WEBVTT - What Happened When a Startup Tried Affirmative Action Hiring 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:03.760 Don't let your legacy I T systems cost you money, innovation, 0:00:03.880 --> 0:00:06.080 and a place at the digital table of the future. 0:00:06.360 --> 0:00:08.959 You can change your systems and the economics of it 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:12.840 with software from red Hat See how at red hat 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:18.319 dot com. Today's episode is about a guy called Mitch 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:22.480 al Lee. He runs a startup called Penny in San Francisco. 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:25.759 We'll tell you later about what Penny does. For now, 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:27.800 what you need to know is Penny is almost two 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:31.880 years old and it's really small. It's Mitch, his co founder, Alex, 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:36.800 and two employees. They're all software engineers, and big surprise, 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:40.840 they're all guys. A few months ago, Mitch started looking 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:44.160 for a fifth employee, and he wanted that fifth person 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:47.480 to be different from him and the rest of the team. 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:49.600 And since this is a podcast and we can't just 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:52.800 show you a picture of Mitch, we asked Mitch's sister 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:57.920 Christina to describe what he looks like. He's always got 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:01.360 some like really soft hoodie or T shirt on and 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:04.440 jeans or corduroys. If he was walking down the street, 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:10.640 you probably wouldn't necessarily notice. He blends in pretty well. Basically, 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:13.480 Mitch looks just like a lot of other people in 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:17.520 Silicon Valley. He's young, he's white, he's straight, and he 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:20.120 went to a top college. Yeah, he even has this 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:23.760 neatly trimmed beard, and perhaps because he's a cyclist like 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:26.640 the rest of San Francisco, he has a nice tan too. 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:30.600 In Silicon Valley, most programmers are white and Asian men 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:34.759 who have computer science degrees from elite universities. But for 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:38.240 Mitch's next higher he's committed to looking outside that pool 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:42.280 of people. That's pretty unusual for a company of penny size. 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:46.400 Some people would call it affirmative action hiring, because Mitch 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:49.800 is going to be actively considering the candidates background when 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:53.240 he's deciding who to hire. And it's a very touchy topic. 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:56.680 As we'll find out, not everyone agrees that it's the 0:01:56.840 --> 0:02:07.280 right thing to do him Ako and I'm Ellen Hewitt, 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:10.359 and this week Undecrypted, we're going to be talking about 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:13.680 something that every technology company says they want to do 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:17.960 something about, which is diversity in the workforce. Well, they 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:20.720 want to talk about it in these lofty slogans, but 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:24.480 when you actually drill into the specifics, things start to 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:27.760 get uncomfortable. We found one of the few guys in 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:31.160 the industry, willing to speak completely openly, willing to get 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:35.239 really uncomfortable with us. Someone who's trying to do something 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:38.360 to fix the lack of diversity and tech from within 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:49.040 his own tiny startup. Oh cool, I look at this 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:58.160 giant chess board. The guy's penny work in a small 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:03.040 coworking space in downtown San Francisco. They're on a shoestring budget. 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:05.960 It's really not a glamorous place. They don't have free snacks, 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:09.320 there isn't very good natural light, and their office is 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:13.880 about the size of the bedroom room, A spacious, lovely 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:17.600 I was telling her, I'm excited for her to see 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:22.520 how like the other half of startups live, this is 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:25.200 the don't spend a lot of money half of stars. 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:29.560 Inside this tiny office, there are four guys sitting side 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:33.480 by side. My name's Mitch. I grew up in San Jose. 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:38.800 I'm a mid twenties white guy. I'm alex and Stanford 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:43.480 is American. My name's Andrew Donnas. I'm half black, half white. 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:48.320 Um I'm married, and I'm my dad. I am Jonathan, 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:52.960 and I was born in Taiwan and I grew up 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:56.360 in Maryland. All four of them believe it's the right 0:03:56.400 --> 0:04:00.560 move for their company to be prioritizing diversity now. Not 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:03.840 just because it's the right thing to do, they also 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:06.680 believe it will help their product. Yeah, Penny is this 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:09.440 app that links to your bank accounts and can give 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:13.080 you financial advice based on your spending patterns. Here's Mitch. 