As an example, some parts of the internet ostracised Brendan Eich for a personal donation he made to support a Californian ballet proposition on same sex marriage; forcing his resignation. There were no complaints about any of his behaviour or actions at Mozilla whatsoever.
That's not a good thing to be doing.
As another example, the recent Stack Overflow changes where a controversial, over-empathsised policy change on respecting pronouns (also pretty much a non-issue, I have never seen pronoun complaints come up on Stack Overflow) has forced multiple community moderator resignations and a widespread community revolt.
These changes are often negatives for the projects involved.
Eh, there are. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean there aren't any reports.
Could you expand on this? My naive impression is that VCs do their best to make hard-nosed expected-value-in-USD estimates, perhaps specifically estimating the likelihood the company will be worth >$100M/$1B or whatever; and that acting like that is probably in their job description because they're investing other people's money who expect a return.
How does the phenomenon you describe fit in? Is there some group of VCs that believe that championing "diversity and inclusion" is likely to lead to 10x growth? Does the company making the pitch make that claim—or, as one reading of your words suggests, claim that not having achieved 10x growth in the past is due to the lack of such championing? Or do VCs face social pressure (from, I dunno, other VCs, journalists who write about them, whoever else they talk with) to make it look like they're funding virtuous causes (er, companies)? Seems like the last is most plausible.
But bear in mind San Francisco is incredibly liberal, SF programmers even more so. Companies based there will make overtures toward diversity & inclusion rhetoric to keep their workforce happy.
[1] https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/4467.jpeg
What to you may be just another opinion is another's legitimacy of them being them.
Maybe it's because I see myself as a progressive, I understand why people were mad at Eich and petitioned his removal. Him being the face of one of the biggest tech companies in the world actively working against your best interests must be hurtful. In my bubble it's absolutely normal to be gay, gay marriage is also nothing to be frowned upon, my country (NL) was the first in the world to legalize it. I realize a large portion of the rest of the world sees it differently, but I'd place it in the same category of a CEO donating money to the KKK or other extremist groups - should black people just think well hey he's doing a good job right? Who cares he's funding a group that actively detests me not for who I am but the color of my skin? Just like gay people think he's funding a group that detests me for something that isn't even my choice?
I followed the SO debacle and what I gathered from it was that there were a couple of individuals who made some very very poor decisions, ruled with an iron first, and any dialogue was not only suppressed but the mod in question was booted in such a despicable way that the rest of the community followed. I don't think they're comparable.
At the very least, that depends on whether you take his position as being an extremist "anti-gay" one, or simply as upholding the then-current status of traditional, cross-sex marriage. It should be noted that same-sex marriage has not been introduced by overt policy in the U.S.; it has acquired its status via a judicially-introduced "extension" of the usual cross-sex marriage. This surprising development has contributed to its wide-ranging acceptance in a way that shouldn't be misunderestimated; far from being something "contrary" to existing tradition, same-sex marriage has simply joined a lengthy list of comparable legal fictions known from the history of Western jurisprudence.
Companies with a strong business model don't seem to do this whole bullshit virtue signaling, whether it's about diversity/inclusion or "values" unless there is an actual problem with one of those things.
The VC-funded ones that usually have no long-term, profitable business model are the ones to brag the most about "diversity and inclusion" or similar things. It's as if they were saying "we'll run out of money in 3 years, we pay shit, but hey at least we're diverse and inclusive and (pretend to) have values; wanna work for us?".
One company went as far as banning words and idioms like "blacklist" and "elephant in the room". I mean come on, were these words even being a problem or are you just looking for a problem so you can push your virtue signaling to the next level and obviously write the obligatory blog post?
Whether that actually translates to more VC funding or not is unclear, but the majority of VC-backed companies seems to be doing this charade nowadays.
Ironically, progressives say this piously while failing to extend it to those with conservative (or even moderate) beliefs or religious beliefs.
(For the record, I am a non-religious classical liberal, part of which means I am against the intolerant aspects of progressivism.)
