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Comment by nl | Hacker News Reader

Are these diversity numbers for the US or for Google as a whole?

If they are world-wide, I find it quite interesting how closely the location of the Google offices where software development occurs[1] matches the ethnicity numbers.

Notably, there is only one development office in Latin America (and none in Spain/Portugal), and the only development office in the Middle East or Africa is Tel Aviv (not clear what ethnicity the workers there would class themselves as).

I'm not aware of any world-class Computer Science programs in Africa. There are some decent ones in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, but increasing the number would be a problem worth tackling.

[1] https://www.google.com.au/about/careers/teams/engineering/sw...

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You are aware that every country has "race" distinctions, even if they aren't the same as the US. E.g. in Tel Aviv, it would be interesting to know how many Palestinians are employed, or in Latin America, how many Africans and natives, in China, how many Tibetans and Uighurs?

Upstream is important, but we should still make an effort.

It's possible Google has this data internally but haven't released it externally yet. They don't do any breakdown by location.

And yes: I agree that change takes both upstream push and downstream pull.

> E.g. in Tel Aviv, it would be interesting to know how many Palestinians are employed

Why would there be Palestinians in Tel Aviv? That's like asking how many Canadians are in Tuscon. Unless they are citizens or residents they couldn't work there anyway.

Maybe you meant to say how many Muslims? Or how many Arabs? That at least makes sense.

But in any case, the actual "race" distinction in Israel is Ashkenazim vs Sefardim.

Right. That's what I meant. The point is some group who makes up a part of the local population but is unrepresented in a company.

Race is US, Gender is Worldwide.

Interesting.. my point is pretty valid then.

(err. Actually this means there is no evidence for my point one way or another. Too late to delete though.)

In a number of countries you are not allowed to ask someone's race, let alone record it on your computers.

In the USA it is compulsory so you can provide these stats and protect yourself against lawsuits.

Just a nitpick, but Spain/Portugal don't fit together - the Portuguese are not Hispanic. My ancestors from my father's side fought the ones from my mother's to prevent it :)

Sorry - I was conflating Hispanic & Latino, which of course is inaccurate.

Google's only development office in South or Central America is in Brazil (who presumably don't self classify as Hispanic either?)

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