> You have been blocked.
Only me?
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/technology/tech-companies/google-k...
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There isn't much to see- Google/Alphabet (Pichai) has decided to align itself with the current government and eliminating these programs is a clear signal.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20250127210140/https://informati...
For most diversity purposes, Asians and Indians both count as white, if not "even more white".
Government programs, other than schools, are the main exception.
https://about.google/belonging/diversity-annual-report/2023/
These executive orders (and what "DEIA" exactly means or constitutes, legally speaking) have not been litigated or clarified yet. Is Google going to avoid interviewing anyone from a HBCU now?
At least Costco seems to have a logical reason for what they do and stood by it.
It is strictly illegal in Australia to consider factors like gender or race when hiring. Even capturing these details from applicants is problematic in most cases.
The compensation payable if caught can be enormous, in the order of a years salary per applicant. It’s not even necessary to prove that a specific applicant was discriminated against, simply having a process which is likely to discriminate is sufficient.
As for whether it's fair. It seems pretty dependent on your view of the world. If your base case is that without any regulations you'll just get the best person for the job, then these programs all look like an aberration. But if your base case is that hiring isn't fair - people hire their family, their friends, people from their alma mater, people from their church etc. Then putting in a programme to mitigate the biases that do exist seems like a reasonable thing to do.
Here is a list of the current exemptions in NSW:
https://antidiscrimination.nsw.gov.au/organisations-and-comm...
Theres also 2 forms these DEI programs took.
1. (The FAA Thing) where they specifically manipulated their hiring system to ensure a greater percentage of african americans.
2. (What a lot of the tech companies did) Write tons of new HR documentation, and add checks and balances to ensure that the implicit bias of the hiring manager didn't result in a biased outcome.
Theres really nothing wrong with 2 in an Australian context other than the extra overhead. The overhead was carried for a while as it allowed companies to signal alignment with political stances. They are shelving these programs to signal differently.
Honestly I cant completely hate the idea of 2 either. I despise the idea of more HR people drawing paychecks, but I recall an incident 20 years ago where our team couldn't hire a woman because the all female HR team unilaterally decided she wasn't technical enough, and bounced her out of the running without telling the hiring manager. (The applicant was conventionally attractive and younger than the HR team)
It is, and always was, illegal to hire or not hire someone based on their race (or other protected class). You cannot legally just use quotas. At the same time, the EEOC will find a way to sue you if you are a large company with a lower proportion of minority employees than population. So companies had to get creative.
Trump EEOC will not do that. It's questionable if the EEOC even has the power to do that anymore after recent supreme court decisions that weaken regulators in general.
https://www.eeoc.gov/prohibited-employment-policiespractices
No, because that would obviously be racist.
DEI would be favoring one candidate over another specifically due to immutable personal characteristics, not their qualifications for the job.
The just thing would be students from HBCUs having a level playing field along with everyone else.
It's no different than hiring managers selectively preferring graduates from Stanford or based on their surname's ethnicity, but it's hard to prove those things happen.
The nominal case doesn't always match the reality, but the reality is that no one has a level playing field to begin with.
DEI is not "reverse racism" as so many want to put it, it is more about considering diversity and recognizing personal and institutional bias, and working to ensure that bias does not negatively affect people, whether that be in hiring, consideration for roles or promotions, and so on.
All the things we've seen both in government and in companies suddenly dumping DEI programs is craven, and if you actually look you can see it's already doing damage. There seem to be a lot of assumptions that women or people of color in high positions are "DEI hires" when they likely had to work harder than white men to get where they are. I mean firing a 4-star admiral because she's a woman and then claiming she was a DEI hire is insane, but that's where we are. Automatically assuming a black or trans pilot is a DEI hire is insane, but that's where we are.
[1] https://time.com/7212911/west-point-disbands-cadet-clubs-aff...
And doing obviously racist things is unheard of, particularly in tech. /s
Why won't they?
It's not like black people can't be hired anymore. It's just they have to compete like everyone else without being treated like disabled people.
That's the whole point of DEI to ensure that *no one* is getting an unfair advantage because:
- their name is white https://www.forbes.com/sites/janicegassam/2024/04/17/new-res... - recruitment is only occurring at certain places - or any other ways that bias can filter out perfectly good candidates
DEI is not about picking lesser candidates to fill quotas, it's about ensuring the human recruiters don't get in the way of the best talent joining your company.
> These executive orders (and what "DEIA" exactly means or constitutes, legally speaking) have not been litigated or clarified yet.
All of these DEI efforts were and are blatantly illegal. They were just never litigated for long enough that everyone was comfortable with doing them openly. The point of the executive orders isn't necessarily the orders themselves, but a clear signal the new administration will litigate these efforts that have always been illegal.
