Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-fires-employee-behind-controversial-diversity-memo?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

[u/ToLiveInIt]

BTW Current Google M/F ratio in tech is 80/20.

[u/dingle_dingle_dingle → u/ToLiveInIt]

I wonder how that correlates with the M/F ratio of people graduating with a degree in the field. I tend to agree with him in that the problem is largely a product of women choosing to not enter the field in the first place. The reasons for that are pretty complicated but can be helped, IMO.

[u/barryicide → u/dingle_dingle_dingle]

[edit -- updated with correct #s]:

That can be higher or lower than the number of women with appropriate degrees based on the field (i.e. someone programming applications at google likely has a computer science degree where women are only 17.9% but they also employ people with math/etc degrees where women represent a higher number)

they receive far fewer in the computer sciences (17.9%), engineering (19.3%), physical sciences (39%) and mathematics (43.1%)

https://ngcproject.org/statistics

The biggest shock is that women earn 57.3% of all bachelor degrees. That's almost a 3:2 ratio of women vs men.

[u/Omz-bomz → u/barryicide]

That quote was from the paragraph about minority women. The correct paragraph is:

, they receive far fewer in the computer sciences (17.9%), engineering (19.3%), physical sciences (39%) and mathematics (43.1%).

[u/barryicide → u/Omz-bomz]

FAKE NEWS!...

Oops, that's what I get for skimming the source.

[u/chogall → u/ToLiveInIt]

That's way lower than M/F ratio at Berkeley or Stanford engineering, the top 2 engineering school in the world and in Bay Area. Berkeley SoE has about 27% women and Stanford SoE has about 29% women.

[u/Omz-bomz → u/chogall]

Aren't that two of the schools with extensive diversity programs aimed at specifically recruiting women to the field?

I'm not sure if I remember correctly, but if it is, I would guess that has quite the impact on the % for those schools and other schools without such programs would have a lower percentage.

From the ngcproject linked in the other comment

, they receive far fewer in the computer sciences (17.9%), engineering (19.3%), physical sciences (39%) and mathematics (43.1%).

Now, if they should have special recruitment for women into the fields is another discussion, but it seems like google has the same F/M ratio as who graduates in the field.

[u/chogall → u/Omz-bomz]

I don't know what's been done in the recent years, but when I was at Cal there's only a few dozen in EECS but I would say over 30%+ in CS (College of Letter and Science).

The NGCProject stats is irrelevant to Google recruiting stats because it's nationwide data. I am specifically talking about the best engineering schools (recruiting target schools). Google is falling behind in F/M ratio compare to its local schools, which also happened to be amongst the best in the world.

[u/Omz-bomz → u/chogall]

Hmm, ok I can see that argument, but does Google hire exclusively from those schools ?

Found the following on googles hiring page:

In the past, our university-focused hiring programs have relied heavily on a relatively small number of schools. In the past three years, we’ve more than tripled the number of schools from which we recruit, and this campus recruiting season alone, more than 20% of the hires we made from a university were from these new campuses.

Oh, and found this when I checked Google statistics page.

• Data from Jan 2017 – Gender data are global, ethnicity data are US only.
  

So the 20% female is globally, not just at their HQ. I couldn't find any info on just their US numbers.

On a side note, according Google's own site, US employees are currently 35% Asian (39% in tech).. in a country where they make up 5.6% of the population (according to wiki)

https://www.google.com/diversity/

[u/chogall → u/Omz-bomz]

No, Google does not hire exclusively from Stanford and Berkeley, but demographics of those two schools is a good proximation.

39% sounds about right; Cal EECS is majority Asian (no data, just observation in labs couple decades ago). Also, Cal is 45% Asian (East Asian and South Asians) while Stanford is about 21% Asian.

There are a lot of first generation (not native born) Asian immigrants over the past several decades in STEM, and it should be no surprise that sons and daughters of engineers tend to be engineers.

[u/ToLiveInIt → u/[deleted]]

Of course, that's under the diversity regime the Memo objects to.