According to a prominent ex-employee, Netflix has -- on at least one occasion -- refused to hire a "White guy" because they "have too many White people."
Earlier today, the YouTuber known as "ThePrimeagen" was reading a Lunduke Journal article during one of this shows.
Around the 4 minute mark, ThePrimeagen -- who had previously worked at Netflix for many years -- stated the following:
"I was sitting in a meeting with two managers and I had the managers at Netflix say I will not hire this white guy because we have too many white people.
So I don't know how to tell you that other than I literally heard that from not one but two managers at Netflix out of their mouth right in front of me."
Now, obviously, this is merely one statement from a former employee... but it is an incredibly prominent former employee. And Netflix has made it very public (such as in their regular "Inclusion Reports") that hiring fewer White people is a specific, official goal of the company.
Likewise, we've seen many other Tech companies with similar "hire fewer White people" goals -- including both IBM and Red Hat (see The Red Hat / IBM Leaks).
Add those things together, and this story from ThePrimeagen becomes very believable.
I'm going to repeat this sentence because it is so very important:
"I will not hire this white guy because we have too many white people."
A few quick, simple observations on that:
- This is racism. By definition. There's no avoiding that.
- Other companies (including Red Hat and IBM) are currently being sued (by both former employees and the government) for similar activities and policies.
Considering the size and visibility of Netflix, I would be surprised if we don't see similar such legal action emerge over the coming months.
On the positive side, it's nice to know that there are people within the Tech industry who don't support this sort of racism and bigotry. After ThePrimeagen made his statement regarding Netflix, he had the following to say:
"Call me old-fashioned but I think it's really bad to consider the quality of a candidate based on their skin color. I just think that that's bad I... like... I think people bring a lot to the table and I'd rather see somebody who brings a lot to the table and I just don't really care about anything else."
That, right there, is called meritocracy. Hire the right person for the job. What skin color do they have? It doesn't matter. Not even a little bit.
Kudos to ThePrimeagen for making that simple, positive, obvious, and not racist statement.
