Tradeoffs for Women in Technology | Hacker News Reader

Tradeoffs for Women in Technology

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It is curious that the problem is diagnosed as a social pathology to overwork and then the solution proposed is mentoring more women. Wait, back up here: you're taking a functioning sausage grinder and proposing throwing more folks you care about into it so that the sausage that successfully makes it to the other end is a little pinker than the mostly blue sausage we get right now. How about working to fix the sausage grinder model, instead? (Well, strictly speaking they are not mutually exclusive, but if you had to concentrate your energy, I know which one I'm picking.)

There is nothing intrinsic about startups that requires getting up at 6 AM and working 18 hour days that leave no room for meeting one's more important obligations to family, friends, the community, God, etc. The fact that we generally believe that this is intrinsic, and model it as the "correct" behavior, is a social pathology in our industry. Fix that and plenty of people will have improved lives, including (quite possibly) the marginal new female founders the detoxified culture will attract.

The interesting thing about "startup" social pathology is not just that I fall in willingly (intrinsic motivation to ascribe to this set of normative behaviors), but that many others in the Valley often do the same (extrinsic motivation to ascribe to this set of normative behaviors).

The cultural miasma is this is the way things are done. You can always buck the prevailing culture and be a black swan, but you have to look at the risks and benefits of swimming that way.

And many more folks than me buy in. Many are heavily invested in perpetuating this model because it gives them a level of perceived (rather than actual) control - if they aren't actually forming the startups, and they need a set of ways to evaluate potential success, than overwork may be one of those obtainable metrics you can check off relatively easily.

This means the sausage grinder may always be a sausage grinder no matter the tinge of the sausage coming out on the other end. I have no idea how to go about fixing this other than to begin not by continuing to bitch about work/life balance but to begin to fix my own equation (intrinsic - what are my goals? How will I reach them?) and others (extrinsic - are there talented groups out there who aren't getting a shot because we aren't telling women they can strut in and say "fuck it, fund me?").

I figured I'd start with a more open solution where women are informed about the risks and returns by those who've been there. I've been fortunate enough (for various reasons) that I've been able to get those meetings and hack the existing network here.

If anyone has more concrete suggestions I'd love to hear them - and better yet see them implemented, pronto. The generic "let's fix the sausage grinder model" comments tend to put my teeth on edge because they lack 1. specificity and 2. actionability and thus 3. utility.

Why we persist with collaborative maintenance of the startup 'mythology' or 'reality' (one person's myth is another person's faith system) is, you're right, the interesting question.

I can only answer that for myself.

Early stage, high-growth, hyperactive tech startups where you're doing a new feature release every 2 weeks and an entirely new product on average once every 12 weeks means, sorry, working near 18 hour days.

This model may not be 'correct,' but it sometimes works. And as a startup entrepreneur, my primary interest is in finding things that work.

It's not like I haven't examined a multiplicity of options. I've read 37signals, and used their method for 2 years prior.

Bootstrapping got me to a partnership with a top US health insurer to build a product within 3 months after launching my company, keynotes at Mayo and Eli Lilly, and consulting for the National Board (which administers the USMLE or 'boards' to docs) so I'm not knocking this as a potential solution - and one to which I might return (have a day job, do the startup lunches, nights, and weekends).

The pathology to overwork is a personal tendency which you accurately diagnose. In my case it's been augmented by choosing a role in an early stage tech startup where that group pathology persists.

I'm not sure fixing the social pathology is a viable solution, but like other pathologies, teaching coping skills and how to manage emergent behaviors may be.

Law and medicine are perhaps worse because these professions impose relatively rigid career tracks upon their members. It's well and good to work 80+ hours/week at a "white shoe" law firm when you're in your late 20's without children. But, even the time off required to push out a baby and recover will have a negative impact on your billable quota. A couple years ago, a friend's firm adopted some new, supposedly mommy-friendly policies in hope of keeping more women on partner track. A few months later, they did a round of lay-offs which included her. She had been working part-time post-child after having received glowing reviews pre-pregnancy. Other firms have done better by offering non-partner track roles which paid less, but offered 40-hour work weeks -- a realistic option taken by a couple of women I know. Perhaps the whole up-or-out partner track model of traditional law firms must change. It's clearly from an era where the rising star was expected to have a stay-at-home wife to take care of things. It can't be the only model by which law can be practiced successfully. This model also adversely affects those opting into law as a second career.

Physicians finish residency around age 30 -- about the average age for college-educated women to have a first child. A friend of ours had to delay residency by two years because a pregnancy required bed rest at the time she was supposed to be finishing up her internship year. The next year's match class was already full. So, after a MD/PhD and fellowship, she will have her first real job at age 37. Maybe the traditional model of "lots and lots of school" followed by being a full-fledged doctor could be replaced by some sort of stepping-stone model which where one could opt out of the rat race for a couple of years in the middle. I'm imagining a path that allows on to practice as doctor-lite (like a nurse practitioner) and later become a full-fledged doctor.

