Out of the loop in Silicon Valley | Hacker News Reader

Out of the loop in Silicon Valley

nytimes.com

48 pointscredo35 comments

(Separate comment because it's a separate point.)

The problem with articles like this is the constant tension between the idea that women are equally qualified as men and the idea that the startup culture is inherently unfriendly to feminine personalities. Example:

"Later, when Ms. Vijayashanker joined Mint, she also wanted interaction with other people, but, she said, “the guys went into their rooms and coded all day.” So she started a weekly group lunch and hired an intern so she could write programs with a partner."

I'm not saying that women are inherently more social than men, nor am I saying that a software startup inherently has to have a work environment where coworkers don't talk to each other. But this article seems to make both of those assumptions and put them together to conclude "startup work environments are unwelcoming to women" while totally ignoring the fact that the same two assumptions lead to make "women are inherently unsuitable to work in a startup".

It is particularly odd that they use Mint as an example of a (slightly at least) unwelcome environment early on for a woman in particular as they had an amazing woman as CMO (Donna Wells) until being acquired. Throughout their growth and since acquisition they have hired many women in leadership roles that require them to be social. However, the piece that stands out to me is that Ms. Vijayashanker didn't just complain about it at first (and doesn't honestly seem to be complaining a whole lot now), she proactively made a way to interact more socially to shape the work environment to meet her preferences/needs (not to mention the fact that Mint let her bring in her own intern to make her work environment more suitable). I'm not an engineer, but from my limited experience any original, core engineering team is somewhat insular and its probably a good thing if your coders are coding rather than shooting the breeze around the water cooler, although I'm sure they didn't all have their mouths sewn shut. In that example at least, it sounds like it is more of a reflection on how engineers interact with one another (as compared to say, the marketing/PR leadership) than a reflection of the startup environment in general being hostile towards women.

I was at a conference recently and a few women were on a panel talking about the challenges facing women in founding a startup, and continued to emphasize and call attention to inequalities, without realizing that they were perpetuating the same stereotypes they bemoaned, until one woman raised her hand and said "please just tell us about your company, what is next, how are you innovating? how did you raise VC money? we don't care about your kids" (and i gave her a silent slow clap)

When women participate with strength and confidence in their merits, the gender differences are not the emphasis of the relationship (and if anything they can potentially have an advantage over men in some industries or occupations). In my experience working with a lot of intelligent and successful women, the ones who succeed the most are able to utilize the benefits of the obviously different female perspective at times but you come to just interact as humans working towards a common goal, not as two separate species that are cautious of each other.

Lastly, men and women alike should sometimes consider that the dynamic in the workplace might not have anything to do with how you look or whether you are black white or magenta, it might (gasp) have something to do with who you are and perhaps you might just completely suck at your job and annoy the shit out of people.

Articles like these always make the same inference, and then lead to a similar conclusion: If a woman CEO gets rejected over and over, then it _must_ be sexism (and/or racism); and, then a gender- (or race-) biased investment firm steps in to promote business based on the gender of the CEOS/Founders, and a moral transgression is set straight.

The article asserts that the recession somehow makes investors stupid and frightened, wherein they think via 'templates' or some archetypal response. I think the word they apply is something more like 'scrutiny' -- at least I sure hope so.

It's 2010 -- let's start focusing on merit. I don't care what letters the woman carries from name-brand institutions. It just might be possible that her business ideas don't attract investment. Has that been considered? How many males from these fine institutions also fail in business? I know the number isn't zero.

#1: I agree with you. We can't just assume that it must be sexism. Discussions about gender would do better to have more hard data and scientific thinking.

#2: I'd like to suggest you give room to the idea that sexism may be both powerful and subtle. The power expresses itself in symptoms like "98% of open source software contributors are male". The subtly shows up in the large number of male programmers who don't notice that there is a problem. For example, an assertive woman in a workplace may be viewed as a "bitch" but an assertive man in a workplace may be viewed more positively. They can each be sharing ideas of the same merit, but our cultural conditioning evaluates them differently. That's the subtlety of it.

