I love the comments, because this my friend is what true diversity is! Diversity of opinions! This is no fake slogan, or some fascist liberal utopia, this is real diversity.
Of course to a group thinking liberal who marches in lockstep to whatever the liberal agenda for the day is, diversity means that tolerance and acceptance of others is only a one way street!
I love the comments, because this my friend is what true diversity is! Diversity of opinions! This is no fake slogan, or some fascist liberal utopia, this is real diversity.
Of course to a group thinking liberal who marches in lockstep to whatever the liberal agenda for the day is, diversity means that tolerance and acceptance of others is only a one way street!
Apple releases a Black, Silver, Gold (for the descendants of Xerxes), Blue, Yellow, Pink, Green and White iPhones. That is about as inclusive as it gets.
Unless the Rainbow coalition wants Violet, Indigo, Orange and Red phones as well.
The creative process isn't always about a "defined" path. Sometimes an idea/concept that will not work sparks an idea or thought that leads to a different path or conclusion. Sometimes different life experiences can lead to a better solution. Look at american music it's a fusion of different cultures. It can be advantageous, to the creative process, to have a different point of view/perspective or to look at a problem with a different mindset or life experience.
But different life experiences aren't just defined by skin color, gender or sexual orientation. I highly doubt the 70% of males that work at Apple all have the same background and life experiences.
Apple or Tim Cook never said they would hire incompentent people.
Apple will hire the BEST PEOPLE regardless of race, age, sex, religion, gay or not, ect, ect, ect.
Tim Cook said:
Apple is committed to transparency, which is why we are publishing statistics about the race and gender makeup of our company. Let me say up front: As CEO, I’m not satisfied with the numbers on this page. They’re not new to us, and we’ve been working hard for quite some time to improve them. We are making progress, and we’re committed to being as innovative in advancing diversity as we are in developing our products.
How do you improve racial and gender statistics without race and gender being a factor when hiring? :???:
Its not about political issues or liberal propaganda.
Thats what i got from the video.
That Apple accepts people of all races, nationalities, ages, sex, ect, ect, ect.
I agree, I really liked the video. I think a lot of the time public statements on these issues are made dishonestly. Everybody curates how they present their views on topics so they get the expected reaction. It's in part to distance themselves from people with views objectionable to them. If someone was to write down a list of everything a racist, sexist, homophobe etc would say and if what they say in any way comes close to these statements then they use it as an indicator for those statements being wrong. Unfortunately, some of the things those types of people say are simply inconvenient truths and there's a level of dishonesty in moving too far in the opposite direction for the sake of appearances but we do this all the time. If honesty causes a less positive outcome for all parties involved then dishonesty will seem more appropriate. Again I'm reminded of the Liar Liar scene where after making out, one person asks 'was it good for you?' and the other replies 'I've had better'. Honesty there can't result in a positive outcome for either party. Same if a girl asks if she looks fat.
In this case, when asked about racial or gender ratios, it's not easy to say that you are happy with the ratios if they aren't even. It's dishonest because as this video shows, they already have a good amount of racial and gender diversity but the honest answer doesn't have a positive effect on the people saying it nor the people the message is intended for.
Here's a quick montage (don't quote the image). Some pretty adventurous hairstyles in there (check the hair 2 rows up from the name badges, 2nd from the left), there's even a girl with yellow eyebrows:
^^ Just because somebody looks different doesn't mean they think differently. How do I know just by looking at these faces that these people all have different viewpoints and life experiences? Just because one guy has a beard and another has pink hair and a nose ring? I consider that incredibly superficial. Hire based on qualifications, experience and talent, not looks. Not race or gender.
As a black man, I'm saddened but not surprised by the posts of those who see diversity as a waste of time and effort on the part of Apple. Diversity is America's greatest strength. What appears to be the best person for the job, on paper is really a subjective matter at the least. There are times when the best person is the least likely. One of the benefits of having a diverse workforce is that everyone, because of cultural differences, isn't going to take the same perspective when confronted with a challenge. When everyone brings the same thing to the party, it is easy to predict and manipulate that party. I could go on, but I doubt I could change your mind. I'm just tired of the thinly veiled insults that these conversations engender in some people.
