0:12

Hey, everyone,

0:12

and welcome to episode number three twenty

0:15

one of the weekly Google Cloud Platform podcast.

0:17

This is Stephanie Wong. And today,

0:20

it's just me again, so

0:22

you're welcome. No. But I'm super

0:24

excited because we have a great episode

0:26

with Jason Smith who

0:28

has been at Google for about five years

0:31

now and has done some really great work in

0:33

the DEI and Belonging space.

0:35

He is the founder of

0:37

the mixed googlers group here, and he'll

0:39

tell you more about his experience doing that

0:41

and why. But, you know, I think it's an important

0:44

conversation to have. We talk a lot about

0:46

the technology and the products at cloud, but

0:48

they would be nothing without people who build

0:50

them and support the ecosystem within

0:52

the tech community. So DI

0:55

huge topic. We'll

0:56

get into it in a bit. But first, let's go

0:58

ahead and cover the cool things of the week.

1:05

Alright.

1:05

So I'm cheating again and I have a few of them,

1:07

but they're all really fun and exciting especially

1:10

with next coming up. The first one I'm gonna mention

1:12

is the Google Cloud Fly Cup challenge.

1:14

Yes. So we just announced a partnership with the

1:17

drone racing league. If you

1:19

have no idea what that is, it's pretty

1:21

much like the f one of drone racing and

1:23

I'm telling you about it right now as I'm wearing the

1:25

sweatshirt that gave me because I got to go

1:27

and see their lab, which is

1:29

the only drone lab in New York City.

1:31

And I got some great content coming out

1:33

about that experience, so stay tuned for that.

1:35

But what's exciting about it is that We are

1:37

promoting the drone racing league and Google

1:40

Cloud Flight Cup challenge is taking place

1:42

at next this October to

1:44

usher in this new era of tech driven

1:46

sports So to enter the

1:48

challenge, you can use the DRL

1:50

race data and Google Cloud Analytics tools

1:53

so that developers of any skill level will

1:55

be able to predict race outcomes and provide

1:57

tips to actual pilots, and that

1:59

will help enhance their season performance.

2:01

So all of this is so that you can

2:03

compete for a chance to win a

2:06

trip to the season finale of the DRL

2:08

World Championship Race and B

2:11

on stage. I'm actually hoping

2:13

to go to one of their races at next.

2:15

over down at PayPal Park. So hopefully,

2:18

I'll see you there. But, yeah, go ahead and register

2:20

for next, then navigate to the developer

2:22

zone to unlock the game, and then complete

2:24

each stage of the challenge to advance

2:26

in the Waitr board. So see you there.

2:28

So the second cool thing of the week that I wanna

2:30

mention is we have some new networking launches.

2:33

As you know, I'm a huge fan of networking

2:36

products. And so whenever

2:38

I hear of a feature or product launch, I'm always gonna

2:40

be talking about it and creating content about it.

2:42

But we know that network security and firewalls

2:45

provide one of the basic building blocks

2:47

for securing your cloud infrastructure. So

2:49

we have three new Google Cloud Firewall

2:51

features, now GA, global

2:54

network firewall policies, regional

2:56

network firewall and IAM

2:58

governed tags. So with these enhancements,

3:01

cloud firewall can help you achieve

3:03

a zero trust network posture

3:05

with a distributed cloud native stateful

3:07

inspection firewall service So check out the

3:09

blog to learn more about that. Now,

3:11

the last one I wanna say is about Dataplex. So

3:13

this is one of our launches that I came out last

3:15

year. Bruno Aziza talked about

3:17

that on the podcast and hopefully I'm gonna have

3:19

him on next month here to talk about

3:21

our new launches. But This

3:23

blog post talks about how dataplex data

3:26

quality can give you a

3:28

declarative approach for defining what

3:30

good looks like. and it can

3:32

actually be managed as a part of a CICD

3:34

workflow. So you can actually use Dataplex

3:37

as a serverless and manage execution service

3:39

with no infrastructure provision. And

3:42

all of this data can be stored in BigQuery and

3:44

Google Cloud Storage. And if

3:46

it's not yet organized in Dataplex, that

3:48

storage can be managed by Dataplex where

3:50

it can auto detect and auto create

3:53

tables for structured and semi

3:55

structured data. So

3:56

makes your life a lot easier when

3:58

it comes to data ingestion

3:59

and data analysis. So go

4:02

ahead and check out all of those blocks for the cool things of

4:04

the week. And now, we're gonna go ahead

4:06

and hop into our conversation with Jason

4:08

Smith.