I don't think one can "have it all" -- meaning that a parent can't compete successfully with those willing to sacrifice their lives to work and still show up at the after-school soccer games. Society will have to figure out alternatives for those models of success built-up in the era where it would have been redundant to prepend "stay-at-home" to "wife."

I'm not suggesting that there's anything morally/ethically wrong with the way law firms work today. If a private business wants to limit the available work force through an incentive system that's not fully utilizable by 50% of the population, that's its right. I'm not so comfortable with making a similar statement about medicine because the rites of passage are implicitly set by government regulation rather than market forces. It's not as if I can start-up a certification program for high-end health professionals which will compete with the AMA's MD designations.

Lots of friends who are docs (and med students) articulate similar challenges with work/life planning.

If your performance metrics are based on project attainment and productivity (trackable) rather than hierarchical position power (or the lack thereof as a PTE post-baby), then women might have a shot at trying both.

In the US business culture, unfortunately I think the cultural 'allowance' for women (and all employees) to work in this manner goes organization by organization rather than sector by sector.

This isn't a universal, however.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/oct/21/men-work-...

In the Netherlands, where I lived in 2007, for example, both parents are given 16 weeks paid leave.

In Chile and Cuba parents are given 18 weeks leave paid at 100%. In Albania it's 1 year at 80 percent. The stats are eye-opening, to say the least.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave

The US? Zero paid leave standard, with 12 weeks option to take unpaid leave according to the FMLA, which does not apply to business that employ less than 50 people (aka many startups).

I don't disagree with the substance of your post, but I wanted to note that the AMA, and the national and state licensing boards are non-government entities. While the states do make it illegal to practice medicine without a license (or practice law without a license), for the most part they let these professions regulate themselves.

Can I start-up a competing licensing body? That's my issue -- the AMA is given an implicit monopoly by the Federal/State governments.

I'm not so comfortable with making a similar statement about medicine because the rites of passage are implicitly set by government regulation rather than market forces. It's not as if I can start-up a certification program for high-end health professionals which will compete with the AMA's MD designations.

I understand what you're trying to say, but I think this applies to law as well as medicine. The ABA has government-granted privileges, too.

You are absolutely right. I thought about that last night after I wrote this post. In retrospect, I hadn't considered it because (1) the overall level of education required by the ABA is so much less than that required by for a physician (3 years of grad school vs. four years of med school + an internship/residency) and (2) it's much easier to go to law school part-time or in mid-career. Part-time medical schools are few and far between.

Except for the childrens thing, what is the bit that makes it harder for women? The article was very long, and children were only mentioned once, quite in the beginning.

Also, why does the startup require the long hours etc? Is there a law in the universe for it? Then it seems curious that the law requires one to work exactly 18 hours per day on a startup. What if the universe decided that to run a startup successfully one would have to work 30 hours per day on it? Then nobody would be able to do startups...

Hey Tichy - good questions. Never thought this post would end up on HN, so I didn't explicate the problem(s) and challenges systemically.

There's no universal law, but as mentioned earlier, there is a cultural norm, or, as patio11 pointed out, a tendency towards social pathology that rewards 'overwork.'

All startups may not require the long hours - I don't know and can't speak for ALL founders. However, I know many for whom this is true. It's certainly true that in this stage of growth (pre-toddler) for MY startup it requires that amount of work to complete the specific things I have on my calendar.

"a tendency towards social pathology that rewards 'overwork.'"

Reward in what way?

http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html

I think she's in a good position of bootstraping with 30-hours work week from home while raising kids and living on husband's salary.

Ouch. Thanks Dennis. Now if you want to toss a husband my way for an arranged marriage that would be great! <end sarcasm/>

Do most start-up founders really end up making a choice between the start-up and their relationship/family? Are there examples of people who haven successfully been able to maintain the energy in both? If not, that's pretty depressing.

You can not have everything; if you work 12 hour days for long enough, your health, your sanity, and your relationships will suffer. Personally, I think 12 hour days only make sense if you are within a week of a deadline, and if you can take some time off after that to recover, simply because you will not be as effective as you would otherwise be after that week is over. In the past, after the first 90 hours in a week, well, the additional hours might as well been spent drinking, for all the good it did the project. and the hangover, ugh.

But I think even with regular hours, you need to make choices as to what you want to put time and effort into. None of us have infinite time or infinite energy.

On the other hand, I know plenty of small companies where the founders only occasionally do the 12 hour day thing.

