DEI Is Not DOA, Part 1

We’re diving into a topic that’s more urgent than ever: the current state of diversity, equity and inclusion in organizations, and the profound impact artificial intelligence is having on these initiatives. As economic pressures mount, budgets tighten and politics change, a concerning trend is emerging: Organizations are scaling back their DEI initiatives. These pullbacks are raising alarms about what the future of work will look like—especially for underrepresented groups.

And when you add in the impact of companies adopting artificial intelligence to streamline operations and make decisions, the risk of algorithmic bias becomes even more pronounced. Without strong DEI frameworks, AI systems and those who are coding them can unintentionally perpetuate inequalities—widening opportunity gaps rather than closing them.

To talk about this important topic, we’re delighted to welcome Bo Young Lee.Read the transcript from this interview @https://bit.ly/428vdpP.

Learn more about UC Berkeley Extension @https://bit.ly/3XtuHkP.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
[MUSIC PLAYING]

(00:02):


BO YOUNG LEE (00:06):
So when they start talking about the work of DEI,
people are like, oh,that's what it is?
I totally support it.
But when you've createdthis boogeyman called DEI,
unknown, scary DEI thatpeople are claiming
create reverse racism--
even though reverse racismand reverse discrimination
aren't things--
that's what people are reallyreacting towards right now.

(00:29):
[MUSIC PLAYING]


JILL FINLAYSON (00:31):
Welcome to the Future of Work podcast
with Berkeley Extensionand EDGE in Tech
at the University of California,focused on expanding diversity
and gender equity in tech.
EDGE in Tech is part of theInnovation Hub at CITRIS,
The Center for IT Researchin the Interest of Society,
and the Banatao Institute.
UC Berkeley Extension isthe continuing education arm
of the University ofCalifornia at Berkeley.

(00:53):
We're diving into a topic todaythat's more urgent than ever,
the current state of diversity,equity, and inclusion
in organizations, andthe profound impact
that artificial intelligenceis having on these initiatives.
Over the past fewyears, many companies
made bold commitmentsto DEI, promising
to diversify theirworkforces, close equity gaps,

(01:13):
and build moreinclusive cultures.
However, as economicpressures mount,
budgets tighten, and politicschange, a concerning trend
is emerging.
Organizations are scalingback their DEI initiatives.
These pullbacksare raising alarms
about what the future of workwill look like, especially
for underrepresented groups.
And then, when you add in theimpact of companies adopting

(01:35):
artificial intelligencein order to streamline
operations and make decisions,the risk of algorithmic bias
becomes even more pronounced.
To have an opendiscussion about this,
we're delighted to welcome BoYoung Lee, a globally recognized
workplace and AI ethics,DEI, and ESG executive,
and widely sought-after publicspeaker and leadership coach.

(01:55):
Bo serves as presidentof research and advisory
for anitab.org, the leadingmission-driven organization
advancing women andnonbinary technologists.
Prior to her roleat anitab.org, Bo
served as Uber technology'sfirst chief diversity, equity,
and inclusionofficer, where she was
tasked to lead the totaltransformation of the company's

(02:16):
culture, values, andenvironment of equity.
Bo has helpedhundreds of companies
worldwide during her24 years of DEI work,
but was currently pursuing amaster's of study in AI, ethics,
and society at theUniversity of Cambridge,
Leverhulme Center for the Futureof Intelligence in the UK,
and has an MBA with distinctionfrom New York University's Stern

(02:38):
School of Business,and a BA Magna Cum
Laude from the Universityof Michigan's Ross
School of Business.
Welcome, Bo.

BO YOUNG LEE (02:46):
It's a delight to be here.
Thank you so muchfor taking the time
to have this very meaningfuland important conversation.

JILL FINLAYSON (02:53):
It's the right time and there's a lot going on.
So let's talkabout where we are.
There have been manyheadlines of late.
They range fromDEI is dying to DEI
is dead, some may evensay dead on arrival,
while others say DEIis not actually dead.
What is happening andhow did we get here?

BO YOUNG LEE (03:12):
So I think it's really important
to understand what's happeningin this moment, right?
Regardless, if we take outall the noise that's there,
fundamentally, we haveto understand that we
live in a diverse society.
That is a given fact.
The United States isa diverse country,
and no matter whatpolicy changes we make,
it will still remain to be.

(03:33):
If you look at Gen Z andthe Generation Alpha that's
coming after there, GenZ is the first generation
where white people do notmake up a super majority.
It's about 50% white.
The remaining community areBlack and other people of color,
and a whole rangeof diverse people.
And then you look at Gen Alpha,and actually, Gen Alpha may be--
we're still in the midstof Gen Alpha-- may actually
be the first generationwhere we don't

(03:54):
see any majority inthe United States,
where it becomes a pluralityof different people.
So we have to accept thatthe country is diverse.
When you have astate of diversity,
you can make one of two choices.
You can either choose to tryto ignore that diversity,
suppress it-- which iswhat we're seeing right
now in the current politicaland social atmosphere--
and it's been studied.
You end up creating greatertension and greater chaos.

(04:16):
And I think thatwhat we're seeing,
that discomfort everybody'sfeeling right now
is a byproduct ofthat movement to try
to suppress some of thediversity that we know
is inherently there.
The other choice, when you livein a diverse society is to say,
hey, how do we makethis diversity work?
How do we make sure thateverybody has a voice
and that societyis fundamentally
working for everybody equally sothat we get the best outcomes?
And so that's the bigger contextwe're trying to, as a society,

(04:38):
determine which pathare we going to go down?
Are we going to try toignore this and then,
like, allow for those chaotictendencies to just thrive?
Or are we going to continueon our path, which we've
done as a country for morethan half a century, of saying,
we got to makethis work somehow.
And so regardless ofwhether or not people
are trying to cancel diversity,equity, and inclusion,
we still have to do the work.

(04:59):
And so I think sometimes,we get so focused
in on the small things.
And I know it's reallycrazy to call, like,
presidential executiveorders small, right?
Because they're not at all.
They have real implications.
But I think we sometimesget so focused on the trees
that we forget the largercontext by which we're
living in.
As somebody who's beendoing this work for a really
long time, I'm veryoptimistic that regardless

(05:20):
of what happens in this verymoment, the need for people
to continue to createfairness, to create justice,
to create equity in oursociety, is going to be there.

JILL FINLAYSON (05:30):
I'm glad to hear your optimistic because it's
a difficult time for that.
And the irony here isthat this is a time when
borders are going away.
We have moreinternational teams,
we have more cross-borderdistributed teams
around the world.
So why do you think thatthis is happening, given
that people seem to, in general,be supportive of inclusion?

