Apple VP of Diversity and Inclusion Denise Young Smith Leaving the Company

[5105973]

Did you feel the same way when Ron Johnson held that job? Or do you think Apple shouldn’t have retail stores?

Preach it!

Angela Ahrendts had the typical bumpy adjustment one might expect for anyone coming into Apple from any other industry or background. But she’s adjusted and is heading up a very intriguing renaissance of Apple Store design. I only wish that my local Apple Store wasn’t constrained by its hole in the wall typical mall constraints from fully embodying this town center vision Angela has been working to implement for some of the gorgeous new builds we’ve seen on MR. Still, they did a great job making the store easier to move around in. I didn’t think so during my first couple of visits, but more recent visits made me realize flow is much improved over what it was before.

To me, there’s evidence she’s now pretty well integrated into Apple Culture. I think too many people blame her for Apple’s pricing strategy and product line without stopping to realize she’s not the one who set those things. She just has to ensure it all sells once it’s ready to go out to the public.

 

[Rogifan]

Preach it!

Angela Ahrendts had the typical bumpy adjustment one might expect for anyone coming into Apple from any other industry or background. But she’s adjusted and is heading up a very intriguing renaissance of Apple Store design. I only wish that my local Apple Store wasn’t constrained by its hole in the wall typical mall constraints from fully embodying this town center vision Angela has been working to implement for some of the gorgeous new builds we’ve seen on MR. Still, they did a great job making the store easier to move around in. I didn’t think so during my first couple of visits, but more recent visits made me realize flow is much improved over what it was before.

To me, there’s evidence she’s now pretty well integrated into Apple Culture. I think too many people blame her for Apple’s pricing strategy and product line without stopping to realize she’s not the one who set those things. She just has to ensure it all sells once it’s ready to go out to the public.

Heh, Minnesota has 5 Apple stores in the Twin Cities and 4 of them are in malls. Sadly I don’t think we’ll ever see new store designs.

 

[Moi Ici]

I wonder whether Apple's poor quality control of late is related to more and more people at Apple being hired based on their skin colour rather than their abilities?

Wow.
This whole thread is ever further going into the sewer. I’m disgusted at some of the comments I’m reading here. There is so much hate and hurt just wanting to spew out every time a topic such as this comes up and to be honest, it’s taking less and less of a controversial topic to set off some of the mac rumors regulars. I think MR needs to close such ones to comments. It doesn’t help anyone and frankly it seems like baiting to me.

 

[stevet]

The position is a joke, and the fact that they hired this woman less than 9 months ago and she's already leaving brings up the question how she got the job in the first place.
[doublepost=1510930422][/doublepost]

Wow.
This whole thread is ever further going into the sewer. I’m disgusted at some of the comments I’m reading here. There is so much hate and hurt just wanting to spew out every time a topic such as this comes up and to be honest, it’s taking less and less of a controversial topic to set off some of the mac rumors regulars. I think MR needs to close such ones to comments. It doesn’t help anyone and frankly it seems like baiting to me.

The reason why people jump on this stuff is because it's fake. It's a PR stunt to make the company look good to the outside. When we all know that the most qualified person should get the job. Just as someone who is Caucasian shouldn't get it because of that, the same goes for other nationalities or skin colors. And this position is solely created to make the eco system more diverse, not necessarily hire the right person. The latest example is the person actually leaving the position.

 

[samiwas]

Reading threads like these, you truly see Trump's voter base on display.

 

[Jsameds]

Wow.
This whole thread is ever further going into the sewer. I’m disgusted at some of the comments I’m reading here. There is so much hate and hurt just wanting to spew out every time a topic such as this comes up and to be honest, it’s taking less and less of a controversial topic to set off some of the mac rumors regulars. I think MR needs to close such ones to comments. It doesn’t help anyone and frankly it seems like baiting to me.

Wow indeed.

All those words and you didn't even attempt to address the point.

 

[WarHeadz]

Ironically, you’ve proven in a flash that any form of speaking out to people who cant stand the president and insist that you MUST feel that way too, or else... is ineffective, and met with immediate backlash, and likely for a corporation like Apple, it would be a witch hunt of alienation.

