Your response is confusing to me. His son telling the story 70 years later hardly qualifies as boasting. I'm not sure what is short-sighted about the first black man hired by IBM helping other blacks get hired in an era of not just systematic, but explicit and open racism. Perhaps you're saying it's short-sighted if he got caught or brought in unqualified people, but he was no doubt keenly aware of the stacked deck against him and wanted to help level the playing field for others. This strikes me as more altruistic than short-sighted.

I think he was saying it was unwise to tell anyone about it.

The specific thing I was thinking, was that the guys who got in after them probably had their own stories of being "the 2nd or 3rd black guy in an IBM office" - which I'd have thought would likewise be a source of pride to them and their families.

Then this appears, which might indicate that they might (maybe didn't happen, maybe not to this candidate) have had the interview answers given to them. It potentially taints.

Folks sometimes say two wrongs don't make a right, but when I look at this kind of thing and try to put myself in the shoes of a person that's experienced race-based bullying their entire life and are trying to edge up any way they can and against pretty much all odds, it looks less like a wrong and more like opportunism.

Yep, but it doesn’t help any arguments about a minority being as technically capable when they are literally cheating to get in.

I've met brilliant technical people from every race I've ever thought to recognize. I don't need any further argument to understand that there are brilliant individuals of all races.

So, you read this article which talked about how Thomas Watson and IBM helped Nazis perpetrate genocide, and the 'taint' you're worried about is a few black people who might have been helped to get a job? You've got to be joking, right?

Do I detect the use of past tense? It still happens regularly.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Amadou_Diallo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Eric_Garner https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Walter_Scott https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Trayvon_Martin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Markeis_McGlockt...

And these are just recent incidents where the victims were lucky enough to have their stories told and be remembered. Stuff like this happens all day everyday. Job descrimination more so. Why did we spend four trillion dollars (adj) fighting Hitler?

I'm not sure how it is any different than studying for whiteboard interviews. Especially in a time period when educational opportunities were not equal.

The article is written in an ambiguous fashion.

If it was "This is the type of interview and type of questions you're likely to come across" - then I've no real issue. As you mention, educational opportunities were not equal, so maybe counteracts the implicit bias of not being provided with general information from tutor/peers/previous-experience - "this being your first IT interview, you should know.." or "how a bunch of white guys tend to do things"

Story is being re-told through the father, son, book and now newspaper article - so who knows.

Does a person have an obligation to respect the rules of a system that, at best, only pretends to treat them fairly?

There's sometimes room for civil disobedience, where you openly stand up to authority and say you can't follow the rules because they're unconscionable.

Secretly breaking the rules because the system isn't fair is like lying because the truth will get you in trouble. It doesn't right any wrong or effect any change; you're just taking advantage of everyone who assumes you're an honest person.

> Secretly breaking the rules because the system isn't fair is like lying because the truth will get you in trouble.

So according to you, Jews in Nazi Germany should have come out as Jews instead of pretending to pass off as gentile?

It's a lot different. It's easy to memorize a few answers. It's hard to memorize the entire corpus of material, in ignorance of what might be on the test. Yes, educational opportunities were unequal at the time. No, that does not make this a good way to equalize them.

I don't remember hearing that IBM suffered a huge losses (or any) as a result of this, so could it then be that it wasn't such a big deal?

There's so many variables at play when hiring it's just silly to presume that 100% perfect fairness in tests is of any huge significance to "fairness" of outcome or to maximizing the benefits for a company, especially when compared to the things like racial or other purely personal biases. The idea of "keeping the bar high" is too idealized, as tests and interviews even today just measure how prepared is that person for taking the tests, and not the real world knowledge and abilities. Ultimately what company really cares about is estimating the future performance of that employee, not just the knowledge. People who had to fight hard for a chance to work will often be much better hire and work harder and do more for the company, than someone a little more knowledgeable, but who lacks that kind of drive.

So if IBM didn't suffer or (publicly) disclose huge losses, it doesn't matter that someone scammed them into hiring unqualified engineers?

Why do you assume they were unqualified?

