Tech companies’ diversity problems are even worse at the leadership level

Data show that there's a big gap between the executives at the top of the tech pyramid and those who actually make the machines go.

This is true for Twitter, but also at Yahoo, where women account for 37 percent of the workforce but only 23 percent of leadership positions. Whites make up only 50 percent of Yahoo's US employees, but as much as 78 percent of its US-based leadership. Asians make up more than a third of Facebook's overall workforce. Yet only 19 percent have made it into senior-level positions.

There appears to be a ceiling at many of these companies that transcends demography.