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No one thinks there aren't some DEI true believers. The problem with your hypothetical is not that. It is that thinking people at a dynamic startup (statistically started by a small group of white & asian men with technical backgrounds) are all of the sudden going to go through an organic switch from thinking about bringing in people they know can do the job to thinking about hiring in a different way. And they then, again, organically start hiring based on the criteria that the university scolds who discriminated against them before would like them to?
No, that is a terribly unlikely mechanism. Because they had too munch money to spend they hired DEI candidates? Thats not how engineers work. They loathe on-boarding even competent people. They would rather buy 1000 servers to sit in an empty closet.
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