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Re:Apple WWDC20 by kenneth on Friday June 12, 2020 @09:50PM (#23505991)
The CEO of the company is famously gay and traditionally gives the bulk of the keynote.
Re:Apple WWDC20 by dang on Friday June 12, 2020 @10:15PM (#23506140)
"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re:Apple WWDC20 by olliej on Friday June 12, 2020 @09:47PM (#23505956)
WWDC has actually been very good in terms of not being just straight white and male.

The first is obviously kind of meaningless - presenters aren't standard up and announcing their orientation at the beginning of each session.

But if you actually do watch there are numerous PoC and woman in the sessions.

Is it a flawless representation of the real world? no, while apple may have better stats than other tech companies, that's still a super low bar.

Even once people accept that there is a problem, meaningfully changing the diversity of a large company takes time because you the large existing set of employees will swamp the overall company stats for many years.

Re:Apple WWDC20 by nomel on Friday June 12, 2020 @10:04PM (#23506080)
Plus, the demographic of people graduating with CS/engineering degrees should be really close to your hired demographic, if there’s no bias. These tech companies don’t control the output of those universities, which do have a bias. That bias will change slowly, as well.
Re:Apple WWDC20 by olliej on Friday June 12, 2020 @10:20PM (#23506169)
Tech companies have a bias as to what universities they hire from, which when coupled with people recommending others they know, results in a reinforcing policy.

I am aware of people and execs who would preferentially choose Ivys and the big private schools, sometimes even specific schools (e.g. Stanford grads). Given the high end schools have also historically been super racist (e.g. explicitly banning black people entirely until that was ruled absolutely illegal), and still maintain that racism after that through a bunch of subtle mechanisms - for a number it's still seemingly deliberate.

It should be fairly clear how in that environment it is necessary to explicitly pay attention to who and how you're hiring in order to avoid simply reinforcing and repeating existing biases.

Re:Apple WWDC20 by nomel on Friday June 12, 2020 @10:52PM (#23506328)
Very good point.
Re:Apple WWDC20 by aspenmayer on Friday June 12, 2020 @10:08PM (#23506100)
If the industry doesn’t produce the desired diversity, Apple could always create its own in-house training program. I think that’s a great idea, actually, as long as it’s open to all prospective applicants equally, ideally for no charge to the learner. Even better would be to open it to the public, gratis.
Re:Apple WWDC20 by xwdv on Friday June 12, 2020 @10:24PM (#23506179)
I’m not disagreeing with you.
Re:Apple WWDC20 by rsynnott on Friday June 12, 2020 @10:02PM (#23506071)
I’m sure straight white men will survive.
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Re:Apple WWDC20 by olliej on Friday June 12, 2020 @09:48PM (#23505972)
... the community being the world? Not just the "tech community" as it currently stands.
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Re:Apple WWDC20 by olliej on Friday June 12, 2020 @10:14PM (#23506133)
... seriously?

Developers are not the community. Why is that a hard concept?

Apple is a Bay Area company, based in America. It should statistically show something closer to the actual diversity of the country. Pointing at the developer community as being what companies should be reflective of simply says "maintain the same set of biases".

Re:Apple WWDC20 by wait_a_minute on Friday June 12, 2020 @10:45PM (#23506287)
The demographics in that graphic are not something that is closer to the actual diversity of the country. You are really missing the point.