So many of these companies are backing away from the efforts and hoping that show of goodwill will ameliorate their potential upcoming legal risk. If they play ball, the new administration might accept the peace offering and not go full legal scorched earth.
But a company like Google, which makes obscene profits every quarter, should be doing far more at all stages to fight the effects of that prejudice, because if whole categories of people are unprepared to work at Google because of societal failures, that’s huge numbers of potentially fantastic employees Google is missing out on.
Google is a big company that can do a lot of things, but I wouldn't expect them to solve societal problems that plenty of other very profitable companies are making almost no effort in.
The models Google is developing may end up being the most impactful innovation in learning since the printing press.
The first time, what that meant was that they invited their diversity candidates to a small pre-interview preparation session which, oddly enough, didn't bother to touch on what they were looking for in interviews. I took the interviews and was informed that I'd failed them.
The second time, I paid for coaching from interviewing.io, and I learned what they were looking for in interviews. This was not cheap. (There are some surprises! For example, they don't care whether you can answer their questions. If you can't, you're supposed to ask them how. This is not a normal testing style.) I took their interviews, and my recruiter informed me that I had passed, wished me congratulations, and told me to expect a job offer by the end of the current hiring cycle (which was about six weeks away). In the meantime, I'd have a set of "team fit" interviews.
Then, they never contacted me again, except to say that they'd realized that on second thought my interview scores were too low for them to hire me. Not a single thing was scheduled until the hiring cycle ended and they let me know that while my scores were good enough to have passed their interviews, they weren't good enough to be hired after passing the interviews.
There was no obvious "diversity" angle to that one, but when I complained to a family friend working at Google, they looked up the recruiter and were surprised to see that she was specialized in diversity hiring.
I don't pretend to understand the USA, and maybe that conference wasn't representative, but to me it was quite shocking that the disparity was so clearly visible. So I think its a bit of a shame they're losing this, because from my perspective there was still a clear gap in terms of education outcomes which feed corporate and I would have liked to think these policies were helping to address that.
Agreed on PR (or avoidance of negative publicity) being the main driver for Pichai to engage in the discussion, but there are many people at Google who care.
Disclaimer: worked at Google in Europe.
Corporations could help by considering interviewing developers who go to other universities or those with good experience but without degrees.
https://www.ebglaw.com/insights/publications/dei-and-affirma...
But taking those concerns up again, almost no one perceives their own biases as biases. It's like you don't perceive your own accent, people of different racial backgrounds look similar, you can't smell your own breath, etc. So being a biased person feels just like being an unbiased person, but it makes you make biased decisions. A person against whom you harbor a prejudice applies for a job. Your bias causes you to discount their better qualities and double count their worse qualities. So you hire someone else. This hurts both you and the person you didn't hire.
A policy that works against well-known biases, if implemented correctly, achieves three ends: it reduces the harm to the person biased against, it reduces the harm to the company whose hiring policies are distorted by bias, and it helps the company by producing a more diverse workforce, which is an end in itself regardless of whether you care about harms to others. If implemented correctly, diversity hiring targets can produce the effect of hiring without prejudice despite the prejudice of those hiring.
If you are crossing a river and the wind blows you off course, you don't head to your goal but to the side. The net result is that you reach your goal. The diversity targets are just tacking against the wind.
They wanted to have a diverse workforce, and came up with an excuse for it post-hoc. The best defense I've seen of this is that diverse opinions are good for business. Of course, hiring racially diverse people while being antagonistic towards those with different ways of thinking does little to increase diversity of thought.
>But taking those concerns up again, almost no one perceives their own biases as biases.
Says the pot to the kettle. The way to prevent bias is to come up with objective factors to evaluate people based on, not intentionally injecting bias of your own.
>If you are crossing a river and the wind blows you off course, you don't head to your goal but to the side. The net result is that you reach your goal. The diversity targets are just tacking against the wind.
We have a word for this: racism.
I've a prediction somewhat related to this.
We'll see, in the coming year(s), a large portion of positions at the FAANG(s) being moved overseas as cost-cutting measures. Paired with the impression that LLMs reduce the need for programmers, we (domestically) will see a substantial reduction in the number of developer (and related roles) in the States.
From what I've heard/seen wrt roles at these companies there's a substantial imbalance in locations for hiring (huge increases in India, Mexico, Brazil, and others) and less and less in the States.
However there are some noteworthy qualifiers. First, the biggest thing these programs did successfully was just diversifying the entry points so that you could even begin to start conversations with people from other backgrounds. That’s huge and effective.