4:12

Welcome to the podcast,

4:14

Jason. I don't know if we've had you on before, have

4:16

we?

4:17

No. We have not.

4:18

Alright. Well, this is exciting. Why don't you

4:20

go ahead and just give a quick intro of

4:22

yourself first? I know we've known each other for years,

4:24

but for

4:24

everyone else? Oh, yeah. You started Google

4:27

maybe six months before me, and we've

4:29

known each other since. But for everybody

4:31

else who's out there, my name is Jason.

4:33

Smith. I'm a customer engineer here at Google

4:35

Cloud. I focus mainly on

4:37

application modernization. So think

4:39

things like Kubernetes, CICD,

4:42

server less technology, but I am also

4:44

the founder of mixed googlers, which

4:46

is an employee resource group dedicated

4:49

to those who identify as multiracial.

4:51

and multi ethnic, to the best

4:53

of my knowledge. We are one of the first in a

4:55

Fortune one hundred company.

4:57

Yeah. Amazing. And that's mainly

4:59

the reason why we have you

5:01

here today. So just to jump

5:03

straight into it, you found it

5:05

the mixed googlers group.

5:08

But before we go into the specifics of

5:10

that, I just want to give a

5:12

high level overview of diversity

5:15

equity and inclusion and

5:17

then talk about belonging. So

5:19

what does it mean to you? DEI,

5:21

That's a very good question. In the past,

5:24

DEI has just been called diversity

5:26

and inclusion or just diversity

5:28

program. a variety of different things

5:30

of that nature. But

5:32

by being a diverse company or

5:34

being a diverse organization or having a

5:37

diverse group is more than just having

5:39

different faces, different preeds,

5:42

different colors, different genders,

5:45

in a group, but it's also

5:47

giving them all equal footing,

5:49

equal opportunity to speak up,

5:51

equal opportunity to essentially

5:54

belong. And that's kind of where the equity and

5:56

inclusion part comes in on the

5:58

diversity. It's it's okay. We

5:59

have

6:00

a diverse group of people

6:03

Now how do we ensure that everybody has

6:06

an equal opportunity at

6:08

the table and that everybody

6:10

feels like they belong and don't

6:12

feel like an out side are especially based

6:14

on those lines such as

6:16

gender, race, creed,

6:18

national origin, ability, so on and

6:20

so forth. Yeah.

6:21

And this has become more and more in the

6:24

limelight as more people are

6:26

voicing their experiences, especially

6:29

in technology. I just attended

6:31

the Grace Hopper Conference this past

6:33

week, and it's

6:34

been such a core

6:35

theme of the conference, of course, is

6:38

how we can create

6:40

more of a sense of belonging in tech.

6:42

But just to really drill

6:44

in on that, what's the difference between

6:46

belonging versus DEI? Because we hear

6:48

DEI all time, but

6:50

why are we talking about belonging? That's

6:52

actually a good question. Everybody's going to

6:54

have a slightly different definition just like

6:56

with anything else. But to me,

6:58

belonging is a little bit

7:00

more of an encompassing term. Like

7:02

to me, a DEI kinda sounds

7:04

very methodical. It

7:07

sounds like you would read it in a

7:09

legal book or in some kind of academic

7:11

page. It doesn't have that kind of

7:14

grass. It doesn't really tell you much of the story.

7:16

I think belonging like, everyone,

7:18

when I say you belong here

7:21

or do you belong here? Well, not everybody

7:23

kind of has this idea of what

7:25

belonging means. And it means that

7:28

I feel comfortable here. I feel

7:30

welcome here. I feel like

7:32

I am accepted for who I am.

7:34

So belonging, I feel like brings

7:36

the concept of DEI

7:38

to life versus giving

7:40

the legal academic

7:43

type definition. Howard Bauchner:

7:44

Yeah, I completely agree with that. I think

7:46

DEI is a term that

7:48

many companies see as something

7:51

they should strive towards, something that they

7:53

should always underscore as important

7:55

in their company. But until employees

7:57

selves have a sense of true belonging,

7:59

then

7:59

the efforts for DEI might be

8:02

futile if belonging isn't

8:04

an actual measurable outcome

8:06

of your efforts

8:07

Exactly. Exactly. And I think that's where a

8:10

lot of the problems come in. Historically, a

8:12

lot of tech companies, a lot of companies in

8:14

general, you know, I'm not gonna just pick on

8:16

tech. when they look at diversity,

8:19

they look at what they will call the

8:21

funnel. Like, are we getting diverse candidates,

8:23

which is a great thing to look

8:25

at. I'm not at all knocking that.

