Uber has hired a chief diversity officer

 Uber has hired Bo Young Lee, the former global diversity and inclusion leader of insurance company Marsh LLC, to be its first-ever chief diversity. Lee will begin in March, Recode first reported. This means Uber’s global head of diversity and inclusion, Bernard Coleman, will now be reporting to her. “As I was interviewing for this role, it became very clear that Uber is taking… Read More

Google CEO: ‘I don’t regret’ firing James Damore

 Google CEO Sundar Pichai says he still believes that it was appropriate to fire James Damore. “I don’t regret it,” said Pichai, in an interview with Recode’s Kara Swisher and MSNBC’s Ari Melber. It’s been almost six months since the company dismissed the engineer, who authored a controversial memo about purported gender differences. Read More

Diverse teams are still *really* good for business, McKinsey says

 Diversity is good for business — not just from the ethical standpoint, but from the perspective of a company’s bottom-line, according to McKinsey & Company. As a follow-up to its “Why Diversity Matters” study in 2015, McKinsey analyzed over 1,000 companies across 12 countries, looking at their respective profits and value creation. Companies in the top quartile… Read More

Facebook appoints American Express CEO to board of directors

 Facebook announced today the addition of Kenneth I. Chenault, CEO of American Express, to its board of directors. His appointment becomes effective Feb. 5, 2018. “I’ve been trying to recruit Ken for years,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a press release. “He has unique expertise in areas I believe Facebook needs to learn and improve — customer service,… Read More

CTRL+T podcast: Diversity and its discontents

 No one is down with how diversity is unfolding in Silicon Valley. Depending on how one looks at it, they’re going to have an issue with it. White men are crying foul, saying they’re being left out of these conversations and initiatives. However, actual marginalized people are, rightfully so, saying not enough is being done to diversify the industry and foster inclusion. If you… Read More

James Damore just filed a class action lawsuit against Google, saying it discriminates against white male conservatives

 James Damore, a former Google engineer who was fired in August after posting a memo to an internal Google message board, arguing that women may not be equally represented in tech because they are biologically less capable of engineering, has filed a class action lawsuit against the company in Santa Clara Superior Court in Northern California. His claims: that Google unfairly discriminates… Read More

mRelief launches end-to-end food stamp enrollment service

 Signing up for food stamps can be cumbersome, especially for those with limited access to transportation and internet. In San Francisco, about one in four people struggle with hunger, according to the SF-Marin Food Bank. Meanwhile, $13 billion in food stamps benefits are unclaimed every year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Through startup mRelief, people with low incomes… Read More