`Bro culture' at startups keeps talented women out: Harvey Mudd President | Hacker News Reader

`Bro culture' at startups keeps talented women out: Harvey Mudd President

cnbc.com

50 pointsSirLJ66 comments

The rapid ascendency of 'bro culture' as an accepted problem in startups feels as politically manufactured as the 'alt-right' was to the 2016 election.

Both may have a whisper of truth behind them, both may have some adherents, but the numbers have been blown out of proportion because it's politically useful for some people to invent this boogieman.

I do have to say, after joining a small decidedly non-startup company, the culture at most startups is toxic simply due to that fact that they're so informal and mostly full of men. That means there will be certain situations in which the women (if there are any) may feel uncomfortable as their needs and concerns are not being actively considered.

Should people not be allowed to build a startup or a company where some groups of people might feel unwelcome?

> because it's politically useful for some people to invent this boogieman.

That's a remarkably uncharitable attribution of motive. Sometimes people jump on an idea because it seems novel to them, or because it seems like the most significant - but not only - thing, or because it seems easy. Those might not be perfect strategies, but there's no need to assume malice or conspiracy.

What other issue do you think people should focus on instead? Wait, don't answer that. First, why do you think you should have a say? One of the beautiful things about a democratic society is that a million people can have a million different ideas and priorities, many of them seeming "wrong" to someone else, but all tolerating each others' "screwed up" ideas anyway. How does concern trolling fit into that model?

It's been discussed as a problem since at least early 2012, see https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/arti...

Silicon Valley startups are the next frontier for the class of paper pushers, compliance officers, and diversity officers that are dragging down the rest of America. Them and others who want to turn every institution away from its natural purpose and into a vehicle for their political ends. They're already floating gender and race quotas as serious proposals.

Given the relatively low entry costs to create a technology company, what's stopping the talented women from starting their own companies and competing with a superior product or service? It's sad to say this, but at the end of the day, you comply or you compete [1]

[1] To be fair, women (and minorities for that matter) have tried and "the forces that be" sabotaged them. For example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwood,_Tulsa

Have you not been reading the reports of "bro investors"? It could be, in part, the parallel of talented women getting tired of potential investors hitting on them and acting creepy.

I have read those reports, but you don't necessarily need investors to start a company.

But that is not the context of the article. Sure a man or a woman can start a company without investors but the companies that have been associated with having a "bro culture" were not bootstrapped.

The number of women led startups is markedly lower than male led startups; same with those obtaining funding. Add age to the equation and the chances of having a shot at developing an idea/product and raising funding for a startup appears daunting. Older men appear to suffer almost the same fate.

YC applications now ask for age. Is this in an effort to promote diversity or do you think there are other reasons? If it is to make sure that someone is able to legally enter into contracts they could simply ask if the founders are 18 years of age or over?

Bottom line, testosterone may play a role in the bro culture but age plays a substantial role. It seems contrary to logic to assume that we expect people to behave as seasoned professionals when they are typically just out of college.

Risk takers have a tendency to be driven by adrenaline and startups are definitely risky. I personally don't think you can put the bro culture (or boys/men behaving badly) only on testosterone and age without factoring in the personality traits associate with those who are drawn to huge risk. What about the behavior and culture of Wall Street?

The article is about VC-backed companies. The "bro culture" is an outgrowth of Silicon Valley VC culture.

Nobody is accusing bro culture of literally firebombing women in the startup world.

Literally firebombing means bombarding women in startup world with incendiary ordnance, be it be plane or artillery barrage, and to my best knowledge no such action took place.

I agree. The link I posted is an example of how sometimes there are other mitigating factors, not "bro culture" "literally firebombing women."

The intent was to show how creating your own thing and competing wont necessarily solve the issue.

Exactly. Saying that women should seek alternative routes to success is a lot like saying they should cross the street. It's not OK for one route to be cut off, or made even a hair more difficult, just because others also exist.

"Men behaving badly is a theme that permeated the tech industry long before..." -- ahh, nothing like a sexist generalization to make your point.