8:28

However, it'd be like if you were

8:30

trying to fill a bucket, but there was

8:32

a hole in the bucket and

8:34

water kept leaking out, you would never fill

8:36

the bucket to your satisfaction. So

8:38

I always say, you know, we have to not just look

8:40

at diverse candidates, but we have to look

8:42

and see things like attrition rates

8:44

and whatnot. And if there are

8:46

more trends to specific demographics

8:49

towards attrition, if that's the

8:51

case, why is that the case?

8:53

Is it because PD's this group does

8:55

not feel a sense of belonging, so on and so

8:57

forth. We wanna make sure that

8:59

people don't just have diverse

9:01

groups joining a company, but you also have diverse

9:03

groups staying with the company. And granted,

9:05

people are gonna leave for a variety of reasons, better

9:07

job opportunity. You wanna try something

9:09

different, life events, but you

9:11

don't want the reason somebody to

9:13

leave be You don't want them to feel like they

9:15

don't have a sense of belonging. Howard Bauchner:

9:17

Yeah,

9:17

exactly. And that honestly is hard

9:19

to measure. I'm sure, I mean, we have

9:20

data more now than we ever have

9:23

before. I know that

9:23

Google releases our diversity annual

9:26

report, which is a plethora

9:27

of data about our employee

9:29

base here, and we've released that as

9:31

a public data set on BigQuery where

9:33

any stewards of DEI efforts

9:35

can use that data to

9:37

do comparative analysis of

9:39

our existing employee base to external

9:42

sources like attrition rates or

9:44

graduation rates and then do

9:46

other analyses like the number of

9:48

women in leadership positions or Asian women in

9:50

leadership positions. So that's always

9:52

helpful, but to get a true sense of belonging

9:54

and find out why people are leaving

9:56

due to that reason might be

9:58

more difficult. So how do you

9:59

see tech companies can

10:02

address that?

10:03

Well, the traditional way that most people will do

10:05

is an exit interview. hey, why are you leaving? Why do

10:07

you wanna move forward? Now the problem with that can

10:09

sometimes be that some people

10:11

aren't gonna wanna be forward about it.

10:13

for whatever reason, like, maybe it's not necessarily

10:15

a sense of shame or something, but

10:17

baby people just don't wanna talk about

10:20

that. I don't wanna say, well, this is why I

10:22

don't wanna be company because

10:24

I didn't feel like I belong as

10:26

a black person or as somebody who

10:28

identifies as LGBTQ or somebody

10:30

who's a woman or somebody with a disability,

10:33

sometimes you don't feel comfortable saying that and

10:35

you just say, oh, I got a better opportunity.

10:37

However, I wouldn't knock the exit interview.

10:39

That's one way, but it shouldn't be the only

10:41

way what a lot of companies

10:43

are doing nowadays are having

10:45

dedicated teams or at least for larger

10:47

companies. And those

10:49

teams their whole thing is diversity

10:51

and making sure things are

10:53

equitable. And they will do

10:55

pulse checks with the different

10:57

groups like such as a Google and what you'll see

10:59

in a lot of big tech companies. We have

11:01

ERGs, which essentially our

11:04

employee run, the people who

11:06

run ERGs typically are volunteers.

11:08

They have other day jobs such as

11:10

myself. They also kind

11:12

of speak on

11:14

behalf, if you will, or interact on

11:16

behalf with the company that

11:18

they are located in to advocate

11:21

internally for better

11:23

opportunities or better resources for

11:25

a specific group, and also try to

11:27

elevate each other within. That's

11:29

one way they can do it as well, kind of do

11:31

those, kind of pulse checks doing pulse

11:33

surveys as well, trying to anonymize the

11:35

data as much as possible because if it's

11:37

anonymous, people will feel a little bit better about

11:39

being open. it's

11:41

a constant conversation. You don't wanna wait

11:43

until somebody has an

11:45

offer from another company and

11:47

they're doing their exit interview to figure out

11:50

that oh, we could have done more

11:52

with belonging. You want

11:54

to have a constant check-in

11:57

and be mindful I

11:59

also add that I brought in

12:01

diversity teams and whatnot. You might notice

12:03

like diversity, engineer

12:05

diversity, manager, that's

12:07

not my title. Everybody has

12:10

a responsibility for diversity

12:12

on some level, and anybody can

12:14

be a diverse leader. You don't have to

12:16

necessarily have diversity in

12:18

your title. So you can

12:21

lead for I've seen people

12:23

at Google, people at other companies as

12:25

well do great jobs in terms of

12:27

leading efforts to give a

12:29

voice to different groups, marginalized

12:31

groups within their companies.

