Alice Truong, Quartz
Since 2000, long before companies like Google and Facebook began releasing their diversity stats, Intel made its EEO-1 reports, which are filed with the US government and break down staff race and gender across all ranks, publicly available.
Transparency was a good first step, and key to holding the company accountable, but it alone wasn’t enough. To show it was really committed to the cause, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich went on stage at the 2015 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), arguably the biggest tech convention of the year, to proclaim the company would reach full representation—meaning the makeup of its staff would mirror market availability across different types of roles—by 2020.
This aspiration might seem basic, but it’s rare for a tech company to set specific, measurable goals. While full representation is also a realistic goal, it’s proved largely out of reach for the tech industry. According to Intel’s market availability data, women make up 22.7% of available talent for technical roles while Hispanics and African Americans comprise 8.4% and 4.5%, respectively. At Facebook and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, for example, Hispanics and blacks make up 3% and 1%, respectively, of technical roles. Women comprise 17% of tech staff at Facebook and 19% at Alphabet.