Good. Anyone who still supports the treasonous bastard should be alienated. Wouldn’t hire them in my own business.
[doublepost=1510933141][/doublepost]

Nice. They fire an outspoken African American woman and replace her with a white lesbian. Is this your idea of “diversity,” Apple, or did Timmy just want to score some brownie points with the LBGTQ crowd?

So much butthurt. You know Timmy is gay right? He doesn’t need to score any brownie points with us.

 

[blacktape242]

again, how about just hiring the RIGHT person for the job regardless of what race, sex or whatever they are........
[doublepost=1510934401][/doublepost]

Most useless job title I’ve ever seen.

exactly......thank you for seeing that!!!!!
[doublepost=1510934456][/doublepost]

Reading threads like these, you truly see Trump's voter base on display.

omg, this is getting SOOOOOO old....maybe this is WHY HE WON....

And NO i did not vote for him.

 

[dasmb]

People should get jobs based on their skill set and job history, etc

Not their ethnicity, ie something they didn’t have a say in (what heritage they were born into) and which has nothing to do with anything

Forcefully hitting diversity quotas is racist and A delusional progressive agenda

Imo

I think you're right.

The challenge is that today's employment systems in tech ARE favoring certain ethnicities and genders, something which has nothing with anything. There's no reason to think a skin color should affect your ability to produce engineering work at a certain level of quality, and especially not at the levels of disparity we see.

This means that there is some form of friction that is preventing potential engineers from being successful. We can see this all the way through the "pipeline." The purpose of a diversity director should be to figure out what the frictions are and work to have them removed. BTW as you've identified, quotas alone won't do this; we keep track of diversity metrics to let us know that there is a disparity and to help us know if we're improving.

You can say diversity is a delusional progressive agenda, but there's a blunt reality here: if we want to hire the top 1% of people, and we're only hiring out of a pool of young, white men, we're missing a lot of potential hires.

 

[thadoggfather]

I think you're right.

The challenge is that today's employment systems in tech ARE favoring certain ethnicities and genders, something which has nothing with anything. There's no reason to think a skin color should affect your ability to produce engineering work at a certain level of quality, and especially not at the levels of disparity we see.

This means that there is some form of friction that is preventing potential engineers from being successful. We can see this all the way through the "pipeline." The purpose of a diversity director should be to figure out what the frictions are and work to have them removed. BTW as you've identified, quotas alone won't do this; we keep track of diversity metrics to let us know that there is a disparity and to help us know if we're improving.

You can say diversity is a delusional progressive agenda, but there's a blunt reality here: if we want to hire the top 1% of people, and we're only hiring out of a pool of young, white men, we're missing a lot of potential hires.

Do you have any proof of that, in Silicon Valley In particular where they stress diversity ad nauseum, and even have VP positions for diversity and inclusion departments, or is that simply a sentiment? It's ok if the latter but let's just be clear here.

When you think of apple workforce do you think of white males, exclusively? Is that your impression of Apple? From having international offices everywhere in the world, iPhones built by the Chinese and now Indians in factories, and a wide spectrum of demographic from walking into Apple stores?

Perhaps you're right and perhaps the problem stems from the top with a white male running the company: Tim Cook

Should he be purged for this reason alone? That would be one way to diversify and proverbially speaking , put ones money where their mouth is

If Tim found diversity to be so lacking and such a organizational epidemic, he could be a martyr and out himself as a show of solidarity with the movement.

But He won’t.

Now why is that?

 

[lyngo]

Bruce Sewell.

I believe he is still employed at Apple at this point in time. At least the research I have seen shows that he is still there.

 

[MH01]

Seems like most of her time at Apple she was in HR in some capacity.

HR sets the foundations of the workplace

 

[Rum_Becker]

I wasn’t paying attention to any news of this nature. Did she really have to apologize for saying what she said? If so, that’s so misguided of whoever made her apologize. By virtue of logic and reason, this remarkably astute and brave woman is correct. It’s appalling she should have been made to refute logic.