12:33

I was at a panel last

12:35

week talking about how these

12:37

leaders at companies VP and above who

12:39

are

12:39

executive sponsors of ERGs and

12:42

various DEI efforts. And

12:43

so they were talking and at the end,

12:46

someone came up to the Mike and

12:48

asked a live question, how do you

12:50

balance DEI work

12:52

with your day job? And, you

12:54

know, two out of the three people started their

12:56

answer by saying, it's not a side

12:58

hustle. This is just one and the

13:00

same as my day job.

13:02

And I won't see it as something that's

13:04

extraneous to it. This is something that I live,

13:06

breathe, and eat as I start my day,

13:08

and how I can incorporate more

13:10

DI efforts into everything I do.

13:12

So I think that's step number one. And I think the

13:14

ERGs are really really amazing

13:16

avenue and intermediary between

13:19

various groups to build more intersectionality

13:22

between groups as well. And that's a

13:24

great segue to talk about mixed googlers

13:26

because that's an ERG that you

13:28

have started, and it's

13:30

now an official ERG at Google.

13:32

Right? Oh,

13:32

that's correct. Yes, as of last

13:35

year. That's

13:35

amazing. Congrats. So tell me about

13:38

your reasoning behind starting it

13:40

and the path bathroom to read

13:42

to get to where it is today. Howard Bauchner:

13:43

Sure.

13:44

So basically, the TLDR

13:46

on it is, you probably can't

13:48

see me through the pod cast listeners,

13:51

but I identify as

13:53

being black and white. I have a black parent. I have

13:55

a white parent and grew

13:57

up in an age where it wasn't

13:59

as common, so to speak. So if you

14:01

look at some of the census numbers, for

14:03

example, it wasn't until the two thousand

14:05

census where you could

14:07

actually list two or more races

14:09

as a racial identity.

14:11

So we really only have three senses as

14:13

worth of data. But if we look at

14:15

two thousand when we had less than three

14:17

percent of the population identifying

14:19

as mixed race versus

14:21

the recent twenty twenty

14:23

census, which shows ten

14:26

percent or to give an actual number to it,

14:28

thirty three point eight million people

14:30

identifying as two or more races. I

14:32

expect things are gonna be different in the future.

14:34

in terms of how we view race and

14:36

whatnot identity. But

14:38

growing up, it was not

14:40

seen that way. We were kind of a

14:42

silent minority or an invisible

14:45

minority if you will. Just like

14:47

anybody else, I want a sense of belonging.

14:49

I wanna feel like I am understood.

14:51

I wanna feel like I have

14:53

people to talk to about some of these issues

14:55

that are unique to being a

14:57

mixed race person. And not

15:00

only did it not exist at Google,

15:02

it really didn't exist anywhere.

15:04

I just I'm amazed that

15:06

the fact that we have so

15:09

many mixed race people out there and we just

15:11

don't have there's just not a lot

15:13

of groups. I don't know if it's just we

15:15

could talk all day about, like, whether it's a

15:17

social problem or a

15:19

business problem or whatnot, but the fact still

15:21

remains. So I decided,

15:23

well, you know what? I can't possibly be

15:25

the only person who feels this

15:27

way. And I felt a community

15:29

here within the company that felt the

15:31

same way and as we gain steam

15:33

and more people started to join because they're like,

15:35

oh, I heard about this and this is great and

15:37

everything. We really started

15:39

to scale up and we started to have more

15:41

members, more speakers, and

15:43

then we were given ERG status.

15:45

Howard Bauchner: Yeah,

15:46

and you've done a number of great events with

15:48

some well known speakers. So can you

15:50

tell us, some of the highlights from what you've

15:52

been able to bring in so far?

15:54

If you

15:54

look at talks at Google, which is

15:56

a YouTube channel, we recently had

15:59

Suge decks who is a

16:01

rapper. He identifies

16:03

as mixed race as well. He is

16:05

Japanese white and black.

16:08

and he wrote a song

16:10

which we just kinda stumbled

16:12

upon and it was I

16:14

always call it, like, the national

16:16

anthem or the anthem of mixed race people?

