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Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by throwmeaway222 on Friday September 12, 2025 @12:50PM (#45224087)
I'm Indian so I can be excused for this,

but there is a MASSIVE number of execs -> hiring managers that are Indian and focus primarily on hiring only other Indians. It's extremely racist.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by nostrademons on Friday September 12, 2025 @01:05PM (#45224235)
I've noticed this as well, but see it mostly as "A players hire other A players, B players hire C players". The top tier of Indian execs/management that I've met will hire diverse teams, just like the top tier of every other ethnicity will as well. There's simply not enough people at the top to put a racial/ethnic/caste filter on it. But then once you get down to the second tier, people will happily hire people like themselves, because at that level you're hiring on vibes rather than data and similar people give you fuzzy comfortable vibes.

Unfortunately most Fortune 500 companies are in the hands of B players now, and it goes all the way up, with the government (multiple governments, really) being in the hands of B/C players. The A players are happily retired and pulling strings in the background with their 501(c)4s.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by mjcohen on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:16PM (#45227369)
The government is in the hands of D&F players.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by cyanydeez on Friday September 12, 2025 @07:28PM (#45227888)
Only because the politics of most common idiot id the cheapest for monied interests to manufacture.

Business is much worse at the same scale.

Infact, you probably cant find any org at large scale that functions in rational, logic driven capacity.

So theres just a bogeyman, not a useful critique of government.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by fijiaarone on Friday September 12, 2025 @08:00PM (#45228090)
That’s extremely racist to assume that Indian execs are all D tier or worse.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by lazyasciiart on Friday September 12, 2025 @09:25PM (#45228518)
That's clearly not an assumption that this sentence is based on: > The top tier of Indian execs/management that I've met will hire diverse teams
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by thrawa8387336 on Saturday September 13, 2025 @11:51AM (#45233062)
While I understand your bias to read that, please, read again.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by silentsea90 on Friday September 12, 2025 @01:27PM (#45224479)
There are also Indians who loathe being on such teams and actively seek diverse meritocratic teams, as one of those Indians.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by rootusrootus on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:27PM (#45227469)
I have seen this myself. I have also experienced more than a few Indian colleagues who were far more critical of Indians in management than the rest of us were. I feel like there is an extra layer of dynamics that just isn't apparent if you are not accustomed to seeing it.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by silentsea90 on Tuesday September 16, 2025 @12:20AM (#45257989)
In a way, the people that despise Indians most are Indians themselves :) I say it in a non violent way, as a self critique and a welcome embrace of ideas outside of the Indian mold.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by edm0nd on Friday September 12, 2025 @09:41PM (#45228622)
In the past, having to work with Indians from firms like Cognizant or HCL is pretty much torture. Instead of working with 2-3 Americans, you get stuck working with 10-20 Indians who dont know jack shit about shit.

Thankfully the company recently nuked their contracts and brought everything back on shore because of how much of a shit show dealing with those companies is lol. Literally tens of millions of dollars wasted.

Im kinda convinced that's their entire business plan. They lure these mega companies with omg "skilled labor" and having to pay them less, sign XX-XXXM contracts, 2-3 years go by and these mega corpos finally see how shit it is and just cancel them. HCL and Cognizant make money still regardless.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by teachrdan on Friday September 12, 2025 @12:52PM (#45224104)
Out of curiosity, do they favor hiring Indians in general, or Hindu Indians in particular. (To the exclusion of Muslim Indians)
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by zdragnar on Friday September 12, 2025 @01:04PM (#45224224)
It's been awhile since I've seen it, but there was a very brief and small wave of articles perhaps a few years back claiming a lot of Indians in the US were still facing caste-based discrimination (by skin color, name or something else, I'm not sure) by other Indian managers and execs.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by JumpCrisscross on Friday September 12, 2025 @01:12PM (#45224314)
Newsom vetoed the ban [1]. A pair of professors are having a bad time trying to got CSU’s ban on caste-based discrimination thrown out on the grounds of being religiously discriminatory [2].

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/09/us/california-caste-discrimin...

[2] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/23...

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by snozolli on Friday September 12, 2025 @01:17PM (#45224361)
Newsom vetoed the ban [1]

From that article:

In a statement explaining his veto decision, Newsom said the measure was “unnecessary” because discrimination based on caste is already prohibited in the state.

