Thinking Differently

Should businesses today be hiring for neurodiversity?

-  Tiana Cline

Stephen Schmidt is Amazon’s Chief Security Officer, which means he is the person responsible for keeping the online retailing giant (last valued at over a trillion dollars) safe. It’s a massive undertaking which is why when Schmidt did the keynote of a conference wearing a t-shirt with the slogan ‘ADHD: it’s not a disability, it’s a different ability’, the world took note.

Of course, the Virginia-based Schmidt is far from the only leader who is neurodiverse – Elon Musk has been open about the fact that he has Asperger’s Syndrome, Steven Spielberg has dyslexia and Albert Einstein was autistic. From Simone Biles to Greta Thunberg, it is estimated that around 20% of the population today is considered to be neurodivergent and those who have been diagnosed (the same study by Genius Within, Professor Nancy Doyle’s neurodivergent-led business, says that 50% of people with neurodiversity are unaware that they are not neurotypical) often find themselves gravitating towards a career in technology.

It could be the fact that people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often have above-average IQ scores or special skills in mathematics, memory, or pattern recognition. For Schmidt, it was acknowledging that what other people saw as efficiency, to him was a superpower: “The most important thing for me was the self-realization that the differences that I had in the way my brain functions were not something to be ashamed of but quite the contrary, were something that I was actually proud of,” he says. “And that really came to light during situations where I’m able to do multiple things at the same time and other people are not.”

Schmidt’s remarkable multitasking productivity levels may