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Happy to see @sether address this, and glad that my reflections from a few years ago on the composition of my own address book was useful in informing his thoughts.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2015/10/08/how-fix-your-unconsciously-biased-address-book/73544806/ https://twitter.com/sether/status/1281642594116698112
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2015/10/08/how-fix-your-unconsciously-biased-address-book/73544806/ https://twitter.com/sether/status/1281642594116698112
My article in 2015 was mostly focused on gender - at the time, that was relatively straightforward to programmatically analyze. When I first wrote it, my address book was 80% men; today, it's below 60%. Not 50/50, but huge progress.
More recently, I've been much more focused on the racial composition of my network. As expected, most of the contacts in my address book were from over-represented groups.
The more people I followed / connected to who didn't look like me, the more aware of issues that were critical to them I became; the more conscious I became of the opportunity to speak up on those issues.
Most recently, in the wake of George Floyd's murder, I talked about nothing but racial equity, and the importance of acknowledging the myriad ways in which I've benefitted from systemic racism. I wrote this on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-am-racist-same-racism-rick-klau/
I'm calling this out not to seek a pat on the back. (No ally cookies!) Sharing because of something cool that followed from that post: one of the people who reached out to me privately was a Black woman considering a move into venture capital. She asked if I'd be open to a call.
we spoke on two occasions over a couple weeks; I was impressed by her background, and though I wasn't hiring, I told her I'd keep her in mind if I saw anything interesting. (I realize this is often a polite way of punting, but I meant it.)
as luck would have it, @roybahat and I were emailing back and forth about an upcoming (virtual) event that he's organizing that I'll be attending.
quick note about Roy: he and I first met when he organized the #ComebackCities tour in 2018 for VCs to 6 HBCUs in the South. It was a phenomenal experience, and among many other things, I learned that Roy is Good People, and someone I'm not grateful to consider a good friend.
anyhow, the footer of Roy's email was this:
@BloombergBeta rarely has openings for new roles on our team, so we've only recently started to post them in public. We seek the most diverse set of candidates possible. If you know someone for one of our open roles, send them our way?
@BloombergBeta rarely has openings for new roles on our team, so we've only recently started to post them in public. We seek the most diverse set of candidates possible. If you know someone for one of our open roles, send them our way?
I had no idea if the woman I'd just gotten to know was a good fit, but mentioned her to Roy. A day later, they connected. The following week, she had an interview.
I don't know how that particular story ends. But if I go all the way back to the unconscious bias training I took at Google ages ago, I first understood the ways in which my failure to actively correct the systemic bias around me was itself complicity.
And from the address book work several years ago, to being more conscious of the people and communities where I choose to engage, to speaking up on issues that feel vitally important... if none of that happens, I never meet an outstanding candidate who I refer to Roy.
(And it should be noted: if Roy & BloombergBeta don't put that blurb in the footer of their email, it probably doesn't occur to me to make the intro. So - huge props there as well.)
Anyway. Thanks @sether for inspiring this write-up.
Anyway. Thanks @sether for inspiring this write-up.
