U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-oracle-usa-labor-idUSKBN1522O6?il=0 <comment><USER2> That means we so far have:

* Palantir sued for not hiring enough Asians [0]

* Google sued for not turning over compensation data [1]

* Oracle sued for hiring too many Asians

While it's possible that discriminatory processes have happened at all these places, it seems these lawsuits can be targeted at whoever one wishes. It's always going to be possible to find data that indicates discrimination, unless companies hire in exact quotas (which would also be discriminatory really).

[0]: [http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/09/26/palantir-...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/09/26/palantir- department-of-labor-discrimination-asians-lawsuit/91131284/)

[1]: [http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/01/04/google- su...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/01/04/google-sued-labor- department-over-anti-discrimination-compensation-data/96170296/)

<comment><USER3> Not saying that I agree with quotas as a solution to problems like discriminatory biases in hiring, but how is a quota system "discriminatory"? What race, sex or age group is discriminated against by a requirement that appropriate proportions of those demographics make up the companies employees? (Heck in most cases quotas are simply a low bar, they are not even proportional to the population demographics.)

I can understand how it perhaps seems unfair if someone is not hired purely on perceived talent alone, but they are not being discriminated against. That's not the right word for that.

<comment><USER4> Google has actually released a paper on codifying what discrimination looks like for lending ([https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.02413](https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.02413) \+ blog post: [https://research.googleblog.com/2016/10/equality-of- opportun...](https://research.googleblog.com/2016/10/equality-of-opportunity- in-machine.html)). It can be trivially extended to discuss hiring.

Basically a fair hiring process as defined by the above would be:

P(hire | features) = P(hire | race=1, features) = P(hire | race=2, features)

This may sound a bit silly or unnecessary, but unless this formula is specifically enforced, _if_ a race were correlated with expected profit of a hire, a hiring algorithm might accidentally infer race from the other features. You can see the paper for an extended discussion.

With that background out of the way, let's consider hiring based on quotas. Since hiring takes place continuously across time, in order to maintain a quota across time we would need to change P(hire | race=1) based on the current composition of the company. Therefore P(hire | race=1) != P(hire | race=2) at least some of the time. Therefore it's discriminatory according to the above definition.

Of course, you may not like the definition. I would be very interested to hear an alternate formalization of non-discrimination!

<comment><USER5> Unfortunately this isn't enough. Discriminatory rules such as "don't lend to any zip code that's over 75% black" will pass this test if you include this variable as a feature. The same logic applies to less obvious cases such as purchasing behavior.

<comment><USER6> A particularly hairy case is where you use variables as features which are themselves generated through other potentially-discriminatory processes. For example, including a "has committed a felony" feature seems like a no-brainer for a hiring or lending application, but now any racial or other discrimination present in the criminal justice system has now "infected" your hiring process, so that the outcomes of your hiring process are now racially biased even though your process itself was not.

<comment><USER7> But at some level, doesn't that just mean reality is biased, and since we don't live in utopia, trying to model one in the small is a sandcastle?

<comment><USER8> What do you mean by "reality"? Society is pervasively biased, yes, that's the point. That makes it difficult to fight against that bias, but it is necessary if you want to live in a more equal world.

<comment><USER4> > What do you mean by "reality"?

The thing scientists (especially physicists) are trying to model.

<comment><USER8> You're not the person I was asking, and I didn't ask for a definition.

In case you missed my point, we aren't talking about physics here, but about society, which is a reality _we create_.

Appealing to "reality" in a discussion about bias amounts to throwing up your hands and dismissing the problem as just "the way things are".

It's like if you described a complicated social problem you've observed and I shrugged and said "physics, eh?".

<comment><USER4> > Appealing to "reality" in a discussion about bias amounts to throwing up > your hands and dismissing the problem as just "the way things are".

Yes, that was how I read GGP's comment. I think you are overstating the degree of control that we have over society.

For example, I have often heard the case that society influences young women into roles that eventually prevent them from becoming engineers. Gendered children's toys are often used as an example of this. However, gendered toy preference exists before socialization has occurred (it has been demonstrated in 3-8 _month_ old infants[1]). The same gendered toy preference that exists in humans has also been demonstrated in vervet monkeys[2] and rhesus monkeys[3].

[1] [http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-008-9430-1](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-008-9430-1)

[2] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2643016/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2643016/)

[3] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/)

With those references now provided, I think it's safe to say gendered toy preference in humans is much bigger than simply a question of which toys we encourage children to buy -- there seems to be a considerable amount of genetics involved.

Hopefully now you are understanding what I meant when I defined reality for you. As I said I believe this is also what GGP was referring to.

So with that background out of the way:

> In case you missed my point, we aren't talking about physics here, but about > society, which is a reality we create.

> It's like if you described a complicated social problem you've observed and > I shrugged and said "physics, eh?".

A. How do you know it's a problem with the "reality we create" and not a problem with the reality we are stuck with? (Again, this is how I read GGP)

B. If we can trace the problem to something akin to male vervet monkeys preferring to play with Tonka trucks... what are we to do about it beyond ensuring that P(loan | race=1) = P(loan | race=2)?

I ask B because the idea of forcing my life choices onto someone else makes me feel ill. It reminds me of being forced to join the basketball team in high school, which I hated (though others seemed to love). The sick feeling compounds when I consider doing it purely on the basis of their race or gender in contexts where their race or gender is causal... and that's usually the course of action people on your side of this discussion recommend.

<comment><USER8> There is plenty of evidence that people have conscious and unconscious biases. There is ample evidence that the American criminal justice system, for example, is biased at several levels. I see where you're coming from: at any discussion of bias, you would rather blame it on genetics, which means we as a society are not responsible for doing anything about it.

I'm sure the people that have been forced into high-paying fields against their natural inclinations appreciate your feeling ill on their behalf, though. /s

<comment><USER4> > There is plenty of evidence that people have conscious and unconscious > biases.

Agreed. I didn't say otherwise, I just _also_ pointed out that there's evidence some of those biases are genetic.

> There is ample evidence that the American criminal justice system, for > example, is biased at several levels.

