Jacob Kastrenakes, The Verge:
Silicon Valley has a long way to go on diversity, but most tech companies would argue that they’re making progress. Intel beat its initial hiring goals; Microsoft is tying executive compensation to diversity success; and Google says it’s made changes to remove pay inequality, even though the diversity of its workforce has remained flat.
Apple also claims to have removed pay disparities and has made slight gains on hiring women and people of color. It’s even launched an “Inclusion & Diversity” page with visualizations of its hiring data.
But a small group of Apple investors believe the company isn’t making progress fast enough, and they’re trying to force the company to pick up the pace. “Some of the excuses given by Apple and others — there’s not sufficient people in the pipeline, this and that,” says investor Tony Maldonado. “Excuse my language, it’s bullshit.”
And:
Maldonado is leading an effort to mandate that Apple accelerate its work toward becoming a more diverse company. For the second year in a row, he’s submitted a shareholder proposal asking that Apple “adopt an accelerated recruitment policy … to increase the diversity of senior management and its board of directors.”
From Apple’s point of view:
In a filing with the SEC, Apple’s board wrote a note recommending that shareholders vote against the proposal. The company argues that it already has “much broader” diversity efforts at work and, in the past three years, has made “steady progress in attracting more women and underrepresented minorities.” The proposed policy, Apple concludes, “is not necessary or appropriate because we have already demonstrated our commitment to a holistic view of inclusion and diversity.”
Is Apple doing enough on their own? They have certainly proven that they think well beyond the boundaries of profit and revenue, leading their corporate cousins in issues like clean/renewable energy and supply chain ethics. That doesn’t mean they always do right, but my sense is that Apple listens on issues like this and, when they listen, change is sure to follow.
Apple should be a leader on this. Their retail numbers hide that they are really no better than much of the industry, and it’s baffling to me that these companies are so homogenous. Feels like there has to be a ton of minority talent out there that’s been passed over and would be great additions if these places would expand their worldviews.
This is one of those situations where you have to strike the balance of finding the best person for the job while also trying to diversify. Hiring solely for the sake of diversity is just as bad as giving preference to white males.
The biggest problem with this proposal is they are seeking to require more diverse hiring in the senior level management and the board. Apple doesn’t have a lot of turnover in their senior level management and where there is it’s usually people who have been with Apple for years and proven themselves capable of taking the next step, so it’s hard to diversify unless they create more positions. If they are going to focus their efforts anywhere it should be on those positions within a couple levels below senior leadership where they can build the talent pool to be able to promote diversity when the senior level positions open up since they like to pull from within where possible.
The board is pretty tenured and also diversifying as they bring on new members. Since Tim Cook has taken over there have been only 2 new board members, a woman and a black man.
Maldonado is full of it. He should take his ‘diversity’ proposals and shove them where they belong. This is nothing more than forcing them to fill quotas so he can ‘feel gud’ rather than letting Apple hire the best people.
I’m a very long term shareholder and while I think Apple should keep pushing the boundary on this, I trust Tim Cook to do just that (more than almost any other CEO) and I voted against this proposal (online proxy vote).
There are times when a board needs to know there are other ways of looking at things and in my long history of proxy voting on AAPL I’ve sometimes voted against board recommendations (especially during the Amelio years but also during the Jobs years a few times).
While I have issues with the way Apple is treating professional Macintosh users, a more diverse board and executive suite isn’t going to influence that.
This is so stupid.
How about just hiring the best person for the job and ignoring anything about them that’s unrelated to the job? Wouldn’t that actually be REAL acceptance and equality?
I challenge anyone to say exactly how diverse any company should be. Give some percentages. Produce some numbers, and the acceptable deviation from those numbers.
considering Apple is far more “diverse” than
Sony – https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/CorporateInfo/executive/
Samsung – http://www.samsung.com/us/aboutsamsung/investor_relations/corporate_governance/boardofdirectors/IR_BoardComposition.html
Honda – http://world.honda.com/investors/library/annual_report/2015/honda2015ar-p21-23.pdf
Subaru (Fuji Heavy Industries) – https://www.fhi.co.jp/english/outline/inoutline/officer/index.html
Huawei – i’ll let you look that one up on your own
Hyundai – http://worldwide.hyundai.com/WW/Corporate/InvestorRelations/CorporateInformation/BOD/BoardofDirectors/index.html
Panasonic – http://www.panasonic.com/global/corporate/profile/executives.html
…. I’m not understanding at all how this is even a thing that is ever discussed ever with a straight face ever.
(holy shit – just look at the Honda board and tell me this is even something that can be talked about)
Those other companies boards are exclusively Japanese, Korean, or Chinese. Apple’s board hail from many ethnic backgrounds.
If I ‘identify’ as a black woman (even though I was born a white male), do you think that I would have a better chance of getting a job at Apple?
The thing I hate about these ‘diversity’ quotas and initiatives and whatnot is that there is intense competition for jobs if you are a white male, and your skills and qualifications are going to get put under an electron microscope when you apply. You can’t tell me that they don’t lower the standards somewhat in order to fill a ‘diversity’ slot in the roster. That’s not solving a problem, that’s just continuing to treat people differently because of the color of their skin (or whatever).
It’s like Apple says: there just aren’t as many ‘diverse’ people in the pipeline. To me, it seems that if there are 100 available jobs, and 1000 qualified people apply – 800 white and 200 black – then the slots filled ought to look something like 80 white and 20 black. If it comes down to 50 white and 50 black (I’m just using color here as an easy divider), then it seems to me that the white applicants would have been treated unfairly.
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There was a report out last year that showed the overall diversity of the major tech companies. Apple was the most diverse, but yet they get the attention.
It would be great if there was a company that could hire a southern gay guy as CEO, that would really be diverse. There is so much more to diversity than gender or race. Although I am a ‘privileged white male,’ so my vote doesn’t count, I say you hire the best person for the job and focus on education and programs to those who are currently underserved.