Building an Inclusive and
Equitable Jupiter for Everyone
How we’re forging a company we’re proud of—where people of all backgrounds can succeed
One of my favorite podcasts, Freakonomics, often interviews luminaries in economics and other fields. They often repeat their questions across interviewees. My favorite question is: “What’s something that you believed to be true for a long time, until you found out that you were wrong?”
I would answer that question by returning to my college years. I spent four years rolling my eyes at the various Women in Science and Women in Business clubs. Why did women need a “safe space” to talk about science or business or our careers? Why did we need a leg up in these industries? Then I moved to Silicon Valley.
I’d sit in meetings with a 2:17 ratio between women and men. I’d watch women be repeatedly talked over — including myself. I received a performance review with heavily gendered language about being too ambitious. A top executive was challenged on our paltry record of women in leadership and snapped back that he didn’t see a problem. (He later apologized.) And that’s just what I could see from my perspective as a white woman; Silicon Valley and the sciences don’t have a great track record when it comes to many other underrepresented groups. Clearly something was wrong. What could be done?
When I came to Jupiter nearly two years ago, I found a much more welcoming and congenial environment, but it was obvious that we still had a long way to go. So I leapt at the chance when my former colleague Dr. Betsy Weatherhead, Nobel prize-winner and pioneering scientist, asked me to join the newly-formed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee. It was the middle of a pandemic, but we tasked ourselves with envisioning what we wanted Jupiter to be, and how we were going to get there. As Jupiter exits its Series C and jumps into a period of rapid growth, how do we make sure that the company we are building is one that we are proud of — where people of all backgrounds are supported and can collectively succeed?
We divided our initiatives between:
- attracting and hiring job candidates from underrepresented groups, and
- retaining employees with a supportive and inclusive culture at Jupiter.
Finally, we decided that we would hold ourselves accountable by publicly committing to these efforts in a detailed, action-oriented DEI statement. With the full support and enthusiasm from our leadership team, the first iteration has been completed, and you can read it on our website. Here I’ll highlight a few of our more thought-provoking discussions and initiatives. While I am far from an expert on these issues, I hope this illuminates practical concerns when it comes to implementing new initiatives at a company.
Broadening our talent pool
Hiring can be fraught with challenges, including ugly perceptions that someone is a “diversity hire” for whom standards were lowered. Our goal at Jupiter remains to hire the best candidate for a role, but we are learning two things:
- Not all candidates have the same access to our job postings. For example, if we always return to our networks when a position opens, we will likely hire people who look and think a lot like ourselves. We need to broaden our reach by posting to groups like Black Girls Code and Women in Machine Learning, and we need to ask our recruiters to dig deeper when bringing qualified candidates to us.
- We are all biased in our interviewing techniques. For example, if I saw on someone’s resume that they also liked to trail run, I would have an easy time breaking the ice and chatting all about it. But trail runners are far from a diverse bunch — we’re likely to be white, young, and live in affluent areas with easy access to trails. I would have a harder time warming up to someone who looks and has hobbies that are different from me. And so we need to acknowledge that our biases affect the conversation and work harder to move past them. We need to make our interview process more consistent by asking similar questions and providing more structured candidate assessments. And, of course, all interview committees should include employees from a range of backgrounds.
With these initiatives, and a few others described in the statement, we hope to attract and hire the best candidates, full stop.
Supporting our colleagues
Our second area of focus is the retention of people from all backgrounds by providing an inclusive working environment.
- Everyone has unconscious biases that can cause us to act badly at times. We can give employees the language to identify these situations by defining Jupiter’s values and defining what diversity, equity, and inclusion mean to us. Only then can we identify and learn from our errors and move forward.
- People from underrepresented groups may be less likely to raise their hand and ask for a promotion, a raise, or a leadership opportunity. We can remove the burden of asking from them by having a uniform cadence for promotions/raises, clear responsibilities at each level of the career ladder, and a more open mind when assigning leadership roles. Buddy programs for new hires, mentoring, and training programs are also critical to ensuring that everyone’s career can grow.
Keeping us accountable
The last part of our statement defines how we will track the success of our initiatives and define new places where growth is needed. No statement is complete without it, because how else can we be held accountable?
I’ll close with a sincere thanks to my colleagues — Rahul Dubey, John Exby, Elizabeth Perry, Justin Rogers, Craig Simmons, and Eric Wun — who all showed great dedication and care in defining these initiatives and putting them into words.
The first draft of our DEI statement may be complete, but it is not a time to be self-congratulatory. It is time for the real work to begin.
Meghan Purdy is a Senior Product Manager at Jupiter Intelligence. Learn more about Jupiter at jupiterintel.com.