I believe this should be fixed! I'm the person who linked the google formalism for modifying a model to be non-racist. This whole thread came from that.

> I see where you're coming from: at any discussion of bias, you would rather > blame it on genetics, which means we as a society are not responsible for > doing anything about it.

No. My position is that I want bankers to use a race-blinded models when deciding on loans. In general, where there is bias ( _especially_ where there is genetic/non-correctable bias), I believe the biased human should be replaced by a computer programmed to not have a bias.

I want this because I think the problem is real, I would like it solved, and I believe the other methods people propose (bias training, etc) are unlikely to work.

I also believe replacing as many humans as possible will not fix all the problems I imagine you are currently attributing to societal bias (ie I believe that some life decisions may well have a large genetic component). I do not view those "problems" as things to be solved, so much as deeply disturbing indications that free will does not exist. That in some sense you and I might be discussing optimization methods for player happiness in a zero player game. That in as much as happiness exists, I worry it is primarily found by embracing our genetic biases.

> I'm sure the people that have been forced into high-paying fields against > their natural inclinations appreciate your feeling ill on their behalf, > though. /s

People used to make arguments like this in defense of arranged marriages you know. Letting the heart decide isn't stupid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Couple points:

First, this is where the meat is: [https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ofccp/ofccp20170118-0](https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ofccp/ofccp20170118-0)

Second:

"...Oracle nevertheless preferred Asian applications over other qualified applicants in the Professional Technical 1, Individual Contributor Job group and in the Product Development job group at statistically significant rates." [1]

[1] [https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/newsroom/newsrelease...](https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/newsroom/newsreleases/OFCCP20170071.pdf)

\---

Perhaps I'm naive, but I'll say it again and again until someone with influence hears me: large companies should do anonymous interviewing. I've interviewed with Oracle, Cisco, and many of the "old corporate-y" companies. There's ZERO reason the interview process can't be completely anonymized. Their interviews (from my limited experience) are completely impersonal and done on an ad-hoc basis anyway.

That being said, it seems this issue may be more of an H1B1 issue, which inherently cannot be made anonymous.

<comment><USER10> When you say anonymous, how do you mean it? As in: the interviewer meets face- to-face without a resume in front of them, or the interviewer has a resume but the interview is done over the phone, or a phone interview with no resume?

<comment><USER11> Well, for one, you can hide contact info from a resume (which is still stored in a system somewhere, with a unique ID).

And you can also make the early stages of your interview email or text-chat based (or just a Google Doc, like some companies do), to eliminate any potential bias in things that can be inferred from voice like accent, region, and gender.

Obviously once they're on-site for an interview, you can't anonymize much anymore, but anonymizing every stage before that seems like a win-win to me (excluding potential costs of implementing the system).

<comment><USER12> If you anonymize it and make it completely chat based how do you make sure that the person you are chatting with is really the applicant and not someone else?

<comment><USER13> You'd need a third party that you both trust. If you both don't trust anyone, there are ways around that too...

<comment><USER14> Blockchain for hiring/interviews?

<comment><USER15> Blockchain + machine learning

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I worked at Oracle in 1992-1998. I hired a white male employee who complained later that I was hiring too many indian employees. I went backed to look at the applicants and noticed that 90% of them were indian and that I'd contacted every non-indian applicant. I'm not white or indian so I was very eager to make sure I was being fair. My non-scientific conclusion after working at a lot of other companies is that very successful companies paid a lot better and had much more interesting work than Oracle (remember oracle missed the .com shift in a major way); I feel oracle gets so few the applications of whites because most of them had much better jobs and opportunities. In that situation, it might require oracle to pay more to retain white employees.

I left oracle in 1998 and returned in 2003. I did notice a dramatic shift in the employee demographics at that time. Areas that used to be mostly white or mixed were now entirely indian. I'm not sure of the reasons but I've worked at places that are much more successful than oracle and I suspect it is not oracle that is discriminating as much as it is a lot of better companies enticing talent away. I've seen many of oracle's brightest employees working at more successful companies.

<comment><USER17> > Areas that used to be mostly white or mixed were now entirely indian.

I've worked in a company where this shift happened in front of my eyes.

Basically I concluded that they have very clear people/employee hierarchy therefore Indian who is in top-position will rather deal with another Indian as a lower worker because he will be able to order him around like a puppet. Therefore he will vouch to hire more Indians.

This may sound like a generalisation and it probably is, but I've seen this exact shift of company having less than 10% Indian to 80%+. And i've seen how they treat each other.

<comment><USER18> > how they _threat_ each other.

Do you imply something here or is it just a slip?

<comment><USER17> No, it was typo. Sorry

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "Oracle was far more likely to hire Asian applicants - particularly Indian people - for product development and technical roles than black, white or Hispanic job seekers."

Can the DOL back up this claim with salary data to see if Oracle is abusing the H1-B visa system by purposefully keeping wages low?

Most of the time it is just easier to hire Asian/Indian employees because they are readily available (larger proportion of population entering tech filed via education or change of career).

It would be interesting to see how far DOL can stretch this.

Edit 1: Improvement

<comment><USER20> " Most of the time it is just easier to hire Asian/Indian employees because they are readily available "

\- I doubt that. It's "easier" to hire because they "agree" to lower wages and its easier to retain them, because their visa status is tied to the employer. The employers have H1B workers on a leash.

The process of hiring an H1B worker in short.

\- Hire an immigration lawyer.

\- Post an LCA.

\- Apply petition to USCIS.

\- Pay petition fees (higher for fast track process)

\- Respond to USCIS queries.

\- Get petition approved.

\- Done

\- Its a different game if the employer wants retain the H1B worker after 6th year of H1B.

So hiring is not easy. But retaining and paying them is "easy". So why do these corporations take this much pain in hiring H1B workers ? No its not the skills they are after. (after all H1B is lottery based not skill based right ? )

<comment><USER21> You're missing the part where the employer is required to:

\- Post representative salary data, including the last few (5?) hires to this position.

\- Publish the job position locally, so it can be filled by local workers preferentially, and then only by H1B if unfilled.

\- Ensure the worker is initially paid a salary similar to other existing hires in that position.