(Just adding context that I would have missed if not for another commenter pointing it out further down)

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by crooked-v on Friday September 12, 2025 @01:27PM (#45224470)
For whatever it's worth, that's been a consistent trend with other things Newsom has vetoed with statements that he considers the vetoed item to be already covered by other laws, including some purely technical legislative things. I think it's likely that he sees himself as trying to keep California bureaucracy from growing indefinitely, especially with his push for things like CEQA process reduction/simplification.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by notmyjob on Friday September 12, 2025 @02:22PM (#45225018)
It’s capital, political and financial. Everything costs, got to pay for gerrymandering somehow.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by jfengel on Friday September 12, 2025 @05:51PM (#45227177)
Vetoing costs. More than half the legislature voted for it.

It can win you a few friends but you lose more.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by ivewonyoung on Friday September 12, 2025 @01:21PM (#45224402)
> but there was a very brief and small wave of articles perhaps a few years back claiming a lot of Indians in the US were still facing caste-based discrimination

Those articles based on a lawsuit were very heavily promoted on HN, however the complaint was by a single disgruntled employee who just happened to invoke the caste card and the suit was thrown out by the court.

The California DoJ failed to do basic due diligence before filing the lawsuit to the extent that the defendants filed a civil suit saying they were being discriminated against because of their race by the CA DoJ. Of course, these followups never got any traction on HN, because they didn't fit the narrative.

And now there are so many people, especially on HN and other developer forums that are utterly convinced caste based discrimination is very prevalent.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by fragmede on Friday September 12, 2025 @02:17PM (#45224959)
What do you think the intersection between HN and Blind is?
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by ivewonyoung on Friday September 12, 2025 @03:16PM (#45225598)
I honestly don't know, you tell me? If you're trying to get at something, just say it instead of playing 20 questions.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by SilverElfin on Friday September 12, 2025 @05:47PM (#45227156)
In the end nothing came of those allegations. There was no evidence of it. Lawmakers, who seem to have an anti Indian bias, pushed legislation banning something that wasn’t happening. It seemed to really just be a way to harass Indians or their religion, which is why it got vetoed I think.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by decimalenough on Friday September 12, 2025 @08:01PM (#45228092)
Does caste discrimination still exist in India?

If yes, what leads you to believe that all first gen immigrants from India to the US magically stop doing it?

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by polotics on Friday September 12, 2025 @01:07PM (#45224249)
funny question, I believe we're more precisely talking about Brahmin "upper" caste hiring only from their caste. Muslims don't even come into the picture...
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by srameshc on Friday September 12, 2025 @01:15PM (#45224343)
I don't think so. I feel Indian managers have a tendency to hire anyone else but Indians. If they have to favor Hindu, Brahmin, Muslim is very subjective, depending on that person's background, but I would say very rare. If they really have a prefrence, it will be "the connect", like if they both can connect based on region (ex: Delhi or that region) but very few Indians of current generation would care about caste or religion.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by JumpCrisscross on Friday September 12, 2025 @01:23PM (#45224428)
> I feel Indian managers have a tendency to hire anyone else but Indians

I'd guess this varies massively depending on whether the hiring manager and the people they're hiring are H1-Bs.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by srameshc on Friday September 12, 2025 @04:56PM (#45226675)
Unless they have any personal advantage in doing so.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by tmule on Friday September 12, 2025 @09:08PM (#45228434)
This is a remarkable claim. Not a single Indian in tech that I know in my personal or professional life - numbering over a hundred - has ever disputed that Indians have strong (sub)ethnic affinities that color their views hiring. In addition, nepotism is a real thing in Indian culture. I’d be laughed out of a room with aforesaid folks if I claimed “Indian managers have a tendency to hire anyone else but Indians”. This is either deliberately misleading to “save face” on behalf of the community (another cultural trait), or you’re utterly oblivious in an outlying way to how things work.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by srameshc on Saturday September 13, 2025 @08:55AM (#45231702)
> Not a single Indian in tech that I know in my personal or professional life

Your dataset is very small. I come from India

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by tmule on Saturday September 13, 2025 @03:50PM (#45234804)
Yeah, Sherlock, where do you think I come from if I know upward of 100 Indians well enough to discuss ethnic nepotism with?
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by throwmeaway222 on Friday September 12, 2025 @12:53PM (#45224115)
that is definitely part of it
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by mystraline on Friday September 12, 2025 @01:02PM (#45224203)
Yep. And caste based discrimination is legal in the USA. Its not a protected EEOC class, as much as that doesn't matter in our legal environment.