16:18

Because if you're a mixed race person, you listen to

16:20

it, you're almost certainly gonna be saying,

16:22

oh, yeah. I've been there before. Oh,

16:24

yeah. I've heard something like that said to me and

16:26

stuff. It's called not the only one. So

16:28

he was a speaker, and that

16:30

was a great one. That's something you can also

16:32

catch on YouTube about the talk that

16:35

Google page. So we've had speakers

16:37

such as that. We've had other speakers such

16:39

as Farzana and Iami. She

16:41

wrote the book raising

16:43

multiracial children. She also wrote a book

16:45

called the power

16:47

of ERGs or power of employee

16:49

resource groups. She actually calls out mixed

16:51

scooters in the book, which is kinda

16:53

cool. But, yeah, we've had a bunch of

16:55

great speakers in the area, and I

16:57

will say, at the beginning was a

16:59

challenge to find speakers because

17:01

there weren't resources where we could

17:03

go to there wasn't, like, an and

17:05

double ACP equivalent for mixed

17:07

race people that we can talk to

17:09

and ask for speakers, for example. So we

17:11

had to do a lot of our

17:14

own searching to find people and

17:16

ask for recommendations from other

17:18

academics, like, hey, do you know anybody who's an expert

17:21

on sure. Yeah. Ping

17:23

best person. Tell them I sent you.

17:25

So it was a very, very

17:27

grassroots but we found some very

17:29

great speakers and we've even had speakers

17:31

internally who spoke about their

17:33

own experiences and we have

17:35

a lot of people who are also

17:38

just supporting each other. Not too long ago,

17:40

we had a hair talk where people were

17:42

talking about how to help with

17:44

a mix child's hair

17:46

and everybody just piled

17:48

on to help and now there's like a whole

17:50

dock that talks about how to

17:52

do that. Oh, I love that.

17:53

That's amazing. Yeah. And I feel like that is

17:55

really grassroots in how communities are built from

17:57

the ground up because as

17:59

you said,

17:59

a lot of people may not even know that they can

18:02

identify as mixed

18:05

or they just don't have a

18:07

community to look

18:07

towards and until they see one and are

18:09

aware of what's out there, it might take

18:11

a while for more speakers to come

18:14

to you. So it sounds like it's starting

18:16

to happen. that's amazing at at a

18:18

company like Google. I mean, tons of people

18:20

here to build that

18:22

community off the ground. But why

18:24

are we talking about

18:26

DEI

18:26

belonging, not only

18:28

in

18:28

tech, but more specifically in cloud?

18:31

Howard Bauchner: Exactly.

18:32

So cloud is kind

18:34

of it's weird

18:35

saying it's kind of the hot thing because

18:37

it's been around for a while. So it's like, well,

18:39

no, that's not new. But realistically, there's

18:41

still a lot of people who are in data centers.

18:43

There's still a lot people who are needing to be on the

18:45

concept of the cloud and wanting to move

18:47

to the cloud. So I would still say cloud

18:49

is in that semi startup

18:52

phase, maybe let's

18:54

call it the series a phase and the

18:56

series b phase of their technology.

18:58

In Silicon Valley, we have a

19:00

lot of these ideas when

19:02

comes to building technology companies,

19:06

building different products, trying to be

19:08

innovative about moving fast and

19:10

breaking things. And that's

19:12

a fine ideology when

19:14

it comes to building

19:16

products and getting products to market.

19:18

not a great ideology when you're thinking about

19:20

people. So when it comes to cloud, the way

19:22

I always think about it is you wanna make sure

19:24

that while you're breaking things, you're not

19:27

breaking your people. You're not breaking

19:29

something that will harm your business because on

19:31

one hand, your people are your greatest

19:33

asset. You might have this great technology,

19:35

great patents, but they didn't

19:37

generate themselves out of the ether with

19:40

your employees who helped create that

19:42

stuff. From a business standpoint, you

19:44

wanna make sure that they're feeling

19:47

they belong. But then from a

19:49

personal standpoint, I

19:51

always say just be excellent to each other.

19:53

We want to be known as

19:56

the company where if you join, you feel like

19:58

you're part of a family or you feel like

19:59

you're part of a larger community and a

20:02

larger purpose. You don't want

20:04

to go on to one of these review sites

20:06

and see a bunch of people talking about how, yeah,

20:08

I was there for a year. I got earned

20:11

out. There was nobody nice to me.

20:13

Anything like that. you don't wanna be that kind of

20:15

company.

20:15

So the

20:16

problem we see when people are doing

20:19

that whole move fast and break things

20:21

is a lot of times they will sacrifice

20:24

well-being in the greater name of

20:26

progress. But I always say,

20:28

hey, in cloud, when we're starting to build

20:30

this new technology,

20:32

your people are what makes the technology

20:36

not the technology making

20:38

the business. that's

20:40

what makes your company what it is, the people.

