Amplitude’s commitment to diversity and inclusion

As an analytics company, we’re always thinking about growth. We ask ourselves constantly how we can help our customers leverage data to grow their product and their business. That’s one of the reasons we’ve made **growth mindset** one of the three cultural values we want every Ampliteer to exhibit. For Amplitude as a whole, growth mindset doesn’t only pertain to adding more features to the product or getting more customers. It means growing our ideas. We can’t grow as a company if we remain static, fixed in our ways. We can’t grow as a company if the ideas we come up with are unchallenged. That’s why having diversity of thought in the workplace is essential to our company’s success. Diverse thoughts come from diverse individuals. Diverse teams help to build better products and better companies. [Tweet “Diverse teams help to build better products and better companies.”] Back in March, with the formation of the diversity team, Amplitude started taking its first steps towards addressing diversity in the workplace. Today, I want to talk about what diversity is at Amplitude and share our commitment to diversity, inclusion, and even mico inclusion in the workplace.

Defining diversity at Amplitude

Diversity at Amplitude encompasses all the characteristics of an individual that contribute to diversity of thought. This includes:

• Individual diversity: differences in life experiences, personality, learning styles
• Social group diversity: differences in race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, gender, sexual orientation, age

Achieving diversity of thought

There are a number of studies about the impact of diversity in any kind of team or organization. One well-known study conducted at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign investigated the impact of racial diversity on the ability of a small group to solve a murder mystery exercise. Some of the three-person groups in the study consisted of all white students, some had two white students and one non-white student. Groups that were racially diverse outperformed groups with no racial diversity in being able to successfully solve the exercise. The researchers concluded:

The same study found that when we hear a novel or dissenting perspective from someone who looks different from us, it provokes more thought and more discussion than if the same perspective comes from a person who looks like us. We pay attention to the ideas of people who are different from us. Having a diverse workplace means having diverse ideas. Having diverse ideas means we can discuss, debate, and evaluate different perspectives until we find the ‘best’ idea to implement. [Tweet “We pay attention to the ideas of people who are different from us.”] The challenge, however, is in creating a workplace environment where diverse ideas can be expressed freely and valued. That’s why looking within ourselves internally and cultivating a workplace of empathy and inclusion is our first priority. Our diversity mission statement reflects exactly that.

Amplitude’s Diversity and Inclusion Mission Statement

At Amplitude, we strive to recognize and value every individual’s differences in order to create an inclusive environment that enables people to maximize their potential, and thereby support the success of the company and workplace.

Over the next several months, we’ll be putting in place the right framework for measuring our progress toward cultivating an inclusive workplace. But ultimately, our measure for success is simple. When every employee, taking into account their own individual or social differences, is asked whether they would recommend Amplitude as a place to work, we want the answer to be yes.

Our commitment to diversity

The diversity team now includes individuals across engineering, sales, and marketing, each of whom has shown incredible ownership and initiative in setting up Amplitude to be a more inclusive environment and creating an environment that invites more diversity of thought. So far:

• We have created a diversity deck and will incorporate diversity training for all of our new hires.
• We are evaluating a diversity training proposal specifically tailored to Amplitude’s needs and foresee this training happening within the next 2 months.
• Internally, we are recognizing employees showing diverse thought leadership every month.
• We will be sponsoring a networking dinner for Girls in Tech this month.
• Starting next month, the Amplitude blog will feature stories related to diversity and inclusion at least once a month.
  These efforts won’t be in isolation from the rest of the company. The executive staff at Amplitude is extending its full support for the diversity team’s efforts. We will be keeping diversity top of mind and continuing to strive to make Amplitude the best possible workplace for all of its employees.