Since women aren't making it into the industry in the first place, the assertive bitch phenomenon probably isn't the cause. It's an important phenomenon to recognize in general so it can be avoided, but the reason discussions about this go nowhere and never have much of an effect is because the causes are less identifiable and harder to constructively assign blame for.

Yes, I agree with you here. I would say that much of the causes of low numbers of females in tech jobs can be traced back to middle school/high school years. I don't think that sexism at work is a large part of the problem, but I do think it's out there to some extent.

This is actually a very touchy problem. On the one hand, it would make matters much worse if we all started walking on eggshells around female programmers. On the other hand, I don't think it's good to act like there isn't a problem. In some respects, discussing it makes it worse, because it brings the matter of gender to the forefront, when ultimately where we need to go is to make the gender aspect of this all less salient. sigh

If the problem originates in school where math and science are perceived as the boys areas, then changing the attitude of venture capitalists isn't any solution. If men outnumber women 10 to 1 with the qualities that are needed to start a tech startup, then I'd expect any tech company to reflect those ratios.

It's like saying there's a shortage of tech startups from equatorial Africa. It's not because venture capitalists are racists. It's because you're unlikely get the education and experience when growing up in a screwed up society.

There are two separate problems. One of them is the shortage of women in tech fields and the other is women being treated poorly in the workplace.

" For example, an assertive woman in a workplace may be viewed as a "bitch" but an assertive man in a workplace may be viewed more positively. They can each be sharing ideas of the same merit, but our cultural conditioning evaluates them differently."

Or not. Assertive males are often called "dicks". Assertive women may be admired. That's the other subtlety of it. People trot out vague anecdotal "explanations" that are merely begging the question.

"Discussions about gender would do better to have more hard data and scientific thinking."

Exactly.

98% is surprisingly high (though of all the OSS projects I've used, forked, etc., I can think of exactly no women contributors).

Here's a source: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~scotch/maurer_and_scotchmer_os... [PDF, p. 13]

"Women own 40 percent of the private businesses in the United States, according to the Center for Women’s Business Research. But they create only 8 percent of the venture-backed tech start-ups, according to Astia, a nonprofit group that advises female entrepreneurs."

There's a whole host of companies which popped up in the 20th century in America that were designed to give increasingly bored[1] housewives a means of earning a supplemental income for the household--Tupperware, Avon, and the like. All these statistics about how many private businesses are owned by women are usually talking about these. The statistics about private businesses with more than one employee are not nearly as heartening.

[1] Because of labor-saving devices such as laundry machines and dishwashers being invented.

It bugs me. You know, here's somebody pulling words out of his ass, "Oh, yeah, that 40 percent--it's all Avon ladies, and here's why..." and he pulls some reason out of his ass, "Because in the 20th century the vacuum cleaner revolution was a direct cause of...the Avon company...and the like. And that's where the 40 percent number comes from."

Citation not needed.

Obviously, it doesn't matter why or how the number actually came from, but would it really have killed you to research for 2 seconds to find out that the Avon company was started in the 19th century? And that if you looked into your numbers, Tupperware and the like would be a negligible cause of female startups. I mean, has anyone even had a Tupperware party in the last 30 years?

While your quibbles are true, the numbers for female-founded more-than-one employee businesses are much smaller than the numbers of female-founded one-employee businesses. (And no, a single-employee business is not a "startup", and neither is a ten employee business unless there is some expectation that the business will be worth millions of dollars in less than ten years.) The phenomenon of otherwise-housewives starting single-employee small businesses is where a large part of the numbers come from. My mother, for instance, was a Kumon instructor.

I think there are huge market opportunities for women to start actual startups, of course, but statistically that's not happening for whatever reason.

By the way, would it really have killed you to research for 2 seconds to find that Tupperware is still recruiting "Tupperware consultants"[1], whom continue to hold Tupperware parties "somewhere in the world...every 2.2 seconds"?[2] Or is taking someone down a peg over the internet more important than keeping your facts straight?

