It's Not A Pipeline Issue - Taking Action to Improve Equality in Tech

Let’s cut to the chase, because we’ve spent more than a decade discussing tech’s diversity problem and have gotten “meh" results at best. 

How tech gets candidates and hires employees is biased. It rewards those privileged enough to have access to people on the inside (or to know somebody who does). And once you’re hired, it rewards those who are more likely to attract the attention of mentors and sponsors—primarily pasty white dudes like myself.

Admitting that there is a problem is always the first step, but tech’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts have been stuck there for years. If tech wants to hire and retain more BIPOCs, women, military veterans, and other underrepresented groups, if tech wants to reflect the diversity of the populations it serves, it needs to move forward.

I have a solution that puts what’s been seen as privileged information into the hands of people who historically have been excluded from accessing it.

The Pipeline Isn’t The Problem

Tech has found a buzzy euphemism to explain why there isn’t equitable representation across race, gender, and other identities in its workforce: The pipeline.

The pipeline has become a scapegoat that shifts blame away from big tech and on to would-be applicants. “It’s not our fault we’re not hiring [insert group],” the excuse became, “they’re just not there.”

This has led to a focus on gaps in STEM education, which are very real and need to be fixed. But only looking at technical roles ignores other positions that are available and would benefit from diverse hires, too: roles in marketing, operations, finance, and sales, for example.

Tech’s solutions have only furthered the idea that there aren’t enough people who aren’t white or men to do the job. Many tech companies use an interview approach inspired by the NFL’s “Rooney Rule.” 

Dan Rooney, then the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers and chairman of the league’s diversity committee, required teams to interview at least one underrepresented minority for head coach positions. The rule was adopted in 2003, and tripled the number of Black head coaches hired in the league.

But come on: At least one? It makes it sound like there are so few non-white male candidates available, that even securing one for an interview is something. It makes it easy to pay lip service to diversity instead of paying diverse hires.

It also doesn’t move the needle much: While the NFL is currently expanding the Rooney Rule, analysis of its overall impact shows it stalled out in 2005 and the lack of diversity in head coaches and executive positions continues. (When you’re starting near zero, any change sounds good on paper.) Tech hasn’t fared much better for using the Rooney Rule. I was employed at Facebook during the early years of them implementing the Diverse Slate Approach. Facebook’s gender breakdown in their 2020 annual diversity report was 63% men, 37% women without accounting for gender nonbinary folks.

When you look at race, most  gains made have been flat or in the single digits. 

“Looking at both FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google) and A-PLUS (Airbnb, Pinterest, Lyft, Uber and Slack) companies today,” Techcrunch reported, “tech employees are still predominantly white and Asian.”

The gains that exist are a start, and tracking data is important. But tech can do better. Tech needs to do better. So about that solution…

Time To Flood The Pipeline

Tech has a limited vision of what the pipeline looks like and who an ideal candidate is. Bringing in people who would self-select out of the running, or who have been looked over for positions because they didn’t know the game, would change that. I’ve started Kadima Career XLR8R to help 1 million underrepresented individuals get great careers in big tech (Kadima means “forward” in Hebrew).

I know how tech recruiting and hiring works—in 2015, I interviewed the highest number of tech candidates at Google (225 people in case you were wondering). I’ve looked at tens of thousands of resumes, interviewed thousands of people, hired hundreds, and promoted dozens. And I’ve seen firsthand how it privileges the already privileged. Hell, it’s the reason why my resume reads the way it does.

People get jobs from either who they know or what they know. I’ve tracked my career since I got my first W-2 when I was 14 years old, bagging groceries at Waldbaum’s in Long Island for five bucks an hour. I’m almost 47 now: Of the 20 jobs I’ve had, only four of them were purely based on merit. The vast majority were because I knew someone. Nepotism got me three of those 20 jobs; the rest were because of friendships and relationships made from a network that grew and got more influential as I moved from one job to the next.

The myth that tech is a meritocracy ignores the truth: That my experience is actually how most people get high-paying jobs. Without knowing a friend who played softball with an executive from Google, my application there may have been ignored for a sixth time. I’ve benefited from the randomness of being born with white skin to an upper-middle-class family. Evening the playing field is long overdue.

With Kadima Career XLR8R, I’m using that knowledge to support underrepresented candidates in getting the jobs and the compensation they want. And by flooding the pipeline with diverse talent, it eliminates the need for an “at least one” approach.

Privilege has been used to enable and sustain systemic inequities. It’s also a force to end them. Kadima Career XLR8R is a way forward. I hope you’ll join me, but if not, it’s ok: The people I’m working with won’t settle down for the trickle down diversity of today’s tech pipeline. Kadima is launching its Fall Career Accelerator on October 29th. If you have 5-25 years of experience and are looking to crack into or accelerate your career in tech, sign up at https://www.kadima.work/iamready and we’ll be in touch with you right away.