It's funny how people expect anyone making an argument for diversity to be a race class and gender scholar on one hand and then reject any work by race class and gender scholars out of the other. You are partially quoting the post in a way that changes the meaning but I'll indulge...These are all primary research sources (or press releases directly from the authors), not commentary

"Without diverse leadership, women are 20% less likely than straight white men to win endorsement for their ideas; people of color are 24% less likely; and LGBTs are 21% less likely. This costs their companies crucial market opportunities, because inherently diverse contributors understand the unmet needs in under-leveraged markets. We’ve found that when at least one member of a team has traits in common with the end user, the entire team better understands that user. A team with a member who shares a client’s ethnicity is 152% likelier than another team to understand that client." [0]

"In this study, we investigated whether the variety of ideas and the innovative qualities of team design solutions are related to team gender diversity. The research participants were 148 engineering students working in 37 teams. These teams were identified as gender balanced or all-male based on their gender composition. Their idea generation outcomes and final design solutions were evaluated using an established variety metric and a new innovation potential metric developed by the authors... Results suggest that diversity, defined by gender alone, may not increase the innovation potential of student design teams but may support innovation in the presence of other factors. Efforts should focus on helping teams better utilize their diversity to improve their ability to be innovative." [1]

"Fortune 500 companies with the highest representation of women board directors attained significantly higher financial performance, on average, than those with the lowest representation of women board directors," [2]

"We acknowledge that these findings, though consistent, aren’t proof of a direct relationship between diversity and financial success. At high-performing companies, the board or CEO may simply have greater latitude to pursue diversity initiatives, and other management innovations may contribute more directly to superior results. We will continue to explore these issues in further research.

As a starting point, and to get a reality check on the aggregate data, we looked for evidence of diversity’s influence on the actions of individual companies during the volatile 2008–10 time frame our analysis covered. In a number of cases, diversity appeared to play a critical role. At adidas, one of the companies that ranked in our top quartile in diversity and performance, senior leaders have designated diversity as a strategic goal and started building it into the guts of the organization. ... To spur innovation across global markets, adidas is also ensuring diversity in its design centers—and has won a number of awards for product creativity....

One global food company that ranked in the top quartile for diversity completed a series of successful international joint ventures between 2008 and 2010. These actions advanced a strategic goal of geographic decentralization and risk diversification, while ensuring that its products fit the varying preferences of local cultures and markets. The more diverse footprint paid operational dividends as well: at some of these joint ventures’ plants, the company discovered highly efficient manufacturing processes, which it absorbed and then disseminated across its own manufacturing base. Similarly, a leading telecommunications company whose top team hailed from a number of different nations significantly expanded its global network infrastructure and was able to meet ambitious growth targets in emerging markets. " [3]

"Using laboratory experiments, Phillips and her research collaborator, Clayman Institute affiliate Margaret Neale, analyzed the connections between race and innovation. They found that racially homogeneous groups tend to fall into the trap of “group think,” or a situation that occurs “when a group values harmony and coherence over accurate analysis and critical evaluation.” The authors argue that being around others who are similar tricks us into thinking everyone else shares the same information and perspectives. Group think can lead individuals to ignore missing information or alternate explanations that force the development of creative solutions. Furthermore, the consequences of group think are that people are not inclined to contribute individual insights that veer from the group norm or the group’s accepted thoughts. This is especially true of women and minorities, who already are often outsiders and are often underrepresented in many workplaces; to offer criticism risks the potential of being seen as not a team player." [4]

So you have it with students, companies, gender, race, its not about white-male specifically, its about group think. The call out for 'white male 40s' is because that is so often the dominant group in the room in Tech. If tech was dominantly filled with 26 year old black non gender conforming people you would have the exact same concern. Groupthink is real, and when the groupthink group also posess the identity that is how society is normatively represented, its difficult to see.

Those are literally the bookmarks I already had on hand. I would suggest reading on the issue from scholarly sources a little. Be cautious of trusting other people's summations of research, especially those that reinforce your own beliefs.

[0] https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation

[1] Fila, N. D., & Purzer, S. (2014). The relationship between team gender diversity, idea variety, and potential for design innovation. International Journal of Engineering Education, 30(6A), 1405–1418. Retrieved from http://www.ijee.ie/

[2] http://www.catalyst.org/media/companies-more-women-board-dir...

[3] https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our...

[4] http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2017/how-does-diversity-spur...