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Tristan Walker is successful by anyone's standards: He went to a top-notch prep school, graduated valedictorian at college, went on to become a trader on Wall Street, earned an MBA at Stanford, and then helped to launch the location app Foursquare.

But what makes Walker so remarkable is that he is one of the few African-Americans to rise up the ranks in Silicon Valley.

Recently, the Valley's biggest names revealed appalling workplace demographics, including dismal statistics on the number of African-Americans and Hispanics working in the higher levels of the industry.

Walker, founder and CEO of Walker & Company Brands, is actively working to diversify Silicon Valley as chronicled in today's Fast Company article by J.J. McCorvey. Walker and McCorvey discussed the causes of Silicon Valley's diversity problem, and how to fix it.

Interview Highlights

On why there is a lack of diversity in Silicon Valley

Tristan Walker: I think in Silicon Valley we like to talk about two problems. There's the access problem where they're not enough folks well networked into the Valley to get jobs in some of these larger companies. But I like to think a little bit more broadly about the awareness problem. I didn't have any idea about Silicon Valley until I moved out here six years ago to go to business school, and that's a problem. I think once that's fixed, I think a lot of Silicon Valley's problems will be fixed.

On if there is explicit discrimination in Silicon Valley

Walker: I don't think that there is too much explicit bias in Silicon Valley, but there's quite a bit of implicit bias. When I think about our company and the type of diversity we want to bring about, we ask our investors things like, "Do you know any folks of color or a woman who might excel in this role?" before you think of other candidates. And that's led us to having a majority-minority team, a majority woman team, and I think the more companies embrace fixing implicit bias over explicit, a lot will change.

J.J. McCorvey: There's just a lot of exclusionary practices that people are just not aware that they are in existence at their companies. For example, if you're looking to fill a position for a new engineer, you're relying on employee referrals as your sole means of recruiting. Well if your company is already majority white you're not going to get diverse candidates to fill that job.

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On how recruiting methods can change

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McCorvey: The fact that there are more diverse graduates in STEM who are not getting these jobs I think that points to the unconscious bias that is happening. When we talk about who you're going to when you're recruiting, the schools that you're going to, a lot of top tech companies go to specific schools when looking to fill positions. And what you see now happening is that Google, for example, is saying that they're broadening their search when recruiting graduates. They're starting to go to HBCUs —Historically Black Colleges and Universities — to fill positions. That should've been done.

On the problem with whiteboard interviews

Walker: So one of the things that was interesting for Code2040 (the nonprofit Walker founded) was our first summer we had five fellows...and at the end of their summer internships, they went to interview at a lot of large technology companies, and we noticed that there were a few companies that they weren't getting full-time offers from. For a lot of these interviews, these students had to do whiteboard interviews where you're asked an engineering question and you have to go to a whiteboard and solve it. One of the things that we found is that none of these fellows ever had experience doing that before. So it begs the question — is there something wrong with the fellows? Probably not. Or is there something wrong with your interview process? Maybe.

On why the importance of diversifying the tech industry

Walker: Here's why I think it's so incredibly important: the demographic shift happening in this country is the greatest economic opportunity in my lifetime. Increasingly, folks of color not only lead culture, but are some of the most important consumer demographic groups in the country, let alone the world. So, if you're a technology company at the bleeding edge of innovation you really want to understand this consumer group better than anyone else. And if you look out 20, 30 years from now and folks of color are kind of the majority of the country, let's assume Facebook were built then, would it be Spanish language first or English first? Would it be Android first or iPhone first? You really have to start asking these questions, and the best way to really get at the core of these questions that need to be asked is to have these types of folks within your organization. So it's incredibly important, not just from the social perspective but also the bottom line.

Silicon Valley

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Microsoft — a company most associated with Word documents and Excel spreadsheets — is getting a makeover.

Under new leadership, the software developer is analyzing vast troves of data about its users to create social tools for the workplace. They've got the goods — just think of all those Office emails that bind us together — but the question is, will customers want to cozy up socially with Microsoft, on and off the job?

Old Data, New Strategy

"Microsoft: the social network" is, at first glance, a strange idea. But it makes a kind of sense. While Facebook may have the best map of our personal relationships, Microsoft has the best map of our work lives.

"What drives me, is for you to be able to get more out of every moment of your life," says Satya Nadella, Microsoft's new CEO. "You want to be able to create a document, get to a meeting, be productive in the meeting, have your notes taken in the meeting automatically for you."

While many companies block social media sites in the workplace, companies pay Microsoft to be on the inside, and to store internal documents, calendar items, meeting notes and attendees, contacts and more.