Second, and this one is more anecdata, but I never really felt the hiring pool of diverse candidates was randomly sampled at all. For all the groaning about meritocracy and white candidates getting shat on, I tended to find in my personal hiring that diverse candidates were often MUCH stronger candidates. I rarely saw unmotivated, underqualified minorities and women make it to an interview stage whereas there’s a ton of white and Asian guys that did. Getting these candidates was harder. Which is to say, without putting any intrinsic value on racial or cultural backgrounds, I do think DEI programs somehow greatly streamlined a meritocratic highlighting of talented folks from diverse backgrounds. Which is ironic because that’s often the opposite claim.
That is, given you are a minority applying to an advanced position, odds are you’re really strong.
This. This was my experience with DEIA programs in the government. It was always about diverse recruitment, not hiring. People believe what they want to, though.
This has been my experience as well. It’s sad that it feels like the contrarian opinion. Thanks for taking the time to write a sane accounting.
The only way is to “naturally” help create conditions that hopefully will slowly yield. Sure there aarea many vague lines there, but at least we should be rational enough to choose the right attitude, right general approach.
What could be more racist and stupid then these “hiring targets”?
"Google is eliminating its goal of hiring more employees from historically underrepresented groups and reviewing some diversity, equity and inclusion programs, joining other tech giants rethinking their approach to DEI.
In an email to employees Wednesday, Google said it would no longer set hiring targets to improve representation in its workforce.
In 2020, amid calls for racial justice following the police killing of George Floyd, Google set a target of increasing by 30% the proportion of “leadership representation of underrepresented groups” by 2025.
Parent company Alphabet’s GOOGL -7.69%decrease; red down pointing triangle annual report released Wednesday omitted a sentence stating the company was “committed to making diversity, equity, and inclusion part of everything we do and to growing a workforce that is representative of the users we serve.” The sentence was in its reports from 2021 through 2024.
Google also said it was reviewing recent court decisions and executive orders by President Trump aimed at curbing DEI in the government and federal contractors. The company is “evaluating changes to our programs required to comply,” the email said...
“We’ll continue to invest in states across the U.S.—and in many countries globally—but in the future we will no longer have aspirational goals,” the email said... "
Except making more money with US government and military contracts.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/04/business/google-ai-weapons-su...
From their "Mission First" post on Apr 18, 2024 https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/buil...
> “ultimately we are a workplace and our policies and expectations are clear: this is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts coworkers or makes them feel unsafe, to attempt to use the company as a personal platform, or to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics.”
Paul Graham had predicted it back in 2020: https://x.com/paulg/status/1781329523155357914
https://www.piratewires.com/p/mission-accomplished
And this was happening elsewhere too, for e.g.,
Microsoft: https://archive.is/p5Ewk
and
Meta: https://www.axios.com/2025/01/10/meta-dei-programs-employees... & https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42700134 ... even as early as 2022: https://world.hey.com/dhh/meta-goes-no-politics-at-work-and-...
For larger context, see https://www.wsj.com/business/c-suite/chief-diversity-officer...
Whereas in practice it’s just plain racism and discrimination.
I’m sure in theory it’s all very nice. Just like communism.
I'm no Trump lover. However, I do think DEI was the wrong approach.
Many here work in tech. I'm sure some or many of us here have silently experienced unfair DEI hiring and promotion practices at least once. I've seen some truly incompetent people get hired and promoted purely to meet a certain DEI goal. It reminds me of Affirmative Action but for the work place.
This is coming from someone who absolutely hates the tech bro culture and hates that there aren't enough women in tech. No male tech worker likes environments where there are 10 guys to 1 girl and the insane gender imbalance in tech heavy cities that make dating impossible for a large portion of the population. If I could, I would wave a magic wand and turn the tech industry into 10 women for every 1 man. Believe me.
- Parental Leave & Caregiving Support: Providing paid maternity and paternity leave, flexible work arrangements, and childcare support
The conservative value they’re most interested in the freedom to be homeless and starve on the streets if you can’t stay employed.
You don't think that was "to not get destroyed" too? Such as when New York city was sued (and lost, having to pay out $1.8 billion) because too many minorities failed its test for teachers:
https://www.thecollegefix.com/nyc-will-pay-out-1-8-billion-t...
I actually think the business reason FOR the DEI stuff (to appeal to customers by coming accross as fair and progressive) made more sense. Have the customers really changed their minds just because someone else is in the Whitehouse?
If they stay more "woke", Trump is guaranteed to try to destroy Google.
Google has done the calculus and likely concluded that kissing Trump's ass is better for their shareholders than continuing to align more left.
I think this is a business decision, as it was for Meta, Apple, Microsoft, etc. Blame US citizens for giving so much power to Trump.
