Diversity in Tech

Tech is known as a white and Asian male dominated industry and is repeatedly targeted for having too few minorities and females. While this is a problem that I believe should be addressed, there are industries that are actually more male dominated or less diverse. Technology is also a very young industry and I believe over time there will be more women and minorities entering the tech work force just like they have entered other emerging work areas over time.

According to a little research I did, technology has the highest proportion of Asian employees, the 10th lowest proportion of Hispanic employees, and the second lowest proportion of African American employees of the jobs researched. The source may not have been the most reliable, so take the numbers with a grain of salt, but I do believe in general that the tech world is not as bad about hiring minorities as it is often made out to be. (Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/diversity-jobs-professions-america/396632/)

Also, I think that the tech field will grow to be more diverse in terms of race in the next 20 years. It will become more socially acceptable and encouraged for African American and Hispanic students to become computer science majors. Computer science is growing, and I think that is will grow proportionally quicker with these minorities than the current majority, especially with a little help.

One thing that I think will be important for encouraging growth in minorities in tech is them having a role model to look up to. I don’t know of any super famous entrepreneur in tech that is African American or Hispanic. There are many white leaders in the field and I know of quite a few that are Asian, but I don’t really know of any that are the other minorities. I think that there should be more publicity of the minorities that are successful in tech in order to try and attract more minorities down the road.

I always thought that tech was the most male dominated industry in the world. Partly this is just what everyone seemed to talk about, and partly I really didn’t think about it. After some research, another kind of poor source has technology as only the eighth most male dominated industry. (Source: http://www.askmen.com/top_10/entertainment/top-10-male-dominated-industries_8.html) While this isn’t a great win, I do think it shows we don’t think about some of the other industries that are even more male dominated.

I think women should be encouraged to learn to code and to enter the tech field. I think is would help more than just the diversity of the companies, but also the products, worker satisfaction, and so much more. Because of all this, I think it is important for tech leaders to push for more female heroines in tech as well as try to make special programs to encourage women to pursue tech. Unlike the minority bias, I think the gender bias will be harder to fix, and therefore I think it should be concentrated on more and before the minority problem.

Startup Fever

Globalization has come to mean that the very top of the pyramid can get extreme amounts of wealth, and those much farther down the ladder get less than they would without globalization. The idea is there are tons and tons of mediocre or good employees, but like a bell curve there are only a few at the top. Because the few at the top are able to leverage themselves to the whole world rather then to just one city or town, they are able to make an absurd amount of wealth and have much higher influence than they otherwise would have.

Startups are a great example of globalization. The select few that survive and do well do extremely well and make a lasting impact on the world, but the vast majority that fail do not provide any creation of wealth and hurt their employees, founders, and investors. Because of the ability to have monster payouts and the fact that it is easy for software to quickly grow to be a world phenomenon, startups are extremely hot and growing rapidly.

Besides for the possible benefit of a massive payout, one of the biggest reasons that computer science majors, especially millennials want to join a startup is that they want to feel like their work matters and affects the company in a powerful way. They are worried that they would just be a cog in the company working at a desk and a no name employee for the rest of their life if they worked at a larger company. Also, they may find the work interesting and see a much more rapid road to advancement.

The biggest risk with joining a startup is that they are risky. It is common for employees to work really hard and the company still fails. I was always taught that only 1 out of 7 startups survives, and only 1 out of 7 of the survivors makes it big. There is lots of possibilities for failure and oftentimes the failure can’t even be predicted or avoided. There are also issues with not earning as much and working longer hours with higher stress.

Even though there are lots of issues with startups, I am very proud to say that I am working with one and that I hope to start companies in the future. The biggest factor when looking at jobs was if the company is a startup or not. I am working on a startup that I helped found with my dad, so it is not exactly a normal situation, but I have always wanted to work with and for startups. Partly this is because I feel that I am betting on myself and my team much more than I would be if I was working for a larger company. Also, I find the work extremely interesting and feel that my work can have a major lasting impact on the world coming from a startup as compared to a larger company. I also like being able to have a large influence on company culture and how the company is run in general. In a large company like Microsoft it would take years for me to get to the point where I have a major impact on projects like Windows or Xbox or a ton of luck. I would rather bet on myself to be lucky with a startup than to bet that I will be noticed and become influential in a company like Microsoft or Apple which I feel requires the same amount of luck.

