Uh-Oh…

I was wondering when this was going to happen.

One Twitterer remarked:

If Silicon Valley is a meritocracy (or aspires to be) why not let everyone see company hiring stats for women and people of color.

Here’s a guess:

It’s because Silicon Valley (which is really just a proxy for companies that make their money on the basis of highly innovative engineering) is a meritocracy — you just can’t fake being good at writing code, solving complex engineering problems, or designing high-tech gadgetry — and to reveal their employment stats would call into question the assumption that in a genuine engineering meritocracy all of the world’s identity groups would be represented in exactly the ratios with which they exist in the general population.

To reject this assumption — which is simply a heartfelt wish — is a very serious offense these days. But as I pointed out above, technology is ruthless: your code, your smart-phone, your genome sequencer either works, or it doesn’t. If you’re developing a self-driving car, it had better stay on the road, and not crash into things.

I know some of the biggest of these companies from the inside, and let me tell you: they don’t give a damn what you look like. They want one thing, and one thing only: superior engineers. To get hired at any of these outfits you have to jump some very high hurdles. To work at Google, say, just to get a foot in the door you’ll need to know programming well enough that languages don’t even really matter. Then you’ll have to have to have elite mastery of the theoretical stuff: algorithms, data structures, and so on. Above all that, though, you have to be very, very intelligent: the kind of flexible, general intelligence that lets you take all that book-larnin’ and use it in entirely new ways, or throw it away altogether, to solve problems that nobody’s ever thought about before. You need to be able to see hidden isomorphisms between classes of problems. And that intelligence needs to be a motor that runs all the time, and that can run well even when under heavy stress for prolonged periods of time.

This happens to be the sort of intelligence that is very reliably quantifiable. You can talk all you want about cultural bias in IQ testing, but technology doesn’t care, and this sort of intelligence is what it takes.

We are not talking about intelligence at or near the mean, for any human group. We’re talking about intelligence that is way over on the right side of the bell-curve, where it starts getting a good deal closer to the x-axis, and the absolute numbers start thinning out fast. The assumption behind this political inquisition is that the intrinsic distribution of high intelligence of this kind is — no, must be — exactly equal in all human populations, and between the sexes, and so, absent some sort of malicious institutional racism or sexism, the representation of these groups in high-tech companies should match their share of the population.

“But is that actually true? What if it isn’t?”

“Sorry. It MUST be true.”

And so, you see, Silicon Valley is about to find itself in a bit of a pickle.

Think about this, too: the folks who run these companies want to win. They want brilliant engineers, period. If it were really the case that any of them were rejecting out of hand highly qualified candidates just because of their sex or race, those people would simply be snapped up elsewhere, to the competitive advantage of the second party. To imagine that the distribution of sex and race in these companies is based on pernicious bias, you’d have to assume that all of these companies value bigotry over competitive advantage. They just aren’t that stupid.

I’ve worked for some time now in the software industry, and I can tell you this: even in a place like New York City, it’s hard to find (and keep) good engineers. There just aren’t that many of them out there. Believe me, when you find ’em, you grab ’em.

This is a witch hunt, nothing more, nothing less.

24 Comments

  1. Dom says

    I’m in software too, and of course you’re right. Here’s a point that gets blushed over — Asian males dominate the field. Why? I guess discrimination is not what it once was.

    Posted March 19, 2013 at 6:36 am | Permalink
  2. Most broadly speaking, the world’s population of creative humans comprises those whose superiority is either in the “arts” or in the “sciences”, the latter, of course, including mathematics. I submit that the “arts” demographics will be much more in line with the gender and race demographics than the “sciences” demographics. And the obvious reason is that the “arts” are, largely, matters of opinion, whereas the “sciences” are matters of fact.

    Needless to say, when facts matter most is when meritocracy emerges. And this is why Nobel Laureates in the sciences are dominated by Ashkenazi Jews, who represent a fraction of a percent of the world’s population.

    Posted March 19, 2013 at 9:26 am | Permalink
  3. Malcolm says

    When facts matter most is when meritocracy emerges.

    Very well said, Henry. A fine aphorism.

    Posted March 19, 2013 at 9:31 am | Permalink
  4. Thank you, Malcolm.

    Posted March 19, 2013 at 9:45 am | Permalink
  5. Dom says

    Do you want to see the difference in IQ between the genders? Here it is …

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pii4G8FkCA4#!

    Can you imagine a woman doing this? Ha! I love the line, “I didn’t get to see my girlfriend or my dog for days at a time.”

    Posted March 19, 2013 at 9:54 am | Permalink
  6. Malcolm says

    Actually, it was hours at a time. Even better.

    This is exactly spot-on, Dom. One point, though (forgive me for feeling that I have to make it, as I’m sure you understand this already, but there is just so much confusion about this):

    It’s not that no woman might do this. It’s just that if you saw this machine, and were asked to place a bet on whether it had been imagined and constructed by a man or a woman, the smart money would be (overwhelmingly) on the former.

    Posted March 19, 2013 at 10:08 am | Permalink
  7. And the winner of the Rube Goldberg award is: Physicist David Neevel.

    I very much doubt that a woman has ever won a Rube Goldberg Machine Contest.

    By the way, Rube was an Ashkenazi Jew. Just sayin’.