The stereotypical 'startup lifestyle' may not be great for kids, but the 'lifestyle business' lifestyle would work great; Me, I spend almost all day at home, and could pretty easily hand off most of my tasks to a (remote) employee. Very little I do is time critical.

I once worked with a lawyer who took her child with her to work every day. the kid was well behaved and generally less irritating than the dogs that other co-workers would bring in (yes, it was one of /those/ .com companies.) I got scolded for my language more often than usual, but it wasn't a bad deal all around.

It's relatively easy for a parent to work 12+ hours/day as long as there's a spouse at home who can dedicate his/her life to the children and household.

Exactly. And in our culture that's usually still women (although more stay at home dads are stepping up - see: http://www.rebeldad.com/stats.htm).

So, as a woman in startup tech, if you choose to have work and family life simultaneously, it means finding a partner who will do that (is willing and financially stable), and/or outsourcing a significant portion of your childcare to family, nannies, etc.

I am still not quite sure what you are complaining about? At least as a woman you have a choice, you can opt out and spend more time with the kids. That's not supposed to be a burden imposed by society, it is supposed to be quality time and a gift. Why else have children, if you don't even like it? If you don't like it, the choice is easy, just spend all the time at your startup.

Unfortunately everything has a price - spending more time at home has a price (earning less money with the startup?), spending more time at the office has a price (no kids). But you have a choice.

In another comment you said that your particular startup requires the long hours. Maybe you could restructure the startup? Maybe you could spend some money on employees? I don't know - but overall I don't see how you being a woman makes it in any way special. If anything, you have more choices than men?

Good point Tichy - not complaining about being a woman, which I very much enjoy. Being a woman doesn't make, by virtue of your sex-linked chromosomes, doing a startup in anyway special. And as to choices, exactly. That's the point of the post (sorry if that wasn't clear). We all accept (or should accept) responsibility for our own choices. I like your closing comment ;). More choices, more challenges. Synonymous?

In hindsight I thought OK, just having kids probably is easier for men. As others commented, it's easy if the spouse stays at home to take care of the kids. It seems kind of equivalent to employing nannies - except it is probably not easy to find adequate nannies?

And the man working long hours also might not benefit from his children much. Except maybe later in life, when they are older and he works less?

I didn't want to come across as harsh. I just suspect that in hindsight it is common to wonder what for did one sacrifice family and children? I am 37 (male) now, and I don't really have a strong inbuilt desire to have children. But one could just go for it and see what happens? If not now, then when? Other things are probably more easy to delay.

I admit that I am also becoming cynical about the traditional roles. I am not that thrilled about having to provide as much money as possible to compete for child rearing women. It may still look as if men have the better position in society, but it doesn't really make much sense. Men don't have any bargaining position at all. They are 100% replaceable (sperm is cheap) - so struggling to be as successful as possible financially is pretty much the only option. Men have to take the risks - women pretty much can opt to take them for fun, or not. More or less, at least...

Don't know about "most," some find stable, supportive spouses or partners who are willing to be the steadfast and unconditional types...

Brad Feld (Foundry Group and TechStars in Boulder,CO), for example found this apparently with his wife Amy, but only after losing a first marriage: http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2009/05/feld-weiser-one-on-o...

"Not only am I an unpedigreed, first time (at 30, Jesus) female founder of a tech company, I am a non-tech, non-CS founder who doesn't code."

I don't care if you have four dicks. if you are not technical, you have no business running a tech startup.

Thanks Isc 12. I'll quit what I'm doing immediately and work on growing four interesting male parts instead.

huh? I said male parts won't help. a non-technical person, male or female, running a tech company would be like me running a company that, say, relies on sales to enterprises.

you can't just "know business" - to run a company, you need to understand what that company does.

Successful tech companies often need to do much more than just technology to be successful. There's no reason such a company shouldn't have at least one non-technical founder. I agree that it would be a mistake if all the founders were non-technical, or if the non-technical person were running the technical side of the show. But nothing suggests that's true here.

Exactly! We've built our company based not just on tech, but market needs. I've seen startup friends build kick-ass stuff that goes nowhere because no one knows about it (the marketing and biz/dev functions) 2 years after launch. Then they're demoralized, die off, and go back to a day job and hacking nights and weekends.

Agree, absolutely. If I didn't know my business well enough to close our first partnership with the top 4 US health insurer (paying) to develop an app we designed that will generate two patents, I'd bow out. We've closed a 5k deal, another 10k deal on the books about to close, and taken only 10k in angel money. That's not only understanding the company, it's understanding where the company is headed, and then working with my tech cofounder to implement like crazy til we get there. Plus, 'tech' of any type is a means to an end. One founder working on the tech and one founder working on the rest of the stuff that forms the means to the 'end' isn't always a recipe for disaster.

Sorry, upvoted you by mistake.

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