We already know IBM failed to hire qualified black engineers because they were black. This may well have been cases of qualified people working around a corrupt system.

The first black IBM engineer isn't going to want new black hires to be incompetent -- quite the opposite. He likely did his own screening.

> Why do you assume they were unqualified?

Because the point of being given the answers is to meet qualifications that you don't actually possess.

Or to help you to outperform everyone by such a large margin that racist don't have an excuse not to hire you for being black?

In this case, there was racial discrimination, so they were unlikely to be hired even if they possessed the qualifications.

So what was the point of giving them the answers, then?

I can't tell if you're being sincere or not, but I'll assume the best and respond sincerely.

Let's say you have two candidates, one white and one black. In IBM's case, it was more likely they had hundreds of white candidates and a handful of black candidates.

Now assume your hiring managers or practices are racist, which we know IBM's were (as were most companies' at that point, when it would still be 20 years before racial discrimination became illegal).

Finally, assume that the average scores of the black and white engineers are similar. It shouldn't really matter, because (as we've seen from LSAT scores, Google's HR, and other sources) no test has been developed that's a good measure of future productivity.

In this situation, you're never going to hire the black engineer. Even if you yourself aren't racist, you know you likely have colleagues who are. You see hiring the black engineer as risky.

If the black engineer instead has excellent test scores, you as a non-racist hiring manager get to cover your ass.

Does that make sense? Coaching on tests was a way of counteracting the racism. It had no bearing on whether the candidates were less qualified in this case.

> I don't remember hearing that IBM suffered a huge losses (or any) as a result of this, so could it then be that it wasn't such a big deal?

That is a pretty silly argument that you wouldn't make in any other context. For instance, I also don't recall hearing that IBM suffered huge losses as a result of rampant discrimination. But that doesn't mean that they should do it.

> There's so many variables at play when hiring it's just silly to presume that 100% perfect fairness in tests is of any huge significance to "fairness" of outcome or to maximizing the benefits for a company, especially when compared to the things like racial or other purely personal biases.

I don't recall making that assumption. However, it's clear that any benefit the test may have had in selecting candidates is completely subverted by giving them the answers. And it's certainly not up to this guy to make that decision.

> The idea of "keeping the bar high" is too idealized, as tests and interviews even today just measure how prepared is that person for taking the tests, and not the real world knowledge and abilities. Ultimately what company really cares about is estimating the future performance of that employee, not just the knowledge. People who had to fight hard for a chance to work will often be much better hire and work harder and do more for the company, than someone a little more knowledgeable, but who lacks that kind of drive.

That may well be true. And when you create your own IBM, you can apply whatever candidate selection method you like. Maybe your method will be so good that your company will outperform all the others. However, IBM has their method and it is not the right of some random engineer to subvert that process for their own personal reasons.

Secondly, while it's true that "IQ like" puzzle tests may not be a good method of filtering candidates, it is not the case that knowledge tests have no value. For an engineering job, there is absolutely a minimum knowledge bar you need to pass to be effective. If you can't code FizzBuzz, you probably don't belong in an engineering role, basically anywhere. We don't know which type of test these were. Or at least, I don't.

Obviously the amount of material is different, by a few of orders of magnitude. No one will be able to memorize all possible whiteboard questions.

It’s not, except for bragging about the theft of the material and sharing part.

Telling people what kind of questions are asked, or what topics are important is very different from telling people the specific questions and answers!

He passed them on to promising(!) applicants. That means he was substituting his judgement of applicants' skills for those applicants' interviewers.

Assuming (somewhat fairly) that racism was a factor in IBM's hiring decisions at the time, it's reasonable to believe his judgement to be better.

Since he would never have a chance to influence more than a small fraction of IBM's many hires, any "reverse racism" he might exhibit in his judgement would still fall short of tipping the balance.

And, of course, several factors would moderate any pro-black bias: he has a clear interest to only promote competent candidates able to change people's minds. The candidates would still need to be able to convince their interviewers, etc.

Maybe unwise and short-sighted. Human beings aren't perfect, even who fight racism. I think his legacy goes far beyond that point.

