Who’s Afraid of Big Bad DEI? The acronym has become almost toxic by now — a term that creates tension almost immediately between those who embrace it and those who wish to abolish it.
A prime example of this divide was the response from Alexander Wang, founder of startup Scale AI. Post Last week on X he wrote Moving away from DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) should be replaced by “MEI” – Merit, Excellence and Intelligence.
“Scale is a meritocracy, and we should always remain one,” Wang wrote. “Whenever we invite someone to join our mission, it’s a big deal, and those decisions are never influenced by stereotypes or virtue signaling or whatever the current thing is.”
Commenters on X – including Elon Musk, Palmer Lucci and Brian Armstrong – were thrilled. On LinkedIn, however, the startup community made a telling comment. Less enthusiastic Response. Those commenters pointed out that Wang’s post made it seem like “meritocracy” was the deciding criterion for finding qualified hiring candidates — without considering that the idea of meritocracy itself is subjective. In the days since the post, more and more people have shared their thoughts and what Wang’s comments reveal about the current state of DEI in tech.
“This post is misleading because those who support the meritocracy argument are ignoring the structural reasons why some groups are more likely to outperform others,” founder Mutale Nkonde, who works in AI policy, told TechCrunch. “We all want the best people for the job, and there is data to prove that diverse teams are more effective.”
Emily Witko, an HR professional at AI startup Hugging Face, told TechCrunch that the post was a “dangerous oversimplification,” but it got so much attention on X because it “openly expressed sentiments that aren’t always expressed publicly and the audience there is eager to attack DEI.” Wang’s DEI thinking “makes it so easy to refute or criticize any conversation about the importance of acknowledging underrepresentation in tech,” she added.
But Wang isn’t the only person in Silicon Valley to attack DEI in recent months. He joins the ranks of those who feel that DEI programs implemented in businesses over the past several years, which peaked with the Black Lives Matter movement, have led to a decline in corporate profitability — and that it’s time for a return to “meritocracy principles.” In fact, much of the tech industry has worked to eliminate hiring programs that consider candidates who, under previous hiring arrangements, were often overlooked in the hiring process.
In an effort to bring about change, in 2020, several organizations and power players have come together to pledge to put more focus on DEI, which, contrary to mainstream discourse, is not just about hiring someone based on skin color, but about ensuring that qualified people from all walks of life – regardless of skin color, gender, or ethnic background – are better represented and included in the hiring funnel. It’s also about looking at inequities and pipeline issues, analyzing the reasoning behind Why some candidates Constantly overlooked in the hiring process.
In 2023, US data industry sees new levels of women hiring drop That has fallen by two-thirds from 36% to just 12% in 2022, according to a report by HR staffing firm Harnham. Meanwhile, the percentage of Black, Indigenous and professionals of color in data roles at VP or above stood In 2022, this rate will be only 38%.
According to data from job site Indeed, DEI-related job listings have also declined, falling by 44% in 2023. In the AI industry, Deloitte recently released a report. survey More than half of women said they had to leave at least one employer because men and women were treated differently, while 73% considered leaving the tech industry because of unequal pay and an inability to advance in their careers.
Still, for an industry that prides itself on being data-driven, Silicon Valley can’t seem to abandon the idea of meritocracy — despite all the challenges Data and research This shows that this kind of thinking is just a belief system and can lead to biased results. The idea of hiring the “best person for the job” without taking any human sociology into account is a method of pattern-matching – combining teams and companies of people who are similar, When research has long shown Diverse teams perform better. Moreover, this has only created doubts about who is considered excellent in the Valley and why.
The experts we spoke to said this subjectivity Other issues also crop up in Wang’s letter — primarily that he presents MEI as a revolutionary idea, and not as typical of Silicon Valley and most of corporate America. have been hugging for a long timeThe acronym “MEI” appears to be a scornful nod to DEI, meant to set the impression that a company must choose between hiring diverse candidates or candidates who meet certain “objective” qualifications.
Natalie Sue Johnson, co-founder of DEI consultancy firm Paradigm, told TechCrunch that research has shown consider meritocracy to be an oxymoron, and organizations that focus too much on it actually see an increase in bias. “It frees people from thinking they have to work hard to be fair in their decision-making,” he adds. “They think meritocracy is inherent, not something that needs to be achieved.”
As Nkonde noted, Johnson said Wang’s approach doesn’t acknowledge that underrepresented groups face systemic barriers that society is still struggling to overcome. Ironically, the most brilliant person may be the one who acquired the skill set for a job despite obstacles that may have affected their educational background or prevented them from filling their resume with the kind of college internships that influenced Silicon Valley.
Treating someone as a faceless, nameless candidate without understanding their unique experiences and therefore their employability is a mistake, Johnson said. “There are nuances to this.”
Witko adds: “A merit-based system is built on criteria that reflect the status quo, and therefore, it will perpetuate existing inequities by continually benefiting those who already receive an advantage.”
To be somewhat generous to Wang, given how acidic the term DEI has become, developing a new term that still represents the value of fairness for all candidates isn’t a terrible idea — even if “meritocracy” is misguided. And his post shows the value of scaled AI can Even if they don’t realize it, they should engage in a spirit of diversity, equity and inclusion, Johnson said.
“The purpose of diversity, equity and inclusion is to cast a wide net for talent and make objective hiring decisions that do not disadvantage candidates based on identity,” he explained.
Yet, where Wang falls short is that he is supporting the false notion that meritocracy will only produce results based on a person’s abilities and merit.
Perhaps this is all a paradox. If one looks at Scale AI’s treatment of its data annotators – many of whom live in third world countries and make do on very low wages – it suggests the company has no real interest in disrupting the status quo.
Scale AI’s annotators work many eight-hour workdays — with no breaks — for wages of less than $10 (According to The Verge and NY Mag) It is on the back of these annotators that Scale AI has built a business worth over $13 billion and has over $1.6 billion in cash in the bank.
When asked for comment on the allegations made in The Verge and NY Mag, a spokesperson said this blog postin which it described the jobs of its human annotators as “gig work.” The spokesperson did not address TechCrunch’s request for clarification on Scale AI’s MEI policy.
Johnson said Wang’s post is a perfect example of the kind of situation many politicians and companies are caught in.
Can they be confident, they wondered, that merit-based ideals alone are enough to achieve genuine merit-based outcomes and promote diversity?
“Or, do they believe that ideals are not enough, and that intentionality is needed to truly build a more diverse workforce where everyone has equal access to opportunities and can do their best work?”
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