I work in Silicon Valley and have worked at several startups. I am also white. I am also the minority. In most of the companies where I have worked, the majority of the software people have been Indian or Asian. Other jobs in the companies seem to be predominantly white/American. Why do I think this is? Well, our education system and values are a good start. We have been trying to grow the company and have several head count to fill. Most candidates coming in the door are also Indian or Asian, have at *minimum* a Master's degree or PhD, and are very driven to succeed. We pick candidates solely based on their skill sets. If a green girl with tentacles came into the office and was a good technical and business culture fit, we would hire them. Want to get more African-American and Latinos in our doors? Make them better candidates. Period.

I work for a 28-person startup and we're pretty evenly distributed across the board.

Sounds like somebody got turned down by Facebook...

I am getting close to 40 (geez, really?) and have had no problem. Could it be that the people complaining simply don't have the skills necessary to compete? I think that it is more that these 20-year-olds turned CTO/CIO/CEO simply have no clue what they're doing, and are hiring people that are style over substance. However, I could be wrong. After all, if you cannot use the newest up-and-coming technology, what do you have to offer, anyway?

Obama? Pfft... it's the government officials that we *didn't* vote for that should scare you. While I agree with you, I think the point isn't that snatching people up off the streets happens. It is that allowing things like this just brings us one step closer to that reality.

It starts with.. "Hold my beer"

Well, I guess that it's a good thing that hardly anybody has signed up!

Absolutely.

To paraphrase Carl Sagan/Contact:

Why build one device, when you can build two for twice the cost?