&gt; those of us who are non-white, older than 40, disabled, trans, not neurotypical, queer, from low-income backgrounds, and&#x2F;or a host of other identities will continue to be locked out of tech.<p>What if those people are just less likely (note: this is about probability, for all I know the best programmer in the world could be a disabled queer 50 year old black person from a poor family) to be competitive among candidates? This basically amounts to hiring as charity.<p>There is no end to the list of possible &quot;identities&quot;. You can ALWAYS slice humanity up into smaller and smaller groups to find some identity that is underrepresented. Everybody is clamoring to grab a niche identity to claim oppression points. This is why identity politics is garbage.<p>Unless for-profit corporations are actually jobs programs in disguise, there&#x27;s only one sensible thing to do: value people for what they can do for the company. Period. Though maybe favoring a candidate because they have the right skin color IS actually good for companies? Who knows?