[1] http://www.tupperware.com/pls/htprod_www/tup_opportunity.opp...

[2] http://www.tupperware.com/pls/htprod_www/tup_party.classic

Now with statistics from the Census Bureau!

"Women-owned firms with paid employees accounted for 14.1 percent of the total number of women-owned firms"

24% of businesses in total have paid employees. Also interesting: women-owned businesses accounted for just under a trillion in business revenues, businesses in total accounted for over 22 trillion.

Caveat: some more number crunching may have to be done, as by "business owner" they may simply mean anyone who files income under a Schedule C (usually in conjunction with a 1099). This includes all contractors, for instance.

http://www.census.gov/econ/sbo/02/womensof.html

http://www.census.gov/econ/sbo/02/cosumsof.html

Some of the complaints are contradictory. Women are "pushed into management positions" and not allowed to be "individual contributors", yet find actually sitting down and writing code unbearable, and apparently desire lots of human interaction. Isn't that what the management job offers?

However, I have found some of the things mentioned to be true, particularly the bit about women placing a lot of weight on their academic success.

I entered the software industry during a recession and far before the dot-com boom. I didn't think it was going to be much of a career. Geeks were much more ostracized. But I didn't care--I have to do what I'm doing.

> There’s a really strong image of what a computer scientist is[....] It makes it hard for people who don’t fit that image to think of it as an option for them.

If anyone with a computer can be dissuaded by such trivia, programming is not their calling, and they should go find it rather than waste their time doing mediocre work.

Ding! We have a winner!

If you are so blind as to think that looking around and seeing nobody like you for values of you in minority groups in a position doesn't discourage qualified people, well, then you're not only ignorant of the last 30-40 years of social science research, but also live a life so self-unexamined as to not be aware of your own privilege. Thank you for the demonstration.

Queue the downmodding... now.

Your viewpoint is valid, and a more constructive presentation of it would have been valuable.

Qualified people don't dip their toes in to see how welcome they feel, or how the money is, or anything else that happens offscreen. They live and breathe this stuff. Before PCs were available, some used to commit petty crimes just to score some computer time. And nobody regarded this compulsion as any kind of privilege until the pay improved.

Part of the problem is that people are more likely to embark on careers based on the cultural imagery than on academic interest - if you have no prior knowledge of the academics behind any given subject, intrinsic attraction will not magically present itself, so decisions to seriously study any subject have to use other factors(pay, lifestyle, etc.) and the stereotyping plays into that.

Hence, it is the interest of society to:

* Properly introduce computer science(and other modern subjects) into school curricula, so that intrinsic factors can become apparent

* Have our artistic works give positive, progressive depictions of real people doing real work; this will push students towards more intrinsic factors.

* Continue developing accessible introductory material; the study process most programmers used to learn(bang your head against the wall for hours until you get it) is overly unsteady and hesitant, with most of the important conceptual imagery locked deep within dry, reference-heavy descriptions of algorithms and data structures. This hurts our talent pool. Accessible computer science - not "dumbed down", but better-taught - would automatically push the demographics towards gender balance.

I was expecting an article on how being out of the loop in Silicon Valley affects your business and funding potential. Unfortunately, that's not what this is.

Personally I believe Silicon Valley doesn't necessarily discriminate against women, but rather, discriminates against anyone not in the relevant Silicon Valley social circles and cliques. This is sometimes obvious when a valley startup garners significantly more attention, press, and funding than a similar startup outside of the valley.

This was a bit obvious and yet surprising:

> That may be because data show that people are more trusting and comfortable working with people of their own sex, says Toby Stuart, a Harvard Business School professor who studies the topic. > He says that some men are reluctant to invest in women’s start-ups because “there are enough things that can go wrong with a high-risk, early-stage venture that if you’re worried about any interpersonal dynamic issues, why not do a deal that takes that out of the equation?”

