The Digital Life

The Digital Life


Diversity in Tech

November 10, 2016

Jon: Welcome to Episode 181 of The Digital Life. A show about our insights into the future of design and technology. I'm your host, Jon Follett, and with me is founder and co-host Dirk Knemeyer.

Dirk: Greetings listeners.

Jon: For our podcast this week, we're going to dig into the problem of the future of diversity in the tech industry. This is a hot topic that has been getting, I think, a little bit more attention over the past months of 2016, and I think that, as we examine the tech industry generally, we can begin to see that the diversity patterns aren't as good as maybe we would have liked them to be. What that means, ultimately is that there are certain types of people, usually white or Asian males who dominate the software industries to, I wouldn't say to the detriment of, but to the exclusion of females and minorities.

There's been a bit more attention paid lately with large companies sinking some money into increasing their diversity, and at least on the outside, appearances trying to make more of an effort. We know that there are various organizations to encourage girls to code, for instance. I know our friend, Bobbi Carlton has an innovation women initiative to get more technical women on panels at conferences. As you know, when you go to a conference and see who the speakers are, it's more likely than not that those people are going to be white or Asian males, and not too many women either.

As we start to look into this topic, Dirk, I know that this is one that is pretty important to you and that you've thought a lot about. What's your initial salvo at this effort to make tech more inclusive, both from the current state of the industry and maybe things that we can all do to make it more inclusive, generally speaking?

Dirk: I want us to be clear, when we talk about diversity and inclusivity, both of which are important to me, what exactly are we talking about? I wryly noted that you mentioned minorities, after mentioning that Asian men were very present in the tech community. The community that I came from, a little suburb called Sylvania, Ohio, which has a very highly-rated public school that I attended, and the non-white people could be counted on my hands in the school of over a thousand people, more or less, at that time. It's become more diverse since then. From my perspective, being an Asian male within in a culture that was historically white males is a part of diversity. Asian males in our culture, certainly in the sub-culture that I grew up in, that was very white and sheltered, would have been considered a minority. You excluded that group from being a minority. I'm interested in your framing, and let's be really clear on what we're talking about when we say diversity and inclusivity.

Jon: I think the tech industry does have a good number of Asian males as part of it.

Dirk: Asian males, let's make that even more specific. You mean far-eastern Asian males? Is that what you mean?

Jon: Yeah, I would even include myself in that category, or at least partly in that category. I can think of Asian males who are tech leaders. It's I think when we're talking about minorities in technology, certainly that would fall under the minority umbrella, although, well represented, I think, as far as that goes. Then, inclusivity would definitely include people from all walks of life and all races as well. That's how I draw those circles.

Dirk: Okay, fair enough. I lived in Silicone Valley from 2004 or 2005 until about 2008 or 2009, so about four or five years that I was there. What struck me when I was in Silicon Valley, was from a racial and ethnic perspective, it was certainly the most diverse place I had ever been. As a white person, this may or may not be true, but my impression was that a Caucasian was the fourth most common ethnicity.

Jon: Interesting.

Dirk: That's present around me, in the spaces that I worked with knowledge workers were far-east Asian individuals.