There are many sites which have interview questions of famous tech companies, looking at those questions is cheating?

It becomes cheating when it's an unfair advantage that isn't available to other people. The fact that it was cheating based on race makes it problematic. The fact that black applications likely faced other unfair difficulties makes it less problematic.

I guess it boils down to whether you think life should be like golf, where (terrible term in this context, apologies for the usage here) you carry a handicap to level the playing field.

Black engineer here at a FANG. I do this all the time with black candidates who interview. In fact I use my round to coach them on the upcoming rounds and give them stellar feedback afterward. I know many would think this is ethically egregious, but it is only balancing the unbelievable prejudice against them by Asian interviewers who would not pass a black candidate under any circumstance.

Pretty common in this industry. I worked at a few major companies( check article below). Not only was racism widespread, you were looked badly at for not helping your race.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/morgansimon/2019/01/28/what-mig...

It's actually very complicated, because there were a lot of backroom deals between the two major races to make it not look like racism.

This was my impression of politics in Mississippi. There was just enough back and forth on racial tension issues to keep both sides donors going strong and the incumbents at the trough.

(I'm assuming you're speaking in good faith, though I don't yet understand your reasons for saying everything you did.)

I appreciate your intent in trying to re-balance against prejudice.

I also appreciate you helping out candidates with good advice, when you do it. That's what we should do for all colleagues, before, during, and after interviews, as mutually-supportive people of goodwill. And doing it more in some cases makes sense.

I'm concerned about a pattern of racism you allege, and that sounds like something to investigate. I believe there's ample data that could be looked at. I don't know about your organization, but, some places, it would be politically safe to raise this important concern with your manager or HR. It's not a happy thing to look for, but looking for it, and figuring out how to fix any problems that appear, is the right thing to do (for the organization, and for greater society).

The other side of that concern is that you seem to be singling out another labeled group, and stereotyping over them. That doesn't sound fair to that group, nor to all the individuals within it. I think that good practice for fighting injustice includes striving to improve things everywhere, including root causes -- not thinking only of the injustices with which we are most immediately familiar.

The automatic stellar feedback might be a concern. I'm sure there's room for subjectivity, discretion, and holistic assessments, and maybe your stellar feedback fits within that. When I've given boosts to less-advantaged candidates (for various reasons, including "undiscovered diamonds in the rough"), I've been upfront with my peers and superiors about that. A big part of our job as engineers is to give characterizations and counsel, and, when we have something important to say, we want to be respected and taken seriously.

Interviewed at multiple faang. You are 100% correct about Asians. They are extremely biased and discriminatory towards black candidates. Especially engineers. They hold the bar much higher for black candidates. They purposely ask harder and more abstract questions. Especially when it comes to coding. Ive seen this and experienced it myself as an engineer manager. Let's not even get into how they coach each other for interviews. If it was up to them there would bo ZERO black engineers in tech. Call out the unfair practices. They are definitely there.

Is it fair to assume then that when you interview an Asian candidate, you will hold them to a much higher bar than black candidates? Or perhaps under no circumstances would you pass them for a role that another Black candidate is applying for?

I'm Asian, worked at FANG, have never discriminated against someone based on their ethnicity and frankly find your actions shortsided and regressive. You're fighting perceived racism with actual racism.

He didn't say all Asian interviewers were racist. But I certainly saw that subtle "not one of us" bias at Google for black candidates and employees.

FAANGs are still American companies. They didn't check their historical baggage at the door.

By using racist hiring policies, OP is perpetuating the same "racist baggage" we have worked so hard to cast off.

When a bank teller hands me a bag of cash because I'm pointing a gun a them, it's robbery.

When a police officer forces me to hand the bag of cash back to the cashier, it isn't robbery.

Motives and circumstances matter.

> America's "historical baggage"? As if every other nation on Earth doesn't have similar historical baggage.

