The Importance of Diversity

This is the Chapter 17 of my e-book Silicon Valley for Foreigners, that can be downloaded for free on www.siliconvalleybook.com or purchased for $2.99 on the iBookStore and Kindle. A new chapter will be posted on this blog every week.

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It is no secret that minorities are usually treated unfairly in most parts of the world. Blacks in American inner cities, Catholics in Indonesia, Muslims in Myanmar and China, Koreans in Japan, Jews in the Middle East, Arabs in Israel, Kurds in Turkey, Turkish in Germany, gays in Russia, Republicans in San Francisco or Democrats in Texas; you name it. In a divided society, the word diversity may invoke one’s skin color, ethnic, political or religious background.

In Silicon Valley, though, the concept of diversity is taken into a different context. The ecosystem does not care how you look like, where you come from or what your personal beliefs are. Entrepreneurs, academics, investors, and executives are interested in knowing about your skills, mindset, and life story.

Have you done something remarkable? Have you created something cool? Have you studied heterodox subjects and want to apply them to other fields? Are you a misfit? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, people will want to meet you and learn more.

It is widely believed in Silicon Valley that, when dealing with complex problems, mixing people with different backgrounds and points of view can only result in good outcomes.

In Berkeley, for instance, you will find a broad spectrum of students attending classes, from well born kids to students fleeing poverty in their home countries to former military guys who fought in Afghanistan or Iraq. Aspiring doctors may have a computer science background or engineers may pursue a Ph.D. in neuropsychology. Diversity is not only part but encouraged by the ecosystem.

The same rationale is applied when tech startups or large companies hire employees. Physicists are known to be potentially very good programmers, designers may become very influential product managers, artificial intelligence experts are in high demand even in law offices, and game companies hire economists to manage their complex in-game economy.

Tech companies and startups are now conducting research and working on a varied set of fields such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality, blockchain, robotics, neuropsychology, biotech, hardware, etc. Without diversity of talent and heterodox backgrounds, they will not be able to fulfill positions that require expertise in diverse subjects.

Even medicine is changing dramatically. The Biodesign course at Stanford mixes engineers, designers, entrepreneurs, programmers, and doctors to solve health related problems. The university is bringing innovation to a slow-moving industry by betting on the diversity of people’s backgrounds and ideas.

Silicon Valley is also a place of immigrants, and you can find people from many countries working in the service and tech industry. Not only will your Uber drivers be from the Middle East, Latin America, Africa or Asia; actually, 51 percent of billion-dollar tech startups in Silicon Valley, from 1995 to 2005, have been started by immigrants. Sergei Brin, one of Google’s co-founders, was a refugee fleeing the Soviet Union. Jan Koum, WhatsApp co-founder, came from Ukraine and survived on food stamps throughout his childhood. Facebook and Instagram had Brazilian co-founders. Elon Musk is from South Africa.

Immigrants are everywhere. CEOs of Microsoft and Google are Indian. Jensen Huang, CEO of NVidia, was born in Taiwan. Venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson is from Estonia. The prolific investor Shervin Pishevar is Iranian. Oracle’s CEO is an Israeli born woman.

On traditional diversity issues, Silicon Valley boasts beacons of hope. Tim Cook is gay. Peter Thiel is a gay Republican. Famous tech journalist Kara Swisher is lesbian and her colleague Ina Fried is a transgender woman. Social Capital general partner, Mamoon Hamid, is Muslim. Michael Siebel, partner and CEO of Y Combinator, is Black. Women CEOs run HP, Yahoo, Xerox and many other large companies.

The acceptance of this melting pot of ideas, educational backgrounds, values, and points of view brings the best out of people, incentivizes tolerance, and helps immensely to generate innovative products and successful startups. In my opinion, diversity is fundamental for tech ecosystems to thrive.

Obviously, there is still a lot of work to be done in order to bring minorities to the tech industry. Silicon Valley is, sometimes, heavily criticized for being racist or misogynist.

I believe, however, the solution to these problems is more dependent on the educational system, immigration policies, and the replacement of the old school establishment by younger generations, which treat diversity and equality as something ordinary.