2020年经济学人 硅谷中的种族问题(1)（在线收听）

Business

商业版块

Race in Silicon Valley

硅谷中的种族

Beyond the pale

出格

The technology industry faces up to its diversity problem

科技产业面临多元化问题

To get a sense of diversity in tech, take a stroll on University Avenue in Palo Alto, a city at the heart of Silicon Valley. Before the pandemic, if you encountered a black person, the chances were they worked in a local shop. African-Americans account for 3% of workers at America’s five biggest technology firms and probably less at smaller ones. About one in 50 partners at venture-capital (vc) firms is black. The figure among vc-financed entrepreneurs is one in 100. Such dismal numbers, and Silicon Valley’s meritocratic pretensions, help explain why tech’s response to the killing of George Floyd has been louder even than other industries'. Will outrage lead to lasting change?

想要感受科技的多样性。你可以在硅谷的中心城市帕洛阿尔托的大学路上漫步。在疫情之前，如果你遇到了一个黑人，他很可能是在当地的一家商店工作。在美国五大科技公司中，非裔美国人占员工总数的3%，而在较小的公司中，这一比例可能更低。而在风险投资公司，大约每50个合伙人中就有一个是黑人。而在创业投资金融的企业家中，数据为百分之一。如此惨淡的数据以及硅谷精英阶层的自命不凡，这有助于解释为什么科技公司对于乔治·弗洛伊德被杀事件的反应比其他行业更加激烈。愤怒会引发持久的变化吗？

Pushed by a left-leaning workforce, big tech now regularly takes an activist stance on important issues, from immigration to the pandemic. Yet even by these standards, the reaction to the Black Lives Matter protests has been remarkable. Firms offered donations to race-related charities, set up funds to finance startups by non-white founders, stopped selling controversial technologies such as facial recognition and vowed to purge their software of racist language. Apple and YouTube (part of Google) each pledged $100m to combat racism with educational schemes and support for black artists. On June 17th Google said it would raise the share of “under-represented groups” in leadership by 30% by 2025.

在左倾劳动力的推动下，从移民问题到疫情，大型科技公司现在经常会在重要问题上采取积极的立场。然而，即使以这些标准衡量，其对黑人生命问题抗议的反应也是很显著的。公司会向与种族有关的慈善机构提供捐款，设立资金以资助非白人创始人创建的公司，停止销售面部识别等有争议的技术，发誓要清除他们的软件中的种族主义语言。苹果和YouTube（谷歌的子公司）各自承诺提供1亿美元，通过教育计划和对黑人艺术家的支持来打击种族主义。6月17日，谷歌表示，到2025年，它会把领导层中“代表性不足的群体”的比例提升30%。