Facebook has a 'black people problem,' says former employee who quit this month | Hacker News Reader

Facebook has a 'black people problem,' says former employee who quit this month

cnbc.com

22 pointsSirLJ27 comments

I disagree with this person's opinion:

    You can build something that works, that people want to use,
    but you can’t actually make all the right decisions if among
    the builders there’s not enough diversity and perspective

I thought the point of diversity was about giving equalty of opportunities to all folks indepndently of gender, race, ideas, etc, not about achieving some sort of colorful mastermind.

And why can't the current staff make all the right decissions? Is the current staff flawed in some aspect that only diversity can fix? I thought empathy is a common human trait, and actually many decissions at facbook are data-driven or CEO driven (and a CEO is just a corporative authority).

    In some buildings, there are more ‘Black Lives Matter’
    posters than there are actual black people...

Is even this politcal organization even representative of that community? Perhaps enforced diversity politics instead of meritocracy is the reason why Facebook has been lacking recently.

I have no data on diversity beign good or bad; although I think this "diversity" topic is an opinable political posture. I hope everyone understands that my point is that there are several claims repeated over and over without any justification...

>I thought the point of diversity was about giving equalty of opportunities to all folks indepndently of gender, race, ideas, etc, not about achieving some sort of colorful mastermind.

There can be more than one reason to do something. Yes, Diversity and Inclusion initiatives are often attempting to extend opportunities to groups that are currently denied that opportunity. But there is also an element of D&I that is motivated by the belief that people with different perspectives and backgrounds can bring new and different ideas to the table and that the more ideas you bring to the table the more likely you are to find the best ideas.

Empathy is absolutely a common human trait, but let's be honest, but this isn't about understanding other people's feelings, it's about being exposed to other people's feelings. You can have the most empathetic person in the world, but if they're living in a 99.99% white, gated community in the US and you ask them about race relations they're not going to have an informed view. Not because they lack empathy, they lack experience.

Facebook has lots of users, and of those users it's not difficult to imagine different people use facebook in different ways. If you don't have an organisation that atleast to some extent reflects those perspectives then they're not truly going to do a good job building products for them.

There's a good reason that when you look at successful start ups they're generally founded by people who have experience in the customer base that they're building their product for. It's because they have experience and true understanding for how their customers behave and think. I could say 'Well, surely anyone could use empathy to achieve the same thing' but we don't see that.

> There's a good reason that when you look at successful start ups they're generally founded by people who have experience in the customer base that they're building their product for.

I have no trouble believing this, but I don't think this transfers to the OP. Facebook is not a startup anymore, and end users are not even Facebook's direct customers (they sell ads, not accounts).

But more tellingly, why stop at race (and other protected classes)? Why not optimize for the right balance of first spoken language, political party affiliation, age, family net worth, educational background, number of children?

I think we're overanalyzing what is essentially a fluffy slogan from a person whose sole job it is to widen Facebook's candidate pool.

“In some buildings, there are more ‘Black Lives Matter’ posters than there are actual black people...”

  Those posters are divisive in and of themselves.

Best to have no racially themed posters at all.

You know that wasn't his point, at all.

“On a personal note, at least two or three times a day, every day, a colleague at MPK [Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park] will look directly at me and tap or hold their wallet or shove their hands down their pocket to clutch it tightly until I pass,” Luckie wrote.

Daily enduring something like that from people you work with has to be depressing. Poor guy.

I don't believe this for a minute given what I have heard from FB employees about the place.

As much as I like to pile on FB (and FB, like the rest of SV is full of hypocritical dicks), this does sound highly unlikely.

Why not? I staunchly believe that race and gender are not indicators of value, capability, or personality...but my subconscious acts on biases it has learned over decades from everyone around me, and it will take more than rational thought to alter who I find threatening, "slow", smug, timid or other decisions based on ephemeral qualities. These biases are difficult to identify in the moment when you are the one doing them rarely, but far more noticeable if they are directed towards you by many.

That doesnt mean the author is correct, but I certainly find the issue plausible.

I know what he is going through. I have experienced a lot of this during my tenure working in technology (Entertainment).

It's unfortunate that a company like that still hasn't been able to figure this out. As someone who studied computer science it is hard for me to recommend to the younger kids (Children of color... ok Black.) to get into technology when the prospects of them working in that sector are so low.