BO YOUNG LEE (05:52):
I think a lot of it
has to do with theweaponization that we see.
Like, we've seenthis happen before.
People even knew that there wasan acronym called DEI, right?
We saw it happening withcritical race theory, CRT.
You would go out there andyou'd see individuals going,
do you know whatcritical race theory is?
And people didn't know,but they certainly
knew that they didn't like CRT.
And so a lot of thebacklash right now,

(06:12):
it's a very psychological one.
And it's one rooted in fear,fear exacerbated by people
who are in leadership.
And I think that's where thebacklash is really coming from,
because when you start talkingto people about what diversity,
equity, and inclusionactually looks like,
people are highly supportive.
People love short term andlong term disability leave.
People love paid parentalleave, especially

(06:32):
both for women and maternityleave, but also for paternity
leave.
People love things likeflexible work arrangements,
working remotely.
They love all those things.
And those are all things thatdiversity, equity, and inclusion
have been championingfor decades.
So when they start talkingabout the work of DEI,
people are like, oh,that's what it is?
I totally support it.
But when you've createdthis boogeyman called DEI,

(06:55):
that unknown, scary DEIthat people are claiming
create reverse racism--
even though reverse racismand reverse discrimination
aren't things--
that's what people are reallyreacting towards right now.

JILL FINLAYSON (07:08):
I like your point.
Reverse racism doesn't exist.
Reverse discriminationdoesn't exist.
There's just discrimination.

BO YOUNG LEE (07:16):
Yeah, I've had to make this point so many times.
Somebody will come tome and they go, well,
what if I'm a white manand someone tells me
you didn't get the jobbecause you're a white man?
I always say, that'snot reverse racism.
That's not reversediscrimination,
that's just discrimination.
It's all discrimination.
And if you look back to the1964 Civil Rights Act, which
is the law that reallycemented in the fact

(07:37):
that you can't discriminatein the workplace,
it doesn't say, you can'tdiscriminate against women,
you can't discriminateagainst Black people,
you can't discriminateagainst a German.
It doesn't say that.
What it says is that thereare certain classes that you
can't discriminate based on.
So you can't discriminateagainst someone
based on their gender, whetherit's woman, man, or they/them.
You can't discriminate on that.

(07:58):
You can't discriminate based onsomebody's race and ethnicity.
So if you don't get ajob because you're white
and someone tells you that andyou know that that's a decision,
that is race-baseddiscrimination
and that should be pursued.
And that should be outlawed asmuch as any other race-based.
But we know that in our society,the communities that have always
been historicallymarginalized are
the ones that aremore likely to be
targeted by unfair,unjust, prejudiced systems.

JILL FINLAYSON (08:21):
Where is this fear coming from?
Is change justhappening too fast?
What makes it so uncomfortable?

BO YOUNG LEE (08:27):
The reason why there
is so much fear andbacklash and tension
is that our society isbecoming more polarized,
and it's also becoming morepolarized from a socioeconomic.
The richer peopleare getting richer,
but that richer group is gettingsmaller, and then everyone else
it feels like isgetting left behind.
And so that economictension that people feel,
that economic scarcitythat people are feeling,

(08:49):
that's being exploitedto make people
scapegoat other groups thathave no responsibility in people
being left behind.

JILL FINLAYSON (08:57):
So this is that the pie is only a specific size.
And if somebody takesa bigger slice of pie,
I'm going to have less pie?

BO YOUNG LEE (09:04):
Exactly.
And I've always said thatdiversity, equity, inclusion
is not even trying to throwthe pie because we know
that fundamentally, thepie that we have right now
isn't a great one.
It was designed for avery specific to privilege
and advance a certain verysmall sector of the society.
And this is usually peoplewho come from privilege
to begin with.
They come from wealth.

(09:24):
They come from deepeducational backgrounds.
Their parents went to Harvardand their grandparents
went to Harvard.
And they get to go to Harvard.
And that's who the pieis being baked for.
And so everyone elseis being left behind.
Nobody is reallyadvocating for individuals
who have never had power.
And unfortunately,the greatest level,

(09:44):
the tagline that some peopleuse, obviously, is they
say make America great again.
And then they oftentimes referback to the 1950s and 1960s.
And I always remind people,it's like, the thing that
made America so greatduring that period of time
wasn't the fact that therewas a single monocultural that
was defined by a certainracial/ethnic group.
It was the fact thatwe had a upper tax

(10:05):
rate of 90% for therichest Americans.
And the 1950s and '60s saw someof the greatest redistribution
of wealth in the United States.
And we saw some of the smallesteconomic gaps in our society.
And we have leftthat era, right?
We have so departedfrom that time and that.
But it was that level ofequity we had in society

(10:26):
that made people feel reallysafe and very generous
on top of it.

JILL FINLAYSON (10:31):
So it did have some basis in truth
that there was somethingbetter going on then.
But as we know, thatwas not a great time
for certain populations.
And so how do we rationalizewhat was happening there versus
the reality for many people?

BO YOUNG LEE (10:47):
There actually was never a period of time
when we were all unifiedas a society in that way.
There was this cohort of, like,suburban/urban individuals
who may have had that same--
listened to thesame music, had all
the same cultural checkpoints,all read the New York Times
every single day, and so forth.
But back then, oneof the things is
that there were all these otherstories that were happening

(11:10):
in the background, right?
We know that the Blackcommunities in the United States
had a very different narrative.
We know that peoplewho were new immigrants
had a very differentstory, but there
was no way to democratize thestorytelling at that time.
And the one thing thatwe're seeing today
is that we can have a hugedebate about social media
and the way in which socialmedia may further polarize
the society and whatnot.

(11:30):
But one thing thatsocial media has done
is it has democratizedthe storytelling process.
Anyone with a camera,anyone with a phone,
anyone with computer access,they could tell their story.
And there's thatopportunity, that
democratized opportunity foranybody's story to go viral.
And so I think that is somethingthat is really making people
feel uncomfortable, is thatthey're being told stories

(11:52):
that they've never seen before,that they've never heard before,
and they think thosestories are new.
What they don't realizeis they're not, right?
People see the abuse ofBlack and Brown people,
and they're like, we neverhad these problems before.
And you're like, absolutely,these problems existed before.
Police have been targetingand racially profiling Black
and Brown people for centuries.

