Bloomberg: Snowflake CEO Says Diversity Goal Is Secondary in Hiring Choices
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FROM: sean@abovo42.com
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FWD:Snowflake CEO Says Diversity Goal Is Secondary in Hiring Choices
By Emily Chang and Dina Bass
June 3, 2021, 3:49 PM EDT Updated on June 3, 2021, 6:10 PM EDT
CEO Frank Slootman seeks ‘moderated’ approach on diversity – Cloud software maker went public in biggest 2020 U.S. IPO
Snowflake Inc. CEO Frank Slootman said the cloud software maker needs to focus more on merit when hiring and promoting employees rather than diversity goals, even as it takes steps to boost opportunities for workers.
“We’re actually highly sympathetic to diversity but we just don’t want that to override merit. If I start doing that, I start compromising the company’s mission literally,” Slootman said Thursday in an interview on Bloomberg Television.
Other CEOs feel the same way about the need to reach a more “moderated” approach to diversity, Slootman said, but are reluctant to say so publicly.
Slootman didn’t provide any details on the workforce at San Mateo, California-based Snowflake, which went public in September 2020 in the year’s biggest U.S. initial public offering.
“From my own experience talking to many CEOs privately, we are of the same mind, just publicly they find it hard to be that way,” Slootman, 62, said. “We need to come to a more moderated, real place. There’s really no room for the hysteria
and the outrage. We’re CEOs, we run companies, we have to produce results for our employees and our partners and our investors and our customers. We can’t get distracted in that mission. When you do, you might as well hang it up and let somebody else do it.”
Slootman said the company is under greater pressure to perform because of its initial success on the public market. The stock has declined 15% this year and investors were disappointed last week with the company’s forecast.
“We’re a very high-growth company at our scale, but also with a valuation to match so there’s obviously pressure on the management team to live up to that,” he said. “It’s very rare to see the kind of growth that a company like Snowflake
is experiencing.”
Snowflake makes software that pulls information from multiple systems so clients can analyze it together in one place. It competes against and partners with the biggest cloud infrastructure companies. As many as 85% of Snowflake customers
also use Amazon.com Inc.’s Amazon Web Services, while Microsoft’s Azure is the fastest growing platform among Snowflake clients.
Views
Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman walks back remarks about diversity, hiring
<sigh>
Doesn’t this statement actually buttress the original point?
People cannot speak their minds – irrespective of the logic and reason – for fear of politically-correct backlash :-S
SPF
https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2021/06/08/snowflake-ceo-walks-back-remarks-about-diversity.html
Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman walks back remarks about diversity, hiring
TODD JOHNSON | SAN FRANCISCO BUSINESS TIMES
By Cromwell Schubarth – TechFlash Editor, Silicon Valley Business Journal
Jun 8, 2021 Updated Jun 8, 2021, 8:46am PDT
Snowflake Inc. CEO Frank Slootman apologized in a blog posted on Monday about comments he made to Bloomberg TV last week in which he said diversity should be secondary to merit in hiring.
Slootman set off a storm of criticism when he told Bloomberg that a more “moderated” approach is needed to ensure diversity doesn't override merit in hiring and promoting employees. He said that other CEOs felt the same way, but were reluctant to speak publicly.
But on Monday the CEO of the cloud database company said his comments were misinterpreted.
“Comments I made during a media interview last week may have led some to infer that I believe that diversity and merit are mutually exclusive when it comes to recruitment, hiring and promotion. I do not believe this, and I want to personally apologize to anyone who may have been hurt or offended by my comments,” Slootman, who has been working from Bozeman, Montana, said in the company blog. “I accept full and personal responsibility for the lack of clarity in my comments.”
Slootman's comments last week ran counter to where most of corporate America has been headed, with many companies pledging to make their companies more closely mirror the nation’s demographics. There's been a record number of diversity-related proposals offered by shareholders at annual meetings this year.
Ellen Pao, the founder of Project Include, a nonprofit working for greater diversity in the tech industry, was among those who blasted Slootman last week.
“Good luck hiring with your bias against change," she said in a tweet. "It’s not just the ‘liberals of Silicon Valley’ who care about a diverse workforce. 76% of employees and job seekers called it important and 79% of new graduates called it ‘very important.’”
Until recently, Snowflake was headquartered in San Mateo. It now designates an address in Bozeman, Montana, as its new “principal executive office" where Slootman and CFO Mike Scarpelli have been working.
The company has about 2,500 employees and has said that it expects to maintain a large presence in Silicon Valley.
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