[nothrabannosir]

At what scale does this advice start? I worked for and with a few almost-all-male startups that just hadn't run into female hires in their first year / ±10 employees. Great work environments, ended up hiring women in the following years.

[striking]

Yeah, if the company is less than ten people, I'd say that's probably fine. Even though it hasn't been all too difficult for our team (<5 people) to find women and people of color as interns or employees, I'm certain it can be more difficult for teams that aren't as lucky as we are.

I think the parent poster meant companies that have had a chance to choose from a large and diverse group of people; but have ended up hiring people of only one, less diverse group anyway; whether by making poor choices or by driving away the other groups of people.

[notalaser]

Good point -- that's one of the reasons why I think it's "just" a red flag. The one place that I mentioned what exactly like that -- small company, couldn't afford too much wage, hiring mostly students or fresh graduates, often based on recommendations. The structure of the team was largely a reflection of our own social networks and of the bias inherent in hiring third-year students. For almost an year, it was a six-man effort. There was only one woman in our team.

[roguecoder]

After "5" I figure it's got momentum and/or reflects a structural problem with recruiting, and either way it is going to become much harder to fix in the future.