So yeah, you can discriminate against Dalits, and hire predominantly Brahmins.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by jkaplowitz on Friday September 12, 2025 @01:07PM (#45224264)
Except in Seattle, which explicitly bans caste discrimination as of 2023, and in California, which interprets its own state anti-discrimination laws to already include caste discrimination in other broader categories (which was the reason Governor Newsom gave when he vetoed a bill in 2023 to explicitly ban caste discrimination).

Quite a lot of tech companies hire in either Seattle, California, or both.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by SilverElfin on Friday September 12, 2025 @05:48PM (#45227164)
What’s the evidence? I remember seeing allegations but all the court cases resulted in nothing, because there was no evidence of such discrimination.
[dead]
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by viridian on Friday September 12, 2025 @01:40PM (#45224587)
How so? There are 172 million Muslims in India.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by SilverElfin on Friday September 12, 2025 @05:53PM (#45227197)
I think he means since they aren’t originally “Indian” but are colonizers of India who arrived through invasion.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by oblio on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:29PM (#45227494)
That might have been the case 200+ years ago but for sure the majority of Indian Muslims these days are just descendants of converted Hindus and Buddhists, etc.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by anon291 on Friday September 12, 2025 @07:06PM (#45227766)
So are the brahmins. The indigenous religions of India are basically gone. Only remembered in various folklore.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by SilverElfin on Friday September 12, 2025 @07:58PM (#45228080)
Where can I read more about this? That the indigenous are gone?
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by anon291 on Monday September 15, 2025 @04:35AM (#45247443)
'Why I am not Hindu', an essay by Kancha Ilaiah is a good starting point. In the west, the narrative is that India = Hinduism..however Hinduism is a term the British made up to describe anything other than Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. The Brits classified Jains, Buddhists, and anyone else as Hindu.

However, when you get people to tell you various 'beliefs' of Hinduism , it's often very discordant, much more so than protestant/ Catholic / etc.

This is because there's hundreds of different sets of practices with various links. Due to migration selection, only some subset are commonly discussed in a western context.

But, in reality, the common people of India had a wide range of practice that is not the typical 'Indian' you hear about.

For example, many Indians in the west claim that Indians don't eat meat. This is a lie. Many groups have eaten meat since the time of the Indus Valley Civilization and still continue.

https://www.waterstones.com/book/why-i-am-not-a-hindu/iiaiah...

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by silverquiet on Friday September 12, 2025 @12:56PM (#45224147)
Most people (regardless of race) prefer to hire from within their network. It makes sense that Indians' networks would consist of other Indians.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by ajross on Friday September 12, 2025 @01:04PM (#45224221)
Yeah, "racist" seems to fail the Occam test here. But at the same time that makes it clear that the now-suddenly-unpopular opinion is also wrong. Diversity takes work, and companies need to guard against this kind of decisionmaking. "DEI" protects the native-born too!
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by JumpCrisscross on Friday September 12, 2025 @01:07PM (#45224257)
> ”racist" seems to fail the Occam test here

The word has lost meaning due to semantic overinclusivity.

By the Civil Rights era definitions, the process is racist. The people may not be. The process explicitly favours Indians. This isn’t some statistical mumbo-jumbo anti-racism construct, it’s the clear intent of the people involved and a clear effect of their actions.

What we can’t conclude from this is if the people involved think Indians are superior (versus just familiar).

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by Terr_ on Friday September 12, 2025 @05:50PM (#45227173)
This reminds me of the aphorism "The purpose of a system is what it does."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_w...

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by zdragnar on Friday September 12, 2025 @01:09PM (#45224277)
DEI arose to public consciousness around the same time that "whiteness" was often used as a synonym for bigotry and privilege. So long as academic circles (and those who come from them, such as the people now in HR departments) believe that having white skin is a sin, DEI will never be D, E or I.

