I don't usually convey personal opinions on this blog but in the interest of full disclosure, I will open this entry to say that I am big fan of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. As a woman in engineering, DEI initiatives have helped me put my disconnects into words, bond with my fellow women, and try to be a better ally and listener for, well, everybody. I am also insulted by the accusation that we can't have diversity AND good teams - it's like saying that I can't be diverse (a woman) and also a good engineer. I am just trying to be myself. I can't be anything else.
But this week the accusation is that DEI has driven us to hire terrible candidates and develop unqualified employees all over the place and it must be stopped, so I'm turning back to this blog, which is about numbers, to just look at numbers. In life, when emotional people bring drama, I try to bring facts. When I am uneasy, spreadsheets make me feel better.
Amid memes going around with companies abandoning DEI, I turned to this Forbes Article: All The Major Companies Dumping Their DEI Programs (Full List) and pulled stock prices from all the companies they mentioned, whether they were leaving or keeping their DEI programs.
If the DEI protests are right, all of these companies should be struggling under the weight of their underqualified DEI boat anchors - let's see.
| Company | Stock | Exchange | 1/15/15 Price | 1/16/25 Price | Change |
| Target | TGT | NYSE | 75.67 | 133.25 | 5.82% |
| Amazon | AMZN | NASDAQ | 14.35 | 220.66 | 31.43% |
| Meta | META | NASDAQ | 75.91 | 613.87 | 23.25% |
| McDonalds | MCD | NYSE | 91.38 | 279.74 | 11.84% |
| Walmart | WMT | NYSE | 29.13 | 91.3 | 12.10% |
| Boeing | BA | NYSE | 130.14 | 168.93 | 2.64% |
| Coors | TAP | NYSE | 74.56 | 54.98 | -3.00% |
| Lowes | LOW | NYSE | 66.35 | 258.78 | 14.58% |
| Ford | F | NYSE | 14.86 | 10.01 | -3.87% |
| Jack Daniels | BF.B | NYSE | 35.5 | 34.08 | -0.41% |
| Harley Davidson | HOG | NYSE | 62.64 | 29.64 | -7.21% |
| John Deere | DE | NYSE | 87.2 | 439.11 | 17.55% |
| Costco* | COST | NASDAQ | 139.31 | 919.75 | 20.77% |
| Apple* | AAPL | NASDAQ | 26.71 | 228.26 | 23.93% |
| Delta Airlines* | DAL | NYSE | 45.05 | 66.18 | 3.92% |
| Cisco* | CSCO | NASDAQ | 27.41 | 59.82 | 11.54% |
* Indicates companies who have publicly stated that they are keeping their DEI programs in place.
To find average rate over a 10 year period, I used the compound interest formula in google sheets rate(10,0,-PV,FV). I picked 1/16/25 as my end date because it is right before the US presidential office changed hands.
- From 2015-2025, companies with DEI policies in the news grew an average 10.09% per year.
- If I throw out Amazon for being an outlier, the growth is still 8.67%.
- If I average the four companies in the news for sticking with their DEI policies, their average is 14.19%. I realize four isn't a huge sample size but... isn't it interesting?
I would like to revisit this entry in the future to see what effect this news has, but for now I will close this entry with the stock price chart for Costco. Their shareholders voted overwhelmingly to stick to their DEI values and the proxy statement addressing their reasons why is a very good read. It does list financial performance as ONE reason they promote diversity, and if you look at the chart below it's easy to see the evidence. Growth like this strongly suggests that it's just good business to have an inclusive workforce where people are appreciated for who they are.
After writing this post, I ordered 1 share of Costco.
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