Bottom line is this: Apple will hire the BEST of the BEST. Does not matter your weight, height, background, sex, ethnicity, nationality, gay or not, religion, political viewpoint, ect, ect, ect.
That's the whole point. I don't know why thats so hard for you to understand.
If this is the case then why is Apple releasing "diversity" numbers? Who cares what percent of your workforce is male, female, black, white, gay or straight if you're just looking for the best?
Cook said he was "not satisfied" with the numbers they released. If all he cares about is having the BEST people work for Apple and he's not satisfied then that means he doesn't think Apple has the BEST people working for it, or it's not hiring the BEST people now. I guess the question is, what does Cook mean when he says he's not satisfied with these numbers, and what is he planning to do to change them? Does he think Apple's workforce being 70% male and 55% white is too high regardless if the people who make up those percentages are the best of the best? Is he going to task Apple recruiters with filtering more female resumes to hiring managers or specifically targeting colleges that have a higher percentage of black/minority students? Because then it's not about hiring the best, it's about hiring the best after certain filters have been applied (i.e. fewer men, especially white men).
How else would Apple show in a video a wide variety of people? Stop being ridiculous. Video is a visual media. Showing different ages, sex, ethnicities, ect was the best way to make the point.
How else would they do it?
Bottom line is this: Apple will hire the BEST of the BEST. Does not matter your weight, height, background, sex, ethnicity, nationality, gay or not, religion, political viewpoint, ect, ect, ect.
That's the whole point. I don't know why thats so hard for you to understand.
I don't know why it's so hard for you to answer a simple question. I'll try it again.
If the best person for the job is a white male, if the best group of people for the job end up being white males what then? Do you hire the white males or do you skip over them to fill some imaginary racial quota?
Cook said he was "not satisfied" with the numbers they released. If all he cares about is having the BEST people work for Apple and he's not satisfied then that means he doesn't think Apple has the BEST people working for it, or it's not hiring the BEST people now. I guess the question is, what does Cook mean when he says he's not satisfied with these numbers, and what is he planning to do to change them?
I don't think he could have said he was satisfied with the numbers from a PR point of view. That was the point I was making about dishonesty. The video they've shown demonstrates that they already have a diverse workforce but it would come across wrong if he said he was happy with a majority white male workforce. I doubt they'll change their hiring policies to exclude the best candidates but it depends on if they plan to do follow-up numbers in a year or two.
"Diversity" is the art of pushing people into postions when they have neither the skill nor the desire to commit themselves to these positions and perform at the level required over a sustained period of time. Increasing "diversity" based on skin color and gender and who knows, sexual orientation is a big mistake.
Example for those interested:
I am reminded that in 1986 I started at IBM as one of 69 graduate intakes to IBM Australia in IT that year. Of course, to get a job at IBM as a fresh grad was a HUGE challenge and a BIG opportunity.
IBM, in 1986, bestrode the world like a colossus. The US Gub'mint had just spent 10 years trying to prove that IBM was too big and too monopolistic and needed to be broken up. The USG failed and IBM continued.
E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E wanted a job at IBM. It was THE place to work in IT.
I was lucky enough to get a job in the Australian International Development Center. At the time it was 70 people and we had two projects to work on to develop software for IBM Corp to be used in 21 countries. This was internal systems development. These were the 70 BEST IT jobs in the country.
IBM had two mantras at that time.
1. Respect the Individual.
2. Pay for performance.
These appealed to me because at BHP (Australias largest company) I had seen "quota women" be rife. The "quota women" would do no work at all. Indeed, they disrupted the work of the men in such a male dominated place as a steel works. Funny how feminists did not want to work on coke ovens or blast furnaces.
