Dropbox on Twitter: “Diversity at Dropbox:”

I feel really bad for Dropbox and the reaction this got. I'm probably ignorant to a lot of issues minorities face, so excuse me if I appear insensitive to any particular group, that is definitely not my intent.

I saw the photo and my first thought was (no offence!) "cool, they aren't all < 30". I was a little surprised, I assumed they'd be a group that built their startup out of college for some reason.

I then noticed the male/female count and thought that was the focus of the "diversity" tag. "that's great, but nothing to brag about... I've been on teams with similar ratios, but maybe it's less common in smaller companies?"

I'd started scrolling and realised this was posted to highlight the backlash about the lack of black and hispanic (apologies if either term is wrong, please correct me and I'll know in future) employees.

I won't comment on the criticisms as I don't understand the issues faced over there (I'm non-US fwiw), but I do want to offer my perspective in isolation of the other issues.

When I look at that pic with diversity in mind, I don't see as clear a divide as I do in most groups. I compared it to my recent xmas parties (at what I consider a diverse office), which tend to separate into "the old guard", "new hires", "parents with young kids", "under 25s", the "smokers" and probably a few others. It's easy to forget diversity spans more than race and gender.

I'm going to assume Dropbox had good intentions. Maybe they'd seen an increase in an area they focused on (eg. gender) and were proud of their progress? Encouragement could help expand on that and improve the situation for groups who don't feel represented.

From one office to another, I hope the team had a nice end of year celebration and enjoy time with family and friends over the holidays.

I am sorry to inform you that your application for: diversity, has been rejected. It seems you have a preference for certain skintones and thus you don't qualify. Please try again.