I don't understand how people make the leap that H1B is used to lower wages. It's an awfully complex, risky and inefficient way to suppress wages. You would need to lie about "prevailing wages" in order for this scheme to work, which is illegal and would put you and your company into deep trouble.

<comment><USER22> The prevailing wage comes from a chart: you don't just do research or come up with it. Figuring out which prevailing wage to use among the existing job descriptions is already a matter of judgement, and you can just aim for the low one.

Publishing the position locally is easily skirted: It's not published in places that people look at, it's not written in a way that makes it sound appealing, and often has some nonsensical requirements: In practice, you don't get local workers applying to them.

Then, there's how you hire for positions as junior as possible, and you keep the person there for 6+ years (the green card process can take pretty much forever if you are mean enough to your employee).

I was an H1B. My compensation was pretty fair when I started compared to the US employees around me, but as years went by, I kept taking on more responsibilities, but my salary didn't change to match. Once the green card process started, changing jobs became extremely unappealing, not just because risks of having to restart the green card process, but because to apply for a green card, my employer asked me to agree to pay attorney fees and costs if I left before the green card was awarded plus one year. Any job worth applying to would have been higher responsibility than the paper job I had been hired for originally, so would I be able to transfer by PERM filing across employers in the first place? Not guaranteed. So I kept the job: Being European in the early 2000s, there was a signifiant green card backlog for me, but not a decade long, so I could wait. All in all, I was an H1B for 8 years.

In the next 3 years after I got the green card, I changed jobs a couple of times and my salary more than doubled: I went from being called a plain engineer that just happened to report to the CTO to becoming principal engineer at a Fortune 500 corporation. It's 5 years later, and last year I made 5 times what I was making in my last H1B year: That level of catch-up doesn't come from me improving that much in the last few years, but total catch-up from where I started from.

Imagine what the big outsourcers, who handle many thousands of H1B applications a year, can do to suppress wages further.

<comment><USER23> Thank you for your insightful comment - I wish people like you would testify in front of congress on the abuses of the H1B process that are clearly widespread.

It's depressing to think about the stress and anxiety this might cause someone who is literally facing deportation if he doesn't "suck it up" and keep working at a sweat shop for the same salary they were hired at 5+ years ago.

<comment><USER24> I'm on an H-1B, and the thing that infuriates me about the dialogue on this is that they are effectively trying to ban skilled immigration, and exclude people like me from coming.

If you don't qualify for the family-based or refugee route, employment-based immigration is the only viable pathway. The amount of hate I see piled on people trying to come here via the employment-based immigration seems insane to me. These people make it seem like employment-based immigration is not as respectable or legitimate, compared to refugee/asylum and family-based immigration.

The problem with requiring higher wagers is that for people like me, who were students in US -- it's very hard to get an ultra-high salary for the first job out of college. I was a student (on an F-1 visa), and my first job out of college offered me $60,000/year. On my first job on my H-1B visa (in NYC), I was offered $85,000 a year (got slightly over $100,000 with bonuses). Then, just about a year and half later, I was paid (mostly through lucky bonuses) slightly over $200,000 in a single year.

If you raised wage requirements, you'd basically be not allowing people like me to continue to stay and work in the US (after graduation from college), and would instead only allow people from outside who have lots of experience (and skill) and can command a much higher salary upfront.

<comment><USER25> I mean when it comes down to it choosing a neurosurgeon over an entry level software developer makes a lot of sense.

What is wrong with wanting to prioritise people who have lots of experience and skill?

<comment><USER24> Why even _prioritize_? The need to _prioritize_ assumes the existence of arbitrary numerical limits on immigration.

I think we should just eliminate the limits on employment-based immigration entirely, with the only restriction being that such immigration does not depress US wages (which is already implemented as the LCA today). At the very least, use _qualitative_ limits, not quantitative limits.

But even better, just let peaceful immigrants in. Before 1921, if you were white, there were no restrictions on you moving to the US. So, let's go back to the pre-1921 immigration policy, with the slight modification that non- white people are not banned. The Libertarian Party makes a good argument: [https://www.lp.org/issues/immigration](https://www.lp.org/issues/immigration)

<comment><USER25> > I think we should just eliminate the limits on employment-based immigration > entirely

> But even better, just let peaceful immigrants in.

How would the US absorb the hundreds of millions who would come?

<comment><USER24> Immigrants are only going to stay in this country, if they can be successful here. For example, if they can open up a business and generate enough revenue to live a better life, or if they can find a job that affords them a better life than they had in their previous country.

Obviously, only a fool would stay here if their condition of living is _worse here_. If their life is _worse_ here, they'll just move back! Duh! Immigration dropped sharply during the Great Recession, and large numbers of immigrants were actually leaving the country.

 _The one restriction I support personally_ is: No welfare or any kind of public support for immigrants. We don't want moochers. _Also:_ don't allow them to sleep on the streets and stuff. We don't want the poor from the whole world flooding our streets, and asking for hand-outs. Kick them out. If someone can't be _economically_ successful in this country, and make enough money to support themselves (i.e. through a job or a business), don't allow them to stay here. That's a reasonable restriction.

Economics will become a natural regulator of immigration. Those who can be successful here will stay. Those who can't will leave. I can predict that, under such welcoming immigration laws, the country's total GDP will grow massively.

On another note, people with facetious concerns about there only being a limited supply of jobs should read up on this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy)

We had an insane level of immigration during the 1880-1921 period, and have we been poorer as a result for it? The US per capita GDP is exceeds that of most Western countries. (I guess one of the downsides is that NYC is now littered with pizza stores everywhere. Thanks Italian immigrants who flooded this country in the early 1900s!) This book covers this history in detail: [https://amazon.com/gp/product/0809053446](https://amazon.com/gp/product/0809053446)

I'm utterly and thoroughly opposed to those anti-free-market half-loosers who want to "protect" their jobs by preventing competition from others. This is just like the folks who want to require a license for everything, and want to use the power of the state (i.e. the threat of violence) to limit competition from others. With respect to immigration, I very reluctantly (partially) support mandating that immigrants be paid at least as much American workers, as this will prevent wage depression (even though this is an un-libertarian position). Our existing immigration laws already require this with every employment-based visa application. It's called the LCA (Labor Condition Application).