Here is the story, about a month old.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/9to5mac.com/2017/10/14/denise-young-smith-apology/amp/

 

[5105973]

Here is the story, about a month old.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/9to5mac.com/2017/10/14/denise-young-smith-apology/amp/

I had so much to say in response to this, but I decided to delete it before posting it.

I’ll just leave my response as this: Denise Young Smith is clearly an intelligent, capable, educated and wise woman who is too damned good for the crap that has been flung her way. Best of luck to this classy woman in her new endeavors.

 

[jdclifford]

Did you feel the same way when Ron Johnson held that job? Or do you think Apple shouldn’t have retail stores?

Stores r stores. She's has these grandiose ideas of turning them into town centers for people to hangout. I go to a store to a store to but things not to hang out. We don't need "mall rats" clogging Apple stores and causing those who want to buy and leave needless crowds.

If you want to hangout go to Starbucks!

 

[LizKat]

Wow indeed.

All those words and you didn't even attempt to address the point.

It was a point. It was addressing the vile tone of some of the posts. There are some members who have become pretty good at managing to tread the DMZ between a bannable post and one that merely insults ideas of another member or of the human subjects of a thread.

 

[5105973]

The position is a joke, and the fact that they hired this woman less than 9 months ago and she's already leaving brings up the question how she got the job in the first place.
[doublepost=1510930422][/doublepost]

The reason why people jump on this stuff is because it's fake. It's a PR stunt to make the company look good to the outside. When we all know that the most qualified person should get the job. Just as someone who is Caucasian shouldn't get it because of that, the same goes for other nationalities or skin colors. And this position is solely created to make the eco system more diverse, not necessarily hire the right person. The latest example is the person actually leaving the position.

You’re missing a lot of the story. Anyway, from the things she said and the way she conducted herself, she clearly saw her job as not ensuring quotas were fulfilled, because her own words indicate she doesn’t believe in that but embraces the skills, perspectives and talent ALL people bring to Apple. She wanted to make sure that all the many diverse people, even if it was a group of blonde blue eyed white guys, would be able to come together and get on the same page even if they differed in key ways besides race.

We won’t know for sure but she looks like she could have been the victim of social justice warrioring of the most illogical, unreasonable and pernicious kind. And who knows, it may very well have been white people who did this to her, not the minorities. I’ve lost track of how many people I’ve seen, oddly enough white men, ranting that white men should die out. That makes no sense to me. We should all be championing our own causes as well as helping each other out or we will never be on a level playing field.

One of the most illogical rants I ever heard directed at me was from my very Caucasian sister in law who was in a spitting rage because I dared to refer to myself as Oriental instead of Asian and she said that was offensive. As if SHE has the right to determine what is offensive to ME, the actual minority. She was offended that I was not offended. The more I think about it, she’s guilty of cultural appropriation, in this case she’s appropriating my right to take offense at bigotry directed at my heritage. Dang, wish I had thought of saying that when she was flapping her gums at me. It would have just made her yell louder though. When she’s full of righteous indignation there’s no stopping her.

And that’s really the heart of our problems, everyone is puffed up with righteous indignation. This poor woman was just trying to get everyone chilled out and feeling like we are all important and have something to bring to the table. And this is how she gets treated and regarded. Sheesh.

 

[Jsameds]

It was a point. It was addressing the vile tone of some of the posts. There are some members who have become pretty good at managing to tread the DMZ between a bannable post and one that merely insults ideas of another member or of the human subjects of a thread.

What was vile about my post, that she chose to quote?

 

[ThisIsNotMe]

Why is she leaving?

"Apple’s diversity chief is stepping down after only six months on the job — after causing an outcry by saying that being a minority or a woman are not the only criteria for diversity, according to reports."

“There can be 12 white, blue-eyed, blond men in a room and they’re going to be diverse too because they’re going to bring a different life experience and life perspective to the conversation,” the inaugural diversity chief said.

“Diversity is the human experience,” she said, according to Quartz. “I get a little bit frustrated when diversity or the term diversity is tagged to the people of color, or the women, or the LGBT.”

https://nypost.com/2017/11/17/apples-diversity-chief-lasts-just-six-months/

(She was essentially fired for saying that diversity is actual diversity and not just labels. Goes contrary to Tim Cook's position of putting people in boxes.)