But the changes were already in the wind, little to my knowledge. In 1986 the 69 intake included some very bright women. Not ONE of them has gone on to any significant level of success in the IT industry. Not even ONE. They had the same opportunities as me. IBM made sure of that. But not ONE of them took those opportunities. Sure, to get ahead in IBM you had to work your arse off. No question. You wanted that next promotion? You had to EARN it if you were a man and the people you were competing with to get that promotion were the top 1% in the country. No small task to be the best in that sort of company. We had a lot of friendly rivalry for promotions and awards.
But just think about that. The most prestigious company in the world, that had it's pick of graduates, took on 69 grads in 1986 in IT, an evolving area. And 30 years later not ONE of the women distinguished herself. Not....even...one.
In 1988/9 I saw a precipitous decline in the quality of our work as more and more women were put on to our projects. I could not fathom what was going on. Women who were CLEARLY not capable were being hired over men I KNEW were far more capable. As a young whiper snapper I had faith in IBM managers and I was at a total loss to understand what could possibly be going on.
At christmas 1989 an incident happened where a woman was given an award where she had FAILED to fix a problem that cost IBM multiple millions of dollars in TWO WEEKS. I know what the problem was because after her two weeks of failure I was selected as the "best and brightest" to fix the problem. Indeed, by then the two week outage of the system had created problems so bad that the GM of Asia Pacific, George Conrades, had told the MD of IBM Australia, Brian Finn, that if anyone missed their quotas because of the problem at hand he would be fired from his job and kicked out of IBM. The problem was so bad that it threatened George Conrades Quota and the Quota of many of the Managing Directors in Asia Pacific Countries. If the problem was not solved, some of them would lose their jobs, and they were not going down alone.
So the MD of IBM Australia issued the order to find the "best and brightest" person in IBM Australia to solve this problem because his job was on the line. That call came to my desk. I was the "best and brighest" to find this problem and solve it...and so I did. I found it in about 4 hours and fixed it in about another 4 horus.....by midday the next day we were starting to resolve the backlogs caused by the 2 week system outage. No one lost their jobs. All quotas were made. Luckily.
What surprised me was this womans citation for her award was "Helen tried very hard to solve this problem, she put in the effort, the hours and we recognise her for her efforts."
I went to have a quiet chat with the manager responsible. He was my hiring manager so we had a great relationship. I asked him why it was that a woman was given an award for failure. I noted I did not expect any award. That I had saved the job of the MD was going to be a chip I would trade many times. That was reward enough. The manager confessed that he had "women quotas". They had quotas for hires, for pay rises, promotions, awards. The lot.
I looked at him hard in the eye and said "that is contradictory to respect for the individual and pay for performance."
He shook his head and simply said "We are told we have to do this."
I thought about this for about 10-15 seconds and then I said.
"Ok. I guess I have to leave then."
Remember, I was a rising star. I was the youngest System Architect in IBM Australia by about 10 years. I had earned my way up with some exemplary efforts. I had a BIG future in software development in IBM. I was only 26 when I made this decision to leave my profession of 8 years. A profession I had totally committed myself to to be "the best of the best". But in those 10-15 seconds I decided I had to leave. I had been considering leaving software development because of the issues I was seeing but this was the nail in the coffin.
The manager was shocked. He was my hiring manager and I was considered one of the best hires at graduate level in a long time. He asked me why. I said words to the effect.
"IBM Corp gave us these contracts to build great software. You gave 10 years of your life to win these contacts. But if you pander to women you will piss the men off and the quality of the work will go down. We are already seeing this. I have told you about this.
IBM Corp will take the contracts off us and give them to someone else because you can get bad software developed anywhere. Only in places like Australia can you get software developed that is great quality for the price we can do it.
I have to leave because this International Development Center will be shut down by IBM and the work will go elsewhere. When that happens? I do not want to be kicked out and looking for a job. The marketplace is too small. It will be too hard to find a good job when this development centre is shut down. I give you about 5 years.
I have to leave because these jobs are going away. And I do not want to be here when they do."
The development center won some more bids. By 1993 there were 500 people in it. I was out by a year. It was pretty much shut down by 1996. The work being sent elsewhere as I predicted. Many of my former colleagues lost their houses.