I don’t plan to move to Silicon Valley as some of the culture things there bother me, but I do hope to create and grow successful startups in Seattle.

Code of Ethics

Primarily our code of ethics deals with the just acting like a good person and respecting others ideas and person. Mostly following the code of ethics is common sense and trying to do the right thing.

Some highlights from our code of ethics are: strive to work for others; respect others questions, and search for balance.

Striving to work for others is an important part of Catholic social teaching and is part of the reason that we have an ethics class for computer science majors. It is assumed if we do well in the real world we are expected to give back to the community, but we also should concentrate on helping others as we go. Our work should be to help others rather than being concerned with how much money we make. We should try and do good in the world.

Respecting others questions is something that we are taught as young children, but it stays super important through college. As the subjects get more difficult and the content more complex we need to continue to respect other peoples questions as there are times where we will be the ones that don’t understand the content.

A final highlight is searching for balance. In my opinion the secret to life is balance. Without balance we can get caught up in one small thing and it can dominate our life. Even work or school can be bad if we spend too much time on them and they take over our life. Having balance is better for mental and physical health and important for raising a family down the road.

The biggest weakness with our code of ethics is its length. At almost 2.5 pages in length it is pretty long for students to read. Also it doesn’t go into too much detail on some of the more difficult conundrums. The most important part of the code of ethics is treating others as you would want to be treated. Respect and being a good person are the most important part of the code of ethics and that is what we concentrate on in our code.

I think that the creating of the code of ethics wasn’t that useful for my group. Acting in an ethical manner is ingrained by now and we know right from wrong. A written out code of ethics would have to be so specific as to be unreadable in order to have enough detail on certain situations that would be helpful.

The code of the ethics helped us think about what is right and wrong to do as a student, but as a student most things are pretty cut and dry. The next few years will have a lot more moral problems and be more complex. While the code of ethics helped us think about right from wrong as a student, I think it would be a lot more useful to make a hypothetical code of ethics for the next few years in the business world rather than the simple world of college. I think it would help us think about graduation more and be a better thought exercise for us.

The Ethics of Job Mobility

For the last 3 summers and also while at school I have worked for the same company. The company is a startup that I helped found called Asignio which I think can take off in the next few years. Even though I could probably make more guaranteed money by switching jobs, I feel that the money is only a small part of the reason I want a job and I love where I am working.

A popular idea right now in startups is to fail fast or succeed fast. Since products have much shorter life-cycles in tech in comparison to industries of the past, it is possible for a company to start, grow, succeed, and die all within a 10 year period. I want to work in the entrepreneurship and startup field and therefore I see myself having some mobility just due to the mobility inherent to the field. However, since I want to be the one founding the companies, I do want to see them out and only leave if I am forced to or the company is dying.

Since I am hoping to be the boss and lead the company I firmly believe that company loyalty is very important. I will do everything in my power to take care of and help you, and in turn you as the employee should be loyal to what the company stands for a work hard for me. If you are not enjoying the work, then I want it to be a discussion point that we talk about and work to fix rather than you jumping ship at the first possible opportunity. I also believe that a dedicated employee with expertise that knows the company will do better work and be more efficient than an employee that is just starting. While some companies are moving to faster and faster turnover rates with employees coming and going, I think that the 2 years is much to soon and employees and companies should try to see out the idea especially in entrepreneurship specific companies.

I really like the idea of a non-compete in the abstract but I think its implementation can be lacking in the real world. If I have a great employee that is leaving the company and then goes to a direct competitor and helps them beat my company using the knowledge he/she gained working for us, it is pretty much an example of corporate espionage. They are moving to help someone with the knowledge that they gained working for us and that someone is one of our enemies in the world of business. While I agree with non-competes, I think they should be forced to be very limited in scope. With the speed that the industry moves, in 1 year a ton of stuff can change. For this reason I think that non-competes should be a maximum of 1 year long for the tech industry. In other industries such as automobiles or aerospace that have much longer product development time this non-compete term could be longer, but in tech I think it should be short and limited to a set of direct competitors.