I guess these people never worked with Wall St masters of the universe.

I don't really understand why the culture of some companies is something that needs to be fixed. As long as there's nothing illegal going on (like harassment), then what difference does it make from the outside whether a company has a toxic environment?

If women don't want to work at those companies, that's fine.

I'm not a woman, but I don't want to work at those companies either, and that's fine too.

Is there anything stopping 'sis culture' companies from being formed and dominated by women?

Or companies dominated by people who make everything about video games or sports or chess or cosmetics.

Some of these companies will succeed, most will fail. As long as no one's getting harassed, why should we force them to have this culture or that one?

Exactly. If reports on the Linux kernel mailing lists are to be believed for example, it's an incredibly toxic culture. Most normal people would probably want to stay far away from it. Yet Linux has seen unbelievable success.

It's worth considering that some subsets of some industries require a regular influx of high-functioning jerks in order to grease the wheels of progress.

Perhaps in those areas anybody who's not a jerk wouldn't have the strength to keep debating minutae with pedants long enough to accomplish anything monumental.

One reason why we should care about culture at other companies is because it drags down the appeal of our industry. When talented people with lots of options choose a career outside of tech it hurts all of us.

It's a self-repairing system. Talented people will stay away from particular tech & companies and do things talented people do with other tech and companies. Then we'll all go join them.

It's not zero-sum, as though talented people will shrug and become coal miners and technological progress will come to a stand-still.

If 'bro culture' companies are doing well and attracting talented people, then evidently they know something we don't.

For anyone wondering (like me) what is "Bro Culture":

> Bro culture doesn’t have an accepted definition. But it’s instantly recognizable. There are, however, a few clues to its existence:

> @ CEO - White male, no experience, no adult supervision, somewhat good looking, glib, overconfident, arrogant, obnoxious and amoral.

> @ Management Clones of the CEO. Frat brothers (sometimes literally) he hires for “culture fit” a move best described by the over-used, and always bullshit, hiring idiom: “someone I would go for a beer with after work.”

> @ Women Second class citizens and often looked at like sorrority sisters. Rarely promoted, often hit on, and to survive they need to know “how to get along with guys” which is startup speak for don’t come to us with your issues, it’s bro’s before ho’s.

> Ref: https://thenextweb.com/insider/2017/03/11/bro-culture-poison...

And a more generic definition:

> Bro is a male youth subculture of "conventional guys' guys" who spend time partying in ways similar to each other. Although the popular image of bro lifestyle is associated with sports apparel and fraternities, it lacks a consistent definition. Most aspects vary regionally such as in California where it overlaps with surf culture.

> — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bro_(subculture)

I think in all of the years I've been around startups and the valley I have seen maybe one company that actually fits the description of "Bro Culture."

I wonder if people see much "Bro Culture" in Silicon Valley (South Bay) area?

Please don't indent quoted material. It's unreadable on mobile browsers due to the horizontal scrolling.

She's confused. Startups are the Wild West of America. Wild West comes with Wild West rules. The rules are simple:

1) The loudest ones get heard

2) The most ruthless get some combination of (fear + respect)

3) Those from a combination of (1 and 2) get funded

4) A fraction of (3) succeed, and a fraction of those does phenomenally well.

5) Everyone else in a pool will murder to be (4)

6) When (4) for some reason stops performing as (4) is supposed to perform, it becomes not "Jack is drunk at work again but we are exiting soon and I will be multi-hundred millionaire so I'm just going to figure out how not to piss off Jack as he is my payday" but "That drunk Jack pissed off a big customer by hitting on his wife and now he is hitting on me and I'm just not paid enough to deal with his shit" That's when the cracks start showing. That's when the "culture" becomes not a culture of "we win rararara!" but "these people are behaving like frat boys!" We saw this at Zenefits. We see that at Uber.

We are starting to see it at Tesla.

AirBNB is going to be next - there are already grubmings about its "culture"

[Edit: Formatting]

So you're saying earlier IPOs are the answer?