According to a recent quarterly earnings report, more than 1 billion people use Office — that's 1 out of every 7 people on Earth. With just a bit of Big Data analysis, Microsoft could create social tools to help users decide what and who is important to them.

"In a world of abundance of computing, the only thing scarce is human attention," Nadella says. "And our job is to be able to help you get more out of those moments of your life."

And "those moments" don't have to be just from 9 to 5 — Nadella says he wants users to get as much out of the programs in the personal lives as they do at work.

Microsoft is racing to get its web-based version of Office, which is called Office 365, on every smartphone and tablet — which they recently decided to do for free.

That way, Microsoft's personal assistant can follow you everywhere and get more personal. For example, it could integrate your GPS location with your to-do list so that when you step inside your home, you get a reminder.

i i

Microsoft's Gurdeep Singh Pall spoke with reporters last week at the company headquarters in Redmond, Wash. He explained how Microsoft would analyze data to figure out a user's priorities. Brian Smale/Microsoft hide caption

itoggle caption Brian Smale/Microsoft

Microsoft's Gurdeep Singh Pall spoke with reporters last week at the company headquarters in Redmond, Wash. He explained how Microsoft would analyze data to figure out a user's priorities.

Brian Smale/Microsoft

"These are the things that I should be talking to my daughter about or showing her these things," Nadella says. "That's the idea — of being able to be contextually aware."

Smarter Services

Last week, Nadella invited a handful of journalists to company headquarters in Redmond, Wash., to hear the game plan and meet the managers who will make this happen.

Gurdeep Singh Pall explains that as Microsoft mines the data, it can figure out your priorities. Say you're about to delete an invite to a party, he says. Microsoft might alert you: "Don't delete it, because this happens to be a company party, and this message was sent to a lot of important people in the company."

Julie Larson-Green says that if she wanted to meet with two co-workers who were in different locations, "it can do smart suggestions on where would be best place for us to meet given the time of day, the traffic, the distance between our locations."

Microsoft wants these social features to work inside and outside a company's walls, so that when you jump into a meeting with outsiders, you're prepared.

Nadella also says his group is firm on the revenue model for these projects.

"We're clear that it's about subscriptions," he says. "We want to have a subscription offer, which is for every individual and every organization. And it's not about advertising."

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But Al Hilwa, an analyst with IDC who used to work at Microsoft, says there could be pitfalls if users aren't given enough control.

"Using Office 365 can't be like using Facebook," Hilwa says. "That doesn't make sense, and that would be a big problem."

Hilwa says that our professional lives are different from our online identities, and that information on Facebook may typically gets shared with everyone, it can't work that way in a workplace.

"If users are in charge of controlling what bits and pieces of facts they can let out, as far as their social graph, then maybe I could see how this might work," Hilwa says.

A key challenge for Microsoft, he says, will be to figure out how to share discretely, without being creepy or irritating.

Big Data

workplace

Microsoft

It's lunchtime in Douglas, Wyo., a town smack in the middle of the state's booming oil patch, and the line of cars at the McDonald's drive-through wraps around the building. A hiring poster hangs in the window, and the parking lot is full.

Troy Hilbish, a tool hand for the oil field servicing company Schlumberger, says while he didn't know oil prices have been falling, he does know what falling prices mean.

"If the oil prices go up, we drill more," Hilbish says. "If they go down, we don't drill as much."

With gas prices plunging below $3 a gallon in recent weeks, American motorists have plenty to celebrate.

But in oil-producing states like North Dakota and Wyoming, that celebration is muted. If prices stay low, it means fewer jobs and less revenue for governments. While there's concern in those states, there's no panic — yet.

In Wyoming, Hilbish says he has seen prices tank before.

"I ended up picking up a second job and worked on a drilling rig, which was pretty tough," he says. "I got two hours of sleep for three days out of the week." Hilbish fared better than some of his colleagues, who simply got laid off.

Not In Panic Mode, So Far

Oil prices have fallen by more than a quarter since June, and most analysts expect they'll stay low for a while. That poses a problem for shale oil in particular, which has fueled the U.S. oil boom in recent years.

Because shale oil is more expensive to drill than conventional oil, prices have to stay relatively high for it to be profitable.

"Nobody around here is in a panic mode, by any means," says Jim Willox, commissioner for Converse County, which includes Douglas. Like his counterparts in Texas and North Dakota, Willox says so far, lower prices haven't led to a discernible slowdown.

"Right now, I think there's 18 rigs in Converse County that are exploring," he says. "That's one of the highest numbers we've had. We've sat at 10 to 12 to 13 for quite a while. Suddenly, we have 18."

Willox says most people in Douglas are still talking about how much more drilling there's going to be, not whether it's going to slow down. But he acknowledges that historically, energy booms do go bust.

"Nobody knows where we are on the curve," he says. "Are we still on the upward curve? Have we peaked? Are we plateaued? Nobody really knows."

Consultant Niles Hushka recently studied the break-even price — the point when companies start losing money — for oil drilling, county by county, in North Dakota. The break-even price varies wildly by location because of geology and infrastructure, among other things, Hushka says.

"I think what we're seeing right now is an industry that can't quite figure out what's happening," he says.

Hushka's analysis shows that at current prices, drilling new wells is already unprofitable in some places, but not everywhere.

"The industry doesn't want to overreact, because this is an industry that's used to boom-bust cycles," he says. "You have to be careful to make sure that the cycle is a true cycle, and that you're not seeing false statistics and so you might make some decisions that will hurt you."

State budget officers are also scrambling to figure out what's going on. North Dakota gets half of its revenue from oil and had been counting on oil prices staying around $90 a barrel for the next few years.

But last week, the state's revenue estimating group reduced that figure by as much as $18 a barrel. Over hundreds of millions of barrels, that quickly adds up.

States New To Drilling May Feel The Pinch First

Other oil-dependent states are in similar situations.

"It's a heck of a lot less damaging to the state's budget if we miss it on the low side than if we miss it on the high side," says Dan Noble, director of Wyoming's Department of Revenue.

Parallels

As Oil Prices Fall, Who Wins And Who Loses?

Right now, Wyoming is projecting $85 a barrel. Noble says if prices go lower, the state will need to revise its figures. But he's also hoping that shale producers will wildly exceed everyone's expectations, as they have over the past couple of years.

"When they produce more, even though it may be at a lower price, you have another opportunity to actually reach your financial goal," Noble says.

That might be overly optimistic. Most experts agree that while well-developed oil fields like the Bakken in North Dakota and the Eagle Ford in Texas can probably withstand lower prices, areas like Wyoming, where drilling is still in its early days, are likely to feel the pinch.

Willox says that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

"If we develop it at a slower pace, that's OK, because we can deal with it better," he says.

But for workers like Hilbish, a slower pace also means fewer jobs. He's based in California but wants to move to Wyoming, where he's working now.

"I have six kids, a wife," he says. "I think family life up here would be better."

But he might want to wait a few months — and keep an eye on the price of a barrel of oil — before making that decision.

This story was produced by Inside Energy, a public media collaboration focused on America's energy issues.

HealthCare.gov barely worked when it launched last fall, with only six people able to enroll in a plan on opening day. But the new version of HealthCare.gov came out sometime Sunday night, and it's available for window shopping for the first time. A few things to know:

What's different about the site this year?

For starters, it's a working website. Its load times have improved substantially, and the administration says it can handle twice as much traffic volume as last year. For customers shopping for coverage, you actually browse plans — get a sense of what they cost, check eligibility for tax credits (which are under Supreme Court review) and decide whether you want to buy.

A Year Later, HealthCare.Gov Has Found Its Footing But Problems Remain

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Open enrollment doesn't start until Saturday, so if you go to the site today, what can you do there?

Besides window shopping, you can get an estimated eligibility of the tax credit to help lower premium costs. This was nearly impossible in the first version of HealthCare.gov, which made users jump through ridiculous hoops in creating a user profile, and then they ran into error after error until they either gave up or the site crashed on them.

What's the administration doing to prepare for high traffic to the site after open enrollment starts?

They have been working on contingency plans. President Obama talked about it a little last week, saying, "We're really making sure the website works super well. ... We're double- and triple-checking it."

The Washington Post got ahold of internal documents at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees HealthCare.gov, and found there's a new system in place that detects traffic overloads faster. If it works correctly, it will send users into separate online waiting rooms, instead of putting them in one long online queue, which is how things worked last open enrollment.

What other challenges could come up this year?

For every major software system, hacking is always a threat. Just today, the Postal Service disclosed hackers hit its system, getting employee information from tens of thousands. So to protect HealthCare.gov, programmers from the Department of Homeland Security are trying to hack into the site once a day to test its security.

One thing this system hasn't faced before that could be a concern is re-enrollment in health plans. We know that about 8 million people signed up for health insurance through the Obamacare exchanges last year. When the open enrollment period begins Saturday, those folks are going to re-up or choose new plans through HealthCare.gov.

It's also just a shorter open enrollment period. This year, it runs from Nov. 15 to Feb. 15. Last year, it opened earlier and stayed open longer. So you have a much shorter time frame to shop and buy, if you're in the market.

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