(12:14):
You just didn't know about it.
But now we can't ignore it, andthat's making you uncomfortable.
People have said, oh, DEIis this newfangled thing
and it's used to oppress certainpopulations, white people,
cisgender, Christian,and so forth.
And I keep reminding people, no,the work of diversity, equity,
inclusion began decades ago.
I've been doing thiswork for 24 years.
But even before then, theearliest stages of DEI--

(12:37):
if we're going to label it--began in the 1960s after
the passage of the1964 Civil Rights Act.
You saw companiesstarting to hire
affirmative rights,affirmative action managers,
equal employment managers.
The very first ERT wasfounded, I believe,
at Xerox in the late 1960s.
I think it waslike 1968 or 1967.

(12:58):
That was the very firstemployee resource group.
And it really began witha Black employee seeing
another Black employee going,oh, my god, another one of you
exists here.
Let's go have lunch.
And that happened.
And then employeeresource groups
started growing from there.
They started existing.
And that wasultimately what became
the modern iteration of DEI.

JILL FINLAYSON (13:17):
And I think this is a good time
to define those terms.
Before DEI became just acatchphrase like "woke"
and became demonized.

BO YOUNG LEE (13:25):
Absolutely.
So diversity is not an identity.
I say this over and over again.
You oftentimes hear people say,we need more diverse people.
And I always say, define whatdiverse people mean to you.
And I would saydiversity isn't identity.
It's a state of being.
So as an individual, I,myself, I'm Bo Young Lee.
I'm a woman.
I'm Korean-American.

(13:46):
I'm an immigrant.
I'm all these things andthose are aspects of who I am.
But alone, I'm just oneindividual and I'm not diverse.
Diversity is astate of being where
you have two or more people,you have a group of individuals,
and you look for the placeswhere you have differences
and you have similarity.
In most corporateenvironments, I
am pretty diverse froman identity perspective,
but I'm not diverse froma educational perspective.

(14:09):
I have two university degrees.
I'm getting a thirdone right now.
They're all pretty goodschools, so there's
no diversity from an educationalbackground perspective
that I bring but I bring a lotof other identity diversity.
So that's what diversity is.
It's simply looking forwhere we have differences,
where we have similarities,and where are the gaps in terms
of difference.

JILL FINLAYSON (14:27):
I believe a lot of the research
has shown that havingdiverse points of view
increases diversity of thought,better solutions, better
decisions, less blindspots, better revenue.
So if there's data thatsupports diversity driving
those kind ofoutcomes, why are we
seeing that wordsuddenly sound bad?

BO YOUNG LEE (14:46):
You're right.
All the research shows notonly a correlated relationship
to diversity on a teamand better outcomes,
but a causalrelationship, meaning
that literally havingmore diverse people
in a group, in ateam, in a business,
causes there to be betteroutcomes, because diverse teams
can focus and seedifferent risks as well

(15:08):
as different opportunities.
Diverse teams can betterassess a situation.
Diverse teams simplychallenge each other more.
And when you challenge an idea--and everybody knows this--
you typically end upwith a better idea.
If you bring a bunchof diverse people
into a room but only thepeople who have always
had majority power havea voice, if they're
the only oneslistened to, you're

(15:29):
still not going to get thebenefit from that diversity.
You need to have the inclusionwhere you have systems in place,
where you have behavioral valuesthat allow you to say, hey,
half the room are women, butthe women haven't spoken up
in the last 20 minutes.
Are we intentionally orunintentionally shutting
their voices out?
And so you have tohave the inclusion
to make sure that you're gettingthe most value out of it.

(15:51):
And then finally, youget the E, the equity,
which is the newest friendin this DEI journey.
You can have the diversepeople in a room.
You can have inclusive voices.
But if fundamentally, everythingyou're designing still
results in really deeplyinequal outcomes, what's

(16:12):
the purpose of the first two?
And that's where equityin the last few years
have become part ofthis conversation.
But I think people oftentimesjust focus on the diversity.
They don't thinkabout the inclusion.
They don't thinkabout the equity
and what we're tryingto actually create.
They just say, oh, they're justtrying to hire, like, 10 women.
And you're like, no, that's notwhat we're just trying to do.

JILL FINLAYSON (16:32):
Yeah, so the journey from diversity
to inclusion, and then peopletalk of course, about belonging,
you're not just in the room,but you belong in the room.
Your voice has value whichrequires psychological safety,
meaning that you cansay what you think
without fear of retribution.
And so there's thiswhole path that
requires everyone'sparticipation

(16:53):
to really get the outcomesthat diversity can bring.
I recall you've said thatequity was a difficult thing
to undertake becauseit was so big.
Can you say a littlebit more about that?

BO YOUNG LEE (17:04):
Yeah, I have to admit, like, so first
and foremost, Ialways tell people,
I am very agnosticabout language.
I try not to get, like, overlyspecific or precious about it.
When I was firsthired at Uber, they
asked me what Iwanted my title to be,
and I was like chief diversityand inclusion officer?
I'm like, I guess.
And people had calledon me to add equity even
when I first tookthat job back in 2018,

(17:26):
and I actually pushedback against it.
Because to your point, equityis such a huge concept.
What does equity really mean?
Does that mean we'repaying people the same way?
Are we giving peoplethe same opportunities?
Most companies hirefolks that already
had some work experience.
That means thatthey've already come
through a system that wasprobably not the most equitable.
Therefore, you're goingto get a woman who's

(17:47):
had the exact samenumber of years
of work experience versusa man, but she might
be leveled very differently.
She might be oneor two levels down
because their systemwas not particularly
equitable and inclusive.
Do we just accept that that'sthe level she's coming in
as a senior associate versus aman with the exact same number
of years is comingin as a manager?
Do we just accept that andthen slot them in accordingly?

(18:07):
Or do we try to adjust forwhat we know is an inequitable
system, and try tolevel the woman up
to the same level as the man?
Is that what equity looks like?
So there are so manyfactors that go into equity.
I'm a very practical personand I like to have impact.
And I said, I don't know thatI want the responsibility
of equity because equityis not just something
that a single organization owns.
It's something that is highlydependent on the society

(18:29):
in which you thrive in.
I was sort of convinced tostart focusing on equity
because I basicallysaid to somebody,
if I'm going to add equity tomy title, I'm going to define it
in a very narrowway with factors
that I, as a leader, andI as a corporate entity,
can actually control, whichare things like pay, which
are things like making sure thatpromotion systems are equitable.

(18:51):
But I never promisedthat I was going
to solve for allinequity in society,
because that's just animpossibility for any one
institution to do.