How representative do things seem to you? I seem to recall that black people were 13% of the U.S. population, so you'd expect (all other things being equal) about 1 in every 10 employees to be black. On the other hand, Asians are about 5% of the U.S. population, so you'd expect to see about 1 in 20, but everywhere I've ever worked it's been more like 18 or 19 in 20. I've never assumed that's due to prejudice, though.

Shouldn’t it be more about mirroring general workforce demographics than population demographics?

But what does one do? I'll admit not reading every word of TFA, but the gist I got was "FB has X% of black devs, but among FB users, blacks are Y%, where Y > X." Here's my problem as being an on-again-off-again hiring manager: there aren't any black devs to hire in the Seattle area. The only black person who wrote code that I've ever worked with since moving to Seattle 18 years ago was a guy I hired. And I've worked at Microsoft (where the UserEd person on one team was black). 18 years is a long time, but I can't say for sure that the guy I hired isn't the only black person I've even interviewed in Seattle. Now, I grew up and worked around Indianapolis, where the ratios in programming shops were about what one would expect. Microsoft in Charlotte, NC: plenty of diversity (okay, blacks) at that satellite office the three years I was there. Had a black woman as a manager, now that I think back.

But Seattle, and maybe the whole west coast, man, something weird going on here. And as much as I'd love to bang on FB, my experience says that maybe it's not their fault.

There are plenty in my circles that just can't get a foot in the door. Even having the relevant work experience and education.

I have my own thoughts as to why that is but, this is not the platform to speak on that.

Why wouldn't you recommend technology to black children? How is technology worse for them than say entertainment or nursing, medicine, law enforcement, teaching, etc.? What are the variables affecting the "prospects"?

As a career I am hesitant. Given my experience and dealing with former colleagues prejudices over simple misunderstandings.

A lot is assumed when you are black. Here are some things that I have experienced:

- Think you are not qualified to do the job. - Think you are filling a quota. - Think you do not have a technical background. - Whenever there is a disagreement: I was seen as being aggressive, impatient, or loud (Echoes the authors sentiment).

You are locked in a state of always having to prove yourself. Honestly I don't want my son to go through something like that let alone someone else.

I once interviewed for a job at a local company where the hiring recruiter asked me if I was a citizen because he said I sounded foreign (What does that even mean?). I told him no that I am a local and never heard from him again. This has happened to me a few times.

That’s a shame. If I were black, I’d probably like to advocate doing what other ascendant groups have done, build from within, support from within till some parity is achieved. Now, of course, it shouldn’t have to be this way, but current efforts don’t seem to be working as expected.

It’s imperative that every American have an opportunity to succeed, if we are going to remain an innovative and vibrant economy.

We already rely heavily, maybe too much on imported (skilled) labor when we have so much available locally, domestically, but we’re not developing it from cradle to contributor to society very well. So this is a bummer.

If you were black you probably wouldn't give a shit about tech to the point of being an advocate. Statistically speaking, you wouldn't have a whole different perspective on what issues are important enough to pursue.

You know, you're right and I have (Even having said that I would not personally want them to go through the bs that I have had to go through.). It feels pretty good to vent this kind of thing.

Definitely, I am always trying to mentor those who need it but, I do give forewarning about what to expect(What I stated above).

I also agree about the labor issues. The experience I described above has happened to me quite a few times when I was out on the job hunt. We have great students who maybe are not at ivy league level but, are either self taught or willing to learn. We need to give them a chance first. Btw that's all diverse groups, not just Black Americans.

Are you a developer? PM? Something else?

I have been all three at some point in my 10 years experience in e-commerce and entertainment.

That’s silly and dangerous. The prospects of a black CS grad getting a job are extremely high. Why wouldn’t it be?

Facebook has a white people problem too. Among US employees white people are grossly underrepresented at only 47.6%[1] while they are 72.4% of the population according to the latest census[2]. If these numbers were for any other race it would be front page news.

[1]https://www.facebook.com/careers/diversity-report

[2]https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/...

To do the comparison you're attempting to do, surely you need to get data that excludes employees who are currently here on a visa. It would seem insane to criticize facebook for not reflecting US demographics when quite simply it's not hire from the US.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com