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:16.760 As we were working on that core product, we were realizing, 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:20.440 we're both two software engineers that grew up in the 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:23.440 Bay Area. How are we going to get a product 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:27.359 that does well in Montana and Kansas and Maine. And 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:31.680 our answer to that was, we should be solving this 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:35.440 by building out a diverse team that can empathize with 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.600 people from different parts of the country, from different genders 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:42.240 or different ethnicities. And you use the app by messaging 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:45.960 this chap bot, this computer program that texts back and 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:48.800 forth with you. The chat bot is called Penny, and 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:52.560 Penny has a female face. But at the beginning, everything 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:55.839 Penny said was written by two guys, Alex and Mitch. 0:04:56.480 --> 0:05:01.799 Here's Mitch's fiance, Lizzie Wagner, explaining one way that went awry. 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:04.000 So they started to use a little bit of like 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:06.200 a snarky tone, you know when you use like a 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:09.479 winky emoji, it can also be considered flirty. So I 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:11.920 told him I just read this conversation and I think 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:14.640 Penny was flirting with me. And he was like, no way, 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:18.200 it's a computer. It can't flirt, and I was like, no, 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:21.040 it's a flirty conversation. He's like, this is exactly why 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:24.159 we need more diverse perspectives, because Alex and I never 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:30.640 even thought about that comment being taken that way. And 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:34.400 building a relatable chatbot is super important when you're guiding 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:38.160 customers through something as personal and sensitive and daunting as 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:41.760 your finances. When a user writes in and says, I 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:45.440 overdraft a lot, how do you respond? And some people 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:50.920 will respond with, well, they should stop spending that much money. 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:53.440 Other people will put themselves in their shoes and say 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:57.440 that really sucks. That level of empathy doesn't come if 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:01.159 everyone thinks and acts the same in a room. They're 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:04.160 all just gonna confirm each other's opinions of like, well, 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:07.359 that person shouldn't be spending money they don't have. And 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:10.159 Penny stands out from the rest of startups and Silk 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:13.880 on Valley because it's focusing on hiring for diversity so 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:18.240 early in the company's history. I think the default for 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:23.960 early stage companies is not necessarily in aversion to diversity. 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:27.400 It's not an active process of saying we are only 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:30.040 going to hire people that look and sound just like us. 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:35.560 It's the idea that we want to move fast, and 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:37.600 the fastest way to hire people is to pull from 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:40.200 our network. They get this big paycheck from a venture 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:42.080 capital firm and they say, great, we're going to spend 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:45.480 it immediately. They expand their team from two or four 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:50.559 people to eight or twelve. If you punt the issue 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:53.640 of diversity down the line, it becomes much harder because 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:57.039 when you have eleven men on your team on a 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:01.760 twelve person team, it becomes a hostile work environment for 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:05.080 women trying to enter into that team. When you have 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:09.160 a group of all white or all Asian people sitting 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:12.640 in the same room together, it makes it hostile for 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:21.640 other minority groups to join that environment. These kinds of 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:26.080 companies really do exist. We talked to Jennifer Barbattini, as 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:29.120 software engineer who interviewed with Penny in September, though she 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:33.360 didn't get the job. I remember there was one company 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:37.160 that I interviewed with. It was a smallish company like 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:41.880 fifteen to twenty. They had ten engineers, all ten were male, 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:46.360 and all ten were from Stanford, And I was like, 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:50.240 I don't know if I'm a good fit here, like, 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:53.160 and the hiring person was telling me we're we're trying 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:56.480 to be diverse, and I'm like, well, okay, but still 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:59.440 like this is a little intimidating. I don't have a 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:03.679 Stanford eventual, Um, I'm I'm definitely not. I can't brow talk. 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:07.880 If it's a problem at a startup with twenty people, 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:11.320 imagine what it's like at a Google or Facebook or Twitter. 