20:42

So make sure you're always taking care of

20:44

the people. And if diversity

20:46

is a goal and it should be because

20:49

whole thing about cloud is Internet.

20:51

Global, we're talking about

20:53

almost eight billion people on the planet. If

20:55

you're wanting to reach those eight

20:57

billion people, they aren't a hive

20:59

mind. They all don't think one

21:01

way. They think multiple ways, multiple

21:03

backgrounds, multiple understandings.

21:05

And the only way you will get that kind

21:07

of viewpoint when you're building your products is

21:09

if you have people in your

21:12

company that reflect the people that you're

21:14

trying to reach. A lot of times you have a

21:16

problem with group think when you bring a lot of the

21:18

same type of person in. Tech

21:19

is inextricably linked to the

21:22

society it affects and people in tech should

21:24

reflect the society to touches and

21:26

effects. So absolutely agree

21:28

with that. I also

21:29

feel that from experience at

21:32

least, I think cloud has actually

21:34

helped to democratize access

21:37

to software and technology to

21:39

more diverse set of people globally,

21:41

like you said, thinking globally.

21:42

But even for the engineers that are

21:45

learning and building and having

21:47

access to cloud tooling, with

21:49

the number of managed services, browser

21:51

based tooling, things like being

21:53

able to spin up VMs in

21:55

a few minutes, in the cloud, just start

21:57

getting your hands on it. I mean, if you

21:59

think

21:59

back to even fifteen, twenty years

22:02

ago, it would have been much harder for

22:04

a student or someone who doesn't have the resources to be

22:06

able to learn software development

22:08

using these tools. Howard Bauchner: I

22:09

often tell

22:10

people when I was in college, I

22:13

would to garage sales and find very

22:15

old computers, set them up in my

22:17

room as a server, and that's how I hosted

22:20

web pages. Nowadays,

22:23

with a few clicks of a button, as you mentioned,

22:25

I can go to a cloud provider,

22:27

deploy a VM, and I'm doing the exact

22:29

same thing. Never had to leave my

22:31

house. Mhmm.

22:31

Yeah. And so I think that with the globalization of

22:33

access to technology and

22:35

the Internet, it's even more important

22:38

that those who are building products

22:41

even in

22:41

cloud or any of the products that

22:44

cloud touches

22:44

and enables

22:47

should be represented by

22:49

a diverse set of people and viewpoints.

22:51

Very, very true. While this

22:53

is not cloud specific. This is a great idea. It is

22:55

tech related. So we've talked

22:57

at Google a little bit about some of our

22:59

skin tone technology and whatnot.

23:02

If you're a person developing

23:04

a camera or let's say you're

23:06

developing an AI that you're

23:08

gonna host on the cloud to

23:10

identify photos if

23:12

you don't have the diverse mindsets,

23:14

it'll be very easy to overlook

23:16

certain things like, well, not everybody has

23:18

the same skin tone. not everybody has

23:20

the same facial structure. Are

23:22

we actually including these in our

23:24

models when we're building them? You need

23:27

diverse ideas because We can't reasonably

23:29

expect one person

23:31

or two people or a group of

23:33

people to have an

23:35

incredibly open mind and

23:37

think about every single

23:39

possibility. It'd be great if we

23:41

can, unrealistic. You

23:43

need multiple people with multiple perspectives

23:46

in order to contribute and make sure you're creating these

23:48

products that are inclusive of

23:50

your user base. Mhmm. I think

23:52

that one of the things

23:54

to notices when companies

23:57

make mistakes or they miss something

23:59

and they're not able to incorporate

24:02

enough training data to be representative of all

24:05

types of examples, then

24:07

usually it's not ill intended.

24:10

I think It's just a lack

24:12

of, like you

24:13

said, having enough people from all

24:15

different backgrounds contribute their ideas

24:17

and take notice. Absolutely.

24:19

There are some people who are just going to think

24:21

of things that you won't think of,

24:23

not necessarily in a positive

24:25

way. It's just they have

24:28

experiences that you don't have. Like, I am not a

24:30

woman. I'm not gonna think

24:32

of things that a woman might think of

24:34

when they're looking at a product. So

24:36

if I'm wanting to reach women, it

24:38

makes absolute sense that I

24:40

include women in the group, but not

24:42

just have them there that I

24:44

can take a picture and say, like, hey, look at

24:46

how diverse we are, but that they actually have a

24:48

voice at the table and their

24:50

voice matters. and it's taken

24:52

seriously as seriously as anybody else's

24:54

voice and really

24:56

influences our product.