I always wonder...what do the wives of the men who lost their job and their house feel about how women were forced in to the development center and ruined it? Do the wives of these men say "Yah for feminism?" when it cost them their home?
The performance of IBM from 1990 to 2014 shows you what happens when you add "quota women" to the mix. For 25 years IBM has missed EVERY "big opportunity" in the world of IT.
Every...single....one.
Sure, there was a lot of other things happening at IBM. But "quota women" did not help the situation at all. And how a company like IBM can miss EVERY wave that is going on is astounding. I think the most damning indictment of IBM and how it was managed was the fact that in 2010 IBM paid USD1.8 million to buy Netezza. A company that was 8 years old and built a fast database machine. Netezaa is great. I have used it. But the fact that the worlds leading database software company had to BUY a startup to get a decent database machine shows you just how badly IBM failed. And the woman who presided over the failures of DB2 was one Janet Perna. If Janet Perna had not made the mistakes she had made? Oracle would not exist. Oracle only exists because Janet Perna and her pals made the decision in 1993 that "there is no market for unix databases". Well done Janet!
The tech industry is rife with stories of diversity hires torching the place. Carly Fiorina is another great example, google her name to see how she destroyed Bell Labs (yes, THAT Bell Labs) and Compaq.
I don't think he could have said he was satisfied with the numbers from a PR point of view. That was the point I was making about dishonesty. The video they've shown demonstrates that they already have a diverse workforce but it would come across wrong if he said he was happy with a majority white male workforce. I doubt they'll change their hiring policies to exclude the best candidates but it depends on if they plan to do follow-up numbers in a year or two.
That's kind of the point, isn't it? Capitulating to strong arm tactics and apparent PR blackmail by Jackson and his political ilk is not a wise position in which Apple should be forced, nor should quotas be implemented which fulfill a checkbox on someone's form instead of seeking out and hiring the best of the best.
Apple already has a fair hiring policy. They alone cannot solve the perceived problems of the world.
Hire the best people for the job regardless of race, sex, religion, gay, political, citizenship, age, ect.
Why are you so hung up on race? Race is only one of a dozen of factors regarding diversity.
Cook never said he was 'disappointed' because they have too many White Males. He NEVER SAID THAT.
Apple will hire the BEST of the BEST regardless of race, sex, religion, gay, political, age, ect.
If that means they hire 100% White Males that like country music, so be it.
The message is your race, religion, sex, gay, political, age will not determine if you will be hired or not.
Very short sighted. A perceived lack of diversity will lead to quotas.
The reality of diversity quotas is that eventually, the pool of candidates for a given, self-defined "category" will dry up for various reasons (ex, women more often than not choose not to go into STEM fields). What happens then? You have a quota to fill so you lower the bar to make up the difference.
Result? More talented candidates are passed over in favor of a less talented one that would fill that diversity checkbox.
Don't pretend this hasn't been happening since the 70s.
Hire the best people for the job regardless of race, sex, religion, gay, political, citizenship, age, ect.
Why are you so hung up on race? Race is only one of a dozen of factors regarding diversity.
Cook never said he was 'disappointed' because they have too many White Males. He NEVER SAID THAT.
Apple will hire the BEST of the BEST regardless of race, sex, religion, gay, political, age, ect.
If that means they hire 100% White Males that like country music, so be it.
The message is your race, religion, sex, gay, political, age will not determine if you will be hired or not.
The reason many of us are hung up on race is that race-baiters like Jesse Jackson use studies & reports like these to further their racist agenda. Jesse doesn't want the best person for the job, particularly if that person is a white male. He and others want minorities in positions regardless of their qualifications and they don't care if a more qualified white person gets passed over because of it. Reports like these only feed into Jackson's and Sharpton's agendas and only serve to pander to them and accomplish nothing.
If this is the case then why is Apple releasing "diversity" numbers? Who cares what percent of your workforce is male, female, black, white, gay or straight if you're just looking for the best?
