of women, blacks, or Hispanics who even want to work at Google.l

And just maybe not all men are assholes who want to rape you.

Huh. How about that.

[Aksannyi]

And (although that's not this thread) maybe I never once said that. Ever.

[Mina]

Ice, thin. Don't derail.

I've never been a fan of forced diversity either. I like to believe it comes down to actual talent more often then not.

I'm not going to deny that forced diversity has landed me jobs I wasn't qualified for. The only blessing in that is that I am a pretty quick learner and I make up for my lack of experience. On the same coin, I've seen people hired for the same reasons who are about as useful as a handful of broken paperclips.

[wipers]

http://memecrunch.com/meme/KSS7/i-m-...sity/image.png

[Meresgi]

This just in, the colour of your skin determines your interest in careers in the tech industry!

Grasping at straws.

It reminds me of when SNL got called out for not having a black woman in the cast. The said they just didn't find someone who fit the role and then finally did and lo-and-behold. She's terrible. I guess forced diversity is still diversity

Yeah Google is like the mecca for a lot of IT people and very competitive when applying to work for (Didn't anyone see the movie about this???...oh wait). I'm guessing Asian is encompassing India as well, if so I would have thought it be higher then just 30%. I'm sure people cry foul at the lack of black people but it's probably representative of the IT world as a whole, which is mostly white guys and asians.

[Blubbartron]

Nthing the response of "forced diversity is bullshit and/or retarded." I work in software development, on a team that's far more female than most other teams, and I called out one of the lady programmers for being over-excited about getting another new developer that happened to be female. I give literally zero fucks about gender, race, etc, providing I can communicate with the person and they are intelligent/competent.

[Mistress Stowastiq]

That is somewhat odd. I mean, I don't see how that data could harm them.
Well, if the Asian numbers were higher than the white numbers, the terkerjerbs supremacist crowd might chime up. But fuck those people.

I'm surprised the female percent was that high, it's not equal to demo numbers yet, but it's not bad.
But then I thought, oh, I wonder how many are non-CS positions.

Without taking demographics measurements but having grown up in Silicon Valley, I would guess that it has a very large Asian community so it seems out of place not to include them. Perhaps it is not standard to include Asians into part of diversity demographic data collection ? BG demographics experts?? Anyone know?

---

As for "forced diversity", sometimes for reasons of cultural norms, less opportunity, discouragement, lack of information or family history in the profession, it is not enough to rely solely on people naturally migrating to a profession that is not heavily populated by others in their minority group. The less of a demographic group that is in a profession, the more discouraging and challenging it can be to naturally end up being there without any internal or outside help that comes from the myriad of sources who reach out to young people in minority communities/groups to provide role models and examples of people just like them who have taken that path and succeeded.

It can present extra challenges on top of the normal challenges that one encounters when considering a profession or stimulating interest and curiosity early on in grade school, high school college, if it is not an expected pattern that your family, friends, peers and role models have already been in and can advise or encourage you to do so.

Sure, one can overcome just about any obstacle if they are determined enough to but there is a higher chance that a person will study or train in a profession that they are familiar with from examples, from role models throughout their life encouraging a person to instead take that choice instead of something that they are unfamiliar with, within their culture or social group.

For some people, "forced diversity" or diversity programs and outreach can be the only source of that path in a person's life. It would be a perfect world if we could just rely on a natural selection kind of ethic and know that people who are born with demographical barriers to opportunity will all thrive in a way equal to those who don't have the barriers and we could know that it would balance out. Also it is not realistic to rely on all companies to do what Google did and actually consider the fact that those people have not naturally migrated to their profession. Some companies will not do so without incentives, diversity education and regulations. Some companies continue to not diversify even though there are outside forces encouraging them to.

But fortunately there are people, governments and companies willing to reach out to break those barriers down and show the way.

[bluefan]

Yeah Google is like the mecca for a lot of IT people and very competitive when applying to work for (Didn't anyone see the movie about this???...oh wait). I'm guessing Asian is encompassing India as well, if so I would have thought it be higher then just 30%. I'm sure people cry foul at the lack of black people but it's probably representative of the IT world as a whole, which is mostly white guys and asians.

This, pretty much. Well in my city anyways.

And at my buddies work they do want to hire some more ladies and non-Caucasian people...but what the hell are they supposed to do if 99% of applicants are Caucasian men and the 1% that do apply aren't qualified?

I can literally count the number of females and non-Caucasian peeps who were enrolled in my technology/networking courses over a 5 year span.

2 females and 1 African international student and roughly 10, including me, non-Caucasians.

[tyven]

i happen to think the black chick on SNL is quite good thank you very much

[Aksannyi]

I think Koul was talking about the first one, wasn't there a black chick in the late 80s/early 90s? Or am I thinking of something else?