24:57

Absolutely. I just

25:00

because I think when we talk about

25:02

DEI belonging, sometimes the tone of

25:04

the conversation can be serious

25:06

because I think people sometimes

25:08

feel like they need to walk on egg shells or companies are

25:10

like, no, this is a very serious subject that

25:12

we take

25:12

very seriously. But I also think that

25:15

from your perspective because you've been able

25:17

to build make Googlers

25:18

and work with all these incredible people

25:20

who are so passionate about it.

25:22

What are some

25:23

of the most

25:25

positive and really fun ways

25:27

of building DEI into

25:29

a company like Google or

25:31

just across tech. Yeah.

25:33

Just across tech, any company, what I'd

25:35

recommend is let's listen and

25:37

let's celebrate. What do I

25:39

mean by that? let's listen to

25:41

each other. People have different

25:44

opinions, different concerns

25:46

just because it's not your understanding

25:49

doesn't make it invalid. Let's listen with

25:51

open mind, open heart. So for example,

25:53

we've had a variety

25:55

of different things happen in the news

25:57

over the years. that could affect

25:59

different groups differently and

26:02

affect how they

26:02

work or how they feel. We're not

26:04

machines, we're humans mean, even machines need to

26:06

be taken down for maintenance every now and

26:09

again. So people need to be

26:11

expected to be able to, for lack of

26:13

better term, be taken down for

26:15

maintenance or allow them to

26:17

disconnect and reset and

26:19

whatnot. Maybe if there's something big going on in

26:21

the world. Let them sit with

26:23

it for a while if that's what they need to do, if they need

26:25

to talk about it. Let them talk about it. But let's

26:27

listen. Like, let's not think, well, because

26:29

it doesn't affect me, I

26:31

don't think it's important

26:33

it might not be important to you, but

26:35

it is important to somebody. It is on their

26:37

mind. It is what's concerning

26:40

them. And then also celebrate

26:42

one thing I love and I often talk about how

26:44

I did before it was cool, before

26:46

COVID and made the digital know

26:49

mad, thing an option. And now

26:51

everybody was working remotely, I did a digital

26:53

nomad thing a few years

26:55

prior, where I went to a

26:57

bunch of countries eleven in total. And one of the

26:59

greatest things was being able

27:01

to actually see

27:04

the cultures and center and be an

27:06

observer and kinda get to learn what

27:08

makes these groups unique,

27:10

what makes them special, what makes

27:12

them awesome, So getting to be in

27:14

Hong Kong, be in a Lunar New Year,

27:16

for example, or being in

27:18

Australia for Christmas,

27:20

and all of that just being able to see that. So what

27:22

you can do is you can have

27:25

celebrations around black

27:27

history month, international

27:29

women's day. Right now,

27:31

we're looking at Hispanic carat to two

27:33

months. All these different things. So we can have

27:36

celebrations around people be them. One

27:38

thing I've always said is

27:40

if you want one

27:42

hundred percent from your employees or you're

27:44

wanting your employees to bring a hundred percent of

27:46

them to work, you have to let

27:48

them be one hundred

27:50

percent. So let them

27:52

celebrate who they are and

27:54

sharing it. Most people want to be

27:56

interested to learn about the different cultures and

27:58

that brings understanding. I love

28:00

that. Yeah. In order to deliver a

28:02

hundred percent you feel like it can

28:04

be a hundred percent. It's so true. It's

28:06

so true. And I think the world is

28:08

starting to really learn that.

28:10

You mentioned listening and celebrating, and

28:12

I also think just understanding that you need to be

28:14

patient with progress is important.

28:17

For example, using precise language,

28:20

is something people to get used to

28:22

along with even in engineering

28:24

terms, like deprecating certain

28:26

terms, like blacklisting, or

28:29

master and slave

28:30

nodes or

28:31

even cloud native for that matter. So

28:34

that's gonna take some time for

28:36

your own company to start

28:38

to recognize and change and even across

28:40

the industry too. But the

28:41

more that we can

28:43

politely call out, I think

28:45

the more that we'll see that start to have

28:47

in? Absolutely. I

28:48

always say change

28:50

can be slow, and that's just

28:52

with anything, that's not just with

28:55

diversity programs. and

28:57

those efforts change could be slow, but but

28:59

it's something you just have to

29:01

continuously do and continuously think

29:03

about. One thing I always try to say to and one thing

29:05

I try practice in my day to day is

29:08

give people space to make

29:10

mistakes and nobody is born

29:12

with an amazing knowledge

29:14

on diverse It's the same way I'm not born with

29:16

an incredible dictionary of

29:18

words or I wasn't born knowing

29:20

how to write python code. It's stuff I had

29:22

to learn and it's stuff I had

29:24

to make mistakes along the

29:26

way. Sometimes I think it's alright to

29:28

allow people to make those

29:30

mistakes because maybe they're not

29:32

being malicious, maybe they just don't

29:34

know, and this is a learning opportunity.