The three words themselves are nice and generally good things to believe in, but the packaging philosophy it is wrapped up in is poisonous.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by ludicrousdispla on Friday September 12, 2025 @01:21PM (#45224407)
I've never met a single HR person that could be characterized as coming from, or even brushing up against, an academic circle.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by Spooky23 on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:25PM (#45227451)
Much the opposite. They are usually the weaker animals in the herd or people who flipped out of corporate finance to negotiate benefits.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by ajross on Friday September 12, 2025 @02:41PM (#45225211)
> HR departments [...] believe that having white skin is a sin

Can we just stop? This is a meme, it's clearly never been true. It's extrapolating from a bunch of intemperate stuff said by oddball losers (yes, often in academic environments which encourage out-of-the-box thinking and speech[1]) to tar a bunch of extremely bland policies enacted by HR and hiring managers (to ensure that their masters don't get sued) with an ideological brush.

We people with "white skin" are very clearly doing just fine in the job market.

[1] Something that in other contexts we at HN think is a good thing!

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by zdragnar on Friday September 12, 2025 @04:08PM (#45226173)
I've watched HR people break the law discriminating against white job applicants in the name of DEI. One in particular was fired for it, but it'd be foolish to think that it isn't happening more elsewhere.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by ajross on Friday September 12, 2025 @04:15PM (#45226253)
And the upthread commenter has personal experience with HR people discriminating too. So what? The answer is both cases is clear regulation, which is what DEI is about. Can it be misapplied? Sure. Do people do bad things? Obviously. Is the specific anti-white conspiracy you imagine a direct threat to society? Please.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by zdragnar on Friday September 12, 2025 @05:08PM (#45226777)
How is DEI about clear regulation? Equity is literally the opposite of "equal opportunity". It presumes that your skin color matters more than your personal circumstances.

And no, I don't think it is a threat to society. You don't need to invent fake arguments to put in my mouth.

All I said was that the packaging DEI is wrapped up in is toxic (actually, I said poison).

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by lazide on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:26PM (#45227454)
I’ve personally, repeatedly, and in writing seen HR actively discriminate against white men - as in refuse to hire them, and actively go out of their way to push them out due solely to their skin color and gender. At major fortune 50 companies. For years.

And I’m not the only one.

In fact, consent decrees with the DOL and at least one major fortune 50 (Google) explicitly required them to do so, to maintain ‘proportional representation with the population’ because of ‘over representation’. Meanwhile, Indian men got a free pass (for one example).

Trump is mostly bullshit, but he’s in power because of bullshit like this pissing people off. That is a threat to society.

Mostly because none of the things he’s doing are going to actually solve the problem but just get people angrier and angrier at each other. But the problem, at least at one point, was very real.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by gopher_space on Friday September 12, 2025 @05:28PM (#45226979)
One of the knock-on benefits of DEI is that it allows second rate minds to self-identify. Empathy is massively important in this line of work, and you need to be curious instead of confused and upset when you run into Chesterton's Fence.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by DaSHacka on Friday September 12, 2025 @09:37PM (#45228590)
Exactly, those without empathy for their fellow countrymen being unfairly discriminated against based on the color of their skin and gender identity really need to learn a hard lesson about judging others based on the character of the person and not their immutable characteristics.

It's a really good litmus test for finding those with empathy and good intellect, AKA the best kind of co-workers.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by SilverElfin on Friday September 12, 2025 @05:55PM (#45227225)
I wouldn’t say it’s people ‘preferring’ it. The fact is, finding people that are competent enough to be hired is easier through referrals than other ways. And if you are receiving referrals, why wouldn’t you put them through the hiring process to see if they’re talented enough to hire? Rejecting those because they share the same race as the hiring manager is itself racist (since it would be taking race/ethnicity as a factor). In most big companies the hiring process has enough checks and balances to prevent nepotistic hires anyways (for example hiring panels or bar raisers or whatever).
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by ares623 on Friday September 12, 2025 @05:59PM (#45227266)
This is why DEI is so important. It’s a blunt tool, but still a tool, to short circuit the basic human desire to be within their network.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by pessimizer on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:15PM (#45227360)
That's not what DEI does in practice. When you move away from merit hiring, you just end up hiring the minorities in your social network. Who, if they're from an "underprivileged" group, are usually even more privileged within that group than you are in yours, or else they wouldn't have met you.

i.e. you're in the top 20% of white people hiring from the top 1% of black people.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by lazide on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:37PM (#45227569)
Or ‘even better’, someone in the same circle who can somehow check the box you need. Harvard grads hiring other Harvard grads, etc.

