they “were not representative of how I think about diversity or how Apple sees it.”
Indeed, diversity is about filling a quota on visible traits like genders, shade of skin color and so on.
“More importantly, I want to assure you Apple’s view and our dedication to diversity has not changed.”
Well it's good to know what Apple's view of diversity is.
Sometimes it can be ambiguous and one might actually believe them when they say "We deeply believe that diversity drives innovation". But this cleared it up. Yeah they don't really believe it drives innovation. If they did every manager in the chain and team member would go out of their way to hire "diverse" people because it would directly improve the product and the bottom line, but they don't believe that as institution.
Neither does Google or other big tech company. They wouldn't need a "diversity president" if they did. Diverse candidates would find their way to their new positions pretty easily, helped by stock options, good salaries and so on. Look how efficiently these companies seek and find leaders in various technologies or project or areas of interest.
What they believe is avoiding bad PR. They don't want to be criticized by some tech gossip blog about not being "diverse" and deep down they know how that tech blog measure "diversity".
Also tangentially related, notice how many times age is included in "diversity" spectrum? Somehow hiring people of various ages is not seen as improving diversity because well, it's not about gender or skin color, so gossip tech blogs won't notice and still criticize them.
In light of that, it makes complete sense that Denise had to apologize. But it was a very useful move as well simply because it made the true values more transparent. Given everything else, at least it's good to have more transparency and clarity.
Comments
Indeed, diversity is about filling a quota on visible traits like genders, shade of skin color and so on.
Well it's good to know what Apple's view of diversity is.
Sometimes it can be ambiguous and one might actually believe them when they say "We deeply believe that diversity drives innovation". But this cleared it up. Yeah they don't really believe it drives innovation. If they did every manager in the chain and team member would go out of their way to hire "diverse" people because it would directly improve the product and the bottom line, but they don't believe that as institution.
Neither does Google or other big tech company. They wouldn't need a "diversity president" if they did. Diverse candidates would find their way to their new positions pretty easily, helped by stock options, good salaries and so on. Look how efficiently these companies seek and find leaders in various technologies or project or areas of interest.
What they believe is avoiding bad PR. They don't want to be criticized by some tech gossip blog about not being "diverse" and deep down they know how that tech blog measure "diversity".
Also tangentially related, notice how many times age is included in "diversity" spectrum? Somehow hiring people of various ages is not seen as improving diversity because well, it's not about gender or skin color, so gossip tech blogs won't notice and still criticize them.
In light of that, it makes complete sense that Denise had to apologize. But it was a very useful move as well simply because it made the true values more transparent. Given everything else, at least it's good to have more transparency and clarity.