Cook said he was "not satisfied" with the numbers they released. If all he cares about is having the BEST people work for Apple and he's not satisfied then that means he doesn't think Apple has the BEST people working for it, or it's not hiring the BEST people now. I guess the question is, what does Cook mean when he says he's not satisfied with these numbers, and what is he planning to do to change them? Does he think Apple's workforce being 70% male and 55% white is too high regardless if the people who make up those percentages are the best of the best? Is he going to task Apple recruiters with filtering more female resumes to hiring managers or specifically targeting colleges that have a higher percentage of black/minority students? Because then it's not about hiring the best, it's about hiring the best after certain filters have been applied (i.e. fewer men, especially white men).
And, if I may add, what ethnic percentage do they strive for?
Is it based on the ethnic population percentage as defined by Wikipedia for example (in that case Apple has to hire more whites and a lot less Asians).
Is it based on the ethnic distribution of everyone graduated at school or university (in a specific year)?
Is it simply an even distribution of all colors and sexual preferences?
Or is it a percentage indicated by press whining?
One thing is clear mr Cook isn't happy with his current work force, and that I wouldn't like if I worked for Apple.
It's a pity that some people believe fairness, equality, and creating & maintaining a supportive & non-threatening workplace is just politics and liberal propaganda. If true, then I'm all for ensuring we elect a 100% liberal congress and executive branch in the next cycle.
Its a bigger pity that some people think those things don't already exist and need to be measured and regulated by a liberal government.
Its a bigger pity that most minorities aren't interested in doing what so many successful white men are. Because white men are so....white, and nerdy, with their good grades, and hard work, what a bunch of chumps. Who would wanna be like that?
Comments
I love the comments, because this my friend is what true diversity is! Diversity of opinions! This is no fake slogan, or some fascist liberal utopia, this is real diversity.
Of course to a group thinking liberal who marches in lockstep to whatever the liberal agenda for the day is, diversity means that tolerance and acceptance of others is only a one way street!
I love the comments, because this my friend is what true diversity is! Diversity of opinions! This is no fake slogan, or some fascist liberal utopia, this is real diversity.
Of course to a group thinking liberal who marches in lockstep to whatever the liberal agenda for the day is, diversity means that tolerance and acceptance of others is only a one way street!
Are you playing the victim card?
Apple releases a Black, Silver, Gold (for the descendants of Xerxes), Blue, Yellow, Pink, Green and White iPhones. That is about as inclusive as it gets.
Unless the Rainbow coalition wants Violet, Indigo, Orange and Red phones as well.
Tim Cook said:
How do you improve racial and gender statistics without race and gender being a factor when hiring? :???:
Wrong.
Apple or Tim Cook never said they would hire incompentent people.
Apple will hire the BEST PEOPLE regardless of race, age, sex, religion, gay or not, ect, ect, ect.
And if those "Best People for The Job" people are predominately white males, what then? Do you hire them or rush to fill an imaginary quota?
I agree, I really liked the video. I think a lot of the time public statements on these issues are made dishonestly. Everybody curates how they present their views on topics so they get the expected reaction. It's in part to distance themselves from people with views objectionable to them. If someone was to write down a list of everything a racist, sexist, homophobe etc would say and if what they say in any way comes close to these statements then they use it as an indicator for those statements being wrong. Unfortunately, some of the things those types of people say are simply inconvenient truths and there's a level of dishonesty in moving too far in the opposite direction for the sake of appearances but we do this all the time. If honesty causes a less positive outcome for all parties involved then dishonesty will seem more appropriate. Again I'm reminded of the Liar Liar scene where after making out, one person asks 'was it good for you?' and the other replies 'I've had better'. Honesty there can't result in a positive outcome for either party. Same if a girl asks if she looks fat.
In this case, when asked about racial or gender ratios, it's not easy to say that you are happy with the ratios if they aren't even. It's dishonest because as this video shows, they already have a good amount of racial and gender diversity but the honest answer doesn't have a positive effect on the people saying it nor the people the message is intended for.
