Tag: small business news

This is how inclusive Netflix’s original programming really is

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Last month, Netflix released its first-ever inclusion report detailing where the company stands with having a diverse and equitable workplace. Now Netflix is keeping that same energy in analyzing its original TV shows and films. Today, Netflix published a study conducted by the University of Southern California Annenberg Inclusion Initiative that breaks down how Netflix’s original content from 2018 and 2019 performed across 22 inclusion indictors. While the streamer excelled in certain areas and showed growth over the year, it’s evident that there’s still a considerable amount of ground to cover toward parity in front of and behind the camera—particularly with more representation from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups. “We’ve released this report in the interests of transparency,” said Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix. “Because without this kind of information it’s very hard to judge whether we’re improving or not. And the report makes clear that while Netflix has made advances in representation year-over-year, we still have a long way to go.” Here’s a snapshot of some key statistics from the study: 52% of all leads/co-leads (TV and film) were women and girls 31.9% of all leads/co-leads (TV and film) were from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups 23.1% of film directors were women 16.9% of film directors were from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups 29.8% of show creators were women 12.2% of show creators were from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups In addition to the study, which Netflix has committed to releasing every two years through 2026, the streamer also announced the Netflix Fund for Creative Equity, a $100 million endowment that will be distributed globally over five years in an effort to build talent pipelines for underrepresented communities. Read More …

‘This is bigger than just Timnit’: How Google tried to silence a critic and ignited a movement

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Timnit Gebru—a giant in the world of AI and then co-lead of Google’s AI ethics team—was pushed out of her job in December. Gebru had been fighting with the company over a research paper that she’d coauthored, which explored the risks of the AI models that the search giant uses to power its core products—the models are involved in almost every English query on Google , for instance. The paper called out the potential biases (racial, gender, Western, and more) of these language models, as well as the outsize carbon emissions required to compute them. Google wanted the paper retracted, or any Google-affiliated authors’ names taken off; Gebru said she would do so if Google would engage in a conversation about the decision. Instead, her team was told that she had resigned. After the company abruptly announced Gebru’s departure, Google AI chief Jeff Dean insinuated that her work was not up to snuff—despite Gebru’s credentials and history of groundbreaking research . The backlash was immediate. Thousands of Googlers and outside researchers leaped to her defense and charged Google with attempting to marginalize its critics , particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds. A champion of diversity and equity in the AI field, Gebru is a Black woman and was one of the few in Google’s research organization. “It wasn’t enough that they created a hostile work environment for people like me [and are building] products that are explicitly harmful to people in our community. It’s not enough that they don’t listen when you say something,” Gebru says. “Then they try to silence your scientific voice.” In the aftermath, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai pledged an investigation; the results were not publicly released, but a leaked email recently revealed that the company plans to change its research publishing process, tie executive compensation to diversity numbers, and institute a more stringent process for “sensitive employee exits.” In addition, the company appointed engineering VP Marian Croak to oversee the AI ethics team and report to Dean Read More …

The pandemic changed how we evaluate success. This is what to stick with

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As coronavirus was unleashed across the world in early 2020, Facebook did something unprecedented: It gave its employees a break. For the first half of the year, the tech giant granted each of its 45,000 full-time staffers an “exceeds expectations” performance review rating, ensuring they all got $1,000 bonuses . Google, for its part, skipped its midyear reviews altogether, and in the fall, promoted twice as many people as it usually does. The pandemic has changed fundamental parts of work. As people continue to juggle personal and job-related responsibilities at the same time—often from the same dining room chair—employers are having to rethink the way they evaluate performance . The usual rigid metrics for success have flown out the window, and for many companies, it’s less about how many targets you’ve hit, but how well you’re doing overall. “Empathy, caring, supporting people is really the theme,” Josh Bersin, a human resources analyst and consultant, tells the Wall Street Journal . He anticipates this grace period will last around two years.  When “the pandemic is history and we’re back to ‘go, go, go,’ we’ll probably go back to the way things were.” However, if we face this historic moment, , managers and teams can reevaluate some of our performance management tactics for the better. Here are a handful of recommendations. Keep goals fluid Goal-setting looks very different now than it did before the pandemic. Rather than trying to stick to fixed goals that are discussed at annual reviews and then forgotten, managers and teams should start thinking of goals as fluid, updating them on a weekly or even real-time basis. The workplace management team at Gallup emphasizes the importance of an “agile mindset,” which encourages teams not just to expect change, but anticipate it. Ben Wigert and Heather Barrett write “managers should be given the expectation, authority, and flexibility to tailor goal-setting to the team and the individual as their work changes.” Sticking to pre-pandemic expectations is setting employees up to fail. Rather than fixating on KPIs, look at how well your reports are doing with other, often overlooked intangibles: How well are they communicating, both with their managers and their team? Are they bringing clarity to complex situations? Are they contributing positively to morale? As the goal posts for “success” continue to shift, it’s important to adjust expectations accordingly. Read More …

Why security experts were blindsided by the SolarWinds attack

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The SolarWinds cyberattack on U.S. government agencies and private organizations was and is frightening in its scale and success. It proved no match for the government agencies charged with defending against such things, and brought into sharp focus the fact that the government’s current model for responding to cyberthreats is lacking. The Senate Intelligence Committee hosted some of the main players in the SolarWinds saga Tuesday for some soul-searching on how the government and private tech companies should work together to stop future attacks. Some of the main themes discussed in the hearing are likely to end up in new cybersecurity legislation this year, a Congressional source told me. SolarWinds is the name of the Texas-based company whose IT management software is used by many government agencies and large corporations. Back in March 2020, the attackers—widely thought to be employed by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service—first planted malware in the SolarWinds system that sends updates to all its clients. When government agencies installed the update, they installed the malware, too. The attack was finally reported in December 2020 by the private security firm FireEye, and then only because the firm discovered its own systems had been infected. The SolarWinds attack was novel, in that it targeted both government and private-sector entities, and for its use of a government supplier (SolarWinds) as a Trojan horse to gain access to government agency systems. The white hats (security good guys) were not ready for this roundabout way of attacking. During the hearing, SolarWinds CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna said the security community knows how to defend against direct attacks on networks and spear-phishing attacks in which hackers pose as a trusted party and try to trick employees of the target company into giving up their network credentials. Security experts have less experience with attacks that exploit a private-sector supplier of software to the government to gain entry. It’s hard for the eventual target organization—in this case government agencies and corporations—to see that kind of attack coming. The attackers attached malware to an update to SolarWinds’ Orion software. When the company’s clients—18,000 of them—installed the update, they also installed the malware. The attackers are thought to have penetrated the systems of 100 private companies and 11 government agencies, including the Departments of State, Energy, Homeland Security, and Treasury, and the National Nuclear Security Administration Read More …

5 hidden Google gems you aren’t using—yet

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For a tool most of us use every day to find stuff on the web, Google has more than a few helpful tricks up its sleeve that aren’t super apparent unless you know where to look. Here are a few I’ve found recently that have saved me countless clicks, spared me visits to garishly designed apps, and generally made things a little less complicated. Order up some food There are enough food-ordering services out there that you might starve before flipping through them all to find something you want. Instead, just navigate to orderfood.google.com , and you’ll be presented with a map of nearby restaurants that offer pickup and delivery. Google pulls in listings from popular apps and services and lets you browse by category if you’re in the mood for a particular style of food. Once you’re ready to order, you can do so via a clean, easy, very Google-like interface instead of being shuttled off to a third-party app or site Read More …