DEI Is About To DIE
DEI is dying not because fairness is wrong, but because bureaucracy is.
When virtue becomes a department, it turns into a budget. Budgets seek survival, not truth. Soon the mission becomes the headcount.
Diversity was a discovery of differences. Then it became a display. Optics replaced outcomes. Counting faces is easier than building places where talent compounds.
Equity tried to equalize results instead of opportunities. You can redistribute titles, not skill. Reality always reasserts itself through performance.
Inclusion by mandate creates exclusion by fear.
People self-censor. Teams tiptoe. Creativity dies where language is policed and curiosity is suspicious.
Status games dressed as morality are still status games. They reward signaling over shipping. Customers don’t pay for slogans. They pay for solved problems.
Markets are mercy. They care about whether you deliver. Code compiles or it doesn’t. Revenue is unbiased. Excellence is the fairest referee we’ve found.
The pendulum overshot. It always does. Now the reversion begins. Quietly, companies will return to the only selection criteria that scale.
Competence and character.
Merit isn’t a caste. It’s a moving target. Anyone can catch it with compounding practice. That’s what makes it moral.
Real inclusion is simple: widen the funnel, remove frictions, and stop meddling with the finish line. Open applications. Blind auditions. Transparent pay bands. Apprenticeships for the un-networked. Then get out of the way.
If you want more builders from every background, teach the craft, not the catechism. Replace workshops on language with workshops on leverage: writing, coding, selling, thinking.
A culture of excellence is the most inclusive culture. High standards are impersonal. They don’t care where you came from. They care what you can do.
Treat people as individuals, not avatars of groups. Labels shrink humans. Names expand them. Dignity is one-to-one.
The future is merit masked as automation. Tests over resumes. Portfolios over pedigrees. Open-source over gatekeepers. Global hiring over local politics. The best idea will travel farther than any policy memo.
DEI will die the way all top-down fads die. Quietly, then suddenly.
What remains will be older and wiser: equal rights, equal rules, unequal outcomes, and abundant opportunity.
Play long-term games with long-term people. Drop the signaling. Ship value.
Excellence is inclusion.