JILL FINLAYSON (18:57):
And I think that's an important point
to make, which is that there aresocietal forces at play here.
And so for those who have notheard the term systemic bias,
what is the definitionof systemic bias
and how does that affectpeople's ability to access work?

BO YOUNG LEE (19:14):
One individual can be deeply prejudiced
about anything, right?
They can be deeply prejudicedabout certain genders
or certain racial ethnicgroups or certain socioeconomic
backgrounds.
They might be biasedagainst somebody
who went to publicschool and believe
that people who went to privateschools are better educated,
more competitive intellectually.
So everybody is prejudiced.

(19:35):
But any one individual, theevery-person on the street--
can only inflict so much harm.
Where that prejudicebecomes truly dangerous
is when very powerfulpeople with prejudices
then create systems with thoseprejudices already built in.
And one of the mostimpactful examples of this

(19:57):
is the way in which maternaldiscrimination is systematized
and negatively impacts anybody,any woman with a child.
So in the UnitedStates now, young women
earn 60% of all undergraduatedegrees and up to 70%
of all graduate degrees.
So as a group of individuals,women are more highly educated

(20:19):
than men in the United States.
And this is not just aUnited States phenomena.
We see this pretty much in allvery economically developed
countries where women arenow earning more degrees.
And you would think thatthose young women would then
do well in the workplace.
And for a while, they do.
But if we then move another fewyears after those young women
have entered theworkplace, you suddenly

(20:39):
start seeing womenfalling off a cliff.
And that cliff thatwomen oftentimes
fall off from botha career development
perspective andpromotion perspective,
as well as from incomeearning, happens when
women start to have children.
You're starting to seeslower rates of promotion
and that's because our societyhas said women who have children
are less committedto their jobs,

(21:00):
and we've created systemsto punish women once they
start having children.
And you start to seewomen just falling out
of the workplace becauseof the systematic biases
that we have built andsystematic discrimination
that we have built.
And so one manager can bevery biased against the woman.
And he can have maybeinfluence, like,
five women in his entire careerand hold them back, let's say.

(21:22):
But if you create asystem where promotions
are dependent onworking a certain way
or working in a certain style,or not taking time off or not
working flexibly, that thenbecomes a systematic barrier
that limit womenwho have children
from advancing in their career.
And so that's the differencebetween just a prejudice
and then having systematic bias.
So you have prejudice,then ultimately,

(21:45):
when you build thatprejudice into a system,
you get systematic injusticeand systematic bias.
And then that leadsultimately to what
we call epistemic injustice,which basically means
that the way the knowledgethat we're creating,
the knowledge that we'reputting out into the universe,
doesn't represent the diversityof the society we live in.

(22:09):
There's less information.
And a great example of thisis from a medical perspective,
right?
There is far lessinformation about how
disease, how drugsinteract and impact women's
health, less informationabout how disease impacts
people of color, Black people.
That knowledgesimply doesn't exist.

(22:30):
And a great example of this isthat a British medical student
who noticed that when he wasstudying disease and disease
manifestation, not a singleexample in his textbook
used dark skin to illustratewhat disease looks like.
So the very first textbookon how disease manifests
in darker-skinned peoplewas not published until 2020

(22:51):
and was published by aBlack medical student,
not by a professor ofdermatology or whatever.
And so when you startto remove opportunity
for people and thatrepresentation doesn't exist,
so when there aren't womenin science and technology
and in the computerscience world,
when there aren'tpeople of color,

(23:12):
they don't then getto create knowledge
that is very important forall of us to understand.
That's why women havefar worse outcomes
from cardiovascular perspective,because women experience heart
attacks differentlyand doctors aren't
trained on that difference.
They don't test dosage onwomen in clinical trials.
Everything is dosed to a man.
And so women are beinggiven dosages of medicine

(23:33):
that might not work for thembecause they don't test it.
It leads to this ultimatelyepistemic injustice.
And we haven't evenas a society really
understood the full extent ofthat level of injustice there.

JILL FINLAYSON (23:44):
I wanted to define one more term.
Talk about theword "meritocracy".

BO YOUNG LEE: First and foremost, (23:49):
undefined
most people don't knowthe history of the term
"meritocracy".
The term "meritocracy" wascoined in 1956 by a British
sociologist.
And it was coinedas a pejorative,
as a criticism againstthe then British system
of testing childrenin very early ages

(24:11):
and then slotting them intoeither an academic track
of study or trackingthem towards a much more
vocational track.
That was happening.
And so a sociologist said,this system is wrong.
It is a meritocracy.
And the meritocracythat he described
was something that superficiallylooks fair but is fundamentally,
deeply unfair.

(24:32):
The term, then, "meritocracy"was further lambasted in a book
called The Rise of theMeritocracy by Michael Young,
another sociologist whobasically explores a system that
was designed to be superficiallyequitable but deeply
inequitable.
Unfortunately, thatterm "meritocracy"
has lost that pejorative aspect,has lost the ironic critical

(24:52):
aspect of it, and ithas been now adopted,
co-opted by individuals whobelieve that we can really
create these systemsbased purely on merit,
on someone's ability, someone'seducation, someone's intellect.

JILL FINLAYSON (25:06):
So, Bo, you just sort of demonstrated
that meritocracy did notcome from a good place.
It had a very different meaning.
Now people see it asthis beacon of something
that they want to go to.
What has to happen inorder for us to get there?

BO YOUNG LEE (25:20):
I'm not opposed to a system based on merit.
But if we're going to builda system based on merit,
we have to ensure thatfirst, there's equity.
So many great thinkers,philosophers--
John Rawls being one of thegreat legal philosophers
of the 20th century,he basically said,
if you're going to reallytry and work towards building

(25:40):
a society that is merit-based,fundamental to that is ensuring
that you have a society thatis equitable and just and fair.
And if you don'thave that fairness,
if you don't have thatequality, then there's
no ability to createa merit-based society
because you're justbuilding bad upon bad,
inequitable upon inequitable.
If we're not addressingthe fact that there

(26:01):
is unequal access toeducational resources,
that there areprejudices in our society
and we're not addressingthem, merit is impossible.
So I would say, if you'retruly committed to meritocracy,
you've got to make surethat there's fairness.
And I think people oftentimesforget that relationship.
One of the thingsthat John Rawls says
is in order to trulybuild just system,

(26:22):
you have to startwith the premise
that the people building itdon't know what they're going
to be assigned in that society.
So if I were to goto a group of people
and say, OK, you 10people, you create
an idealized,merit-based society,
but you don't knowif you're going
to be born a man or a woman.
You don't know if you're goingto be born white, Black, Asian.

