Tag Archives: diversity in tech

03/17/19

Diversity

Today we talk diversity in a big sun ATX day — 65F with just a few clouds.

So, the issue of diversity keeps being bandied about. I was speaking to a person with whom I had worked as a CEO for about a dozen years.

We were trying to assess whether that company was “diverse.”

He said, “I don’t think what we did was impacted by some specific goal of creating diversity as that word is used today.”

I agreed with him, but I noted that we were extraordinarily diverse by the standards of today. Who knew? I was “woke” before woke was woke.

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09/17/18

Diversity in Tech

Big Red Car here on a lovely, sunny, mild Texas day. Ahhh, on Earth as it is in Texas.

So, the tech world loves the word “diversity.” Diversity is the inclusion in a community of individuals representing multiple viewpoints based on gender, ethnicity, national origin, age, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic status, politics, and philosophy. Whew! [There may be more. I didn’t mention pets. There is a world of tension between cat people and dog people. I will ignore that for now.]

The tech world has done a good job of “talking the talk” as it relates to gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity/national origin. This is the self-congratulatory view of tech when they get to hold the mirror up to themselves.

Much of what tech applauds itself for is very much a work in progress. On the issue of gender, as an example, there are still VC firms which have a single female partner who has been there for half an hour. One of my pet peeves is the VC firm who preaches diversity, virtue signals its wholesale support, and who has not a single woman in its partners pic. Come on. Stop being such hypocrites.

Some would say that tech has failed miserably embracing diversity amongst age, religion, politics, and philosophy. God, they are like a gulag when it comes to age discrimination. The old folks are sent to Siberia.

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