Other countries' transgressions don't absolve the US', in the same way that other people's crimes don't absolve all criminals. And while there are probably few people that never break any laws, there's still a difference between murderers and jaywalkers. For countries, there are obviously small countries that avoided committing atrocities just by a lack of opportunity. There are recently formed countries that enjoy what for Germans born after 1945 is called "the good luck of being born late". And even among larger countries with long and sometimes dark histories, not all injustice is equal: it's plainly possible to see the injustice of France's conduct in Algeria while still acknowledging it pales in comparison to the Shoah.

I'm not saying the fact that human societies have historically been racist absolves the US, I'm saying it puts things in perspective (which you acknowledge is important).

In the world today the most racist nations are not the developed nations, but large parts of Southeast Asia, Africa and South America.

I think poster was referring to the historical baggage of Asian immigrants. They do come with a lot of historical baggage, especially Brahmin Indians and their reverence to the caste system that allots them special privileges. They openly discriminate against other castes here in the US so not exactly a surprise that they also extend that courtesy to blacks.

edit: op edited post so this response looks a little off.

Good catch, you're right. I can sympathize with how you must feel, but more racial discrimination is not the answer. This is because it leads to an arms race of discrimination. And then society falls apart.

Research shows that Indian immigrants discriminate against non-Indians.

https://www.brightworkresearch.com/enterprisesoftwarepolicy/...

Honest question from a fellow Asian: what would you say about the level of racism against African Americans among Asians?

For my part, I’ve had several unpleasant “oh, now that it’s just us Asians here let me tell you what I think” moments over the years.

Asians don’t really have that type of unity.

Maybe if it was, “Now that it’s just us Koreans, or Chinese, or Indians,” then maybe.

From my experience, Asian Americans are extremely progressive.

>I'm Asian, worked at FANG, have never discriminated against someone based on their ethnicity and frankly find your actions shortsided and regressive. You're fighting perceived racism with actual racism.

No one think they have ever discriminated against someone based on ethnicity. Even Donald Trump sincerely believes in his heart of hearts that he is the least racist person who has ever walked this good earth. But actions speak louder than words, and my real life experiences are not 'perceived', nor are the results. If a black candidate has two Asian interviewers in a loop, chances of hire are nil, no matter the skill of the candidate. This is based on a sample of ~15-20. I really wish tech companies collected data about the ethnic background of both the interviewers, candidates and the results to clearly illuminate this glaring problem, otherwise everything I say is anecdotal/heresay.

Even speaking for myself, when I've interviewed the only places I've received offers were during loops where there was a max of one asian interviewer.

As for your first question, I'm getting into murky waters but I'll admit that it is difficult to put aside the fact that every Asian you hire, makes it harder for another black candidate to get hired. But it's definitely not as simple as rejecting every asian candidate, definitely don't want to leave a pattern behind :)

> As for your first question, I'm getting into murky waters but I'll admit that it is difficult to put aside the fact that every Asian you hire, makes it harder for another black candidate to get hired. But it's definitely not as simple as rejecting every asian candidate, definitely don't want to leave a pattern behind :) i'l leave it there.

This has to be Poe's law. This is incredibly racist.

You don't understand what racism is.

Racism isn't always obvious and can definitely be subtle. But actively discriminating against a whole group of people based on ethnicity is cut and dry racism.

The grand parent said he was getting into "murky waters" but in fact he is fully submerged in the deep end of racism.

I think there's more informational value in hearing goog-anon's perspective than in condemning it.

Yes, goog-anon is doing candidates -- and the lawyers in Wilberg v. Google -- a huge favor by admitting on the record that there's explicit racial bias in their hiring process.

I've witnessed unconscious prejudices in myself e.g. toward female coworkers. I remember being livid because a female coworker corrected me in the presence of others. If she had done it in private I would have had no feelings about it. But I felt like it was a particular harm to my reputation on account of her gender.

If asked, I would strongly deny being even remotely sexist. Ironically, if I were in a position to hire or promote a female candidate or employee, I might be unreasonably biased toward the notion on account of wanting to have a diverse team. But in the aforementioned scenario I was caught inside of my own projections of an invisible pecking order.

The prospect that there are people who might have a similar reaction to my asserting myself while being a black man frightened me. I ruminated over past interactions, framing them in a completely different context.