If I knew what was the answer, I would be posting on HN on Sunday while watching a long running processes that did not quite work overnight.

We do have empirical evidence that people who think they are going to make gobs of money are willing to put up with a lot more than people who know that they wont make that pile of money.

Scenario #1:

Boring job - $120k/year salary + benefits. HR would send you home if your shirt is untucked. That kind of a company.

Scenario #2:

Same Boring job - $120k/year + benefits. Potential to make > $20MM on exit but one has to deal with "bro culture".

#2 is probably going to be a preferred by anyone who at any point in their life had a crappy job. Remove the > $20MM exit and #1 is a winner. Remove it after it has been implied and that person would be rather mad at the company.

It's amusing how a simple statement like this can provoke so much defensive responses. Bro culture keeps talented people out, sometimes men, mostly women. It's _bad_ for business!

We wouldn't be questioning something like: "racist workplaces keep talented minorities out." Can you imagine someone responding to that with "Let them readjust to me, not the other way around"?

The difference is it's a noticeably sexist statement disguised as non-sexist.

Would you argue that your statement "racist workplaces keep talented minorities out" is equal to "white workplaces keep talented minorities out?"

There is a difference between an argument against "bro culture" and an argument against "sexist culture" -- one is neutral whereas the other is clearly anti-male.

Bro culture isn't the same thing as male culture.

I personally know a lot of men who want nothing to do with bro culture, support feminism, and are generally good people. In fact, men who partake in bro culture have a number of slurs that they use to target men who want nothing to do with bro culture: these slurs include "nu-males" and "cucks" (and the latter has racist overtones, too).

So, yes, I want the men who get slurred as "nu-males" to completely push bro culture out of the tech industry and replace them.

I think you're confusing bro culture with red pillers.

HN: a place where it's more interesting to debate how to label men who say 'cuck' than it is to debate whether or not calling people 'cucks' is positive for a company's culture.

You seem to be confused by the definitions of "men" and "bro culture"

> We wouldn't be questioning something like: "racist workplaces keep talented minorities out."

This seems like a given, but a vile and vocal minority of people here do indeed question that.

Well there is a culture of people into fitness, etc that identify as 'bros' which has nothing to do with behavior towards women. 'bro culture' has now been hijacked to mean 'sexual harassment culture'.

It's similar to how many on this site get upset about 'hacker' being used in a derogatory sense.

> It's amusing how a simple statement like this can provoke so much defensive responses. Bro culture keeps talented people out, sometimes men, mostly women. It's _bad_ for business!

Name a unicorn that does not have it.

I don't think this is the problem most people address.

What about bro culture in plumbing and sanitation, does that keep women out? Or maybe the fact that women in progressive free countries have to choice to choose a career path they might actually be interested in?

That's why the 25% stat is bullshit. I'm not denying bro culture is a problem, but its not the complete reason why there is a low adoption rate.

This is a really interesting comparison. Plumbing jobs have a reputation for high pay, as do jobs in tech. Is hooking up APIs as miserable as fixing faucets? Maybe, but I really think that self-reinforcing cultural patterns play a big role in perpetuating these gender imbalances: women opt out because of culture that results when there are few women.

The women with the most other options are perhaps most likely to go elsewhere. Some of the men who have the most options may be right behind them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjernevask I recommend watching this, it will shatter some preconceptions.

> In 2015, women held just 25 percent of computing jobs, according to the National Center for Women & Technology. Start-ups are even less diverse. According to data from PitchBook, just 16.8 percent of U.S. companies funded last year had at least one female founder.

This can't be far from how many females have studied computer science. Not that this is the only way to get "computing jobs", but it says a lot about the wider trend. I think I had 0-4 females present in my computer-oriented nonobligatory classes.

Stop calling women "females".

Stop nitpicking about pointless semantics.

I feel like this article should have defined what "bro culture" is before going off on it. I have no idea what "bro culture" is.

It keeps talented people out. Not just women.

http://chainsawsuit.com/comic/archive/2016/07/07/all-houses-...