Coarse grained attributes like race, gender, sex, religion, etc. are not useful predictors of individual behavior or background.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by coredog64 on Friday September 12, 2025 @08:40PM (#45228290)
At Amazon how I saw this work out was that we hired African immigrants rather than ADOS African-Americans.

Hilariously, we had an executive who said that his goal was to have the demographics of his division more closely resemble that of America. Until someone realized that South Asians are approximately 2% of the US population and were 50% of his division.

It's been years since I checked, but for non-DC jobs, Amazon's demographics are significantly less white than America as a whole. That's mainly Asians being hired in place of ADOS African-Americans and hispanics.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by deadbabe on Friday September 12, 2025 @12:59PM (#45224173)
Do you see them selectively picking based on the caste of the Indian?
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by gp90 on Friday September 12, 2025 @05:23PM (#45226924)
> It's extremely racist

I'm not sure if the motive behind such behavior is racism. Instead, I think it's more likely the power play. That is, they would pick the population that is the easiest to command and to push them up the corporate ladder.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by giancarlostoro on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:05PM (#45227305)
If the process becomes magically racist when everyone involved is white, but the only difference is another race or ethnicity, then its still racism.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by cess11 on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:15PM (#45227358)
The -ism suffix implies it's about a systemic hierarchy. Are you implying that power in the US is systemically, structurally, in the hands of "indians" and that this is reflected in and reproduced by the dominant social ideology?
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by johnsmith1840 on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:36PM (#45227562)
That's a made up deffinition only recently invented. Racism is hating another group of people based on physical or cultural background.

The US is the most powerful country does that mean if I go to india I can't experience racism because technically India is "weaker" ?

Isn't this example literally a group of stronger indians being racist to weaker individuals (job applicants)?

This also implies they are not hiring black, asian, or hispanic people either but because they're a minority that's ok?

Such a bad take.

[dead]
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by Podrod on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:56PM (#45227709)
This is an incredibly weird hill to die on.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by lazide on Saturday September 13, 2025 @06:04PM (#45235694)
Also, having lived in Asia before - Americans are totally amateur racists compared to Asians (well, east, southeast, and south anyway. Never lived in Central Asia).

Those aunties and uncles can discriminate you down to damn near the block you came from, even if it was on the other side of the planet, and tell everyone exactly why you’re a bad idea for reasons even you didn’t know about.

Signed, your good little gwailou.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by DontchaKnowit on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:33PM (#45227538)
I never understood this redefinition of the word... Racism means prejudice based on race. Period. Thats all it means. Redefining the word like you suggested is moving the political goalposts
[dead]
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by hdlothia on Friday September 12, 2025 @07:07PM (#45227775)
How do the nazis qualify as not prejudiced?
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by tux3 on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:50PM (#45227664)
I think you've earned a Godwin point. "The Nazis weren't prejudiced" isn't a great start to an argument, even as a strawman of someone else's position.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by DontchaKnowit on Friday September 12, 2025 @07:15PM (#45227817)
Ism doesnt mean systenic hierarchy. Does gigantism mean a systemic hierarchy of giants? Does botulism mean systemic hierarchy of botulinum. Hobestly what the hell are you talking about?
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by baxtr on Friday September 12, 2025 @07:21PM (#45227855)
So are you saying that if you were to put white people into a country that is systemically ruled by non-whites, they can’t be racist there?
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by techbro92 on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:30PM (#45227512)
At certain companies and it’s org structures yeah
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by oblio on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:26PM (#45227459)
What about these cases happening outside of the US?
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by tomhow on Friday September 12, 2025 @09:28PM (#45228533)
Please don't comment in this cross-examination style on HN. The guidelines ask us not to do this. Please observe the guidelines if you want to participate here, especially these ones:

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Eschew flamebait.

Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

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

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by mrtesthah on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:28PM (#45227480)
White people are fully in control of the government at all levels, as well as the economy, in this country. This power dynamic makes the difference between an act of discrimination vs one of racism.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by pcthrowaway on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:33PM (#45227544)
Ignoring whether the claim is accurate or not, if Indian hiring managers are preferentially hiring other Indians, yes of course this is racism, because it means they are also discriminating against all other PoC candidates, not just white people.

