> he goal of the advocates is to bill a lot of money and the goal of the company is to virtue signal.

You miss the biggest goal: for departments of diversity, inclusion, etc to gain more power and hires.

I've long wondered if this is the reason large, established companies (tech or non-tech) pour money into these seminars. It acts as a barrier to entry for smaller competitors who don't have giant piles of cash to spend on things like this, but now they have to because, well, they don't want to be the "racist startup".

My understanding is that it's to placate activist employees (or, if management are activists, to play out their beliefs).

My observation at past employers has been that D&I teams are consistently under-staffed and overwhelmed.