From what I've seen in some large companies though, women get far more easier into middle management, while coders are mostly men (that also don't really want to be into management, mind you). But upper management is male-centric.

I'm curious if the 8% number is related to the fact that only a small percentage of women start tech starups in the first place? There was an interview with Jessica Livingston a year ago in which she stated that 7% of YC founders are female, and it corresponds very well to the application pool (citetation: http://thenextwomen.com/2009/05/01/interview-y-combinator-fo...)

It's possible the 7% and 8% numbers are a coincidence, but I'm hoping that as the number of women creating tech companies increases, so will the 8%...

I'd be curious if these figures are similar to those found at universities for these industries?

As an anecdote, I know that in a first year class of around 300 for engineering at my uni, there were 2 women. This was in `99.

(I'm a little concerned this may be too outspoken for my own good, but here goes..)

The first two stories at the start are horrible. Why are they being anonymized? She should just reveal identities (and compromising photos/emails) and make an example of them.

I know people are afraid of seeming like trouble-makers. Silicon valley can seem awfully small. But you know what, it can also be small for investors. Certain kinds of behavior are so unambiguously bad that with documentary proof nobody should (would?) fault the whistleblower. To do otherwise is to abet sexism.

(The third is obviously not interested in funding her. Who knows why. Just post to thefunded or something.)

Even if the source told the reporter the names, all she's got is her word, and that's not enough evidence for the New York Times to print something like that. (And for good reason: it shouldn't be possible to smear someone without evidence, not to mention that the paper would be vulnerable to a libel suit.) You mention 'documentary proof,' but there's no suggestion in the story that she has any.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that she's not telling the truth -- just that reasonable journalistic standards sometimes result in important information being withheld.

"Even if the source told the reporter the names, all she's got is her word,"

and maybe a photo of a naked guy on a boat.

"Another potential backer invited her for a weekend yachting excursion by showing her a picture of himself on the boat — without clothes." [emphasis mine]

Sounds like the creep was smart enough not to give her the picture.

I'm willing to bet the anonymization isn't coming from the journalist.

In general, victims should just post/tweet charges under their real names. The internet will pick it up, link to it, retweet it. Even journalists will give it press as 'alleged charges'. That it's not anonymous will give it weight.

I'd say they're anonymized not because they are horrible, but because they are probably rather typical.

Look at your own post: the culture here in startup-land is so vehemently anti-anti-sexist* that you feel a need to express worries (however tongue-in-cheek) about retaliation.

* Yes, this is an odd double negative, but also the best way I can think of to express the phenomenon. It's also not the same thing as sexism, but it sure does create an extremely friendly environment for bigots.

"they're anonymized not because they are horrible, but because they are probably rather typical."

Why's that reason to anonymize? Racism was typical once. You have to start somewhere. Or are you claiming there's too many such un-anonymized stories in the media? I don't see that.

"the culture here in startup-land is so vehemently anti-anti-sexist that you feel a need to express worries about retaliation."

I was describing the consequences whistleblowers have to deal with in general. It's good for the potential consequences to exist; they prevent frivolous charges and increase the impact when a real whistleblower comes forward risking such stigma. None of this has anything to do with sexism in particular.

The bit about retaliation was in regards to "(I'm a little concerned this may be too outspoken for my own good, but here goes..)" -- not the body of your comment.

"Why's that reason to anonymize?"

Giving their names makes the story about a couple of exceptionally bad eggs; omitting their identities makes the story about a broad trend.

Fair point. I still think she should publicize their names, but the NYTimes shouldn't include them.

Even if you're responding to my parenthetical first sentence, I don't see how that has anything to do with 'anti-anti-sexism'. I was just articulating the concern anybody should have for seeming like a troublemaker. There's a fine distinction between being outspoken and a troublemaker. The latter is just looking for a reason to seem outspoken - a distracting influence at a startup.

> At Stanford, female graduate students in computer science are encouraging freshman women through a group called Women in Computer Science.

We have a Women in Computer Science club here at Arizona State. The current president is a man.

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