Gimlet 19: Diversity Report

December 18, 2015·43 min·3 clips

Brittany Luce draws a sharp line between targeting diverse candidates and tokenism — and names the exact moment she knew she was a token.

Alex starts with the headcount. Gimlet has grown from him and co-founder Matt to 27 full-time employees, and the gender split looks almost balanced on paper. Race lands differently. Twenty-four staffers are white, only three are non-white, and nobody on staff identifies as Hispanic. Alex includes himself in the count. Because this is audio, he pauses to say he is one of the white people being counted, which makes the report feel harder to keep at arm's length. The goal sounds plain enough: if Gimlet doubles, Alex wants the next 27 hires to be less white than the first 27. Then Brittany's story complicates the whole thing. She talks about the gap between reaching out thoughtfully and turning someone into proof that the company looks diverse. Tokenism is not abstract here. Brittany remembers being put on a website even though she was not on the executive team, because the actual executive team did not look diverse enough without her. She knew what was happening. The hurt comes from being seen as useful, not simply seen. Shruti's experience is not the same, and Alex says an Indian woman's experience and an African American woman's experience should not get flattened into one category. Even the categories start to wobble. Colleges may separate minorities from underrepresented minorities, but real life does not fit that cleanly. The episode stays with the discomfort. Diversity comes across less like a polished company effort and more like a series of choices that can help, miss, or embarrass people. By the end, Lisa Chow is ready to take over next time and ask Alex questions that already make him feel terrified.

As heard by us

Gimlet confronts the gap between a diverse-looking company and one that actually shares power.

Gimlet 19: Diversity Report treats headcount as a management problem, not a public relations problem. Alex Bloomberg says Gimlet has grown from two founders to 27 full-time employees, with a near-even gender split, but only three non-white staff members and no one who identifies…

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When you want a startup audit that counts the room before it turns to race and representation.

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