House of Eratosthenes

A certain company that provides a highly-valued service on the Internet, is concerned about its workforce. It’s got too much diversity. They want all white people.

Whoops! That’s not what’s happening at all! No, I’d better correct that right away. Google is concerned because they can’t find any female engineers to work in their Sydney, Australia office.

“Don’t be evil.”

Those were the famous words Google included in its 2004 stock exchange listing filing with US regulators – and a search on this term lists Google’s corporate philosophy page.

But that New Age corporate philosophy is under threat by the very people it aims to help, because Google Australia can’t find any female engineers who want to work for it.

Internationally, the search engine behemoth strives to employ workers from many backgrounds, a recognition that its customers also come from every background. In Australia it hired more than 10 engineers from five ethnic backgrounds – but despite its best efforts, not a single woman.

Lars Rasmussen, Google Australia manager of engineering, wants at least 20 engineers in his team but says he needs women to deliver the best output.

“We believe we can put out the best products if our engineering workforce has the same characteristics as our user,” Dr Rasmussen says. His concern is that he will “fall short” – half of Google’s users are female.

Hoo, boy! I’m sure glad I cleared that up! After all, there’s a world of difference between trying like the dickens to get some females on your workforce when you can’t find any, and trying to keep that workforce all-white.

Or is there?

Well, refer back to the first line. “Don’t be evil.” When do hiring practices become evil? To a manager or an auditor, I guess hiring practices become evil when the workforce isn’t represented in the way you want it to be represented…but managers and auditors are not known for living in the real world. What is the real world with regard to hiring practices? I’m sure we all would agree that’s best represented from the perspective of someone who is about to be hired, or not, because of those practices.

And in that position, what is evil? Well, obviously, it’s proving yourself to be a well-qualified candidate, and being passed over for the position because your plumbing is wrong or because your skin is the wrong color.

Of course, I said “all white people” which is an absolute. In the real world, Google wants just a few women, which is not an absolute, actually, it’s a non-absolute. Should be easy! So my corollary is a sham, because I’m comparing diversity with non-diversity, and we all like diversity don’t we? What with it being so natural and all.

Well that’s the trick, isn’t it. If it were natural, it would be a bit easier, wouldn’t it? And therein lies the problem. Google encounters resistance, so now Google will have to do something spectacular, or else abandon the goal. The goal won’t be abandoned. Women will continue, for whatever reason, to not want to work for Google. So these job applications from qualified male engineers will be allowed to pile up and gather dust for awhile longer, or they’ll get pitched altogether. Just as, in my hypothetical, the resumes from qualified black engineers will be allowed to pile up, and/or get pitched altogether.

So when the rubber meets the road, it is exactly the same thing, after all.

Humans are complex, and they have a lot of different attributes that may or may not be factored into the hiring process. There is gender…there are zits. There’s race, there is blood type, there is sexual preference, there is height. There may be hundreds of such attributes.

Very few of which have anything to do with the qualifications for the job.

Hey look, I’m going to be the first to say that when you get a bunch of guys together to do a job, if there isn’t even a single woman around, their productivity goes straight to hell. I’ve said so many times. I understand where the management is coming from in saying they want at least one woman, and I would understand if they elaborated and said two or three women would be even better. I’d even understand if they said they wouldn’t rest until 50% of the engineers were female.

That doesn’t make it right.

What Google is demonstrating for us, here, is how nonsensical, irrelevant data can be abused once it is used. How it can be used to hurt people. Not a very good thing to be showing, when you are a globe-encompassing search engine, launching several enhancement projects per year that inspire agitation and rage from privacy groups.

They have too much data. If there was some magic way they could employ all their engineers without ever knowing the gender of any of them, and lacking the ability to ever find out the gender of any of them, everybody would get a fair shake. Nobody, male or female, would have their applications or promotions declined because of an attribute that would be unmeasurable. Nor would any unsuccessful job applicant be able to complain about such a thing, one way or t’other.

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You Want More Women…Get In LineTuesday, April 18th, 2006

You Want More Women…Get In Line
Tuesday, April 18th, 2006