There seems to be the belief among many of you that companies hire the best candidates. In turn, when those hired are white males, it seems to reinforce (ridiculous) stereotypes about women and minorities. There is research that demonstrates the biases that exist in hiring/promotion and how it affects many different groups, but in particular women, minorities, those from poorer demographic groups, and older workers. For an overview, look at this New York Times opinion piece [nytimes.com]; following some of the references might be enlightening. Some of you might view the entrance of startups [nytimes.com] into this area as proof that something is going on.

There seems to be the belief among many of you that companies hire the best candidates. In turn, when those hired are white males, it seems to reinforce (ridiculous) stereotypes about women and minorities. There is research that demonstrates the biases that exist in hiring and how it affects many different groups, but in particular women, minorities, those from poorer demographic groups, and older workers. For an overview, look at this New York Times opinion piece; following some of the references might be enlightening. Some of you might view the entrance of startups into this area as proof that something is going on.

I forgot to mention that Feynman's Messenger Lectures were the basis of the book "The Character of Physical Law."

The original post refers to the videos being available. This seems to be a common error. The link points to the Messenger Lectures given at Cornell in 1965(?). As far as I know, the videos are not (legally) available online.