 

[5105973]

"Apple’s diversity chief is stepping down after only six months on the job — after causing an outcry by saying that being a minority or a woman are not the only criteria for diversity, according to reports."

“There can be 12 white, blue-eyed, blond men in a room and they’re going to be diverse too because they’re going to bring a different life experience and life perspective to the conversation,” the inaugural diversity chief said.

“Diversity is the human experience,” she said, according to Quartz. “I get a little bit frustrated when diversity or the term diversity is tagged to the people of color, or the women, or the LGBT.”

https://nypost.com/2017/11/17/apples-diversity-chief-lasts-just-six-months/

(She was essentially fired for saying that diversity is actual diversity and not just labels. Goes contrary to Tim Cook's position of putting people in boxes.)

To be fair it’s not Tim Cook, per se. It’s our society as a whole consumed with this self righteous, narrow minded madness. People want to be punitive, not truly inclusive and fair. It’s flying every which way from all sides. Everybody’s got their underwear in a knot and so the voices of reason like that of this wise woman are being shouted down.

 

[Will do good]

For once I like to see a non-black to get this job.

 

[LizKat]

What was vile about my post, that she chose to quote?

I don't see that anyone was citing your posts as vile. In one of your posts you elected to comment on another member's post about the tone of the thread, and you suggested that such a post didn't make a point about the thread itself. I beg to differ. It's legitimate to comment on the tone of a thread when it has deteriorated. Just because no one has found reason to "report" one or another post to the mods doesn't mean that a thread hasn't become unpleasant to bother reading -- as opposed to worth the effort, or enlightening... or even amusing.

As to the topic of the thread, I was dismayed to hear that Denise Young Smith was leaving and hoped that it was not merely because of the remarks she had made about diversity being possible amongst a group of white males (since that is true).

I'm perfectly capable of thinking that, and regretting her departure, even while I can also argue that we still have a long way to go in recognizing institutional racism and sexism and that companies do well to have an officer to help us focus on how we may inadvertently further that sort of discrimination, and how to grow past that to be more inclusive.

 

[lowendlinux]

Preach it!

Angela Ahrendts had the typical bumpy adjustment one might expect for anyone coming into Apple from any other industry or background. But she’s adjusted and is heading up a very intriguing renaissance of Apple Store design. I only wish that my local Apple Store wasn’t constrained by its hole in the wall typical mall constraints from fully embodying this town center vision Angela has been working to implement for some of the gorgeous new builds we’ve seen on MR. Still, they did a great job making the store easier to move around in. I didn’t think so during my first couple of visits, but more recent visits made me realize flow is much improved over what it was before.

To me, there’s evidence she’s now pretty well integrated into Apple Culture. I think too many people blame her for Apple’s pricing strategy and product line without stopping to realize she’s not the one who set those things. She just has to ensure it all sells once it’s ready to go out to the public.

I think it's because she's an attractive, wealthy, powerful woman invading what people believe is a nerdy male company.

 

[ssgbryan]

again, how about just hiring the RIGHT person for the job regardless of what race, sex or whatever they are........

The problem with that argument is that their is about 40+ years of empirical evidence that doesn't actually happen. We are witnessing the end of white privilege and most white folks have issues with dealing with what minorities deal with on a daily basis.

Too many times when someone says Hire the right person, they mean hire the white person.

 

[stockscalper]

The problem with that argument is that their is about 40+ years of empirical evidence that doesn't actually happen. We are witnessing the end of white privilege and most white folks have issues with dealing with what minorities deal with on a daily basis.

Too many times when someone says Hire the right person, they mean hire the white person.

"White Privilege" ending? I never new it existed. For 40 plus years in the job market what I've seen is racial quotas and minority favoritism in admissions to colleges and graduate schools. That's hardly "White Privilege". Employers should hire and colleges should admit the best candidates/students without giving preference to race, religion or nationality. Promoting unqualified people just to make statistics does nobody any favors.