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San Francisco -- and the tech industry -- are beaming with Pride this weekend.
The United States Supreme Court on Friday ruled same-sex marriage a constitutional right, one day before San Francisco begins its famous Pride festivities, one of the largest celebrations of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender -- aka LGBT -- culture in the country. The tech industry is practically euphoric, especially after high-profile executives this year, from Apple CEO Tim Cook to Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, publicly advocated advancing gay rights. But that advancement works both ways, said Gary Virginia, board president of SF Pride, which organizes the celebration. Speaking out is not just a personal decision for tech execs; it makes good business sense too, he said.
"They attract a younger population for their workforce, and it's been proven that social attitudes are changing," said Virginia. "So it behooves them to have progressive policies to attract LGBT employees. I think they see the benefit of it."
The celebration caps off a landmark year for the gay rights movement. In September, Apple's Cook wrote an essay saying he's gay, making him the first openly gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company. A month later, he allowed for his name to be attached to an LGBT anti-discrimination bill in his home state of Alabama. In March, Benioff said he had cancelled all Salesforce events in Indiana after its governor signed a law that would allow businesses to refuse service to anyone in the LGBT community on religious grounds. Less than a week later, dozens of executives from Airbnb, Ebay, Jawbone, Lyft, PayPal, Twitter and other companies signed a joint statement in The Washington Post against the religious freedom laws either passed or being considered in several states.
The tech industry is a relatively recent ally. LGBT leaders point out it's taken decades to achieve Friday's Supreme Court decision. New York City, for example, is commemorating the anniversary of the 1969 riots at the Stonewall Inn, which many consider the jump start of the movement. The 1978 assassination of Harvey Milk, an openly gay San Francisco board supervisor, galvanized the national LGBT community.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday June 29 2015, @03:37PM
The payback is usually a startup that beat the corporate monolith. Then it gets bought out. Or competition from other countries.
And recruitment to those things is a meritocracy, better have skills and ideas.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday June 29 2015, @09:18PM
Actually I take issue with the concept that "there is something bad wrong among the tech giants".
They seem to hire who ever wants the jobs and comes with the best credentials. If they were worried all that much about sexism, gender, and race, they would have long since started preferentially hiring those folks. But oddly enough, when looking for programmers they seem to hire mostly people who are pretty good at programming.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday June 29 2015, @11:48PM
Or perhaps people with the right papers but commodity "talent" and strong ability suck up the corporate culture. And perhaps most of all O-B-A-Y.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday June 30 2015, @02:34AM
I think it goes without saying that some sucking up to the culture you wish to join is in proper order. Regardless of credentials. If the friggin tie is required you wear it.
As for the right papers, I suspect you've been around long enough that might get you into a chair that requires an MBA, but if you join a tech company and can't manage a line of code you get sent away pretty quickly.
We had a "turkey farm" reserved for these types of people. They were usually too dumb to know they were being sent to the farm, they thought they were joining the Elite next generation projects. Till the layoffs came. It was a State Government, and it was a little harder to get rid of people, but we managed. Big tech has no such problems.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.