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:16.320 They have thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of employees, only 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:20.320 about thirty are women, and only about six percent are 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:24.320 black or Latino. These companies can hire only people from 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:27.200 those groups for the next year and their numbers would 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:30.840 barely move. So it makes sense to start early. But 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:33.640 the problem for startups is a pressure they're under in 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:36.760 the very early days. You have maybe a year of 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:39.360 funding in the bank, you have a bunch of competitors, 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:43.200 and if you can't hire quickly to build quickly your toast. 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:48.640 The consensus opinion is start worrying about it. When your 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:50.960 product is successful enough that you know that you're going 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:53.000 to be building out a team for the long run. 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:57.719 Even someone like Mitch who's really determined to focus on this, 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:02.080 he's run into a lot of obstacle. Remember, Mitch isn't 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:05.920 this diversity or HR expert. He's just a programmer trying 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.439 to figure it out as he goes along. From a 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:15.520 macro perspective of actively pursuing diversity, I'm almost but implementation wise, 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:18.600 I'm i am just throwing darts on board and and 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:21.560 hoping that we'll learn enough from those to get better. 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:29.040 Every Monday, Mitch logs onto recruiting sites like angel Lists, Hired, 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:32.280 and triple Bite. He's looking for candidates or approach, and 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:35.480 he'll spend one or two hours on each platform. He 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:38.160 said it takes him maybe six hours on Monday to 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:40.800 do that outreach, and then the follow up throughout the 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:43.800 week brings his time to about fifteen hours every week 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:47.880 just to fill one role. We spent one such Monday 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:50.880 with Mitch. As you look through a fresh batch of candidates, 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:54.120 these ones he found and hired this week, there were 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:59.120 forty two that match to search criteria. The very first 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:04.640 candidate has real experience, which is great, comes from a university, 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:08.480 I've never heard of also great and then has experience 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:12.360 in different areas, and you see the person's photos, and 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:15.480 you see the person's photo and their name, UM, and 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:19.199 actually what salary they're interested in, which is pretty interesting. 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:24.120 So I will start looking through this. Fortunately, when you 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:27.440 have forty two people every week on this platform, plus 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:30.800 the hundreds across, a lot of startups look at these 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:33.800 sites when they're trying to hire. But after a while 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:36.880 Mitch realized that these job sites, they're only good for 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:40.640 finding a certain kind of candidate. Angel List is great, UM, 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:46.160 but not a good place to look for diversity. Same 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:50.120 with many of the hiring platforms that we tried. I've 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:53.080 asked them about that in the past, and the typical 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:57.440 answer is, sorry, this is just what's available. This is 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:01.559 the pool of candidates. It's predominantly male, it's predominantly white origin. 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:05.400 So Mitch started to look for ways to find people 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:09.760 with more varied profiles, things like newsletters and meet ups 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:13.319 for women and engineering. He also looked for new graduates 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:15.720 from coding boot camps, which teach you how to code 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:18.920 in a short period of time. These people tend to 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:22.360 come from unusual backgrounds, but boot camps didn't turn out 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:25.600 to be particularly helpful for Mitch. He found that a 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:28.800 lot of these graduates didn't have enough experience to start 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:32.840 contributing right away, and Penny, as a young startup, doesn't 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:39.440 have the resources to train them. To apply to Penny, 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:42.280 you have to complete a coding questionnaire, kind of like 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:45.319 a take home test, and Mitch found that some people 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:48.760 who started it weren't finishing, and a lot of the 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:51.560 people who were dropping out were people who didn't have 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:55.480 computer science degrees, or were women, or were programmers of color. 