Both these statements can be true and informative. Why do state it as an alternative?

While this is true, we should specifically address people that aren't white men here. There's a pervasive myth that the STEM pipeline is to blame for why so many tech employees (especially engineers) are white men.

See, for example, some of Ashton Kutcher's questions here: [0]. This question was specifically asked: "Given that in the short term we are clearly bound by the existing educated talent pool in STEM, other than promoting STEM education parity going forward, how do we stop gap a solution?"

We are, in fact, not bound by the existing educated pool. We are bound by the existing pool of people who are educated and willing to put up with the toxic culture of some (most?) startups. See also: discussion about Coraline Ehmke's experiences at GitHub, wherein a number of commenters talked about having far more supportive experiences at LargeCompanies, ones that had real HR departments.

But ultimately, I agree. I'm a white guy, and I'm also not interested in joining a brogrammer startup. I've been working in academia and nonprofits, and have been (and continue to be) very picky about where I apply. I can't speak to how talented I am, but here's another anecdotal data point - I'm not participating in this segment of the labor market, because I don't want want to be complicit in it.

Relatedly, if anyone has any examples of companies to the contrary, let me know. I'll be looking again this winter.

0: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6288694...

I don't think bro-culture is something anyone aspires to. I had a great experience working for a company that often is criticized as a "boys club", but I consider what I experienced there to be Man-Culture, not bro-culture, and I think the baby is thrown out with the bathwater in this kind of debate. My suspicion is that any company that ends up with a "bro-culture" is simply trying and failing to implement a "man-culture."

At the other extreme I've worked in "inclusive" environments, and I'm just so fucking sick of it. You spend too much damn time worrying about other peoples' feelings to get any meaningful work done.

Interestingly the man-culture place had a lot less tolerance for harassment (except harassment by women, for some reason that was tolerated.) I think it stemmed from more paternalism, which came hand-in-hand with the Man-Culture.

EDIT: Wow this comment section is getting lit up today. My respect for this community continues to grow.

Similarly, does 'sis culture' at colleges keep talented men out?

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-REGjzKeq_LY/T53intthiXI/AAAAAAAAR...

This seems like a larger and more relevant problem for the president of a college to address.

What about all the women founded startups, do they have bro culture as well?

Yes.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/mans-suing-yahoo-for-gend...

But men told to shut and and man-up

People here are trying to pick fights with their responses. In the interest of accuracy: sometimes the do. The idea that women are a monolith of desires and responses is itself a sexist and dehumanizing idea. Some women leverage sexist culture to their own advantage, and it is important to recognize and challenge it.

Some examples: Model View Culture had a technical cofounder. You probably haven't heard of her. The founder you heard of felt okay abusing and terrorizing her, then totally erasing her from MVC's history. Another example that's more public is that Yahoo! executive, she sexually harassed (and... uh.. probably sexually assaulted) women around her.

So yeah, maybe some do. It should be opposed. If you're a man and see this, it can be challenging because men acting in bad faith have made the narrative of a man opposing a woman on feminist tenants petty difficult to sell.

I don't understand this sometimes. Do they want to reeducate the entire world, just because of some demographic? Let them readjust to me, not the other way around. It's not based on gender, there's plenty of people that hate this culture, and that's normal. What do you propose, eliminate it entirely?

It is impossible to eliminate an idea or culture save by the most extreme measures. What we'd like to do is start remdining everyone going to work and going to fund that they have a responsibility to push back against and avoid funding this culture.

To me, it says you can get a hiring advantage by avoiding the image of a "bro" culture.

I think the most insightful part of the article was the use of HR as a signal. I can see it being a particular problem for companies with young founders who never worked at large companies with HR so there's less awareness of workplace norms, particularly issues like sexual harassment or maternity leave

How about "old people"?

Why is this on HN?

Because it is interesting enough to be upoted, relevant to the industry, relevant to a business, and newsworthy.

Why wouldn't it be? What kind of political agenda do you bring here that would demand we not talk about it?

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