Here's a quick montage (don't quote the image). Some pretty adventurous hairstyles in there (check the hair 2 rows up from the name badges, 2nd from the left), there's even a girl with yellow eyebrows:
Just because somebody looks different doesn't mean they think differently. How do I know just by looking at these faces that these people all have different viewpoints and life experiences? Just because one guy has a beard and another has pink hair and a nose ring? I consider that incredibly superficial. Hire based on qualifications, experience and talent, not looks. Not race or gender.
Sigh...
If you’d read the posts in question, you’d see what is actually being said.
Glad to see that you’re a proponent of actual diversity and not multiculturalism.
Cook said he was "not satisfied" with the numbers they released. If all he cares about is having the BEST people work for Apple and he's not satisfied then that means he doesn't think Apple has the BEST people working for it, or it's not hiring the BEST people now. I guess the question is, what does Cook mean when he says he's not satisfied with these numbers, and what is he planning to do to change them? Does he think Apple's workforce being 70% male and 55% white is too high regardless if the people who make up those percentages are the best of the best? Is he going to task Apple recruiters with filtering more female resumes to hiring managers or specifically targeting colleges that have a higher percentage of black/minority students? Because then it's not about hiring the best, it's about hiring the best after certain filters have been applied (i.e. fewer men, especially white men).
How else would Apple show in a video a wide variety of people? Stop being ridiculous. Video is a visual media. Showing different ages, sex, ethnicities, ect was the best way to make the point.
How else would they do it?
Bottom line is this: Apple will hire the BEST of the BEST. Does not matter your weight, height, background, sex, ethnicity, nationality, gay or not, religion, political viewpoint, ect, ect, ect.
That's the whole point. I don't know why thats so hard for you to understand.
I don't know why it's so hard for you to answer a simple question. I'll try it again.
If the best person for the job is a white male, if the best group of people for the job end up being white males what then? Do you hire the white males or do you skip over them to fill some imaginary racial quota?
So keep it like that.
I don't think he could have said he was satisfied with the numbers from a PR point of view. That was the point I was making about dishonesty. The video they've shown demonstrates that they already have a diverse workforce but it would come across wrong if he said he was happy with a majority white male workforce. I doubt they'll change their hiring policies to exclude the best candidates but it depends on if they plan to do follow-up numbers in a year or two.
"Diversity" is the art of pushing people into postions when they have neither the skill nor the desire to commit themselves to these positions and perform at the level required over a sustained period of time. Increasing "diversity" based on skin color and gender and who knows, sexual orientation is a big mistake.
Example for those interested:
I am reminded that in 1986 I started at IBM as one of 69 graduate intakes to IBM Australia in IT that year. Of course, to get a job at IBM as a fresh grad was a HUGE challenge and a BIG opportunity.
IBM, in 1986, bestrode the world like a colossus. The US Gub'mint had just spent 10 years trying to prove that IBM was too big and too monopolistic and needed to be broken up. The USG failed and IBM continued.
E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E wanted a job at IBM. It was THE place to work in IT.
I was lucky enough to get a job in the Australian International Development Center. At the time it was 70 people and we had two projects to work on to develop software for IBM Corp to be used in 21 countries. This was internal systems development. These were the 70 BEST IT jobs in the country.
IBM had two mantras at that time.
1. Respect the Individual.
2. Pay for performance.
These appealed to me because at BHP (Australias largest company) I had seen "quota women" be rife. The "quota women" would do no work at all. Indeed, they disrupted the work of the men in such a male dominated place as a steel works. Funny how feminists did not want to work on coke ovens or blast furnaces.
But the changes were already in the wind, little to my knowledge. In 1986 the 69 intake included some very bright women. Not ONE of them has gone on to any significant level of success in the IT industry. Not even ONE. They had the same opportunities as me. IBM made sure of that. But not ONE of them took those opportunities. Sure, to get ahead in IBM you had to work your arse off. No question. You wanted that next promotion? You had to EARN it if you were a man and the people you were competing with to get that promotion were the top 1% in the country. No small task to be the best in that sort of company. We had a lot of friendly rivalry for promotions and awards.