(26:43):
You don't know ifyou're going to be
born with a disabilityor different abilities.
You don't know.
You might be put into this gameas an undocumented immigrant
from Guatemala.
So create a system that is asequal and fair as possible.
That is the onlyway that we know
that we can be assuredthat a system is fair,
if you don't know whereyou're going to start.

(27:04):
Now, of course, this is allan intellectual exercise,
but that's whereyou have to start.
So I would argue based onthat, that no person who
comes from an identity thathas historically had power
can ever truly create ameritocratic system because they
can't strip themselvesof the privilege
that they've hadtheir entire life.

JILL FINLAYSON (27:27):
I think that's the challenge, right?
Who defines merit?
Who defines what are thequalifications for a job?
I've heard it referredto as mirror-tocracy.
I'm looking for peoplewho look like me
or have been trainedlike I have or have had
work experience like I've had.
How do we get to moreobjective criteria?

BO YOUNG LEE (27:47):
Yeah.
So I think a lotof organizations,
they're looking for verysimple, practical things
that they can do.
And they are like, if we rununconscious bias training
or if we simply,like, set a quota,
we're going to beable to create equity.
But that hyper focus anddesire for simple best practice
policies will neveractually solve inequity

(28:08):
within an organization,and it will never
actually allow organizations tocreate true merit-based systems.
So I'm a big sticklerfor analytics.
People always ask me,well, where do you start?
And I always say,start with the data.
Collect as much dataas you can and try
to analyze that data in asmany iterations as you can.
And so for promotion as anexample, a lot of organizations
will look at simply likethe outcome of promotions.

(28:30):
How many women were promoted?
How many men were promoted?
But I like to go a step further.
Rather than just seeing how manymen or how many women were being
promoted, I asked thequestion, how long
did it take thoseindividuals to get promoted?
So if it takes a woman 3 and1/2 years to get promoted
to a manager versus men2.1 years to get promoted

(28:50):
to manager, even if the ratesof promotion are similar,
we still have inequity, becausewhy is it taking women 3.8 years
versus men 2.1?
And there's a lot ofdifferent reasons.
One, you can simply saymen are more competent
than women and that's whythey get promoted faster.
But that conversation of men aremore competent and work harder
defies what we see comingout of universities, right?

(29:12):
We know that women areearning the majority
of university degrees, themajority of graduate school
degrees.
We know that women are notonly getting the majority,
but they're also graduatingat the top of their class.
So why is it then thatwomen are doing so well
up to a point in time,and then suddenly, they
fall off the cliff whenthey join a corporation?
Is it that corporationsare just more

(29:32):
rigorous than theeducational process?
Doubtful.
It has to do with the fact thatthe systems in organizations
are designed to bias towardsa certain set of behaviors,
a certain set of appearances,a certain set of networking
and communication stylesthat are still very oriented
towards men andmasculine culture
and masculine engagement.

(29:52):
And that is the reasonwhy we're starting to see
women falling off the cliff.
And then that extralayer of analysis,
how long does it take forpeople to get promoted?
What percentage of people whoare eligible for promotion
actually get promoted?
Are we seeing higher ratiosfor men than for women?
That is where you start todo the actual work itself.
And so I always say to people,if you're really, truly

(30:13):
interested in diversity,equity, and inclusion,
don't look for best practices.
Never ask the questionof best practice.
Ask the question, what doesthe data begin to tell us?

JILL FINLAYSON (30:22):
Yeah, thank you for talking about data.
A lot of DEI programs,there's a lot
of different types ofprograms out there.
Data is one and employeeresource groups is another.
Trainings is another.
What types of programsare you seeing out there
and what kind of data do wehave about their effectiveness?

BO YOUNG LEE (30:39):
A few years ago, Harvard Business School
ran some researchand they wanted
to see what DEI relatedinitiatives have the greatest
impact for change.
First and foremost, Ithink it validated the fact
that training has minimalto no impact on outcomes
in an organization.
And training isoftentimes where people
like to begin becauseit's really easy.

(31:01):
There's lots ofoff-the-shelf options.
There's lots ofindependent consultants
who will train you onalmost any topic related
to unconscious bias and whatnot,but training has very limited.
So for me as a DEIprofessional, that
correlates very muchto my experience.
I don't like training.
I run it very rarely and onlyfor very specific reasons.
But what the researchactually found

(31:22):
was that the single biggestinfluence on whether or not
an organization makesany kind of progress
is actually having a seniorleader at the C-suite who
holds the organizationaccountable for transformation.
And you actually didsee-- coming out of 2020
and that huge rush to committo diversity and inclusion--

(31:42):
you saw a huge creation of newdiversity, equity, inclusion
leadership.
And I know we're doingthis in recording,
so I just did some air quotes,"leadership" roles in diversity,
equity, and inclusion.
And if the Harvardresearch shows
that it is having a seniorleader at the table,
then all these companiesshould have made progress,
and almost none ofthem actually did.
And there's a reasonfor that, right?

(32:02):
First and foremost,most of the roles
that were created comingout of 2020 into 2021,
they were neverpositioned for success.
A lot of the roles were actuallylabeled chief diversity officer
roles, but I knowfor a fact because I
had a lot of companiesactually reach out
to me during that time,that a lot of them
were at a very mid-level ofleadership, senior manager

(32:24):
to maybe seniordirector at best.
And having done this work andhaving done it at the C-suite,
having done it atdifferent levels,
you can't influence whenyou're a middle manager.
You cannot go up to asenior leader and say,
you're doing this wrong whenyou are 2, 3, 4 levels down,
especially within the techindustry and especially within
Silicon Valley.

(32:45):
Silicon Valley is, of all theindustries I've ever worked for,
one of the most hierarchicalindustries I've ever worked in,
and one where there's hugelevels of power distance.
So in Silicon Valleyin particular,
if you're not leveled atleast at a vice president
to senior vicepresident level, you're
not going to makethat influence, right?
So I think one of the thingsthat we saw coming out of 2020

(33:05):
is that a lot ofroles were created,
but they were not leveledat the right level
and they were notset up for success.
So why did that Harvardresearch then say
that it was senior leaders?
And it's because a lot of thework of diversity, equity,
and inclusion isn't justabout creating new systems.
It isn't just aboutanalyzing the data.
It is being able tohold leaders accountable

(33:27):
and actually go andtalk to them and coach
them and help them address theirunconscious biases, help them.
Because no matter whatsystem you have in place,
no matter what programmaticchanges you make,
the greatest singlething that influences
how people behavein an organization
is how the leadership behaves.

