[theoden]

"So all things considered, is she really worth $6 million? If she's a top 1% engineer, and a scarce female top 1% engineer at that, why not?"

Imagine if she was not only female, but a black, lesbian female. Why, she'd be worth billions!

[mdda]

Not sure I'm buying the idea that gender has much to do with this. I'm sure Google could instead find an additional 10 female programmers for $100k each - thus changing the averages without having to overpay this one employee.

Looking at organizations in general, the pay structure is definitely not a Normal distribution (which people might intuitively believe it should be). If the average there is $100k, the bunch of people earning more than $500k are in a different class altogether.

[pbhjpbhj]

>I'm sure Google could instead find an additional 10 female programmers for $100k each - thus changing the averages without having to overpay this one employee.

Eh? This is really sad - do Google really have to choose candidates that aren't the best in order to keep a particular balance of sexes. Is that company wide, department wide, etc..

I'd have thought a progressive company, like Google appear to be, would employ the best person for the job and do away with irrelevant discrimination.

[mdda]

Agreed - that's why I'm not buying the idea that the gender of the employee had anything to do with the amount of the pay.

[sliverstorm]

Then what about a black, lesbian, Jewish female?

I mean, Jewish folks are doing pretty good now, but in the past that would certainly have been the most persecuted and rare combination I can imagine!

[theoden]

I think a Muslim would score more diversity points nowadays.