I don’t know if these lawsuits would win or not but given the current political climate I sure wouldn’t bet against it. From a purely business prospective on that alone, I can see why they would do it. And do it so quickly.
This is the latest symptom of a very powerful opposition that just gained almost unlimited power. Or at least unchecked power. To be clear here Trump is also a symptom, this didn’t come out of nowhere with him.
Be mad and hold these companies accountable but we also can’t afford to be distracted by the symptoms when those in power are going to make it so much worse.
Were a lot of these programs a performative kabuki theatre that wasted time and money? Yes. Were companies ever going to fill their ranks with black, lesbian programmers? No.
On the other hand, now having worked my way up in the tech world, the idea that the C-suite decision makers are there through some sort of meritocracy is also equally laughable. These are exclusive circles, and your breeding (family, school, frat) already determines your access more than success ever will.
I don't think there is anything wrong with the ideal of giving more types of people a chance. But it was an issue of execution, not intent.
Achieving Monopoly and Domination requires kabuki performances.
There is no other route. These are mentally bankrupt one dimensional people. Other than survival and accumulation of status and wealth there is nothing much going on in their head.
You hit it dead-on that a lot of these DEI initiatives were performance theater to appease some external force (as is most of business, when you really think about it). The existing leadership had zero intent to actually allow under-represented minorities into their ranks other than as a token or trophy figure who would kiss the ring and not rock the boat.
The real success (or failure) of DEI will be the next crop of leaders, not the current ones. The managers and leaders of tomorrow (who are the ICs and team leads of today) are acutely aware of how much of a Straight White Boy’s Club these leadership ranks are, and the vibe I get is increasing disgust at the proclamation of “merit” as justification for their tenure while (often minority) high performers are routinely exited out in favor of yet another H1B overseas.
I’m hoping this is just the last gasps of relevance from the status quo in the face of generational upheaval. Guess we’ll all find out together.
People tend to be tribal. People, when interviewing and select, will tend to hire people that look like them. A white guy from a white school from a white neighbourhood is far more likely to hire another white guy because that's what the've spent their whole lives surrounded by. This is justified a million ways, but what it boils down to is favouring someone who is a certain race.
And when tech is already full of white guys, it just means more white guys will be hired in tech... Cause maths.
All DEI was doing in the tech world was saying, "try interview at least one woman/ black person etc". Also maybe some training on how to avoid the pitfall in an interview of just hiring someone the same as you.
But look around you in the office. How many women are there? How many black people? How many... Black women?!?! Yea, I thought so.
If you are talking about "merit based" then that is "DEI". If you are talking about "people who look and act like me", then you are racist.
Anyway, excluding people leads to worse outcomes. Unfortunately, it makes life harder for people on the way.
A lot of people are strongly in favour of this, of course, including me. But are you sure that's all that it was doing?
Now I must say, in practice. In over 12 years of working in two large multinationals as a "tech interviewer" (That is, once someone went through the management interview and HR interview), I never interviewed a black person or a woman. Anicdotal? Yes. But 12 years is a loooooong time.
Anyway, just literally look around an office, or look at a leadership tree, and you can see for yourself. This isn't hard to demonstrate.
Its also full of Asian guys, so its way more diverse than most sectors in USA.
You can tell because pretty soon people start in with the justifications of why it is so
Also why do you think this principle applies to the categories Women and Blacks, and not for instance people with diabetes, psychopaths and people who like Taylor swift?
Either you pass the threshold or you don't. No excuses.
I think you’re making that up! Be specific, don't deflect and shift into general discourse topics. I am not talking about distractions at work, I'm asking about your specific claim that hiring standards were lowered.
Other than DeepMind, almost everywhere at Google. For Google to be wasting time on useless initiatives instead of remaining competitive against other companies would have made the difference between survival in this AI race ever since their CEO (Sundar) panicked.
It is no wonder many ex-Googlers have lost confidence and left for their competitors who are solely focused on destroying Google after they lost the lead and created an opening.
> I think you’re making that up!
Really.
How exactly is DEI going to save Google in the very deep trouble that they are already in? Losing lots of *key* talent, potential anti-trust breakup, frontier AI companies like OpenAI going after them.
I don't think you are paying close attention. Will more DEI initiatives and hires save Google and stop their own CEO from panicking?
> Be specific, don't deflect and shift into general discourse topics. I am not talking about distractions at work, I'm asking about your specific claim that hiring standards were lowered.
You deflected and did not pay attention. My reply was very specific even after answering your strawman question. My question is very simple:
How is DEI hiring going to save Google right now given all the trouble that they are in?
So, it goes both ways, supposedly.