But just think about that. The most prestigious company in the world, that had it's pick of graduates, took on 69 grads in 1986 in IT, an evolving area. And 30 years later not ONE of the women distinguished herself. Not....even...one.
In 1988/9 I saw a precipitous decline in the quality of our work as more and more women were put on to our projects. I could not fathom what was going on. Women who were CLEARLY not capable were being hired over men I KNEW were far more capable. As a young whiper snapper I had faith in IBM managers and I was at a total loss to understand what could possibly be going on.
At christmas 1989 an incident happened where a woman was given an award where she had FAILED to fix a problem that cost IBM multiple millions of dollars in TWO WEEKS. I know what the problem was because after her two weeks of failure I was selected as the "best and brightest" to fix the problem. Indeed, by then the two week outage of the system had created problems so bad that the GM of Asia Pacific, George Conrades, had told the MD of IBM Australia, Brian Finn, that if anyone missed their quotas because of the problem at hand he would be fired from his job and kicked out of IBM. The problem was so bad that it threatened George Conrades Quota and the Quota of many of the Managing Directors in Asia Pacific Countries. If the problem was not solved, some of them would lose their jobs, and they were not going down alone.
So the MD of IBM Australia issued the order to find the "best and brightest" person in IBM Australia to solve this problem because his job was on the line. That call came to my desk. I was the "best and brighest" to find this problem and solve it...and so I did. I found it in about 4 hours and fixed it in about another 4 horus.....by midday the next day we were starting to resolve the backlogs caused by the 2 week system outage. No one lost their jobs. All quotas were made. Luckily.
What surprised me was this womans citation for her award was "Helen tried very hard to solve this problem, she put in the effort, the hours and we recognise her for her efforts."
I went to have a quiet chat with the manager responsible. He was my hiring manager so we had a great relationship. I asked him why it was that a woman was given an award for failure. I noted I did not expect any award. That I had saved the job of the MD was going to be a chip I would trade many times. That was reward enough. The manager confessed that he had "women quotas". They had quotas for hires, for pay rises, promotions, awards. The lot.
I looked at him hard in the eye and said "that is contradictory to respect for the individual and pay for performance."
He shook his head and simply said "We are told we have to do this."
I thought about this for about 10-15 seconds and then I said.
"Ok. I guess I have to leave then."
Remember, I was a rising star. I was the youngest System Architect in IBM Australia by about 10 years. I had earned my way up with some exemplary efforts. I had a BIG future in software development in IBM. I was only 26 when I made this decision to leave my profession of 8 years. A profession I had totally committed myself to to be "the best of the best". But in those 10-15 seconds I decided I had to leave. I had been considering leaving software development because of the issues I was seeing but this was the nail in the coffin.
The manager was shocked. He was my hiring manager and I was considered one of the best hires at graduate level in a long time. He asked me why. I said words to the effect.
"IBM Corp gave us these contracts to build great software. You gave 10 years of your life to win these contacts. But if you pander to women you will piss the men off and the quality of the work will go down. We are already seeing this. I have told you about this.
IBM Corp will take the contracts off us and give them to someone else because you can get bad software developed anywhere. Only in places like Australia can you get software developed that is great quality for the price we can do it.
I have to leave because this International Development Center will be shut down by IBM and the work will go elsewhere. When that happens? I do not want to be kicked out and looking for a job. The marketplace is too small. It will be too hard to find a good job when this development centre is shut down. I give you about 5 years.
I have to leave because these jobs are going away. And I do not want to be here when they do."
The development center won some more bids. By 1993 there were 500 people in it. I was out by a year. It was pretty much shut down by 1996. The work being sent elsewhere as I predicted. Many of my former colleagues lost their houses.
I always wonder...what do the wives of the men who lost their job and their house feel about how women were forced in to the development center and ruined it? Do the wives of these men say "Yah for feminism?" when it cost them their home?
The performance of IBM from 1990 to 2014 shows you what happens when you add "quota women" to the mix. For 25 years IBM has missed EVERY "big opportunity" in the world of IT.
Every...single....one.