However, from a principled libertarian point of view, if another person else is willing to do your job for less money, well then, that's how much your work is worth. It's bad for society on the whole, for you to artificially inflate your pay grade by limiting the supply of available workers in your field.One of the reasons why medical costs are so high in the United States is that the supply of doctors is severely curtailed by regulation. It drives up cost for everyone, and it a net drag (or a tax) on the rest of people who need medical care. Government-imposed regulatory limits (on professional licensing, trade, immigration, the right to work, etc) protect various small interest groups at cost to everyone else, and are generally bad on the whole.

<comment><USER25> > Obviously, only a fool would stay here if their condition of living is worse > here

The problem is hundreds of millions of people have a very low standard of living; an order of magnitude lower than the average American.

5 people living in the same room earning half of the current federal US minimum wage is a huge increase in quality of life for hundreds of millions of people.

You aren't explaining how an increase in supply for low level jobs, an increase in the demand for housing, an increased demand on infrastructure (police, roads, etc), etc is a benefit to US citizens and will result in a better quality of life for them.

> However, from a principled libertarian point of view

And why should we care about a principled libertarian point of view?

They tend to be ideologues who care more about reasoning from principles than actual real world outcomes.

<comment><USER24> > earning half of the current federal US minimum wage

As I stated before, I support requiring that immigrants be paid at least as much as U.S. workers for the particular job they take up. For example, if an immigrant is going to do X job, require that they be paid at least as much as what U.S. workers doing that job earn. Our existing immigration laws already require this with every employment-based visa application. It's called the LCA (Labor Condition Application). In terms of where the wage data comes from--the Bureau of Labor Statistics conducts wage surveys of almost every job in the country.

 _To clarify: I 'm stating here that I support the principal underlying the LCA_, I'm not talking about its implementation. Implementing the LCA properly, and ensuring that it isn't circumvented is not the topic of discussion. Some unethical employers circumvent the LCA today by using a lower-wage job title (like calling a senior developer a QA person) to pay a lower wage. But that's a problem of implementing the law--the law itself is fine, it's the onus of the Executive Branch to make sure it is implemented properly (and not circumvented). We're not discussing that here.

> You aren't explaining how an increase in supply for low level jobs, an > increase in the demand for housing, an increased demand on infrastructure > (police, roads, etc), etc is a benefit to US citizens

This is one of the most idiotic and brain-dead things anti-immigrant people say. You are assuming that new roads cannot be constructed, new houses cannot be built, and most of all (the biggest mistake people make) _that there is only a fixed number of jobs in a country_. Please read up on: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy)

Since the founding of this country, we had a century and half of mass immigration from Europe. Just think of what's happened. New towns were built, cities expanded, and new infrastructure was built to support the booming population. The _economy expanded_. Your theory implies that the number of jobs, houses, roads, etc would remain fixed to the number they were in 1789. What an idiotic theory.

The least bit of economic investigation shows that it is false. A bit of common sense also shows it is false. Immigrants typically _add to the economy_ of the country. Numerous studies have measured the economic impact of immigrants on the U.S. economy, and have shown it to be a _huge net benefit_ for the native (US citizen) population. For an excellent study, see _The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration_ by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine: [https://www.nap.edu/catalog/23550/the- economic-and-fiscal-co...](https://www.nap.edu/catalog/23550/the-economic-and- fiscal-consequences-of-immigration)

This stupid fucking theory is so brain-dead, and has been used over and over by anti-immigrant people (like Jeff Sessions) as an argument to _effectively ban_ all immigration, that it makes me want punch the face of the person repeating it. At this point, I automatically assume that the person saying it must be using it knowingly as a straw man argument to ban all immigration, and their real motivation is not based in economics, but rather in xenophobia and/or racism.

<comment><USER25> > For example, if an immigrant is going to do X job, require that they be paid > at least as much as what U.S. workers doing that job earn.

We have strong evidence that price fixing doesn't work. You can't double or triple the supply and use a half baked law to keep the price high.

I don't know why you think basic economics doesn't apply to labor.

> But that's a problem of implementing the law--the law itself is fine

That is naive. The truth is these kinds of laws are very expensive to enforce.

Should each immigrant put up a $20k bond?

> You are assuming that new roads cannot be constructed, new houses cannot be > built, and most of all

Stop creating strawman arguments.

Adding and expanding infrastructure to a dense city is incredibly expensive. It cost my local government $100 million to widen a few hundred meter stretch of road.

> and most of all (the biggest mistake people make) that there is only a fixed > number of jobs in a country

Again, stop creating strawman arguments.

I am arguing that a lot of the working poor will be worse off under your economic free for all. You haven't provided a shred of evidence as to why that won't be the case.

I don't believe there are a fixed number of jobs but I also understand how difficult it is to change fields even as a well educated reasonably wealthy individual.

We have a huge amount of evidence that the working poor struggle to adapt to changing labor markets.

The way you jump to claims of racism and xenophobia despite having put up a very weak argument is telling.

<comment><USER24> Your desire to justify immigration restriction using even the weakest arguments possible was very frustrating to me, and I responded with fairly strong language in my earlier comment, and it was flagged as a result. So I'll comment again without the strong language:

> Should each immigrant put up a $20k bond?

Compliance with wage requirements is the duty of the employer, not the employee. According to your logic, we would punish U.S. workers who are not paid the $7.25 federal minimum wage by asking them to pay $20,000 instead of taking action against the employers who fail to comply with the minimum wage law. So your statement is illogical and invalid.

> Adding and expanding infrastructure to a dense city is incredibly expensive. > It cost my local government $100 million to widen a few hundred meter > stretch of road.

If your city overspent on roads, that's a result of corruption and/or government inefficiency -- a different and unrelated problem. The cost of increasing infrastructure is paid for by the taxpayers. Immigrants pay taxes, and thus increase tax revenue. If there is a gap in the additional cost and the additional tax revenue generated by immigrants, that is a result of government inefficiency and possibly corruption.