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:58.760 And it was often these candidates that Mitch was most 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:02.679 interested in. Mid suspected it might have something to do 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:06.560 with a lack of confidence, like these people with non 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:10.520 traditional backgrounds are taking themselves out of the running before 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:14.480 they even tried. Maybe the job description will say you 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:17.880 have to have at least three years of experience, and 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:20.640 let's say often the men with two years of experience 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:25.400 will apply anyway, but the women wouldn't. Submitch, he tried 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:32.840 something new, but first a word from our sponsor. Inside 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:36.520 the most successful organizations, i T has gone from supporting 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:39.360 the business to driving the business. But the costs of 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:43.960 legacy infrastructure can impede this progress. Budgets can't stretch enough 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:47.360 to pay for digital innovation at the speed required. No 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:49.920 one gets a blank check. The answer is to change 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:53.000 the economics of your I T by shifting from ownership 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:57.120 to use, from licenses to subscriptions, from proprietary to open. 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:00.760 Change the economics of it with open software from red hat. 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:10.880 Learn more at red hat dot com. Before the break, 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:14.920 Mitch had a realization that the very candidates he was 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:18.680 interested in were taking themselves out of the running, maybe 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:21.440 because they didn't think they would get the job. Anyway, 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:26.800 Here's what he decided to do about it. When we 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:31.440 get the sense that somebody has either a confidence issue, 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:34.200 like just doesn't think they're a good fit for the 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:36.920 position or doesn't think they have the skill set required, 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:40.320 we will have a lot more contact with that person 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:43.720 to assuage their fears. That may mean a phone screen 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:47.520 much earlier in the process. It may mean more checking emails. 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:52.000 That helped him shepherd more people through the whole process, 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:55.320 not just the ultra confident ones. And that was a 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:58.880 small success, but it all came at a real cost 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:02.360 in the form of mid just time, the fifteen hours 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:05.600 a week that Mitch was spending on recruiting. That's fifteen 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:09.960 hours he's not coding or troubleshooting or mentoring his team. 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:12.080 Mitch said it was worth it, but you can see 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:15.320 why a lot of other founders in his position wouldn't 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:17.520 really have the time to do this. And that brings 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:21.280 us to the most controversial part. When you get to 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:24.680 that final stage. Would you pick one person or another 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:36.360 because they're a minority candidate? What would you do? I 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:39.840 talked to Jay Schweney Vassan. He's the CEO of Spoke, 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:43.119 which is a nine person enterprise startup in San Francisco. 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:47.920 Like Mitch, Ja says he wants a diverse team, but 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:51.480 he said he's not comfortable with making someone's ethnicity or 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:54.720 gender one of the reasons why he's hiring them. He 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:58.400 explicitly did not factor that into the final decision because 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:01.440 I think that's unfair to us as well as the 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:04.880 person being hired. Um at the end of the day, 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:09.000 we want to have the best people possible for each 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:14.600 role in our company, and this makes sense right. Picking 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:16.840 someone in part because of what they look like can 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:20.520 even be seen as employment discrimination, or it can feel 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:23.720 patronizing to the person who was hired. These are the 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:26.480 kind of counter arguments you hear a lot in Silicon 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:30.360 Valley and elsewhere. But we asked, Mitch, here are two 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:36.160 hypothetical candidates equally strong encoding and other important values at Penny, 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:38.360 but one's a white guy and the other has a 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:42.760 less typical background. Who would you hire? You just said 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:48.520 that they're equally qualified. What we're saying is that the 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:51.600 the people that were interested in hiring were weighing them 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:54.400 across all these factors, and so somebody with a diverse 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:58.200 background and a totally different perspective, in our opinion, is 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:01.680 more qualified for the position that we're trying to fill. 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.400 Giving us a perspective that we've never considered helps the 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:09.320 product more than somebody that has our same perspective but 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:11.840 as good at engineering. Did you have put back from 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:15.280 people who felt like, what's unfair? I should I be 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:20.080 punished for going to Stanford's exactly that should I be 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:23.240 punished for going to Stanford? It's it's something that I 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:27.840 don't have a good answer to, other than the entire 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:33.520 playing field is leaning in your direction. I know that 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:38.240 it can feel like in that specific instance, you're being 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:43.600 discriminated against or you're somehow unfairly disadvantaged, but you are 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:48.160 unfairly advantaged everywhere else in your life. So it's just, uh, 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:50.920 it's just a slight tilt of the playing field, a 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:55.640 little less in your favor, um, which I'm okay with. 