JILL FINLAYSON (33:44):
All right.
I'm going to put youon the spot here.
I'm going to say if you werethe right hand person to Mark
Zuckerberg, who recentlysaid his company needed more
masculine energy when themajority of his tech workforce
is male, or you've got Elon Musksaying empathy is a weakness
of our country and weshouldn't be empathetic--
yet this is a core competencythat every leader should have--

(34:06):
you're standing next to them.
Where do you begin?

BO YOUNG LEE (34:09):
Well, first and foremost,
to Mark Zuckerberg,who said that we
need more masculine energy--
and we know the datafor Meta is out there.
I would say, like, yourcompany is over 70% male.
And you're saying that youneed more masculine energy.
So are you indirectlyimplying that the men
in your organizationare somehow emasculated?
Like, is that the implication?

(34:30):
Because your organizationis already a majority male.
And if you want more masculine,what's the right number?
80%?
90%?
95%?
What aspect of masculine?
Because masculinity isnot unidimensional, right?
We know that there are multipledimensions of masculinity.
We have very, very typicalpatriarchal masculinity,

(34:54):
top-down vertical power,yelling, screaming.
You have much more holisticaspects of masculinity
that are displayed by leaderslike Tim Walz, for example.
He introduced a very differentmodel of masculinity,
or the classicexample, Mr. Rogers
from Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.
He was a very gentleform of masculinity.
Define to me whatyou're looking for.

(35:14):
That would be my starting place.
And I think forme in particular,
I tend to be apretty cheeky person.
I tend to also be veryconfident in my own ability,
so I'm happy to goup to a leader going,
well, you're kind ofan idiot, aren't you?
In the nicest waypossible, but yeah,
I have gone up to leaders going,you know that thing you did?
That wasn't OK.
That was not OK.
And then they'll be like, why?

(35:35):
What did I do wrong?
And then I'll get into detail.
I would challengethat basic assumption.
And then I would say to ElonMusk, I said to somebody once,
like, somebodyasked me-- they're
like, if Tesla evercame to you and said,
would you be our chiefdiversity officer?
I would say, absolutely if I getto report directly to the board
and not to Elon.
And they're like, really?
Why would you take that job?

(35:57):
And I go, first and foremost,I love making change
and I love a good challenge.
And so there's nothingbigger, probably,
in Silicon Valley than Tesla.
But also, I would lookforward to sitting across
from Elon Musk going, like,empathy is a weakness.
And I go, you ask forempathy every single day
when you bring up your autism.
You have blamed your autismfor so many of the behaviors

(36:17):
that people have foundmost problematic,
and you do that becauseyou're asking people
to be empathetictowards your autism.
But you don't display itfor any other dimension.
And I'm somebodywho's neurodivergent.
I'm dyslexic, and Iwould love for people
to be empathetic towards me, butI know that they're not always.
And so I would say to him, like,why do you expect something

(36:38):
that nobody else expects, thatyou don't offer to anybody else?
Like, if you thinkempathy is a weakness,
stop bringing up your autismbecause I don't care then,
if empathy is a weakness.
I would just turn itback on him and say,
like, why do you ask for it ifyou're not willing to offer it?

JILL FINLAYSON (36:52):
And on the bigger picture,
these people run big companies.
They're some ofthe companies that
are reacting most dramaticallyto the administration guidance.
They're doing return to work.
They're eliminatingDEI departments.
They're doing allof these things.
Can we talk about why companiesare reacting this way?
You also mentioned boards.
We know that the board atApple and the board at Costco

(37:14):
were like, keepthose DEI programs.
Not even close, right?
The majority.
So why are we seeingsuch different reactions
from companies andwhat are they risking
if they do roll back DEI?

BO YOUNG LEE (37:25):
It's so interesting.
A lot of organizationsright now,
I think they arerushing to try to comply
to these executiveorders-- which,
by the way, a few weeksago, a federal judge stated
very clearly that thethree executive orders that
were explicitly around corporatediversity, equity, inclusion
are illegal, that they are aviolation of First Amendment
rights by companies to beable to do what they think

(37:47):
is the best forthe organization.
But companies arefalling over themselves
to try to comply to these laws.
And I think it's not simplythat they want to be compliant,
because we actually knowthat companies have never
been really compliant for alot of workplace related laws.
I think it is that they havea belief that there is now
a leadership in our countrythat is extremely biased,

(38:08):
that is extremely retaliatory,and they don't want
to be on anybody's bad list.
What a sad state ofaffairs, that we're
even in this situation.
But at the same time, I've beentalking to a lot of companies
and I've said, when in thehistory of workplace diversity,
equity, inclusion,have companies
rallied to comply this quickly?

(38:28):
And I use the example of theAmericans with Disability Act.
So the Americans with DisabilityAct was passed in 1989.
It's a law that isover 35 years old now.
And still, to thisday, some companies
will fight tooth andnail to not comply
to the aspects of theAmericans with Disability Act
that require organizations tooffer reasonable accommodations

(38:50):
for people with disabilities.
The Americans withDisability Act
was written intentionallyby the lawmakers
to both be verybroad and unspecific.
So if you read the ADA, it doesnot say this set of conditions
are disabilities.
They just kind of saydisabilities, right?
And it was left to thecourts to decide, OK,
what are the disabilities thatshould require accommodation?

(39:12):
And then they just saidreasonable accommodation,
but they never defined that andagain, left it up to the courts.
Well, basically, corporationsinterpreted the ADA to say,
like, I don't have to offer any.
And every singleamount of progress
we've made using the ADAhas come through, like,
a huge body of case law.
People with disabilitiestaking their employers

(39:33):
to court for the mostbasic accommodations for,
can I have a chair when I'mpregnant so I don't have
to stand the whole entire time?
Can I get another jobso I don't have to lift
50 pounds every single time?
Can I get a differentergonomic setup for my desk?
All of that came through court.
So employers have neverreally complied proactively.
They've been sued to comply.
And then you have this threeexecutive orders around DEI.

(39:56):
And companies arefalling over themselves
to comply in advance without anylegal mandate for compliance.

JILL FINLAYSON (40:04):
So what is legal now?
What is illegal?
I just saw a New York Timesarticle that was published,
a list of 199 words thatthe Trump administration is
targeting, words likediversity and inclusion,
but also things like bias,stereotypes, underrepresented,
underserved, andmany more words.
They're flagging these words.
They're removingthem from websites.

