In this fiery exchange with Mark Cuban, we debated one of the most contentious issues in modern corporate culture: whether diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts should prioritize equal opportunity or racial representation. I pressed Mark on whether he’d be comfortable hiring based purely on merit, even if doing so resulted in less racial diversity. He said yes — but also emphasized that companies should still reflect on their hiring pipelines to ensure they’re reaching all qualified candidates, including those from underrepresented backgrounds. “Hiring is hard,” Mark repeated, stressing the difficulty of finding the right people at scale and suggesting that many corporate DEI statements are mere virtue signaling rather than serious policy.
I challenged that view, arguing that DEI at major corporations like Starbucks, Pfizer, and Apple goes far beyond signaling — these companies have explicitly set racial and gender-based workforce targets that risk undermining meritocracy. I pointed out that when Apple declares it wants more Black employees and then meets that numerical goal, it implies that hiring decisions are being shaped by race rather than pure qualification. Mark pushed back hard, accusing me of assuming those hires were unqualified and arguing that the “numbers will tell the story” over time — if diversity quotas lead to less competent hires, performance data will reveal it.
By the end of the exchange, we found partial agreement: both of us believe in broadening opportunity and recruiting from more diverse schools and regions, but I insisted that companies must never use race or gender as a proxy for talent. “The premise should be equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes,” I concluded — a statement Mark acknowledged as fair, even as we continued to diverge on how DEI should actually play out in practice.
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So, let's presume that, in the past, KKK members who were employers made it a point to favor white job applicants. Is that OK? In the past, it was legal. They could do it openly, because the civil rights act of 1964 hadn't been passed.
Not OK? Then why is it OK now, especially since it is ILLEGAL now? Favoring one race over another is racism. Period. It doesn't matter which way it goes.
Exactly. And look at a person's soul, which goes unrecognized.