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:57.880 I can. I can sleep easy at night knowing that, 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:00.920 knowing that if you graduated from Stanford you're going to 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:06.080 be fine. I'm not worried about you. And we just 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:09.080 heard Mitch laughing there. But you can tell just how 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:13.280 carefully and deliberately Mitch has been choosing his words through 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:16.800 this whole interview. His face was flushed. You could really 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:19.960 tell that he was nervous. And I don't blame him. 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:22.639 Here we are shoving a mic in his face, asking 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:25.480 him to talk about gender and race and all these 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:28.560 other things that are so touchy. The things going on 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:31.240 in my mind are I need to be careful about this. 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:33.159 I know that people are going to look at me 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:36.560 and say, you're just some white dude rattling off about diversity, 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:38.879 but you have no idea what you're talking about. That 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:42.960 may be true. I may not know what I'm talking about, 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:46.000 but I want to get that conversation going so that 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:48.879 I can learn, so that the rest of our team 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:53.359 can learn, and so that um, we do better moving forward. 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:56.439 We'd basically just saying, you know, Allen, I really can't 0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:59.560 remember the last time I was this nervous trying to 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:02.000 come up with the most delicate way to pose these 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:05.439 questions to me too. And Aki, you and I are 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:08.640 both women of color, you're also gay. It really makes 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:11.080 you think back to every time you've ever been offered 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:15.000 a new job. Yeah, and I guess until now this 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:18.119 has all been theoretical. But when we went in to 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:21.240 interview the Penny team, they were in the final stages 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:24.439 with one candidate. They were talking to a woman and 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:27.960 she's of Indian descent. While we were in the Penny office, 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:30.240 we got the team altogether in a room and asked 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:32.879 them what they thought of her. Yeah, they all thought 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:35.600 she would work well with the team, but she lacks 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:39.720 some technical experience. Specifically, she wasn't fluent in the main 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:43.199 programming language that Penny is written in. On top of that, 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:46.600 the company was about to enter a really busy period. 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:51.400 Great culture fit. It's somebody that we would all gladly 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:55.919 having the room working with us, because she's articulate and 0:18:55.960 --> 0:19:00.000 well thought out and it's very responsive to feedback. How 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:01.919 do you weigh that with the fact that shifts no 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:06.000 experience shipping production Ruby code, which is the language that 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:09.600 we write in UM, but seems to have the aptitude 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:13.399 to pick that up quickly. Well, the answer is we 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:18.360 don't know, so ak. When we visited Mention his team, 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:22.080 everything that they were saying seemed pretty reasonable to us. Yeah, 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:24.560 I thought he was a really thoughtful guy. I was 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:28.520 just genuinely impressed. But we're not experts on this either, 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:33.480 So we outlined Mitch's philosophy and tactics with my Von Hutchinson, 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:36.720 a former labor lawyer who is now a consultant helping 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:41.040 smaller startups on diversity and inclusion. You get an A 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:45.679 for enthusiasm Mitch for this letter grade, I would give 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:49.399 him a beat. Um. I think that he's doing some 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:52.480 of the right things. Um, he's taking a couple of risks, 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:54.679 but he could take bigger risks. I think that he 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:58.120 could definitely educate itself a little bit more, just comb 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:00.800 through the resources and see what's out there. My Van 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:04.320 said that in the long term, Penny should build relationships 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:08.679 with organizations that are trying to bring more underrepresented groups 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:12.640 into tech host dinners and meetups and that kind of thing. 