[sriram_sun]

It was shocking to me that room mates could get hired that easily.

This was the bay area.

My comment is highlighting structural imbalances as they exist in society right now.

Even though networking as a way to grow, it is not an option for a lot of people until much later in their careers. That is because of social conditioning.

[secondcoming]

You're really grasping at straws here.

You sound like you'll be a problematic employee for the totally bizarre reason that you're jealous of how other people got hired before you.

[seabass-labrax]

That sounds like plain envy to me, and it's not bizarre (although it might well be unhealthy) to be envious of those with better opportunities than you. As for whether that is associated with being a problematic employee, well, problematic can also mean profitable when envy is a powerful motivator.

[sriram_sun]

Like I said above, it made me more empathetic, not envious. However, I'm pointing at instances like this so that hiring managers with a enough resources also consider other pipelines.

[johnnyanmac]

Startups are an inherently risky venture that lacks the money and management to hire everyone they want. It's a horrible example.

Consider the empathy from the other side: I'm working in a stable job and my friend approached me saying he's got this big idea. May not even be funded yet. Do I use my part time to help on his dream in hopes that we get funding and maybe expand on the idea? That's a lot of trust and energy being put into another person.

On the end of the "nepotee" it really depends on the person and what you know. And it takes a certain style of mind to get on board that idea. That isn't the same in getting fast tracked to some cushy Google job.

[zo1]

If I was allowed, I'd consider an alternate hiring pipeline looking at IQ scores and doing anonymous interviews in air gapped rooms so we could blind hire.

But hey, government doesn't let me. So instead I'm going to assume experience by minorities is suspect due to discriminatory hiring practices like AA and DEI, and continue to hire mostly white and asian males because they're the most disenfranchised groups atm, especially in South Africa.

[seabass-labrax]

Oh quite! I myself am outside of the networks of industries I want to be in. There is an altruistic side to getting the job you really want - you'll be more motivated and probably better able to do well in it. Industries that operate exclusively with networking lose out on most of that altruism.

[sriram_sun]

Not envy. Empathy.

[spondylosaurus]

I'm surprised (or maybe not that surprised) no one has countered the "This is just how networking works" argument with: Yes, but if the network you're pulling from is mostly white guys, doesn't that signal a problem in itself?

[poszlem]

No it does not. This is a bizarre way to look at things, that is all to common in the US but very much alien in most of the world. Why are those two dimensions important to you (white and male)? What about affluent/poor, educated/uneducated, ginger/blonde, immigrant/native, enthusiastic/bored, religious/atheist, left-wing/right-wing.

The only problem here is the insistence on seeing things through the clownish lens of the "race-sex" combo. It makes it sounds like you can pretty much interchange "white males", like - "I guess I've already got a white guy friend, now I need an asian, and a black one". Nobody sane makes friends like that.

I would be really surprised if you didn't have a: "Indian guy - Room mate of employee" "Indian guy - Room mate of employee" "Indian guy - Room mate of employee" network in many Indian startups. Except each of those dudes would be a different person, with different experience, differente world view, different likes and dislikes, so what does it matter that they are Indian?

[NoZebra120vClip]

> I would be really surprised if you didn't have a: "Indian guy - Room mate of employee" "Indian guy - Room mate of employee" "Indian guy - Room mate of employee" network in many Indian startups.

Don't forget caste details of each one in that list.

[spondylosaurus]

Are ginger and blonde the only two options here?

[poszlem]

Is that the most important thing you read from my comment?

[spondylosaurus]

I mean, it jumped out me because ginger and blonde are both the two rarest hair colors and the ones more or less exclusive to people of European descent, but I also don't really want to waste energy debating someone who thinks it's "clownish" to note someone's race and gender in tandem, because we're clearly never gonna see eye-to-eye on this.

So yeah, I guess it was the most important thing.

[robinbobbin]

It is kinda clownish to note that the coworkers are white males when it's followed by the fact that they're all room mates. What is the comment trying to draw attention to? Are they trying to highlight the fact that hiring is biased toward recommendations from employees? Then why mention the sex/race? Is it evidence of "structural imbalances as they exist in society right now" that three white males live in the same apartment in bay area?