In the past, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has been praised for the degree to which its corporate culture promotes gender diversity. For instance, a third of the company’s founding partners are women and according to FT, women account for 9 out of the 30 partners who make key decisions. Here’s what CNN had to say [2] about the company last year in an article entitled “The Women Of Alibaba Put Silicon Valley To Shame”:
The worst kept secret in Silicon Valley is that tech firms have a major gender diversity problem. At company after company, men dominate the top jobs.
But it's a different story at Alibaba, the Chinese tech company racing toward the largest and most-anticipated IPO of the year.
Alibaba gave investors more details about how the company works this week, revealing for the first time that one third of its 27 partners are
women.
Some are founding partners, others have joined since and occupy top operational positions.
The company's chief financial officer is a woman. Chief customer officer? Chief people officer? The COO of its logistics business? Yep, all women.
“Yep.” And in an effort to keep the gender diversity spirit alive and well, the company is now hiring a woman for another key position: code monkey motivator. Ideal candidates will look like porn star Sora Aoi.
Via Bloomberg [3]:
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. withdrew a job advertisement seeking candidates who resemble a popular Japanese porn actress to motivate computer programmers after drawing criticism.
Asia’s biggest Internet company advertised on its website for applicants who know how to praise the “code monkeys,” wake them up and organize morning meetings. Physical characteristics similar to adult film star Sora Aoi may help the applicant succeed, it had said.
The ad comes as the U.S. tech industry is under fire for alleged sexism and discrimination. While Alibaba has drawn praise for the number of females employed in senior roles, the advertisement is being criticized on Chinese social media for being offensive.
“It’s not only an insult to women that such a job exists, it’s also an insult to men, especially programmers,” Li Weiyuan, a 26-year-old male and former programmer in Fujian, said by phone.
The posting was an attempt at humorous marketing to recruit talent, Alibaba said. While the company is still advertising for a programmer cheerleader, the reference to Sora Aoi has been removed and emphasizes that both men and women can apply.
“We apologize to anyone offended by this ad,” the Hangzhou, China-based company said in an e-mail. “Alibaba is committed to providing equal opportunity and fair treatment to all employees on the basis of merit, without discrimination.”
So while the company now claims that just any old "programmer cheerleader" will do, we imagine looking like Sora Aoi still wouldn't hurt which is why we've provided the following picture for anyone who thinks they might be a good candidate:
