{"id":29634,"date":"2014-10-23T17:15:54","date_gmt":"2014-10-23T09:15:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=29634"},"modified":"2025-01-30T05:04:53","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T10:04:53","slug":"retired-laker-star-magic-johnson-offers-to-help-silicon-valley-find-more-black-latino-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/10\/23\/retired-laker-star-magic-johnson-offers-to-help-silicon-valley-find-more-black-latino-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"Retired Laker star Magic Johnson offers to help Silicon Valley find more black, Latino workers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Magic<\/a>
Magic Johnson. Randy Miramontez \/ Shutterstock.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SAN JOSE, Calif.\u2014Retired Los Angeles Laker Magic Johnson became famous for dishing out assists to his teammates during his Hall of Fame basketball career. Now, as an entrepreneur focused on minority markets, he says he is ready to help Silicon Valley hire more blacks and Latinos to diversify the technology industry\u2019s largely white and Asian workforce.<\/p>\n

Johnson believes his own Beverly Hills, California-based company could connect major technology employers with more African-American and Hispanic engineers if they call upon him. Magic Johnson Enterprises provides financing and consulting for businesses seeking to operate in cities with large minority populations.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to make sure the Apples and Googles of the world get together with others who know what they are doing and who can make a difference, whether it\u2019s myself or somebody else,\u201d Johnson told The Associated Press Wednesday. He made his remarks after appearing at a Silicon Valley conference put on by software maker Intuit Inc., one of many technology companies that have recently released reports confirming their payrolls consist primarily of white and Asian men.<\/p>\n

The lack of diversity has embarrassed an industry that prides itself on its progressive thinking and meritocratic policies. Google, Apple and Facebook have all vowed to take steps to create workforces that look more like the overall population.<\/p>\n

Silicon Valley has a lot of ground to make up. At Intuit, African-Americans make up just 4 per cent of its workforce while Latinos represent 6 per cent. It\u2019s even worse at Google and Facebook, where just 2 per cent of the U.<\/p>\n

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S. staff is black. Cutting across the U.S. in all industries, 12 per cent of the workforce is black and 14 per cent is Hispanic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think it\u2019s important that our employee base reflects the customers we serve, and we aren\u2019t where we need to be,\u201d Intuit CEO Brad Smith said Wednesday. \u201cMagic\u2019s offer? I won\u2019t be surprised if we take him up on it.<\/p>\n

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He is clearly a brilliant man and he understands how to (diversify).\u201d<\/p>\n

Besides running his own company, Johnson also is co-owner of the Los Angeles Sparks in the Women\u2019s National Basketball Association, which has the best diversity record among professional sports leagues, according to recent study by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics. Johnson also is part of a group that owns the Los Angeles Dodgers in Major League Baseball.<\/p>\n

Johnson, 55, was mentioned in the racially charged remarks that led to the NBA\u2019s ouster of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, who denigrated Johnson as a bad role model for children because he had HIV. More recently, Johnson criticized Atlanta Hawks ownership and management for derogatory comments about blacks.<\/p>\n

Unlike those situations, Johnson isn\u2019t interpreting the Silicon Valley\u2019s diversity issues as a sign of blatant discrimination.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you think about the leaders of these (technology) companies, they know they have to do something,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cIt\u2019s just a matter of understanding who to reach out to, who to partner with and then making sure that everybody wins. It\u2019s time to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SAN JOSE, Calif.\u2014Retired Los Angeles Laker Magic Johnson became famous for dishing out assists to his teammates during his Hall …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":29635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","mauthors-michael-liedtke","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":286968,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29634\/revisions\/286968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}