Trying to make it in this industry has created a certain amount of anxiety and resentment, and it's compounded by the fact that I don't know which parts of it are my imagination or reality. I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to argue that everyone is prejudiced toward me, but rather my own constant uncertainty of how I'm perceived is both alienating and discouraging.

When using Asian here, are you referring to Indians or Chinese? As a black engineer, I have also experienced the same discrimination from Indians.

Both. But I'd definitely give the edge to Indians. My historical pass rate for Indian interviewers is dismal, like 2/25 (going back to when I was 16 y/o applying at KFC). I've had slightly better success with East asians. We talk about 'institutionalized' racism here in the US, but racism/discrimination is institutionalized in Indian culture and religions, and that's sadly not going away.

I wish there was a tactful way of requesting non-Indian interviewers, but there really isn't. There is no bigger waste of time than when you receive an interview schedule and see the names of the interviewers and 4/5 are Indian. Earlier in my career I'd go for the practice but I wouldn't even bother now tbh.

Indian here. I am sorry that you had been treated unfairly by anyone at all, and particularly by Indians.

For an iota of what it is worth, I _genuinely_ am happy to see black candidates. If anything I have a heightened sense of fairness and post interview I offer to spend extended time to attune them to the next interview rounds. In case I do happen to reject the candidate, I offer to write elaborate review from my notes (I take a lot of notes) with the hope it helps the candidate. Again, sorry.

They might be responding to your prejudice. Try dialing it down and see if you get more offers.

Yeah, I'm sure they could all smell my prejudice across the table.

On a serious note, to keep a long winded answer short, I'm well aware of the phenomena that your mindset does indeed effect your behaviour/signals you put out and that in turn does effect how people treat you, and mindset is not something that can easily be faked. I've always been hyper conscious about this going into interviews and have even paid for some in-person mock interviews at some point in my career during a rough patch to spot any anomalies/negative vibes I may be giving off.

Minorities fighting against one another for crumbs.

Please do the world a favor and blow the whistle (or at least speak anonymously to a journalist) instead of trying to subvert a broken system.

This problem gets written about every other month in the media. While revealing the details of my observations and experiences might be interesting, it's definitely not whistleblower material.

Your claim that the interviewers wouldn't pass black applicants "under any circumstances" is much stronger than any media report I've ever seen. Were you exaggerating?

> Were you exaggerating?

Only slightly. Very strong candidates will more than likely get a pass, but those are exceedingly rare and haven't seen one yet tbh. It's the majority who are genuinely borderline/just above average who will never get a pass/given benefit of the doubt that are given to others.

what color of skin has anything to do with coding test?

I honestly don't know what to think of your comment. I will say though, that from a perspective, you are basically saying you read with interest until you found a reason the "stupidly short-sighted" black man shouldn't have been hired.

When compared to the reality that almost an entire race of people in North America were stolen from their homes and brought to a new land as slaves to benefit their white owners... any potential wrong you are focusing on here is only visible with a microscope.

Your bad behavior doesn't need intent. You didn't need to intend to be a racist when you put him under a microscope like that -- but that doesn't mean you weren't racist when you decided it was important enough to write about. Especially considering the exact behavior is frequent among all races.

And it's the top comment at HN. I can't help but think this says something important about what is really going on.

Chill out.

The reason the original commenter doesn't like it is because said behavior is cheating. Injecting race as an attribute doesn't change the fact that the behavior is cheating.

AirBnB doesn't cheat? Uber? Facebook? Cheating and breaking rules is lauded in Silicon Valley, dare I say admired in entrepreneurs.

Black employees though, not so much.

This is racism.

EDIT: Before you start nitpicking my examples: http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html

"They delight in breaking rules..."

All 3 of those companies you mentioned are pieces of shit and I do not endorse their various elements of cheating. If you admire them, you're stupid and morally stunted.

Stop trying to make everything about race. It is all so tiresome.

Those companies are also wrong then. Stop justifying poor ethics by pointing at other examples of poor ethics, it's a race to the bottom.