The solution to that problem is to fix government inefficiency, the solution is not to ban immigrants. So your argument here is also invalid.

> I am arguing that a lot of the working poor will be worse off under your > economic free for all.

According to your theory, the working poor _should have been decimated_ by the mass immigration from Europe that occurred during much of US history. It wasn't.

Immigration contributes to economic growth. The poorest and least-skilled US workers might be impacted, but that is not the issue at hand here. We're discussing the immigration of educated, skilled immigrants.

For evidence on how immigration contributes to economic growth, see this study: [https://www.nap.edu/catalog/23550/the-economic-and-fiscal- co...](https://www.nap.edu/catalog/23550/the-economic-and-fiscal-consequences- of-immigration)

\---

To recap: you made a straw man argument about your city's extreme inefficiency at building roads. Then you mentioned something about putting up a bond, perhaps as a joke. That's why I brought up the possibility of xenophobia and/or racism, since these sort of comments make me wonder what the real motivations behind this is.

From a libertarian point of view, the problem I have with immigrant-hating people is that they're advocating for the use of violence (i.e. "immigration enforcement") against peaceful immigrants. Libertarians believe the use of violence against peaceful immigrants is wrong: [https://www.lp.org/issues/immigration](https://www.lp.org/issues/immigration) The Libertarians whom you dismissed as "ideologues" are people who are motivated by a strong sense of right and wrong. I know people who were brought here as young children, who've lived here their whole lives. Not that I think this makes them more deserving of being allowed to stay -- any and all peaceful persons should be allowed to stay. But anti-immigrant folk want to send men with guns into their homes, drag them out forcibly at gunpoint, throw them in a cage at some detention facility, and then ship them off to some random country. And for what? They were living peaceful and productive lives here. These anti-immigrant people want to use violence to destroy the lives of peaceful immigrants. I find this evil and immoral.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I feel that I can provide a small yet worthy piece of context. We have a difficult time interviewing ANYBODY for our open reqs. And like every other technology company I've ever worked at; a majority of resume's I've reviewed had Indian names. This seems especially weighted given how the Oracle brand and database are still desirable properties and tech in India.

Your average white dude in Silicon Valley may have a fair to negative view of Oracle. While (from my experience) your average Indian dude's opinion of Oracle is more favorable.

<comment><USER27> In the full complaint [1] the DoL mentions this.

"Moreover, comparisons between available applicants from national labor data and Oracle's hires show gross and statistically significant disparities in the hiring of Asians versus non-Asians into PT1 and Product Development positions at Oracle Redwood Shores. _These comparisons are particularly relevant because Oracle 's applicant pool was heavily over-represented by Asian applicants as the result of Oracle's recruiting and hiring practices (including its over- selection of Asian applicants, particularly Asian Indians, from its actual applicant pool, its hiring strategies such as targeted recruitment, and referral bonuses that encouraged its heavily Asian workforce to recruit other Asians, and its reputation for favoring Asians)_.

[1] [https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/newsroom/newsrelease...](https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/newsroom/newsreleases/OFCCP20170071.pdf)

<comment><USER28> "referral bonuses that encouraged its heavily Asian workforce to recruit other Asians"

Every technology company I have worked at used referral bonuses to find qualified applicants. This common recruiting practice is now considered discriminatory by the DoL if a company's workforce is "heavily Asian?" Unbelievable.

<comment><USER29> Many companies (FB for example) actually give higher referral bonuses for black/hispanic and females.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Question: as an employer what exactly am I supposed to do if when I put a req out for an engineer, >>>>50% of applicants are asian?

Is the burden really on me to dig through the remaining applicants for good ones?

These laws really sound like people with no skin in the game demanding things for which they don't know all ramifications.

<comment><USER31> You keep records that show the acceptance rate, you keep records of interviews, etc. You are not hiring at the same level where statistical anomalies such as what Oracle was caught in will show up, so unless you do something egregiously stupid like tell a candidate that you are passing on them because you don't hire people who are <some protected class> then you will be fine.

"The game" is not your insignificant little company, it is the general labor market.

<comment><USER30> No need to be condescending - you have no idea who, for whom, or where I hire. I was simply asking a question.

But I can see how someone who says they work at Facebook in their profile thinks, thinks they are hot shit.

<comment><USER32> I think you misread "your insignificant little company" as a slight against your specific company and not "any arbitrary company". Every company is an insignificant little company compared to the market as a whole.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> > The department also said that during its investigation, which began in 2014, > Oracle refused to provide relevant information about its pay practices.

That's the part that doesn't help Oracle at all in this.

If you really don't have anything to hide/cleanup, why avoid providing useful information for 2+ years? (Granted, 'relevant information' might be loosely defined here)

Tangent: I know several employers use the concept of a "salary band" for roles. I.e. entry level "Software Engineer" can make between $70k and $85k depending on some metric. I wonder how often our preconceived biases/prejudice are used as an excuse to put people in lower salary bands.

Is there even merit to these? On one hand, people have different skill levels even in a role. On the other, shouldn't the salary be tied to title?

<comment><USER34> > If you really don't have anything to hide/cleanup, why avoid providing > useful information for 2+ years?

Would you mind if a snoop through your wife's underwear drawer? You have nothing to hide. Right?

Why do you close your window blinds at night? You have nothing to hide. Right?

Would you mind if a place a GPS tracker on your vehicle for data collection purposes? You have nothing to hide. Right?

<comment><USER35> Corporations are not people my friend. They do not (and should not) have the same rights.

EDIT: Going through my wife's underwear drawer is not the same as having to provide payroll data to enforce labor law.

EDIT 2: If you're a government contractor, you have certain labor rights obligations, _by law_. If you violate those, the US government has the authority to pursue you.

"The department in a complaint filed with an administrative judge in Washington said the company was prohibited from engaging in racial discrimination given the hundreds of millions of dollars it receives as a contractor with the federal government."

"The U.S. Labor Department has sued Oracle America Inc, alleging that the technology company systematically paid its white, male employees more than other workers and unlawfully favored Asian applicants in its recruiting and hiring efforts."

