> “I am baffled by all the companies doing an about-face on their social initiatives right now. Did you not actually mean it in the first place? Either don’t do it, or do it and stay doing it, but don’t do this ‘DEI is cancelled now’,” he says. “It’s very odd to me.”
They never did based on how fast they rushed for the door one after another. It’s quite baffling. If they really believed it like they were saying, they would have doubled down.
Most companies did social initiatives badly. They're hard to do well, and so a lot of companies never made more than a nod at them. They didn't help and attracted pushback. Given an administration that turned push into shove, it's not much of a surprise that they got rid of it.
Still... as badly as these initiatives are done, it should have at least impressed on you that there was a problem there to be solved. Maybe DEI wouldn't solve it; maybe it can't be solved. But I really think their statements should have been "We maintain a commitment to fairness and an equal opportunity for everybody, and we'll keep looking for ways to engage even if this initiative turned out not to be it."
As it is, it looked more like "thank God we no longer have to pretend that we don't hate minorities".
Is this just one of the top dogs at Stripe bigging up their own company?
Surely it's common public opinion that most social initiatives and stances major companies take are entirely about publicity and reflect whatever they think the bulk of their consumer base supports.
If tomorrow 60% or so of McDonalds (or any other company) customer-base became national socialists, McDonalds would have a red, black and white swastika-laden logo within month-end.
It's all pandering. Always has been, always will be. There's even terms for each type: pink-washing, rainbow-washing etc.
The only alternative is to take a neutral position, where you just focus on whatever product/service you are selling.
> reflect whatever they think the bulk of their consumer base supports.
I've been trying to put my finger on what seems so strange to me and I think this is it in part.
Someplace like the US is pretty heterogeneous, and their customers' attitudes aren't going to change overnight.
I'm not naive about why some companies do what they do. What's strange to me is the speed with which some of these changes were made, and neglecting their particular customer base, which they might have built up for a long time.
In some of these cases, fear of legal persecution, maybe based on inside information, makes much more sense to me than following trends. I guess you could argue they are the same thing, to which I'd say I think that's true at one level but not at another functional level.
>What's strange to me is the speed with which some of these changes were made
That's because while the original commenter is correct in terms of companies doing what they believe their consumer base supports, they ignore half of the equation, which is that it was never JUST about the consumers. It was also about protecting the company from disparate impact lawsuits, where any difference in the makeup of a company compared to the general public could be interpreted as discrimination, regardless of whether it actually does discriminatory practices.
My guess is that these companies feel that with the new US administration the risk of these kind of lawsuits has decreased significantly.
They never did based on how fast they rushed for the door one after another. It’s quite baffling. If they really believed it like they were saying, they would have doubled down.