Zuckerberg’s Quest to Explore Future Featured Mostly White Men

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg completed his 2019 “personal challenge” on Monday, his version of a New Year’s resolution. From a report: This year he pledged to “host a series of public discussions about the future of technology in society — the opportunities, the challenges, the hopes, and the anxieties.” The problem? Almost all of Zuckerberg’s discussions were with fellow white men — who have always dominated the technology industry. In the six discussion videos Facebook posted throughout the year, 8 of Zuckerberg’s 9 guests were male, and all of them were white. Seven were professors or doctors — and all but one were over the age of 40. The group’s homogeneity speaks to one of the biggest criticisms of Silicon Valley: That tech is primarily driven and shaped by the decisions of white men, a reality evident in the employee demographics for almost all major technology companies. Facebook has positioned itself as a leader in the push to diversify the industry, and even promised earlier this year to double its female workforce in the next five years.