While I do believe that diversity is important, I believe that the recent focus on diversity is a little bit overblown and diversity should only be important up until a certain extent. I believe diversity is important in solving problems because different viewpoints and ways of looking at problems can lead to solving problems that may not have been solved if there was not diversity within the problem solvers. This is extremely important because it will allow companies to be able to solve problems that they may not have otherwise. Having people from different backgrounds will allow for different ways of solving problems and can lead to an overall better program. This is why I believe that diversity is important, but I also believe that the recent focus on diversity is too much and that diversity should never be the sole focus for deciding on whether or not to hire a candidate. I believe that, recently, there has been this focus on diversity because companies will be ostracized if they do not publish higher and higher diversity numbers. I believe that once this wave of diversity focus started, it became impossible for it to stop as companies can be shamed or ostracized by the general public for not putting this same focus on diversity that other companies are at the same time. As a result of this, we have seen a lot of companies starting to offer internships and job programs specifically for women and minorities as they look to give this demographic a specific avenue to be able to get into their company. However, I believe that this is unfair and should not be a common practice by companies. While I do understand the point of view coming from this demographic that says there could be a bias against them in the general hiring pool, I believe that gender and race should not be considered at all when hiring. This again goes back to my belief that technology and all industries actually should be hiring based solely off of merit and that hiring diversity for diversity’s sake is wrong. Companies should be hiring the best candidates and have a duty and responsibility to their employees and stockholders to be hiring the best possible candidates at every hiring cycle. If a company is willing to sacrifice quality in their new hires to solely hire a person of a specific demographic, then I believe that this is wrong. This also would include hiring the demographic that everyone assumes gets this benefit of the doubt, and I believe that hiring white men just because they are a white man is completely wrong and the best candidates should always be hired. This is why I believe that these diversity programs are wrong because, I believe, there should be one hiring pool where race and gender are not looked at and the only thing that is looked at is the quality of your candidacy and whether or not you would fit into the culture of the company. Hiring someone for any other reason is wrong in my opinion and should not be a common practice.