    Posted March 19, 2013 at 10:32 am | Permalink
  8. Matt says

    I don’t know, surely Google for one is large enough now that it has a rather extensive HR department in which to stick all the women, leaving the Engineering departments mostly male. In my experience, companies love engineering women precisely because it gives them diversity cred, so the problem from the standpoint of our twitterer should already be solved. What they should be saying instead is that the supply of women engineers is too low because of [insert lefty reasons] and so we need to target the “male-dominated academic culture in Engineering schools” or some such.

    The situation vis-a-vis “people of color” is more complicated, partly because some “people of color” are doing just fine in Silicon Valley. Why that is is anyone’s guess, but SV appears to be either meritocratic or full of Indian/Asian nepotist networks.

    Posted March 19, 2013 at 11:55 am | Permalink
  9. Malcolm says

    …companies love engineering women precisely because it gives them diversity cred…

    Exactly. The idea that they’re turning these people away out of bigotry is ridiculous. Brilliant engineers are hard enough to come by in the first place; brilliant NAM or female engineers are worth their weight in gold.

    What they should be saying instead is that … we need to target the “male-dominated academic culture in Engineering schools” or some such.

    Oh, there’s no shortage of people saying that. Ask Larry Summers.

    Before CNN leads a mob to Mountain View carrying torches and pitchforks, they should instead be asking: how many highly qualified female/NAM engineers have had trouble finding work? Holding qualifications equal, what’s the rate at which such candidates are rejected compared to males and Asians?

    Posted March 19, 2013 at 1:03 pm | Permalink
  10. “Asian males dominate the field. Why?”

    Because Ashkenazi Jews have better jobs.

    Jeffery Hodges

    * * *

    Posted March 19, 2013 at 3:59 pm | Permalink
  11. “When facts matter most is when meritocracy emerges.”

    I like it, too, but it can be rendered more aphoristic:

    “Meritocracy emerges when facts matter most.”

    Or:

    “Meritocracy appears when facts matter most.”

    Or some other verb, the aim being conciseness.

    Jeffery Hodges

    * * *

    Posted March 19, 2013 at 4:06 pm | Permalink
  12. Malcolm says

    Well, you’re right, Jeffery. Still very good, I think, though.

    Posted March 19, 2013 at 4:30 pm | Permalink
  13. Got it! Consider:

    Meritocracy rules when facts matter most.

    Or:

    Meritocracy rules when facts matter.

    Or maybe “reigns”?

    Jeffery Hodges

    * * *

    Posted March 19, 2013 at 7:06 pm | Permalink
  14. “Because Ashkenazi Jews have better jobs.”

    Be careful, Jeffery. I would hate it if some useful-idiot Obama-supporter (I know it’s tautological) were to blow himself up on your front lawn, because of, you know:

    “Racism! Racism! Racism!”

    Posted March 19, 2013 at 9:59 pm | Permalink
  15. Meritocracy emerges as a matter of fact.

    Posted March 19, 2013 at 10:05 pm | Permalink
  16. That’s a good one, TBH, especially the “matter of fact”!

    I’m still not entirely satisfied with the verb, “emerges.” I think that a one-syllable verb is needed, maybe “rules”?

    “Meritocracy rules as a matter of fact.”

    But I agree that the meaning of “emerges” is better. We simply need a verb whose meaning flows trippingly off the tongue . . .

    Jeffery Hodges

    * * *

    Posted March 20, 2013 at 3:22 am | Permalink
  17. Meritocracy looms as a matter of fact.

    Posted March 20, 2013 at 10:53 am | Permalink
  18. JK says

    I suggest TBH:

    Meritocracy lurks for matters in fact.

    Posted March 20, 2013 at 4:33 pm | Permalink
  19. Malcolm says

    Churchill:

    “You must look at the facts, because they look at you.”

    Posted March 20, 2013 at 4:39 pm | Permalink
  20. > They want one thing, and one thing only: superior engineers.

    This is true, but isn’t the whole truth. They want superior and docile engineers. That is, people who color strictly within the corporate lines, and are eager to work with technological crocks of shit like “Web 2.0,” etc. because “it is the way things are done.”

    Posted March 20, 2013 at 6:24 pm | Permalink
  21. Malcolm says

    Stanislav,

    Sometimes, but not always. Mavericks will be tolerated, even wooed, if they are brilliant enough.

    Posted March 20, 2013 at 6:27 pm | Permalink
  22. Malcolm,

    Mavericks are be tolerated if they serve someone’s purpose. Or if they happen to be good at raking in cash. You can buy all the tolerance you could ever eat – with cash.

    Posted March 20, 2013 at 8:48 pm | Permalink
  23. The fourth doorman of the apocalypse says

    Mavericks are be tolerated if they serve someone’s purpose.

    You mean like John McCain?

    I have worked with a limited number of female engineers in the Bay Area. They tend to be Chinese, or at least the higher quality ones are. There are some female Indian engineers, but they do not seem as good as the Chinese ones.

    (I am white.)

    Posted March 20, 2013 at 11:17 pm | Permalink
  24. The fourth doorman of the apocalypse says

    And then there is this:

    A guy’s perspective on female employees but I wonder whether he realizes that risk aversion might be why women ask so many questions and are satisfied with the devil they know rather than the devil they don’t.

    Posted March 20, 2013 at 11:36 pm | Permalink

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