[wvh]

I totally agree that the lack of diversity and geek monoculture are a problem. It's not easy to feel at home when people huddle around a rather limit set of topics, humour, music and whatnot, and you find yourself outside of that little sphere. It's the main reason I'm hoping/planning for an exit from the IT world in n years from now, even though I am a white male – even like beer – and so should fit many a stereotype.

Having worked in different countries and companies, I'm not so sure nationality or gender make that big a difference (at least in western/northern Europe). Other industries also have mono-culture problems, but I guess geek culture is highly specific – almost a world on its own – and IT has a lot of people who are not very interested in or are bad at social interaction.

A lot of managers hire with a very specific task in mind, because it's probably easier to logically match a person to a concrete function or problem. In the long run, it would be a much better idea to hire people who can actually come up with new ideas, solutions and products... But it's much riskier to predict creative output and the value of ideas.

Too many people are made manager "by default" because they've worked in the company for a long time or because of their age, and not because they are actually good with people or building diverse teams that can tackle complex problems in an original way.