Please think a little bit harder before claiming something isn't racism because it might somewhat counteract the structural privilege enjoyed by white people. Yes, white privilege is a thing, and if the claim was that Indian hiring managers were giving preference to non-white people, your comment would at least be worth discussing in the context of a society which overall still privileges white people. But that wasn't even the claim.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by LudwigNagasena on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:31PM (#45227516)
That’s simply an outlandish claim. Most people are not in control of any level of the government.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by transcriptase on Friday September 12, 2025 @07:12PM (#45227810)
I mean there is that one group.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by tbrownaw on Friday September 12, 2025 @08:09PM (#45228136)
Which group? Politicians?
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by transcriptase on Friday September 12, 2025 @08:35PM (#45228257)
Illuminati, mole men, lizard people.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by wizzwizz4 on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:35PM (#45227557)
You can't compress the complexities of all social dynamics to a single axis. What's the distinction you're trying to make between "act of discrimination" and "racism"? Usually the distinction people try to draw is something like "systematic" vs "one-off" (the difference between one person yelling at you on the street, and lots of people yelling at you in particular throughout the month), but the behaviour alleged here is systematic. I suspect you don't have any particular meaning in mind, instead having taken a habit of language that works well in certain situations, and falsely generalised it outside of its domain of validity.

If you genuinely believe that the "single axis" approach is valid, please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by tomhow on Friday September 12, 2025 @09:26PM (#45228524)
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Eschew flamebait.

Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

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

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by mrtesthah on Sunday September 14, 2025 @02:36AM (#45237946)
Hmm ok, I don’t see how my comment violates those points. Did I lie?
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by dexwiz on Friday September 12, 2025 @05:39PM (#45227081)
I made the mistake once of insinuating the reason no else was complaining about current conditions was that everyone else was on a visa. That was pretty much the end of my job there. Which only made me more confident in my opinion in the end.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by decimalenough on Friday September 12, 2025 @07:54PM (#45228051)
Yup. You see this when any org hires a top exec externally: they bring their trusted lieutenants/golf buddies and push out the old brass, and then this repeats down the chain when these hires do the same.

Unsurprisingly, an Indian exec's trusted lieutenants and golf buddies will also be Indian, likely from the same university, caste, etc. They will not be hiring random people just because they happen to be Indian; if anything, there's been plenty of lawsuits over Indians of the "wrong" caste, language group etc getting pushed out.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by pclmulqdq on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:09PM (#45227326)
In other words, it's racism. Hiring your in-group because you have power within your in-group is racism.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by gp90 on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:58PM (#45227717)
How do we draw the line between whatever -ism and Bayesian inferences? You are seasoned manager for years, you found that your fellow countrymen are much more likely to follow your leadership style than any other group of different cultural background. Let's say it's a fact that you identified through years of trial and error. Based on this fact, you decide to hire only certain groups. How is this racism? How is this different from a university has a college list. Any graduate who does not graduate from the list will not have an interview with your company -- It's super narrow minded and it can considered discrimination, but is that some kind of -ism?
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by crazygringo on Friday September 12, 2025 @07:54PM (#45228058)
> you found that your fellow countrymen are much more likely to follow your leadership style than any other group of different cultural background

Two points.

First: a good, seasoned manager adapts their leadership style to their employees. So the premise is a bit backwards.

But second, let's suppose we use something more valid like "ability to follow instructions". And suppose there are real differences in groups. You still don't stereotype on groups, because lower-performing groups still have high-performing members. So you have your interview examine the actual skill you need on an individual basis. You don't make assumptions based on group membership.

Now, for practical reasons candidates need to be reduced to a reasonable number to interview. That should be done according to personal accomplishments and experience, not groups.

The college you went to is tricky. Only hiring from a select group is not very defensible mainly because it's a bad signal. It reflects mostly your high school test scores and grades, which was years ago. On the other hand, some colleges teach in certain departments better or worse, your grades might matter and depend on the college, etc. So you need to calibrate for a bunch of achievement-based signals where the college name can matter, rather than whitelist only certain colleges.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by pclmulqdq on Friday September 12, 2025 @07:09PM (#45227791)
If you're a seasoned manager, you have learned to work across cultural differences. Being a lazy manager who doesn't want to understand how to work with others is shortsighted on its own and is not an excuse for being a racist.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by sib on Friday September 12, 2025 @09:28PM (#45228535)
Because, in general, there is more variance within groups than across groups, so you are generalizing that an individual person within a group is more talented / capable / whatever than an individual person from outside that group. Ergo, you are treating that second person "unfairly" due to his / her group membership or lack thereof.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by relaxing on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:16PM (#45227367)
My brother in Vishnu what do you think racism is
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by SilverElfin on Friday September 12, 2025 @05:52PM (#45227190)
What makes you think they’re racist versus just hiring the best available talent? There are more Indians in universities than the general population, and a lot more of them in engineering degrees than other degrees. It makes sense there are lots of Indians in some industries, both in the management roles and in the populations that managers are hiring from.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by xienze on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:15PM (#45227366)
> What makes you think they’re racist versus just hiring the best available talent?