Sure, there was a lot of other things happening at IBM. But "quota women" did not help the situation at all. And how a company like IBM can miss EVERY wave that is going on is astounding. I think the most damning indictment of IBM and how it was managed was the fact that in 2010 IBM paid USD1.8 million to buy Netezza. A company that was 8 years old and built a fast database machine. Netezaa is great. I have used it. But the fact that the worlds leading database software company had to BUY a startup to get a decent database machine shows you just how badly IBM failed. And the woman who presided over the failures of DB2 was one Janet Perna. If Janet Perna had not made the mistakes she had made? Oracle would not exist. Oracle only exists because Janet Perna and her pals made the decision in 1993 that "there is no market for unix databases". Well done Janet!
The tech industry is rife with stories of diversity hires torching the place. Carly Fiorina is another great example, google her name to see how she destroyed Bell Labs (yes, THAT Bell Labs) and Compaq.
That's kind of the point, isn't it? Capitulating to strong arm tactics and apparent PR blackmail by Jackson and his political ilk is not a wise position in which Apple should be forced, nor should quotas be implemented which fulfill a checkbox on someone's form instead of seeking out and hiring the best of the best.
Apple already has a fair hiring policy. They alone cannot solve the perceived problems of the world.
Hire the best people for the job regardless of race, sex, religion, gay, political, citizenship, age, ect.
Why are you so hung up on race? Race is only one of a dozen of factors regarding diversity.
Cook never said he was 'disappointed' because they have too many White Males. He NEVER SAID THAT.
Apple will hire the BEST of the BEST regardless of race, sex, religion, gay, political, age, ect.
If that means they hire 100% White Males that like country music, so be it.
The message is your race, religion, sex, gay, political, age will not determine if you will be hired or not.
Very short sighted. A perceived lack of diversity will lead to quotas.
The reality of diversity quotas is that eventually, the pool of candidates for a given, self-defined "category" will dry up for various reasons (ex, women more often than not choose not to go into STEM fields). What happens then? You have a quota to fill so you lower the bar to make up the difference.
Result? More talented candidates are passed over in favor of a less talented one that would fill that diversity checkbox.
Don't pretend this hasn't been happening since the 70s.
Hire the best people for the job regardless of race, sex, religion, gay, political, citizenship, age, ect.
Why are you so hung up on race? Race is only one of a dozen of factors regarding diversity.
Cook never said he was 'disappointed' because they have too many White Males. He NEVER SAID THAT.
Apple will hire the BEST of the BEST regardless of race, sex, religion, gay, political, age, ect.
If that means they hire 100% White Males that like country music, so be it.
The message is your race, religion, sex, gay, political, age will not determine if you will be hired or not.
The reason many of us are hung up on race is that race-baiters like Jesse Jackson use studies & reports like these to further their racist agenda. Jesse doesn't want the best person for the job, particularly if that person is a white male. He and others want minorities in positions regardless of their qualifications and they don't care if a more qualified white person gets passed over because of it. Reports like these only feed into Jackson's and Sharpton's agendas and only serve to pander to them and accomplish nothing.
And, if I may add, what ethnic percentage do they strive for?
Is it based on the ethnic population percentage as defined by Wikipedia for example (in that case Apple has to hire more whites and a lot less Asians).
Is it based on the ethnic distribution of everyone graduated at school or university (in a specific year)?
Is it simply an even distribution of all colors and sexual preferences?
Or is it a percentage indicated by press whining?
One thing is clear mr Cook isn't happy with his current work force, and that I wouldn't like if I worked for Apple.
It's a pity that some people believe fairness, equality, and creating & maintaining a supportive & non-threatening workplace is just politics and liberal propaganda. If true, then I'm all for ensuring we elect a 100% liberal congress and executive branch in the next cycle.
Its a bigger pity that some people think those things don't already exist and need to be measured and regulated by a liberal government.
Its a bigger pity that most minorities aren't interested in doing what so many successful white men are. Because white men are so....white, and nerdy, with their good grades, and hard work, what a bunch of chumps. Who would wanna be like that?
hint:
The wealthy.