The people described in the article worked as computers and mathematicians at NASA because of:
- talent
- born, raised and lived in the right place at the right time (propinquity)
- self interest (they applied for jobs doing work they were interested in performing)
- health (reasonably good enough not to be a distraction)
- education
People who worked as engineers in Silicon Valley since the mini-computer revolution have done so because of:
- talent
- born, raised and lived in the right place at the right time (propinquity)
- self interest (they applied for jobs doing work they were interested in performing)
- health (reasonably good enough not to be a distraction)
- education
Notice that those two lists are largely the same? While I'm not saying discrimination isn't at play or non-existent, it's at best a minor factor relative to lots of other issues. Let's take what is likely to be one of the biggest issues that everyone loves to conveniently ignore, base rates:
In Hampton, Virginia, the birthplace of NASA, the African American population is 49.8% and in Virginia it's 19.7%, whereas in the Bay Area it's about 6.7%, most of which is largely concentrated in Alemeda, Contra Costa and Solano counties. Furthermore, these counties are not the locus of Silicon Valley, San Francisco (5.8%), San Mateo (3.0%) and Santa Clara (2.9%) are. Even the entire state of California is only about 6.5% black. This means, that to have a percentage of the Silicon Valley work force be black at approximately the same rate as the rest of the United States, black people need to move here either for work or for school.
As someone who's moved countries 4 times and states 2 times, this is non-trivial and unpleasant for those without a disposition to tolerate such a jarring change where you're an adult and responsible for supporting yourself and financing your own move. You lose support networks of family and friends. It's a non-trivial cost, especially if you need to move belongings. You need to rebuild and re-purchase the things you didn't bring.
The base rates above are the general population. If you assume that most people in tech have a bachelor degree or better (we no this isn't universally true since many software engineers are self taught), then the base rates gets worse. For people between 25 and 29 years of age, about 20% of black people have a bachelors degree versus 15% for Hispanics, 40% for white people and 58% for Asians.
Furthermore, 52% of college students attend a university within 100 miles of home and only 15.5% attend a university farther than 500 miles away. And a mere ~1.5% of Americans move across state lines each year.
Honestly, most people debating diversity as so incredibly awful at understanding statistics and performing a basic root cause analysis. It's like people start asking the 5 Whys, but the moment diversity is involved people's minds automatically short circuit and jump straight to because #racism or because #patriarchy. I'm not saying neither of those contribute to the problem, but they are far from the biggest factors. There are a LOT of filters that do a lot to modify/distort the available pool of people who would get even as far as applying for a job (which is for the most part a prerequisite for discrimination, active or unconscious)
Basically, if you want to make it so racial diversity in tech approximates the general population in the US, the best solution is not to try to change Silicon Valley, but to help more places like Silicon Valley exist in places with base rates that more closely match the racial distribution you believe is ideal. AnnaLee Saxenian's books are instructive if you're curious how such regions are formed: "Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128" and "The New Argonauts: Regional Advantage in a Global Economy". A big part of what you need to move is money (i.e. you need a robust angel investor and venture capital industry).
* surface diversity - when you define diversity based on genetics and not content of character and live experiences.
yes, I'm aware that you could argue that recruiting mostly from people who live in the same city, county or state is a form of unconscious bias, but you're going to have a hard time arguing against that one ( http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/05/28/you-cant-look-... )
Hampton, Virginia http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/51/51650.html
Santa Clara County http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/06085.html
San Mateo County http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/06081.html
San Francisco County http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/06075.html
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/race-gap-narrows-in-col...
http://www.thecollegesolution.com/where-most-students-end-up...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/magazine/why-are-so-many-a...