Braswell: Vague "diversity" jargon prevents companies from solving specific hiring challenges
Porter Braswell · Funding Is an Outcome of Building a Good Business - Porter Braswell of Jopwell · Y Combinator · Mar 21, 2018 · at 20:17
Porter Braswell, co-founder of Jopwell, argues that companies must identify specific demographic verticals rather than speaking generally about diversity.
0:00 / 0:28exact quote · 28.3s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“When I hear the word diversity and I hear people describe diversity challenges I think that One, when I hear that, I don't really hear much because that diversity is kind of, it could be anything. You can make an argument that anybody is diverse and that really, I think inhibits companies from actually moving the needle when it comes to what their actual challenges are.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Porter Braswell
Braswell: Data disproves tech's "pipeline problem" for minority engineers
“And when companies say, oh, you know, there's not even like the pipeline of black, Latino, Hispanic, and Native American engineers. One, that's not true. And the data does not suggest that at all.”
Braswell: Techstars NYC rejected us because "recruiting is not a challenge"
“We then actually applied to New York Techstars. And did not get in. And this was in December. Made it to the final round. They basically said, I don't understand diversity. Recruiting is not a big challenge. And you guys don't have anything. Like, I don't know…”
Braswell: Low diversity in non-technical tech roles disproves the pipeline excuse
“If your company is two percent black or three percent, you know, Hispanic or Latino, you can't say that you can't find enough people who are people of color in non-technical roles, sales, consulting, finance, HR, you name it. And so if your organization is sti…”
Braswell: 44M underrepresented minority professionals and students exist in workforce
“And there are forty four million black, Latino, Hispanic, and Native American students and professionals in the workforce that, that that exists as well.”
Braswell: Hiring from early friend networks causes startup diversity debt
“But as you hire your friends and for friends, friends, and that's how companies scale. So when we think about like the difficulties of how companies kind of get to where they are, where there's a lack of diversity, we experienced it from a very extreme other s…”
Braswell: Low baseline diversity means underrepresented applicants lack internal job champions
“If you look at the numbers in tech, for instance, right? If two percent of your workforce is black and three percent are Latino or Hispanic, odds are you don't know anybody that works there. And odds are you're not going to have that champion that kind of says…”