It would be helpful if you can elaborate on the aspects of a business case that could justify diversity in the makeup of a startup team. I have been on diverse teams at startups but on reflection, assumed people had been chosen for their individual skills and expertise which the employer felt were relevant to the business objectives.

“Where does diversity fit into that picture?”

Again I’m hoping you can elaborate. If the difference between two software engineering candidates with very comparable CVs is their ethnicity relative to the current team, how might that notional selection factor relate to business development goals? If there’s no answer in practical and ethical terms, then diversity does not fit into the “business case picture” and remains in the “social justice” picture as you suggest. Then the business argument related to the article is only that current business practice causes a socially detrimental imbalance in employment which leaves non-white but otherwise eligible candidates frustrated.

What’s also interesting is that for startups facing a global market, lack of diversity doesn’t scale [citation needed] and I don’t think it’s likely to scale in the USA either, unless robotics and automation can effectively replace the numbers of people required in the value chain. But that’s another story.