Bob

I have made two posts (here and here) to my blog concerning racial diversity in Silicon Valley. In these two posts, I have noted that there are very few black software engineers in Silicon Valley. This does not mean that outstanding black software engineers and computer scientists do not exist. I want to point out one in particular: Bob Bell at AT&T Labs. Bob's expertise is in the fields of statistics and machine learning. He was a member of the team that won the Netflix Prize, awarded for developing software that could do a better job of predicting the movies customers would like than Netflix’s own in-house software, Cinematch. You can read more about Bob's credentials here. Bob is way smarter than I am. Any software engineering operation would be absolutely delighted to have Bob on their staff.

It is interesting to note, however, that the ethnic distribution of the staff at AT&T Labs confirms the general assertion I have made in my two earlier posts, namely: although the percentage of blacks and Hispanics in the population of (software) engineers is significantly lower than their percentage in the general population, nevertheless software engineers as a whole are a very diverse group, if, by diversity, you mean a mix of individuals from every corner of the world, You need only to peruse AT&T Labs' staff directory yourself to convince yourself of this fact. The ethnic mix of the AT&T staff would be familiar to anyone who has worked in a software development operation in Silicon Valley.

So, now the $60K question: Is AT&T Labs a racist organization because the percentage of blacks on its staff is lower than the percentage of blacks in the general population? I, for one, do not believe this to be the case. Why would AT&T Labs, when they so obviously are willing to hire computer scientists of all ethnic backgrounds, discriminate against blacks, especially if there is some hidden pool of immensely talented Bob's somewhere. Unfortunately, the situation is not like the old Negro Leagues in baseball. Then, it was obvious to anyone who cared to look that there was an enormous pool of very talented black ballplayers. I just do not see the equivalent deep pool of black computer professionals. I don't know why that is. But that doesn't make it less of a fact.

But I am growing disgusted with this discussion. I have not made my posts in order to malign blacks, Hispanics, or women as a group for not having contributed more software geeks to society. I have merely wanted to make the point that it is unfair to insinuate that high-tech companies are racist or sexist because blacks, Hispanics, and women are underrepresented on their engineering staffs. I feel as if I have gone too far. The very people who work on these staffs would be repulsed to hear themselves being discussed in terms of their ethnicity (or any other inessential characteristic, like sex or sexual preference). What these people want you to remember them for is their technical ability, and, in rare cases, like Bob, their technical brilliance.

There could be no surer way to kill the marvelous institution of AT&T Labs than to introduce inessential considerations like racial or sexual quotas into its engineering hiring policies. Let's keep Silicon Valley, and high-tech in general, quota-free.

And, btw, all you little black kids out there, one day Bob is going to leave AT&T Labs and start a software company and become the next Mark Zuckerberg. Think it over.