(40:26):
They're investigating, delaying,denying grants and funding.
Is this about legality?

BO YOUNG LEE (40:33):
No, it's not about legality at all.
Right now, what was legalbefore January 20 is still
legal to this day.
People oftentimes turn to theSupreme Court case regarding
affirmative action that tookplace, the decision that
came out last year that bannedthe use of affirmative action
in higher education.
That decision was very specificto university admissions.

(40:57):
That was it.
But right now, theexact same laws
that were required beforeJanuary 20 are in place.
And the executiveorders that were
issued by the Trumpadministration, a judge
has specifically saidthose are illegal.
You cannot ban private companiesfrom doing work that is legal.

(41:18):
And prior to January20, you actually
had the OFCCP that conductedaudits of workforce data
by federal contractors.
And if they discoveredan imbalance
in the representation ofpeople in certain facilities,
in certain factories,in certain warehouses,

(41:38):
they will require you--
and I've done this.
I've done this for companies--they will require you to create
an affirmative action plan.
And that's what it was called.
That's what it is called.
You are required to worktowards hiring and increasing
representation based onthe affirmative action.
So there's a bit of awhiplash going on right now,
because there aresome companies that
have been sued throughclass action lawsuits,

(42:00):
and they have settled.
And as part of theirsettlement, they
have court mandatedaffirmative action
and compliance-based activitythat they are required to do,
that they're still undermandate to comply with.

JILL FINLAYSON: So there's a risk (42:12):
undefined
of over-correction coming outon the wrong side of legality.
What are we seeing, though, interms of this chilling effect,
even if it's not illegal?

BO YOUNG LEE (42:24):
Yeah.
So even if it'snot illegal, we're
seeing a lot oforganizations wiping
their websites of any diversityand inclusion language.
We're starting to seeorganizations rebrand
their entire initiative.
So I've seen companies whohave rebranded their diversity,
equity, inclusion ascolleague engagement,
as listening and empowermentand whatever else.

(42:46):
I've seen manydifferent iterations.
And I think a lotof organizations,
those in particular whohave not explicitly come out
with a PR statement sayingwe're rolling back our DEI,
I've seen a lot of organizationstry to get to a place
where they can hidetheir activity.
Because mostorganizations, I want
to believe, engagein DEI, not so much
the performativeones that happened
in the last couple of years,but the organizations that

(43:09):
have had decades, sometimesdecades, of activity.
They recognize thatfundamentally, DEI
is good for their business.
They know that they canhire more competitively,
that they get thebest talent when
they have a focus on diversity,equity, and inclusion.
Those organizations wantto continue doing the work,
but they no longer wantattention for that work.
And so they're tryingto hide it in some ways.
And we're in a veryunprecedented time right now.

(43:30):
Nothing is normal right now.
We've never seenleadership in our country
use the platform topunish individual people
and punish individualinstitutions.
And so I understand some of thefear that's certainly there.

JILL FINLAYSON (43:43):
It does seem rather Orwellian,
telling people whatwords they can use,
how they can talkabout their work.
Is there anything wecan do to fight back
on this list of terminology?
Because these are good words.
These accurately describewhat we need to do.

BO YOUNG LEE (43:58):
Not only are they good words,
but they areobjectively just words.
Like, I know one of thewords is obviously diversity.
But how do you, as ascientist, for example,
submit a grant intothe NIH and talking
about diversity of genome?
Like, what alternative isthere than the word diversity?

(44:20):
Like, are you goingto say we're going
to look at differences ingenome pattern versus diversity
of genome?
I guess that's what people aregoing to have to start doing.
Some of the terminologythey're using,
I can see whythey're attacking it.
We know that, for example,especially in the diversity,
equity, and inclusionspace, I have
moved towards using the phrasepregnant people because I

(44:40):
recognize that there aretransgender people who are fully
capable of getting it.
And I will saypeople with uteruses.
That is languagethat I choose to use
because it signals who I am.
But I also use thatlanguage knowing
that it could triggerother individuals who don't
align with me philosophically.
And so I understand whythey have weaponized
some of that language.

(45:01):
But there are words therethat are simply nomenclature.
Like, you're not supposedto say pregnancy, even.
I think pregnancy, theword pregnant is on there.
I'm like, breastfeedingis on there.
Something like genderaffirming is on there.
And I'm just like, theterm gender affirming
is such an interesting term.
And the idea ofgender affirming care

(45:21):
is such an interestingidea, right?
People have such aproblem with gender
affirming care when itcomes to transgender people.
I always tell people thebulk of gender affirming care
goes towards cisgender peoplewho identify as the sex they
were assigned at birth.
I'm like, do you recognizethat the vast majority

(45:42):
of hormone replacement therapygoes towards women and men?
A lot of men whoare middle aged,
a lot of women whoare middle aged who
are going through thatchange in life, get so much
benefit from hormonereplacement therapy.
The hormone treatment thattransgender people get
is a tiny sliver, becausetransgender people make up
less than 1% of our population.

(46:02):
I try to tell people, I'mlike, the vast majority
of breast implants gotowards cisgender women,
and that is genderaffirming care.
And Viagra is gender affirmingcare for cisgender men.
And we see thisover and over again.
When a minoritycommunity gets attacked,
it will have a reverberatingnegative implication
to all of us.

JILL FINLAYSON (46:22):
Absolutely.
And I think that is areally critical point,
is that this doesn't just harmthe marginalized community.
This harms everyone.
It changes all of theserules and definitions,
which kind of leads us backto this whole systemic rules.
And so if these rules getinto artificial intelligence,
what are we going to see?

BO YOUNG LEE (46:42):
I mean, we're seeing it right now already.
We know that, for example, ifwe look at generative AI, so
the large languagemodels that we're
seeing like ChatGPT or Claude,or Grok 3 and so forth,
we already know that there wasa research paper not that long
ago that shows that, forexample, these large language
models, they are more likely tojudge a user as being uneducated

(47:05):
if they use African-AmericanVernacular English.
How did a largelanguage model learn
that somehow, African-AmericanVernacular English
is lower class or less educatedthan standard American English,
for example?
We know, for example,that agentic AI--
so AI agents thatare built with very

(47:26):
little to no human interaction--be able to execute tasks.
We know that helperAIs, for example,
those that are meantto be assistants,
are more likely to beanthropomorphized as women.
And those agents that aredecision making agents
or creative agents like thosethat are created to write code,
those are oftentimesanthropomorphized to be male.
And so one of thethings that we're

(47:47):
seeing right now from anartificial intelligence
perspective, is that the samebiases that we see in our larger
society are now being exhibitedon these artificial intelligence
platforms.
And the really problematicthing about this
is we talk early onabout the difference
between one individual beingbiased versus a system being
biased, right?