29:36

So also give people space to grow

29:38

and make their mistakes. And

29:40

then we are able to make

29:42

it less confrontational and make it more about

29:45

growing together. Yeah.

29:46

I think unlearning is just as

29:48

hard as learning. So we all have

29:50

to be patient with ourselves and other

29:53

people. As we wrap

29:55

up, do you have any final takeaways

29:57

for our listeners to think about?

29:59

And where can people

29:59

go to learn more about diversity,

30:02

equity

30:02

inclusion, and belonging. Howard

30:05

Bauchner: Thank

30:05

you very much. I'd be happy to answer

30:07

that question. One thing I always say when

30:09

we talk about diverse it sounds like a

30:11

big board and a big opportunity. I don't

30:13

know. Like, it sounds like a eight

30:15

hundred pound gorilla. Really, if you just

30:18

break it down, just be excellent to each other.

30:20

Try to understand if you can do that in

30:22

your day to day business, in your day to

30:24

day life, you are

30:26

starting to lay the groundwork for

30:28

practicing belonging. In

30:30

terms of resources, there are a bunch of

30:32

resources out there. I'm sure everybody's heard about the

30:34

various books. In terms of what Google has,

30:36

if you actually go to belonging dot

30:38

google, we talk a lot about all the

30:40

belonging programs we have.

30:42

You may have heard of the I'm remarkable program,

30:44

which has now been outsourced, if

30:46

you will. It's something that was an internal

30:48

program that we turned into an external

30:51

program to teach people how to celebrate

30:53

themselves and celebrate their achievements

30:55

because reality, you have to be

30:57

your biggest spokesperson. And

31:00

then, of course, we have CloudNEXT

31:02

coming around the corner. There is a

31:04

diversity keynote being

31:07

held by our chief diversity officer, Melanie

31:09

Parker. So if you are planning

31:11

on attending or listening to

31:13

next, I would recommend dialing

31:15

into that and learning a little bit more about how

31:17

Google does diversity as well.

31:19

Amazing. Thank you

31:19

so much, Jason, for coming on

31:21

to the podcast. and talking about

31:23

your amazing work in the belonging

31:26

ZEI space. Well, thank you very

31:28

much for asking me. It was a

31:30

pleasure. rich

31:30

conversation. Right? We talked about

31:32

the differences between diversity

31:35

equity and inclusion versus belonging.

31:37

And how the responsibility

31:39

to ensure belonging is something that

31:41

we all feel. It's

31:43

on everyone, not just top down at an

31:45

organization. And I think he's shown that

31:48

ERGs or employee resource groups are such

31:50

a great way to do that. I mean,

31:52

anyone can start an ERG at any

31:54

company. And then if you can find an executive

31:56

sponsor, even better but

31:58

really it's a great way to build community from the

32:00

ground up. Also, I would say if you

32:02

can be a part of hiring or be a part of

32:04

those conversations, hopefully, leadership is

32:06

open to that happening. And I think it's really

32:08

important to continue to make sure

32:10

that we expand our funnels to all sorts

32:12

of people in a variety of backgrounds.

32:14

by being parts of conversation for

32:17

hiring itself. As

32:19

Jason mentioned, we do have a diversity

32:21

equity and inclusion keynote by our

32:23

Chief Diversity Officer, Melanie Parker.

32:25

So definitely go ahead and check that

32:27

out if you are watching

32:29

virtually for next. She's a phenomenal

32:31

leader. She was a huge part

32:33

of our public datasets and our

32:35

diversity and role report that came out this year,

32:37

and she's done incredible work across the

32:39

tech sector in this space. Alright.

32:42

Well, I know that towards the end of the episodes,

32:44

we usually talk about what we're working on, but I've

32:46

already mentioned them. I'm preparing for

32:48

next. I'm doing two talks or next, I'm doing

32:50

the video session with the

32:52

drone racing league and much, much

32:54

more. So all I have to say

32:56

is go to next, check it out to see all

32:58

of my content along with much

33:00

much more from our leaders and big

33:02

speakers here. So see you

33:05

there and On the podcast, we'll see you all next

33:07

week to give you a sneak peek of

33:09

the

33:09

launches.