quit his job at Facebook because he said the environment there wasn’t good if you are black.

he said that security guards harassed blacks at night, that they were dissuaded from having black backchannels, and they were even asked not to do “black things” after work with each other.

i dont know the gent, and some of these accusations seem outrageous especially in northern california but who knows, maybe he’s totally telling the truth.

he even said that 2-3 times a day, every day, he noticed people clutching their wallets tighter whenever he walked past them.

am i weird that i usually left my wallet in my desk? also, why would you need a wallet if all the food is free?

but lets say he is telling the truth and it sucked being 6% of a huge company and the environment made you feel intimidated to speak up else youd lose your gig?

i think that could be fixed. and i dont think it would be hard. you just need an african-american in charge with actual power to fire people if they, indeed, tried to tell people who they could hang out with after work and what they could do.

if the culture there is so backwards that even bright young tech workers are terrified of a black man walking through a campus in menlo park then there are actual things that can be done about it and a filthy rich company like Facebook should be the ideal place to invest in that sort of shift.

clearly mark z has other fires popping up all around him, and maybe he still wants to be a major political player, but as they say, how you gonna tell me how things should be when you got problems in your own house?

could i fix the culture problem at Facebook? of course. easily. and with style. i hired hundreds of people at PeopleSupport. the crew was diverse, talented and respectful. parking sucked though.

is that something that i would want to spend my energies on right now? no.

right now im working on a secret project and wondering why my tax man hasn’t called me back.

even i have a problems in my own house right now.