A quota implies there are limited spots. There are not. Google will hire as many qualified people as it can. These initiatives are about getting more diverse candidates in the recruiting pipeline. We are not turning away any qualified white dudes!

Perhaps "quota" is the wrong term. Yes Google doesn't have a limit on how many people they can hire in total, but in the interest of diversity they are likely to _limit_ the number of "X" people they hire (where "X" is some over-represented ethnic group).

As has been stated already in this thread the pool of qualified candidates forces Google to hire fewer people than they would prefer and their efforts on diversity include efforts to expand the pool of qualified candidates. They don't need to limit (or reduce) hiring (or retention) of any group to achieve diversity.

The biggest diversity win for them would be expanded hiring in all groups, but greatest in those currently underrepresented.

> and their efforts on diversity include efforts to expand the pool of qualified candidates

OK, so it sounds like they've got a fix that'll only take a couple decades to implement.

In the meantime, how do you think Google is going to improve their minority percentages in the absence of qualified minorities?

Not in the way you arrogantly and incorrectly keep suggesting.

Google is not going to in any way limit the intake of qualified candidates. It is mission critical for us to hire as many talented people as possible. Most teams at the company really need more people.

You are aware that companies set hiring goals every year/quarter, right? I get that Google is "special" and printing money at the moment but typically companies don't have the luxury of saying "we have no limits! Hire as many people as you want!!!" Google will be no exception. Now -- when Google finally _does_ have to cope with the fact that they can't just increase the number of people they hire every year AND they want to tilt the ratio of X to Y, then what?

Fortunately we don't have to deal with that issue.

But it's nice of you to assume the worst of us in that hypothetical situation.

I would assume that when that happens we would raise the hiring bar. And by that time there would be more diverse candidates in the pipeline, so we would naturally get a more diverse spread of new hires.

I strongly doubt we would sacrifice our long held policy of "hiring the best" for the sake of diversity. It flies in the face of our corporate culture.

My understanding of Google's diversity efforts is that they are centered around a) encouraging candidates from more diverse backgrounds to apply to Google (many, particularly women, do not believe they are as good as their male counterparts for social reasons), and b) encouraging people from diverse backgrounds to get into computer science. I have been involved in both these efforts at Google. And, to be quite honest, only a sociopath would see a problem with these initiatives.

> I get that Google is "special" and printing money at the moment but typically companies don't have the luxury of saying "we have no limits! Hire as many people as you want!!!"

Yeah, but this is about Google, at the moment. Not about "typical companies" or "Google in some speculative future where they are money or task constrained, rather than employee-pool constrained".

You say that as if you believe Google will never have a hiring freeze. Are you really that naive to think Google will continue to expand indefinitely? They absolutely will hit a point when they can't just leave the number of new hires uncapped. That's where the rubber meets the road when it comes to corporate social engineering, though everyone seems to just hand-wave that away.

> You say that as if you believe Google will never have a hiring freeze.

No, I don't. The discussion is about Google's current state, and Google current plans to deal with diversity given that current state. A change in circumstances (and Google going from "hire every qualified person we can get our hands on" to "stop hiring anyone" would be a radical change in circumstances) would be an occasion for a different discussion.

> Are you really that naive to think Google will continue to expand indefinitely?

I think that Google's concerns about and options for approaching diversity would be different if Google was funding or task constrained rather than employee-pool- constrained, and that the proper focus of discussion is the real world that exists, not some speculative future that may or may not exist in the lifetime of anyone discussing it.

> They absolutely will hit a point when they can't just leave the number of new hires uncapped.

Its almost certain that sometime before the end of human civilization that that will happen for Google, but the time to discuss whether diversity should remain a concern and what steps are appropriate to address that concern in a funding-constrained firm will be appropriate with respect to Google when that occurs. However, it isn't the case now, so its just a distraction from the issue today.

Especially since I'm sure that -- as much as Google would hope to avoid that circumstance as long as possible -- Google would also prefer to acheive an acceptable demographic profile in its workforce before it becomes constrained in that way (and, insofar as there are business as well as humanitarian reasons for its diversity concerns, sees acheiving a good diversity profile as part of a strategy to continue growing in a way that does not result in them becoming resource- rather than employee-constrained.)

> OK, so it sounds like they've got a fix that'll only take a couple decades to implement.

So? Some things takes lots of time to do right.

> In the meantime, how do you think Google is going to improve their minority percentages in the absence of qualified minorities?

I don't think Google has said anything which indicates that they plan to "improve their minority percentages in the absence of qualified minorities."

Uh, no, we're not. That is an entirely baseless assertion.

So you work at Google but you're having trouble grasping simple mathematics? OK then. Let's break it down:

X is an over-represented group of Googlers threatening their diversity. Let's say it's males. Y is, let's say, women. Z is the total number of current Googlers.

In this case, 0.7Z = X and 0.3Z = Y. (70% men, 30% women).

Still with me?

If Google were to continue hiring X at the current rate (i.e., 70% of all candidates hired), then the diversity of Z will not change with respect to X and Y.

Therefore, in order to achieve the desired balance, Y must be >> X, be that through hiring (i.e., hire more Y than X) or firing (fire more X than Y). Rinse and repeat for other over- and under-represented groups at Google. I'm not sure why this concept is lost on you.

Maybe you didn't read my earlier post where I said that Google will hire as many qualified people as it can. There is no upper limit. Nobody is excluded because of quotas or whatever.

If Google has 100 X's and 10 Y's and hires 10 X's and 1 Y every year, the ratio of X's to Y's stays the same. If Google increases the number of Y's they hire each year to 2, the ratio of X's to Y's decreases. Not sure what's so hard to comprehend about this.