Google, Snap Help Push Diversity Effort In Tech

Snapchat Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Vice President Oona King, Uber Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Bo Young Lee, and Spotify Global Head of Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Travis Robinson all join Emily Chang for an exclusive roundtable on their latest report calling for collective, industry-wide action for more diversity in tech.
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You are all part of a group of companies that’s now banding
together to improve diversity in the workplace. How exactly will

you. At various different companies be working together to. Well
essentially what the ACT report does is sign a sop to taking

collective action. Because you know we win or lose at DTI
diversity action inclusion together in products quite often or

with the tech products we create we win or lose on our I.
That’s not the same with the eye. And you know chief things

really strike me. I’ve spent two decades A.I. five years in
tech. And these are the two things. First the tech industry has

failed on the ISE.
And second I’ve seen with my own eyes I’m passionate committed

clever people in the tech industry that really want to change.
So the actual core is full and it lays out a roadmap for that

change. It shows us how we can come together and also adds a bit
of inspiration. If people want to know the answer to the

question that the expert group spent one year answering how to
transform the ISE in the tech industry it’s applicable to all

industries then I hope they’ll check out a report.
Meantime you’re all competitors and the war for talent is

brutal. Poaching from a limited talent pool is a huge problem.
And I wonder Travis why align yourselves rather than trying to

get all that diverse talent on your own. Sure. And I think it’s
an opportunity for us as a system we can impact change.

The more we come together the more opportunity we can to attract
and recruit individuals into these amazing opportunities here at

Spotify. We just announced our work from anywhere a program
where we are democratizing the access to opportunity beyond the

the major cities of New York Los Angeles or London. You can work
from anywhere. And we believe that this is one angle and one

opportunity that we believe that talent that are all across the
globe can get into tech.

So we’re trying to identify ways across with our partners.
Though we believe together we can come together to increase the

not only the attraction to the tech industry but also
democratize and develop ways for us to increase access into

different opportunities. So the mindset of this distributed
first workplace that is the way of the future and for us to

think about different ways of working. The only way that’s going
to be possible is we if we come together as an industry to be

able to solve this problem. And I believe that’s what the ACT
report helps us to.

So tell us more about what your companies will commit to doing
specifically to boost the talent pool and open up access.

Absolutely. So I think at the core of this and it’s spelled out
in the four recommendations in the ACT report really is it’s

about both modeling and incentivizing that inclusive talent and
the leadership. And we are all going to share what we are doing

to incentivize RTX. How are we modeling it. We’re going to
operationalize it. And I think at Uber we’ve we’ve demonstrated

that we have been able if you look at our pay equity which we
published in our annual People of Culture report Uber has been

able to achieve pay equity for the past three years without
making any major substantive changes. And that’s because we made

changes in our
in our hiring process in our development process as well as our

promotion process and then sharing DNA data. Again it’s so
important for us to be able to be really transparent about where

we’ve made progress but also where we failed. It’s only in that
transparency that we’ll all learn together. And then finally it

is really about you know and Travis really talked about this.
It’s expanding the pool because right now we are all trying to

get our unfair share of a very limited pool because there still
is a lot of stereotypes that prevent us from seeing talent in

other avenues. And so it’s about investing growing that pool of
talent. And that’s the only way we’re going to address the

underlying challenges within the tech industry. I wonder what
discussions you’ve had with your CEOs about this report and

about these issues for example. Have you talked to Evan Spiegel.
You know is he committed to making DNR DTI a chief company

business imperative. And what do you expect from him.
Yeah absolutely. I mean this whole initiative actually came

about as a result of a comment he made to me because I was
saying hey look here isn’t the plan. And you know what. In many

of these plans the strategies we will have. And it’s about you
know how to get more inclusive workforce product culture. I said

to him the thing is no one leader no one company can solve this.
Right. So if we really wanted to do it right this needs to be

across industry approach. And he was like well then that should
be the strategic priority. So we actually start from that

conversation. We come to this at SNAP from a position of
complete humility. I mean you know our point is we don’t have

all the answers but if we are to ask the questions together
that’s the way we’re most likely to find success and accelerate

what has been agonizingly incremental progress. Because to the
earlier points we have to address some of the root problems at

the moment. What we do is play like diversity musical chairs.
That’s kind of like the best we say the West is. We’re just

preaching each other’s like my best. I hate that phrase. But you
know I mean at the end of the day we have to expand the actual

pool of that talent itself by addressing educational inequities
and other systemic barriers. Well and as you say there’s a huge

disconnect between what executive thinks executives think about
their workplace and what workers think about their workplace.

For example research found that 75 percent of exacts believe
that women and ethnic minorities feel a sense of belonging in

their organizations. That belief is actually only shared by 24
percent of women and underrepresented minority employees. Travis

how do you start addressing this.
Yeah that’s a great question. And the research shows and even in

this in this current state you have to think about connectivity
and community building when it comes to this sense of belonging.

It has to be intentional and you have to shift mindsets and
behaviors. And as I mentioned that this is paramount to what

this this coalition of individuals are coming together to
address. The old way of doing things is no longer the way of the

future. So we have to come together to think strategically about
how do we establish community in a distributed first workplace

workplace but also be intentional in realizing the data shows
that individuals from the historically excluded communities are

having a different experience. But it all starts with the data
and that will help us think about strategies and solutions. But

once again if we come together it can accelerate the diversity
it can infuse the inclusion and be able to amplify bonk

belonging in a meaningful way. And the only way to do that is
actually be intentional with the steps that that it takes. You

know one of the big advancements in the last decade is companies
reporting their diversity statistics. But sadly when you look at

those statistics the numbers don’t move that much every year.
Sometimes they even backtrack. So what’s it going to take to see

real change. Is it going to be years. Is it going to be decades.
Well I hope it’s not decades. I hope it is. It is years. And you

know rhubarb is a really great example of a company that
actually has been able to make progress since 20 19. We’ve seen

it over 10 percent increase in a women in leadership. We’ve
almost doubled the representation of underrepresented people of

color in our leadership as well. In the last two years and for
what it will take is not just simply putting simple bandages and

putting in programs so to speak. It’s about fundamentally
redesigning the culture that exists within tech. You know Emily

you wrote a book a few years ago Brad Stone talking about the
fact that the tech industry culture is really defined by this

very like hyper masculine culture. And that is not welcoming. It
doesn’t create a lung for women for people of color LGBTQ people

with disabilities. And so one of the things that’s really
important that I think this group of tech companies is we’re

saying we’re going to work together we’re going to find
solutions together and we’re going to truly address the

underlying cultural elements that makes it so hard for people
like all four of us to feel like we belong that this is our

natural home in the tech industry.