Diversity champion says Silicon Valley overlooks minority talent

Freada Kapor Klein is co-chair of the Kapor Center for Social Impact, which seeks to diversify participation in the technology economy, focusing on “underrepresented communities.” The other co-chair is her husband, Mitch Kapor, who designed Lotus 1-2-3, the software application that sparked business adoption of personal computers in the 1980s.

After the release of Google’s work force demographics, “All positions should be given on merit alone, the best qualified candidate gets the job” was among the milder comments posted on news sites. Freada Kapor Klein is having none of it. “Silicon Valley's obsession with meritocracy is delusional and aspirational and not a statement of how it really operates,” she said. “Unless someone wants to posit that intelligence is not evenly distributed across genders and race, there has to be some systematic explanation for what these numbers look like.” Google announced that it would partner with the Kapor Center to help diversify its own workforce and work with other Silicon Valley companies to do the same. Google plans a “big tent” event later in the year to bring in valley luminaries to address the issue. Klein agrees that hard work, strong computer skills and a willingness and ability to learn are essential for a successful career in technology. That's why, she said, the Kapor Center is working to improve the pipeline of talent with programs such as its SMASH Academy, which brings mostly poor black and Latino high school students to summer programs at UCLA, USC, Stanford and UC Berkeley to study science, technology, engineering and math. But, Klein maintains, tech companies often overlook minority talent through unconscious or hidden bias.