Great points!

I’ve always felt that many Silicon Valley diversity programs come across like a regulatory compliance thing, when those same Asperger’s-y quant types would readily acknowledge the measurable benefits of diversity in other contexts (like financial portfolios, or crop and livestock gene pools).

I like that you’re taking the discussion outside of the usual racism/sexism/guilt/privilege paradigm, and reframing it in terms of concrete benefits.

Many of the leaders of SV companies might not be overtly prejudiced, but if they believe that there’s no bottom-line benefit to spending time and energy on sourcing more “non-traditional” candidates, then they will be slow to adopt better behaviors.

I really think that developing more remote hiring practices can be a big help in the long run. For one thing, it makes it possible to hire people who can’t even *afford* to live in urban tech centers. For another, it shifts some income out of already overpriced living areas into less developed and lower cost areas. We might see not only improvements in diversity (and all the advantages that come along with that for the company), but also reduced cost of living in high-cost urban centers and improved economies in more rural areas.