meritocracy in silicon valley is officially dead – diversity killed it

Facebook / Product
helloZuck

Go to company page Facebook Product

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Facebook, Google
helloZuck
Jul 16, 2017 121 Comments

time to find a new industry. observations:

1) google and fb are so afraid of the outside and improving their diversity metrics that they have now instituted quotas for hiring only female candidates.

2) i recently interviewed a fb product manager candidate that should not have been hired but was hired anyway due to her being a female

3) teams actively discriminate against male candidates for engineering and product roles these days – i talked to a friend who is an amazing pm at google, he wanted to transfer to a team with an open pm headcount but was denied because the team was looking at only female candidates... what the fuck???

4) vc firms hiring opportunists and SJW activists from twitter to try to stay on the good graces of the god damn feminists of twitter

5) startups actively recruiting only female candidates to try to please the activists of twitter

6) google recently hired a head of diversity from intel who has the worst fucking ideas including quota system for diverse candidates

7) seems like the easiest place companies have found to add diversity is in non technical product management roles thus ruining the entire fucking field with absolute garbage people who have no business being a product manager.

so much more. add your experience here. is this happening at your company too?

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TOP 121 Comments
  • GE / Design
    olnd

    Go to company page GE Design

    olnd
    Let me guess, most people in here complaining are white middle aged males? Not saying you are wrong in your complaint, it's just that times are changing and the rest of humanity is getting a shot at privilege so shut up or help change things. Yes there will be a few underserving minorities here and there but so what? How many white males are in positions today simply because they are white males?

    Times are changing.
    Jul 16, 2017 6
  • New
    yyytacoyyy

    Go to company page New

    yyytacoyyy
    The only people these diversity quotas hurt are mediocre candidates from the majority demographic (white or male usually). If someone can prove they've got skills, any decent hiring manager will make an exception to the quota. The shift toward diversity just means you have to work a little harder to show what you can do.

    Don't disagree that it's caused some questionable hires, but that's collateral as far as I'm concerned. If a few people get jobs they shouldn't have so that the industry is more accessible, I don't think that's the worst thing in the world. The discussion around it gets pretty ridiculous sometimes, but i don't believe there's a strong case to be made against diversity in principle.
    Jul 16, 2017 2
    • Square
      WelActualy

      Go to company page Square

      WelActualy
      No one is against diversity. People are against forced diversity via affirmative action. There are many strong arguments against affirmative action.
      Jul 16, 2017
    • Uber
      GMie27

      Go to company page Uber

      GMie27
      "If someone can prove they've got skills, any decent hiring manager will make an exception to the quota." That's not true when the manager is also a questionable hire. And many companies have hiring committees to make the decision.
      Jul 16, 2017
  • SEVENROOMS / Eng
    aDBs62

    Go to company page SEVENROOMS Eng

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    Amazon
    aDBs62
    But meritocracy was never a real thing anyway.
    Jul 16, 2017 7
    • Google
      vtoB16

      Go to company page Google

      vtoB16
      Google still rejects 99% of candidates
      Jul 17, 2017
    • Bring Ruckus / Mktg
      indioman99

      Bring Ruckus Mktg

      PRE
      Google, Facebook
      BIO
      Running Growth and hiring the best Growth people.
      indioman99
      It's not a meritocracy when you were trying to hire the exact same type of person over and over again. It's pattern recognition and the system just happened to work in your favor, and I have to imagine will continue to work mostly in your favor for the rest of your angry existence. And now occasionally certain systems (like quotas) benefit people not just like you and you're crying about unfairness. No addt'l PM hire will make or break Goog or FB, and neither will you...so be happy you get to interact with people outside of your narrow world and take some solace in the fact that you and they matter almost nothing to your giant orgs.
      Jul 27, 2017
  • New
    uImU66

    New

    uImU66
    yeah see though, it turns out that many of these people aren't as qualified specifically because fuck faces like you actively tilt towards white males when left to your own devices. When women and minorities are systematically left out, of course it's harder to find ones with the same qualifications.

    Maybe, just maybe, these companies are planning for the future and trying to actually improve the world, rather than cowering in the face of your Twitter strawmen.
    Jul 16, 2017 2
    • New / Design
      Isaiah

      New Design

      Isaiah
      exactly, its a vicious cycle. How am I supposed to be qualified if I never get the chance to work in positions, find were my deficiencies are and fix them/ move up the ladder? I mostly learn by hands on experience. freelance provides mostly LAMP stack work while companies now need MEAN stack experience
      Jul 17, 2017
    • New / Design
      Isaiah

      New Design

      Isaiah
      also once you are accepted, you'll need to quickly catch up to peers who've been in these companies for years. No one started out as a pro, it took years of learning and making mistakes. None of which can be done, if you are rarely considered a good culture fit.
      Jul 17, 2017
  • Google
    fumw

    Go to company page Google

    fumw
    Meritocracy my ass. I have been working far too long in this industry to know that a lot of people get ahead not because they are good but because they are part of a majority and know how to play politics. How many people do you think go through peer review or interviews and get passed over because they are not the acceptable type which has absolutely nothing to do with their skills but everything to do with their gender, skin color or age. I know so many people at Google who are good who are passed up year after year ... What you call lowering "the bar" for other minorities only prioritizes that these inequalities get fixed by eliminating bias from our ranks. Yes bad candidates fall thru the cracks but this also happened years ago, it's just not highlighted because it's a member of the majority that got thru. So get over yourself, if you are a member of the majority who's been mailing it in all these years, it's time you do some real work for a change.
    Jul 16, 2017 3