Yeah that’s never considered an acceptable argument whenever the ratio of white people in a company gets “too high”, don’t see why it should be any different with Indians.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by giancarlostoro on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:06PM (#45227311)
You really think nobody in the continental US can do good work in tech? You will have to fight really hard to convince me that all the talent is non existent.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by SilverElfin on Friday September 12, 2025 @07:02PM (#45227738)
I didn’t say non existent. But in short enough supply at the appropriate level of skill to have different skews without any discrimination happening
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by giancarlostoro on Friday September 12, 2025 @10:13PM (#45228770)
Software Engineering is not some obscure thing it is a known science that anyone can learn and become better at. I see Juniors who outpace Senior developers all the time.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by toss1 on Friday September 12, 2025 @06:23PM (#45227426)
It is not just racist, it also allows all kinds of exploitation and unethical practices.

I briefly worked for one such CEO in a major tech city. Core of Indian H1-B staff coders and about same amount of US white staff in both coding, customer-facing, and administrative roles. A lot of hiring was done rapidly. After less than six months the staff discovered the product being sold was basically a fraud (think summarization & classification of emails that could be handled by ChatGPT today, but back in early 2000s, the work was actually secretly being transmitted to staff in India every night, not the "AI" claimed). Of course, that was just one of the many layers of fractal dishonesty about that CEO and company.

So, within a few weeks the entire white staff quit. During the process of organizing to quit, we also found out we were at least the third wave of [all the white staff quitting]. Of course, through all of these waves of quitting all the H1-Bs stayed, because they had no choice.

Ironically, if it had been packaged honestly, it could have been a valuable and profitable service, but that wouldn't have been sellable to VCs (who were also being scammed).

So yes, cheaper, fully compliant with fraudulent practices, and racist to boot. A toxic brew.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by araes on Friday September 12, 2025 @07:11PM (#45227805)
Thanks, was actually my main question on reading the article. "Why go to all that effort if an American will accept the job for the same pay and you don't have to deal with sponsorship?" This seems like one of the most likely reasons. Racism's been mentioned, yet leverage over employees who have very little other alternative seems somewhat more likely. American's will just leave and go look for another job. Probably much larger chance of having them lateral to a different company also.

fmajid in another thread had a similar paraphrase

> H1-B holders have to find a new employer within 2 weeks or lose their visa, the threat of firing is the same thing as deportation, making for a form of indentured servitude.

It's probably greater difficultly to lateral also, since then there's another company talking with the government about sponsorship on somebody you're already sponsoring. A lot of banks and financials already have standing threats to fire anybody they even find looking around.

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by tomhow on Friday September 12, 2025 @09:46PM (#45228650)
Please don't post in this inflammatory style on HN. You've set off a whole flamewar – nearly 100 comments so far – with many of the comments debating the definition of racism. This is the last thing we need here.

The overall topic is important, which is why it needs to be discussed with comments that are thoughtful and substantive, which the guidelines clearly ask us to do:

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Please don't fulminate.

Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.

Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

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

Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by franktankbank on Friday September 12, 2025 @10:37PM (#45228870)
Please don't tell your lived experience, its inconvenient.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by tomhow on Saturday September 13, 2025 @02:29AM (#45229811)
The guidelines apply equally to everyone. It makes all the difference whether a comment is worded in a way that promotes curious conversation vs rage.
Re:Corporations are trying, and now failing, to hide job ope... by franktankbank on Sunday September 14, 2025 @02:40PM (#45242217)
They are quite subjective. IMO it's not very controversial to say they often exclude interesting corners of discussion. The nitty gritty of employee/employer dynamics for one.