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:16.800 But she also gave Mitch some practical advice for right now, 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:21.119 like put your pledge to diversity on your company's landing page, 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:24.400 not just on your job spage. Consider bringing in an 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:27.159 expert to help guide you instead of trying to figure 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:30.600 it out for yourself. And when you hire minority candidates, 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:33.760 don't expect them to do the work of recruiting diverse 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:38.080 candidates for you. I'm really happy there are guys out 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:42.639 here like Mitch. I think, um, sometimes we see guys 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:45.520 like Mitch. Don't stay like Mitch for very long. I 0:20:45.560 --> 0:20:47.880 think it's going to be in the next few years 0:20:47.880 --> 0:20:52.160 is going to be really hard to hold those values 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:56.400 and not to succumb to the temptations that are going 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:58.840 to be abound in the industry when it comes to 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:02.320 making the final call on who to hire. My Van said, 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:05.240 Mitch is taking the right approach by focusing on the 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:08.240 different perspectives that a candidate would bring to Penny. I 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:10.400 don't think that you should hire someone just because they're 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:13.400 black or just because they're a woman. That will fill 0:21:13.440 --> 0:21:15.080 a short term goal. But that's not going to pay 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:17.280 off in the long run. And I feel like so 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:21.000 often we we equate identity with experience and it's not 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:24.439 the same thing, although sometimes they're tied, right, So I 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:27.040 think if you can figure out a way to really 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:30.480 capture that, to capture the experience part of the identity 0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:33.200 as opposed to just the identity in a vacuum, like, 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:35.679 that's when you're kind of like more set up for 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:41.160 a success, Which brings us to our climax. Did Mitch, Alexandrew, 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:45.040 and Jonathan hire the female programmer? We followed up with 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:48.040 them in late November, and even though they were approaching 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:50.639 a busy time, they decided to give her an offer. 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:54.720 Her name's Vertica Shrivastav, and we met her just a 0:21:54.760 --> 0:21:58.479 few days after she accepted Penny's offer. She told us 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:00.840 that as she's met with all these different companies, she 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:07.520 knew she was likely going to be an outlier. I 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:11.200 made it a point to ask Um how many female 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:15.320 engineers they had, And after I started asking, I realized 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:17.760 it made people uncomfortable. I didn't mean I didn't mean 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:20.119 it as like a point of like superiority. I just 0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:22.680 wanted to know how many female engineers because it would 0:22:22.680 --> 0:22:25.520 affect me as someone joining their team, and it made 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:29.600 people uncomfortable. UM. They kind of be like, you know, well, 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:35.560 we had this engineer she left. UM, but she didn't 0:22:35.560 --> 0:22:38.560 sense that same discomfort at Penny. I had asked them 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:42.800 a question, UM, saying that companies always asked me why 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:44.680 am I interested in them? I think it's only fair 0:22:44.760 --> 0:22:47.120 for me to ask why are you interested in me? 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:49.840 And I liked that they didn't like tiptoe around the 0:22:49.880 --> 0:22:53.199 fact that I'm a female engineer. They're like, diversity is 0:22:53.200 --> 0:22:56.439 something that's really important to us, and you're clearly different 0:22:56.480 --> 0:22:59.160 because you're female, and then also listed like other things 0:22:59.160 --> 0:23:01.200 that were a little differ and about me then I 0:23:01.240 --> 0:23:04.399 guess the average software engineer. So like that they're honest 0:23:04.440 --> 0:23:06.960 about that and they're not trying to just because I'm 0:23:07.000 --> 0:23:09.359 a girl come out of the team like they saw 0:23:09.400 --> 0:23:11.960 something more in me other than just that I'm a female. 0:23:16.680 --> 0:23:21.320 Vertica starts this week, but Mitch's work isn't over. Wi Bond, 0:23:21.359 --> 0:23:24.159 the diversity consultant, told us that it's not going to 0:23:24.280 --> 0:23:28.119 be enough to just hire candidates with minority backgrounds. The 0:23:28.160 --> 0:23:30.879 hardest part is making sure that the new hire feels 0:23:30.920 --> 0:23:33.960 like a real and necessary part of a team with 0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:37.480 challenging work, but also the right amount of support. It's 0:23:37.480 --> 0:23:41.280 a difficult balance, Mitch just success in the long term 0:23:41.440 --> 0:23:45.200 ultimately depends on whether Vertica stays and thrives at Penny 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:48.640 and down the road, whether the different people Mitch keeps 0:23:48.720 --> 0:23:52.080 hiring will make the app more useful and enjoyable to everyone, 0:23:52.560 --> 0:24:02.600 not just people in the Silicon Valley bubble. And that's 0:24:02.640 --> 0:24:05.840 it for this week's episode of Decrypted. Thanks for listening. 0:24:06.440 --> 0:24:08.680 You can subscribe to the show on iTunes or any 0:24:08.720 --> 0:24:12.160 of your favorite podcast apps. While you're there, please leave 0:24:12.240 --> 0:24:14.960 us a rating and review. I read each and every 0:24:15.000 --> 0:24:17.439 one of these reviews. It helps us keep making the 0:24:17.480 --> 0:24:20.040 show better, and it also helps us find new listeners 0:24:20.800 --> 0:24:23.160 and tell us what do you think of the state 0:24:23.240 --> 0:24:26.560 of diversity in the tech industry. I'm on Twitter at 0:24:26.600 --> 0:24:29.600 Ellen Hewitt and I'm met aki its O seven. This 0:24:29.680 --> 0:24:33.320 episode was produced by Pierre ged Kari Magnus Hendrickson, and 0:24:33.400 --> 0:24:37.240 Liz Smith. Emily Buso edited Ellen's print story, which you 0:24:37.280 --> 0:24:41.840 can find on Bloomberg dot com Slash Technology. Alec McCabe 0:24:41.880 --> 0:24:44.560 is head of Bloomberg Podcasts. We'll see you next week. 0:24:57.480 --> 0:25:00.920