back to article Silicon Valley royalty royally slammed for 'persistent, troubling deficit' of diversity

A trio of US Democratic congresswomen have criticized top tech firms' lack of diversity. In an op-ed for The San Jose Mercury News, California Representatives Zoe Lofgren, Anna Eshoo and Barbara Lee called out Silicon Valley's technology houses for the low numbers of women and minorities in their ranks. "It is painfully clear …

  1. ratfox

    Mostly due to the disparity in job applicants, but can still do better.

  2. Mark 85

    So it's better to hire the underqualified? Or maybe they're not underqualified but not interested? I guess to the lawmakers, the not interested part doesn't concern them since they want to play the numbers game. I thought we were past reverse discrimination. I guess not.

    And yes, the US went through a period of reverse discrimination after the Civil Rights Act was passed. It was brutal for us white guys. The double whammy was if you were a white male and Vietnam vet.

  3. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Trollface

    The waaahambulance of the imperfect reality

    "Diversifying the tech workforce will not only boost the bottom line, but also provide African-American, Latino and female students with success stories in a field largely devoid of role models,"

    Procedure for standard liberal dream of endless neurotic fixing:

    0) Select a domain à la mode: "tech sector", "biotech", "boardroom members" etc.

    1) Apply arbitrary adjectives to persons working in that domain, at least one of which must be "female" and one "african", (sorry "african-american"). Bonus for shoehorning "differently abled" into this.

    2) Declare that there exists a non-uniform distribution over the classes defined by above-stated adjectives of above-stated domain

    3) Declare that this non-uniform distribution is somehow undesirable, bad or "non/sub-optimal"

    4) Declare that this non-uniform distribution can - and should - be whitened by application of money, will or legislation

    5) Declare that there exists money and manpower out there that can be legislatively allocated with no opportunity costs to the task of the aforementioned whitening

    7) Declare that aforementioned whitening will relieve a "lack of role models"

    8) Declare that aforementioned whitening will be "good for the bottom line"

    9) At the end of the month, extract money from the economy to pay yourself for a job well done

    10) Goto 0)

    1. MondoMan
      Facepalm

      Re: The waaahambulance of the imperfect reality

      Probably could have chosen a better word than "whitening"...

    2. Ye Gads
      Angel

      Re: The waaahambulance of the imperfect reality

      Ain't nothing liberal about this, mate.

      Liberals are all about equality of process. You're equal in front of the law, you're allowed to sell your goods or labour in the market without hindrance. You're free to act as long as the person with whom you are acting consents and nobody else is disadvantaged. You have the right to own property (but not people) and do with it as you like. Liberals believe you should have just enough government, and no more, to enforce these freedoms.

      What you've got here are a bunch of innumerate people who haven't given a thought about the size or source of their sample. Actually, that's not true. They probably have given it some thought but don't care. This isn't liberalism, this is just bad politics.

  4. Steven Roper

    I'd really like to rip these do-gooders a new one, but I'm currently suffering from rant fatigue and can't be arsed. Most of the regulars here know what my responses to this shit are anyway, and you've heard all the arguments before, so I'll just register my strong disapproval here and leave it at that.

  5. Buzzword

    News flash: Vatican found to employ too many Catholics, not enough members of other religions.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Taking Pride In Connecting With Diverstiy

    Says the message in our lifts at work.

    Somehow diversity has become a goal in itself rather than a means to an ends. I have no problem whatsoever about hiring the best person for the job regardless or race, creed, sexual preference or gender. I do have a problem when the goal isn't hiring the best people.

    And yes, I have no idea what "Taking Price In Connecting With Diversity" actually means.

  7. Foolishimp

    I spent almost 10 years doing a startup in the valley.

    My entire team was indian or chinese developers, the exec team was mostly Taiwanese Americans with BAs from Stanford. My QA team was ALL Russian girls imported from the Russian QA School in San Francisco, I was pretty much the only white guy in the team and I'm Australian!!

    Silicon Valley works because it goes where the most *cost effective* talent is.

    1. anatak

      not good enough

      because you are the CEO and white. Please try again. (some politician's thinking)

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ass clowns abound

    Especially in the U.S. Congress. You can get all the representation you want - for a price.

  9. cageordie

    Get a grip

    It's not diversity, they want a specific diversity that fits the axe they want to grind.

    We are a tech startup. We have 29 employees. Of those 5 are women, 5 are Indian, a Russian, two Brits, an Austrian, four Chinese, a German. We hire whoever has the skills we need. We have predominantly late thirties to late fifties, only a few younger folks.

    I have never met a female African American software engineer. My previous company had several African American males.

    We can't hire people who don't have the qualifications and experience. I have three months to go from bare machine to a working embedded system with closed loop control and monitoring. I can't hire someone without the qualifications and experience required to do that without supervision in the available time.

  10. Technological Viking

    More patronizing than the patriarchy

    So a tech company that's been hiring on merit is encouraged (read:threatened) by congress members to increase its diversity. What's the only way to increase diversity? By looking at the most superficial aspects of employees and making uneducated and offensive assumptions, of course!

    "Oh, hello person with a different skin tone. You must be diverse from me, because there's no way you and I could be similar!"

    "I see you're a gender or sexuality other than my own. Clearly that impacts your psyche, education, background, and way of life, because we're soooo different from each other! Why would you and I ever be equal? We must be different!"

    Why is it that people that push so much for diversity and equality don't see that the assumptions that they make regarding superficial things are actually promoting schisms?

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