It's in the first two paragraphs! Does anyone read the article anymore?

<comment><USER34> > Corporations are not people my friend.

It doesn't matter. That wasn't the argument stated; What was proposed was "Why does it matter if you have nothing to hide."

> They do not (and should not) have the same rights.

Corporations are protected from illegal search and seizures just like people.

> Does anyone read the article anymore?

I wasn't responding to the article. I was responding to the previous poster.

<comment><USER27> I am repeating this comment all over the place but - in those same government contracts, they also agreed to share this data with the government. See page 5 of the complaint: [https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/newsroom/newsrelease...](https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/newsroom/newsreleases/OFCCP20170071.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Is "culture fit" illegal?

Let's say that an Indian manager hires more Indians because he feels like they are easier to work with. Now, he doesn't _just_ hire Indians, but he is statistically more likely to do so over a large quantity of hires. Is that against the law?

<comment><USER37> > Is "culture fit" illegal?

There's an argument to be said that it is a euphemism for discriminatory factors, along the lines of "shared values."

> Is that against the law?

Yes when you take contracts from the federal govt.

<comment><USER38> Actually, I think it's just against the law, period.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I now sue NBA for having too few whites and Asians.

The goal is to make sure everywhere people are distributed on their population and color and gender and age ratio, instead of merits, after this micro-level- equality is accomplished everywhere, let's then work on making sure everyone has their fair share of fortune, finally, communism will be realized and the world will be a peaceful place, starting from US!

</comment><comment><USER40> When I started my first job, I was shocked at the amount of racial self- selection there was. Although the company itself was diverse, many teams were 80%+ white/Chinese/Indian. If you looked closer you saw that they had all gone to the same schools (albeit in different years or even decades) or had worked together previously.

This wasn't a top-tier company, so my theory was that candidates with options went elsewhere, while those without options stayed here and hired people like themselves. I could easily see the same thing happening at a place like Oracle.

</comment><comment><USER41> Quotas and affirmative action seem to me like hack workarounds to try to solve the real problem, and that is that our society itself is highly unequal.

None of these business can tackle the real problems on their own, but even assuming that one "race" generally has an advantage because of educational background or some other factor that makes them more attractive hires, simply hiring them and ignoring everyone else (that isn't exceptional) only perpetuates the problem.

Therefore, attempts are made to resolve the issues in ways that an individual organization with a limited reach can: quotas, diversity hires. The problem is that the problems that create a disparity between the hires are long term, where as most of these companies have to think of the relative short term.

Because we as a society can't (or won't) tackle these issues in a holistic way, we're always going to have some hack workarounds that feel like BS to a lot of people because they are. If all public schools were well funded[1] and taught it wouldn't be such an issue (in a few decades maybe), but instead we've got a model that simply perpetuates the problem. Even if we throw money at the schools it won't fix the problem because a lot of kids growing up in poor areas have problems at home [2]. We know how to fix these problems but we can't even agree as a society that we even have a problem.

We're going to continue having this conversation for 100 years because thats how long its going to take our half-assed measures to work if they work at all. In the richest country on earth we can't agree that all public schools should be equally funded (hell, we're about to have to fight for the actual existence of public schools as all).

[1] [http://www.npr.org/2016/04/18/474256366/why-americas- schools...](http://www.npr.org/2016/04/18/474256366/why-americas-schools-have- a-money-problem) [2] [https://www.edutopia.org/blog/how-does-poverty- influence-lea...](https://www.edutopia.org/blog/how-does-poverty-influence- learning-william-parrett-kathleen-budge)

</comment><comment><USER42> If you walk the floors of Oracle office in California, you are not going to feel like you are working in the US. It almost feels like an Indian enclave. In my opinion, this is a bad thing.

In the Database division, the division that also makes most of the money for Oracle, most people including Directors, VPs, SVPS, etc. are Indians. Many are Chinese too. They have been in this company for the last 10 to 20 years. They understand all the politics of the company inside out and use it to their advantage to rule (exploit?) their subordinates. It is almost as if they have setup their kingdom in this company. You might be wondering how all of this relates to salary and hiring discrimination.

* Most of these Indians at the top of the ladder, seem to be hiring only Indians.

* These Indian SVPs and VPs hire Indians for cheap. A unique cultural thing about Indians is that they are obsessed about saving money, e.g. lowball prospective candidates; sometimes the negotiation can last for 2-12 months before an offer is made!

* It helps these VPs if there are Indian engineers or managers under these VPs. Indians don't counterquestion their superiors much. So when these VPs find insane ways of saving money, e.g. not spending the budget for team outings, project parties, etc., the Indian engineers seem to oblige. One team activity or team outing only once in 2 years is not unheard of in Oracle while our neighbourhood goes for such outings every quarter. Indian VPs rejecting employee's request for stationery is also not unheard of. It is necessary to hire Indians so that they don't question when VPs reject reasonable requests.

* Another thing unique about Indian culture is utter lack of respect for schedules. The SVPs define schedules for a product release in a random fashion without ever consulting the managers or the engineers. Guess what? The schedule is not met. The company remains in a never ending loop of reschedule, miss schedule, repeat. The same goes for meetings. Meetings start late. They end late. Nobody cares that there might be another meeting that people may have to go to. A few Americans might look upset but who cares about the minority! They can get away with this kind of disrespectful scheduling when the majority are Indians.

If someone claims that they hire Indians because they are more skilled than Americans, then I call bullsh*t. It is true that there are more Indian engineers than Americans but it is also true that for the number of people Oracle needs there are enough skilled Americans as there are Indians. So if the hiring was fair, one should see an equal number of Americans and Indians.

Disclaimer: I work for Oracle. I am Chinese. I love Indians. I have many Indian friends.

<comment><USER43> While parts of what you're saying might be true (about Indian culture), the overall pattern around politics, laziness, red tape etc isn't unlike other dinosaur corporates. I used to work at a defense contractor called Rockwell Collins and the laziness and lack of respect for time and deadlines astounded me. It was just old white dudes who'd been there for 20-25 yrs, knew a deeply technical area well because that's what they spent their life on and came in at 10am and left at 3.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> > technology company systematically paid its white, male employees more than > other workers and unlawfully favored Asian applicants in its recruiting and > hiring efforts.