I think job hopping is an ethical thing to do only if there are issues with the company and employee fit. I would rather an employee try to get a raise than jump ship and have to find, hire, and train a replacement. I firmly believe that the company should do whatever it can to help the individual and the individual should do what they can to help the company. I know that with the mobility of talent now seen in tech there is a lot of movement, and while I think that is morally okay, I think that sometimes it is not the best decision to move, especially if your company is loyal and good to you.

Tech and Income Inequality

San Francisco and Silicon Valley have been the center of a boom in startup culture and wealth over the past 40 years. One of the biggest generators of wealth was the ability to distribute information and products over the internet and the growth of personal computers.  As internet has increased in capacity it is now possible to sell and distribute a product without making a single disc to do so with. This allows for growth rates that would be unheard of years ago because there is no need to create the factories and hire the laborers to create goods. Once the software is right, you can sell as much of it as you want.

All of these factors have led to increasing income inequality. Globalization has created a culture with a small group of individuals with special skills and connections at the top, and much larger groups in the middle and bottom of the socio-economic ladder. In the world of software and hackers the ability to leverage a strong product is even greater than the ability of a professional athlete to leverage his or her abilities and can lead to immense wealth. Whatsapp was purchased for 19 billion dollars and only had 55 employees at the time. If split equally and disregarding the shares to venture capitalists and other investors, each employee would net around 350 million dollars. The company was founded in 2009 so in just 5 years it “created” 19 billion dollars in value. Part of this valuation is due to the growth and ability to create natural monopolies in the market that exists in software, but even so, that the employees would be worth 50 million dollars a year is absurd.

I believe that the leaders in the technology industry have the obligation to help and change the world for the better. Technology and the startup culture allows for a more mobile workforce that can tackle problems more efficiently and quicker than ever before. This can lead to huge economic payouts but this money should be used philanthropically. Bill Gates is a great example of this. He made an exorbitant amount of money but has pledged most of that wealth to the betterment of others. This and the pledge that Gates founded with Warren Buffet centers around trying to make the world a better place.

While technology leaders and the industry in general is in my opinion well situated to address issues such as hunger, disease, and energy problems, I feel that the industry is set up in the complete wrong way to address income inequality. The entire idea of startups is that if you hit the homerun you will become incredibly wealthy. Also startups are about increasing efficiency which can lead to a decrease in jobs. Uber, robotics, Amazon, and many other companies and categories of technology take away jobs from laborers while redistributing the money to a smaller group of individuals. Because of the extreme valuations of a successful startup and how it does not take as many individuals to create a successful technology startup as it does for car manufacturing or other industries startups are contributing to rising income inequality rather than decreasing it.

Even though I do not think that startups will be able to correctly address the income inequality issue, I do think that startup culture has a major positive impact on the world. Because of the great power that technology grants those that know how to use it I believe we have the obligation and duty to try and help the world in any way we can. Even so I think because of the makeup of this culture there will continue to be a growth of income inequality and I do not know how it can be solved. Stopping the growth of tech may help the problem but I believe the benefits of tech outweigh the increase of income inequality that is happening at this time.

Why Study Ethics in Computer Science?

We are entering a digital age where computer science is more and more important. Most things are connected to the internet or have some amount of code in them. This can lead to a more connected and better quality of life but also can cause problems. Hackers have increased ability to steal data and cause trouble.

While we all know that hacking to steal money or information is illegal and immoral, there are other issues that are much less cut and dry and can be very complex. Is a “victimless” crime better than a crime with human interactions? Is personal information on a computer okay to access and use for business purposes? Where is the line that you draw for using this information? Is copying software stealing? When does it count as a crime and when does is it okay to copy software ideas and code?

All of these questions are important to try and understand and this course will help us look at the issues and think about how we feel about these moral dilemmas. Many of us will likely be put into difficult ethical dilemmas centered around computer science so I believe it is important for us to learn about what we might see and what we should do if put into one of these challenging situations.

Introduction

Hi, my name is Calvin Rutherford and I am a senior computer science student. I am particularly interested in the entrepreneurship aspect of computer science and plan to work for a startup after graduation. I am particularly interested in how mobile security will evolve over time.

In this course I hope to learn more about the privacy issues and how these will change as time goes on. It is easy to find a specific person with just a few pieces of information so I am interested to learn more about privacy and how to protect it.