[Benjammer]

> If implied in your question that the goal should be equity in 'thought', how do you propose that is measured?

OP mentioned "ideas & experience," not "thought," which seems like an intentional framing as something unbounded and immeasurable.

Diversity of ideas could be measured by the average number of options/solutions that are seriously considered (and investigated/piloted) over the course of multiple projects for a team.

Diversity of experience seems somewhat obvious to me. But if you want clarity on this as well, the idea would be to value various types of experiences in the same way that companies value diverse outward traits like gender, sex, skin color, racial identity, etc. It's a balance. You could hire a person of each gender/skin color combination, but if they all grew up in the New England suburbs and all of them went to either MIT or Harvard, you are generally NOT going to have a diversity of experience, even though everyone _looks_ different. On the other end of the scale, you could hire one person from each type of school, big state school, small technical school, ivy league, "public ivy", liberal arts college, bootcamp graduate, etc. Hire people native to your country/culture, and people who come from a different part of the world. But if they are all white men, you are not going to realize as much benefit.

I think it's important to make an attempt to combine all of these concepts to come up with something that approaches the concept of "diversity of thought."

[fmitchell0]

I appreciate your response and respect your idea of trying to combine a lot of aspects to get the goal. I would challenge you on one point though:

> gender/skin color combination, but if they all grew up in the New England suburbs and all of them went to either MIT or Harvard, you are generally NOT going to have a diversity of experience, even though everyone _looks_ different

Unfortunately, there are many stories, points of evidence, and history that say people who look different, but come from the same place and education level DO have different experiences. Race and gender are exponentially powerful factors that can change a person's experience and outlook no matter how wealthy they are or what school they graduated from.

[Benjammer]

You are correct, I should not have used absolute, either-or terms there ("you are generally NOT ..."). I meant to say that you would not have _as much_ diversity of experience.

[wyattk]

Well stated. Until I saw it, I did not realize how many people went from rich (interpretations vary based on your experience, so "comfortable") suburbs and homes to "good" schools to "good" companies and professions. This is my experience, but that tends to be a common path and results in little diversity of "thought" (meaning ideas and experience).

It's become apparent to me that diversity is an ambiguous terms and its interpretation can vary a lot over many factors and time. I am not discounting any definition of it. When it comes up, it feels like people are on different pages with it. It could more prudent to state the definition when it is said.

[thoughtexplorer]

Precisely. That's what was embedded in the question. It doesn't matter what color people are. It's not meaningful diversity on its own.

What they seem to be doing is judging people based on surface traits, not the content of character. Their approach to diversity is a regression and not good for progress.

[Benjammer]

I would caution you on taking such an absolute, "zero sum" stance here.

>It doesn't matter what color people are.

I hope you realize the absurdity of this statement in isolation...

[ubernostrum]

What they seem to be doing is judging people based on surface traits

Do you believe that a poor black kid from Detroit is only different in "surface traits" as compared to a rich white kid from Orange County?

Or would you be willing to concede that there may be reliable correlations between some "surface traits" and diversity of life experiences and viewpoints? Demographic analysis of things like voting patterns in the US seems to suggest differences of such magnitude that I doubt you'd find another factor more strongly predictive.