(48:08):
The differencebetween systemic bias
versus justindividual prejudice.
Well, think about artificialintelligence as, like,
a systematic bias on steroids.
The level ofquantifying capability
of artificialintelligence surpasses
humans by billions and trillionsand gigs of difference.
And so a bias that gets built,that is learned through the data

(48:31):
that we use to programartificial intelligence,
then is manifestover and over again.
And I'll give you anotherreally great example of this.
So there was ahealth care system
that was created to helpinsurers and help hospitals
determine what kind of careshould be given and to whom.
Well, the health caresystem that was created

(48:51):
utilized historical dataon health care utilization.
And even thoughthat the programmers
of that algorithm and the systemexplicitly excluded race--
because they knew that there wasso much racial bias in the US
health care system-- eventhough they explicitly
excluded race, whatthey found over time,
is that that health care systempersistently and consistently

(49:14):
recommended lesseramounts of care
for Black patients and morecare for white patients
because what the data showedis that Black patients
get less care.
We have historically used lessresources on Black patients,
and we have historicallyused more for white patients.
And so if you heldall other factors

(49:36):
and you just took out race,that same bias was still there.
Even though inthe United States,
we know that Black people tendto get sicker because they have
less access topreventative care,
and doctors also tend to taketheir concerns less seriously,
even though Black patientshave worse outcomes, like have
worse health statisticsin the United States
and therefore, shouldjustifiably get more care,

(49:58):
this health care artificialintelligence agent
was recommending less.
And they were trying tocontrol-- the programmers were
actually trying to be good.
They were like, we're goingto control for race because we
know that our system is racist.
They still saw the sameoutcome because the system
was already biased.
And now it's like anartificial intelligence
that hundreds of thousandsof hospitals can use.

JILL FINLAYSON (50:20):
And this is where that socioeconomic line
comes into play as well.
If you look at how muchmoney people spend on health,
well, wealthier peoplespend more money
on health than poorer people.
And so if you'regoing to extrapolate
use and needs fromthat, you're obviously
going to have a problem.
This sounds like a whole othertopic that we need to unpack.
Would you mind coming backand talking just about

(50:41):
how we're seeingchanges in AI affect
our behaviors in the real world,and how that's exacerbating
some of these DEI concerns?

BO YOUNG LEE (50:49):
I would love to.

JILL FINLAYSON (50:50):
That would be amazing.
Well, let me ask you one followon question before we close out
today.
One of my colleagues, ProfessorJohn A. Powell from the Othering
and BelongingInstitute here at Cal,
pointed out that while the arcof the moral universe is long,
it bends toward justice.
But he said it onlybends if we bend it.
So where do we go from here?
What is your advicefor people who

(51:11):
are trying to fight thegood fight in making sure
that everybody feelslike they belong at work?

BO YOUNG LEE (51:17):
So I've always said
that there are threecomponents that you
need to have in order tomake change in the workplace.
The first thing youneed to have is you
need to have data, whichwe already talked about.
The second thing youneed to have is you
need to have leadership buy-in.
If leaders aren'ton board, it doesn't
matter what you do, you're notgoing to make progress, right?
So you've got to havethose conversations
with Mark Zuckerbergand with Elon Musk
and with all these CEOsthat are out there.

(51:38):
But the third thingyou need to have--
and this is actuallythe most critical,
but it's oftentimes thething that's lacking--
is you need to have courage.
The work takes courage, and ittakes having hard conversations
and doing things that makesome people uncomfortable.
To add to John is the arc ofthe moral universe is long,
but it bends towards justice.
But you have to dosomething, and that thing

(51:58):
is oftentimes only possible ifyou have the courage to do it.
So I would say to individuals,have the courage to speak up.
Have the courage to saysomething before it's too late
and we're not allowedto say things.

JILL FINLAYSON (52:10):
And I think it's great
that people are having theseconversations at town halls.
We're seeing people boycottingTarget and boycotting Amazon
because they don't agree withtheir abandonment of these DEI
principles.
And so I thinkit's great to hear
that we can have an influencewhen we oftentimes feel
like we can't have influence.

BO YOUNG LEE (52:32):
Absolutely.
And I know we'rewrapping things up here,
but I'll just say, like, wesaw when Apple took their DEI
proposal to their shareholders,and we saw Costco.
And to your point,their investors
were like, nope, keepdoing it because we know
it's good for business, right?
The irony in all ofthat is that last year,
John Deere made a statementsaying that they were
rolling back some of their DEI.

(52:52):
And they actually did taketheir proposal to their board
afterwards, so very recently,after they made that statement
that they were pulling back.
And only 1.3% oftheir investors said
you should pull back on DEI.
Like, 98% of theirinvestors said, no.
DEI is good for us.
Had they just waited?
Had they just waited to take theconversation to their investors,

(53:14):
the proposal, they would havehad a very different outcome,
and their brand took a hit.
Same thing for Target.
I'm sure if Target had takenthis to their investors,
the investors would havebeen like, what do you mean?
You've just spent the last20 years building your brand
on recognizingdiverse communities,
women, people of color, LGBTQ.
Your customer base is primarilyGen Z and Millennial women.

(53:36):
And who supports DEImore than anybody?
It's that community.
So what I would say toorganizations is, don't be rash.
This is a momentin time in history.
But at the end ofthe day, I am very
optimistic that we'll alwaysneed diversity, equity,
and inclusion.

JILL FINLAYSON: Thanks so much, Bo. (53:51):
undefined
This is a great placeto pause as we unpack
our current state of DEI.
We look forward to having youback next month to continue
this conversationand take a deeper
dive into AI and itsimpact in the real world
and on our behaviors.
So stay tuned for more on thisimportant and evolving topic.
In the meantime, please sharethis with friends and colleagues

(54:11):
who may be interested in takingthis Future of Work journey
with us, and makesure to check out
extension.berkeley.edu tofind a variety of courses
to help you thrive in thisnew working landscape.
And to see what's comingup at EDGE in Tech,
go ahead and visitedge.berkeley.edu.
Thanks so much forlistening, and I'll
be back next month tocontinue our conversation.
Until next time, TheFuture of Work podcast

(54:32):
is hosted by Jill Finlayson,produced by Sarah Benzuly,
edited by Matt Dipietro,Natalie Newman, and Alicia Liao.
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