Wow...this is big.

<comment><USER45> And also not believable. The idea Oracle had a _system_ that paid white guys more because they were white guys isn't credible without more than just salary evidence.

<comment><USER46> "Specifically, OFCCP found gross disparities in pay even after controlling for job title, full-time status, exempt status, global career level, job specialty, estimated prior work experience, and company tenure." [https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/newsroom/newsrelease...](https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/newsroom/newsreleases/OFCCP20170071.pdf)

<comment><USER47> So, controlling for a bunch of stuff that doesn't predict value provided to a company by an individual or an individual's level of skill.

<comment><USER46> Doesn't matter, the law they're accused of violating requires affirmative action plans if participation is too low. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_11246](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_11246)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> The real solution to the problem is everyone needs to share their income level with their co-workers as well as their performance reports. And don't be afraid to leave!

<comment><USER49> Huh? This could lead to a lot of hurt feelings and resentment, if you find out your co-worker at the same level is making $15K/year more than you. Awkward...

<comment><USER50> As a manager I can tell you that the first thing that I look at when setting salaries is: What other people will think of this salary if they find out? What will this employee think if she sees other peoples salary?

Depending on the culture of the company/country people is more or less willing to share salary information. But there is always people that does that, and it becomes awkward when the manager counted with all salaries being secret.

Don't assume salary secrecy, people talks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Who in their right mind would want to work for oracle in 2017? That's like fighting for a gig at DEC circa 1997. They're doing candidates a favor by refusing them entrance on the Titanic.

<comment><USER52> Wow. Maybe someone who needs money for food and shelter?

I support several people. If I were laid off, I would need an income within x amount of time before we all became homeless. If I were to approach that limit, I would take whatever job would prevent it.

I can safely say you've never been homeless, hungry, or if you have, you had a support structure that loaned you food and a nice warm house. If that's not true, then I can guarantee you didn't force several other people to endure homelessness just because you didn't want to work somewhere.

<comment><USER53> If you can get a job at Oracle you can get a job somewhere else. Why would you choose Oracle over the other company?

<comment><USER54> Are you serious? Do you work for Oracle or have you taken their interviews?

Oracle has many many departments. Do you know about Server Technologies (the RDBMS department)? When I applied for Oracle Server Technologies in 2016, I found their interviews to be of the same difficulty level as that of Amazon and Google. They expect a single candidate to know everything from real world work involving Linux kernel details and system programming to abstract concepts like probabilistic data structures, hash trees, distributed computing algorithms, etc. And they expect you to write working code free of bugs and syntax errors in the interview to prove that you know what you are talking about.

In my experience, not many companies in the Silicon Valley expect this kind of rigor and knowledge in the interviews except for the likes of Amazon and Google.

<comment><USER53> Did you misread my question? If Oracle is as hard to get into as Google or Amazon as you claim then you can get past an interview at another company too. There's no reason to choose Oracle.

<comment><USER42> I work for Oracle. I had my reasons to choose Oracle.

First, the facts.

* I could clear Oracle interviews and get an offer. I applied for a RDBMS development position in Oracle ST.

* I could also clear Apple interviews and get an offer. Apple interviews were easier than Oracle ST's.

* I could clear interviews in several startups and other small companies too.

* I could not clear interviews in Google. I did not get an offer.

* I did not apply to Microsoft, Facebook or Amazon.

Now, the reasons.

* Oracle ST (RDBMS) provided me an opportunity to work in system development in C and ASM language down to the level of Linux syscalls and memory management (think custom memory allocators, designing locking semantics, distributed file systems).

* I was almost ready to join Apple because the offered work was quite similar to Oracle's and the offered salary was about 5% more than Oracle's but Apple's stringent security policies turned me off. I learnt that Apple would dictate what I can and cannot discuss with my wife. I learnt that I cannot discuss with a friend within the same company what I was working on. All of this may be reasonable from Apple's perspective but I wanted to work for some place with more open culture.

* Most startups and small companies I could get offer from required me to work on web services in Java, Python, Node.js, etc. This kind of work does not interest me.

* I could not solve all the algorithm problems asked by Google but I found Oracle ST's interview a little bit easier. I could solve most of Oracle ST's interview problems and got an offer.

* The openings available in Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon did not interest me. Moreover, I felt I was under-prepared for Facebook's interviews. I felt I was well-prepared for Amazon's interviews. I have many friends in Amazon and I don't find them happy due to long working hours. I learnt that they require developers to provide on-call support at add hours. These things scared me a little bit. Due to these reasons I did not apply to these companies.

So considering the offers I could manage to get and my love for system programming, I had a strong reason to choose Oracle over the other offers.

Why is it so hard to believe that everyone working in Oracle would similarly have their own reasons to choose Oracle?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I am Indian. (I used to work for Oracle). If I were to hire, given everything else is equal , I would prefer an Indian to a non-Indian. You can attribute it to cultural bias, or whatever.

But hardly 'everything else' is equal. I hire people who can get 'shi* done' , and who are easy to be managed. Period. And I assume most of the managers would do so. So if Indians are easy to be managed, and are getting hired, it is not racism. Because, they were getting hired for the easiness of managing them, and not for the Nationality.

The issue of white males getting paid more is certainly racist. But the sad part is one cannot verify it, because one cannot isolate the 'merit' part of the salary , from the part attributed to the 'race'

(By the way, I never hired anyone while working at Oracle.)

</comment><comment><USER56> Irrespective of one's opinion.

The part relating to H1B visas is likely to be targeted under the new administration. The part about the white males, not as likely.

</comment><comment><USER57> Serious question:

If it's against the law to have a disproportionate amount of a certain group employed (or paid a certain way), but it's also against the law to discriminate in the hiring process (and in the termination process), how is a company like this supposed to comply?

* Hire more of x group - it's illegal because you'd be discriminating against a group to meet the employment quota

* Fire x group to equalize the amount of people working - it's illegal because you're targeting a specific group of people to fire

There doesn't seem to be any way to meet these requirements without some form of discrimination at some step of the way.

