100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley

Re:100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley by yummyfajitas on Wednesday April 15, 2015 @08:12AM (#9380380)

Most diversity activists in tech oppose bringing such approaches into tech on the grounds that it would reduce diversity. Ashe Dryden is the canonical cite:

http://www.ashedryden.com/blog/the-ethics-of-unpaid-labor-an...

In contrast, I think most of those who oppose the diversity activists (e.g. myself) strongly favor such approaches ("death by standardized brainteaser", hire by github, work sample tests).

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Re:100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley by hluska on Wednesday April 15, 2015 @09:12AM (#9380701)

I wanted to avoid replying to you. Our perspective is dramatically different and I am tired of arguing with people like you who 'oppose diversity activists'.

However, did you even read the article that you linked to?? Someone posted a link showing that if you blindfold people (so they just listen to how people play), you end up with more women in orchestras. The Ashe Dryden article is about how using open source contributions as a sole barometer of 'merit' leaves an awful lot of talented people out in the cold.

The only point where she mentions anything close to your point is when she says that many female developers use androgynous sounding names and won't put pictures of themselves online.

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Re:100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley by yummyfajitas on Wednesday April 15, 2015 @09:24AM (#9380777)

I'm familiar with orchestral blind auditions and the effect they had (though not from the article, my mom is a classical musician). I favor using blind auditions to eliminate bias. I favor the same in tech.

My claim is that most activists in tech don't really believe that bias is the cause of underrepresentation here. As evidence for that, observe how few such activists actually favor purely meritocratic hiring.

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Re:100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley by hluska on Wednesday April 15, 2015 @11:08AM (#9381436)

Once again, have you even read the article that you pointed to? If so, what do you think about her plan to remove open source contributions from the hiring mix? She suggests that when hiring, employers should:

a) Ask for code samples.

b) Pair as an interview.

c) Hire as a contractor before you make an offer of employment.

She does not dispute the existence of bias, rather she makes the point that valuing open source so heavily makes technology less of a meritocracy.

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Re:100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley by yummyfajitas on Wednesday April 15, 2015 @11:44AM (#9381707)

(a) is an unbiased method analogous to blind orchestral auditions. (b) and (c) are not. (a) is also basically identical to hiring by github unless the candidate illegaly uses proprietary code as their sample. (From her article: "...not all programmers own the rights to their code..." in which case I can't look at it when hiring.)

The entire article is about how using github (i.e. evaluating code with the human absent, i.e. the closest thing [1] we currently have to blind auditions) is "biased" against women.

[1] Maybe we'll have something closer when starfighter comes out. I look forward to it.

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