*Everyone*: Let’s Work Together.

Every now and then some sort of debate erupts in the tech world about lack of diversity, what causes it, and how much it matters. I’m so past that.

Listen, it matters to me. If it doesn’t matter to you, then I don’t have real confidence that I’m the person who should or could change your mind.

But given that it matters to me I want to say why as an invitation for people who think similarly to talk to me or my company, Coach.me.

Also, I wrote this in first person so people know this is a core value that comes from the top.

I have three main reasons: fun, moral, pragmatic.

Why it matters (to me)

I’ve worked in a handful of diverse environments [1] and a smattering of bro-tastic environments and I’ve enjoyed the diverse environments more. I’m curious about people, so I find being around different types of people exciting. This is just personal taste. For me, diverse companies are more fun.

I’m going to skip morality. This is either obvious to you or, as I said above, I’m not the person who’s going to change your mind.

That leaves the final pragmatic reasons, which turn out to be overwhelmingly powerful.

I’ve heard two theories about why diversity matters to the success of your company.

One theory is based on the positive impact that cognitive diversity has on decision making.

The second theory is that if your design process relies heavily on intuition, then having designers who represent the full range of the population will be helpful. The catchphrase for this line of thinking was presented to me as, “Hiring Women Will Make You Rich.” [several years later I learned that diversity does not just mean women.]

I basically subscribe to both of these theories, which boil down to a better definition of meritocracy based on actual impact on the company (rather than merely to have name recognition at a conference).

The Pipeline

One of the first responses to a failed attempt at diversity is, “I put up a job posting (or call for papers) and only white men applied.” There’s an implied, “So I’m off the hook, right?”

For people who don’t want to be let off the hook, the standard remedy is to change your pipeline.

That can mean advertising in different places, asking for referrals, or reaching out to people directly. Surprisingly, sometimes this can even be solved as simply as announcing directly that you do in fact consider people who look different than yourselves (for example, see “Apply to OATV” and “Solving the Pipeline Problem”).

Despite knowing these things, trying these things, and even trying other more outlandish things, we’re paranoid about ending up with a homogeneous team. We’re doing as well as I’ve ever managed to see at a startup, but we also had periods where we completely failed on this front. Those failures drive us to constantly question our hiring practices so that we end up with the most impactful team possible.

[We succeeded in addressing diversity on the board, but I failed to land the diverse group of investors I wanted — for example Tony Robbins invested but Oprah did not. ]

Our Challenge

We’re up for putting the work in and doing whatever it takes to build the strongest team. We currently are actively recruiting for full-stack engineers, full stack marketers, and inside sales. Here are all the open job postings.

So first of all, if you’re reading this, think Coach.me seems like an interesting place to work, but have been hesitant to apply, please contact us. We look closely at *everyone* (including people of all genders, races, creeds, sexualities, ages, and geographic locations).

Secondly, if you care about this issue and you think I can support you in some way (for example you are looking for career advice, want job or investor introductions, etc), I’d love to have breakfast with you. I live in Fort Greene, Brooklyn and am almost always free for a 9am meeting/breakfast at BRIC. You can email me, [email protected].

[1] I wanted to give credit to the two diverse environments. The first, O’Reilly Media, which, despite naming itself after a dude, is basically run by women. I was super happy there. The second, was a summer inside the Kapor Capital offices, which has more PhDs than anywhere I’ve ever been and yet manages to exude humility and reject entitlement. Everywhere else: yo, don’t take it personally.