Does the government have "legalized discrimination" policies to allow companies to become compliant?

<comment><USER58> Apparently, that was one of the arguments made in Contractors Association of Eastern Pennsylvania v. Secretary of Labor[1]; the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_11246](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_11246)

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> As someone unfamiliar with US law, could someone explain whether it's illegal for companies like Oracle to pay white, male workers more (as stated in the article) or if it's only illegal to pay them more because they are male and white?

The former seems obviously absurd. So, assuming it's the latter, has the government supplied any evidence that this has happened?

<comment><USER60> The only correct answer to all of this is: it's almost entirely arbitrary. Which is by design. The ideal is to be able to punish anyone at any time for any reason to enforce whatever agenda happens to be popular at the present whim (the popularity of whatever is the cultural moment's definition of equality will shift non-stop year to year, decade to decade; so you need strictly arbitrary standards, so you can always be able to swing a hammer down upon someone / some company that is out of step with the shifting definitions, otherwise the entire thing becomes rigid and collapses).

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> How easy is it for new DOL administration to back out of this? Trivial, right? No real consequences.

<comment><USER62> I'll just leave this here: [http://fortune.com/2017/01/17/oracle- trump/](http://fortune.com/2017/01/17/oracle-trump/)

<comment><USER63> Oracle is dying. Political connections might help them die a little more slowly, but there isn't much they can do when they have fundamentally fallen behind the technology zeitgeist.

Don't get me wrong, they're not about to disappear any time soon - they have too many moats around their existing slow-moving government and traditional corporate customers. But they aren't a threat to companies like Google or Amazon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> I'm interested to see how this ends up, and how other large companies (Google, Amazon, etc) haven't fallen victim to the same target by DOL.

In this case is it different because of direct hire? The company I work for seems to just contract out quite a bit to emerging markets.

</comment><comment><USER65> This is silly, obviously, if I'm hiring somebody, I discriminate the others.

<comment><USER66> You say this in jest, but you bring up a good point: the term "discrimination" has become loaded.

The question isn't whether or not there's discrimination. It's about whether said discrimination is unfair or unethical. Racial discrimination is generally considered unethical and unfair. _But_ , simply observing a statistical bias doesn't mean that the discrimination took place on the basis of race. It is, _in principle_ , possible for qualified candidates to be unevenly distributed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> This is the first legal test of the pervasive practice of Indian nationals hiring predominantly or exclusively other Indian nationals from their same region in India.

edit:

From the Department of Labor complaint:

"...Oracle nevertheless preferred Asian applications over other qualified applicants in the Professional Technical 1, Individual Contributor Job group and in the Product Development job group at statistically significant rates."

Who is it who is favoring Asian applicants for this job group?

This sort of bias is a danger when hiring decisions are made at a team level rather than a systematic company-wide process like at Google.

<comment><USER43> Well, I guess you're just living up to your nick

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> "Oracle was far more likely to hire Asian applicants - particularly Indian people - for product development and technical roles..."

Another employer with significant hiring with such practises is CISCO

</comment><comment><USER69> How does the US government have standing in such a case? If such practices are not legal, shouldn't the law specify a remedy? If not, how has the government been harmed?

<comment><USER27> Because, as TFA states, Oracle is a government contractor, and government contracts require all _kinds_ of things. For example, in many jurisdictions it's legal to discriminate against gay people... until you sign a federal contract, which according to Executive Order 11246 [1] includes a provision prohibiting such discrimination.

[1] [https://www.dol.gov/ofccp/lgbt.html](https://www.dol.gov/ofccp/lgbt.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> You know what _actually_ is hiring discrimination? Quotas. Racism, if racial quotas.

</comment><comment><USER71> Oracle America in Redwood Shores H1B salaries, for reference

[http://www.h1bdata.info/index.php?em=oracle&job=&city=REDWOO...](http://www.h1bdata.info/index.php?em=oracle&job=&city=REDWOOD+SHORES&year=All+Years)

</comment><comment><USER72> I assume, they are gonna sue those Chinese restaurants too?

<comment><USER57> I'm not sure of any Chinese restaurants that have federal contracts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> not surprising . pay less and still get work done. I have the same experience in automotive sector. GM, FORD, FCA

</comment><comment><USER74> A woman, Safra Catz, was co-president and is now co-CEO which means that they are accusing a woman of discriminating against women.

<comment><USER74> Intersting. Why downvote a true statement? Anything to contribute to the fact that the government is suing a company led by a woman for discriminating against women?

By suing Oracle the government is basically saying that Safra Cats is discriminating against women.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> SO much this.

<comment><USER76> The millennials and the way you talk. Ridiculous.

No wonder you can't find a date.

<comment><USER13> I'm not gonna lie, I've said some pretty fucked up things on here when I've been inebriated, but the amount of pure _malice_ in your reply even made me look twice.

I'm sure that same winning personality makes you a huge catch.

<comment><USER66> I'm not sure what I missed, but now I'm morbidly curious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Why can the US sue a private company for this reason? I thought private companies were exempt from these laws

<comment><USER78> You thought wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why am I not surprised ? Yet another H1B discrimination story to rant about. (though the article do not say anything about the 'Indian' people's visa status, isn't it obvious ?)

<comment><USER21> H1B is not mentioned by the actual DOJ complaint. This is not an immigration story.

<comment><USER20> Looks like you will have to disagree with the majority of HN community on this one.</comment></comment></comment>


Guitar Hero, an overnight success, 10 years in the making  - <AUTHOR> http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2009/10/guitar-hero-an-overnight-success-10-years-in-the-making.html

<comment><USER2> He misses one of the biggest underlying factors to Guitar Hero's sharp takeoff - Konami paved the road ahead for them. Arguably, Harmonix's strength was "merely" in westernizing a concept that the Guitarfreaks franchise had already established.

The fact that Harmonix had more insight than Konami, and focused on home console development, certainly didn't hurt, but as a gamer, I should note that even Rock Band was long since beaten to the punch by the inclusion of DrumMania to Konami's arcade cabinet lineup.</comment>