Hacker News Reader

Comment by grabcocque | Hacker News Reader

It often seems like the whole Valley scene is just a hotbed of reactionary techbros doing their darnedest to keep tech White and Male. The thing is, I thought the tech scene was supposed to be progressive and enlightened, but increasingly frequently it is not.

It feels to me like this sort of Valley is increasingly looking like a dinosaur, a worldview and mindset we should be striving to move away from if the tech scene is to become what it aspires to be, egalitarian and enabling.

View on HN

Aren't Asians fairly well represented in tech, particularly at the larger SV firms? If they're trying to keep things exclusively White, I'm not sure they're doing a great job of it. This of course isn't to say that bias/discrimination isn't a problem and that there isn't a ton of progress to be made on hiring employees of diverse backgrounds.

Slightly tangential, but what's the generally accepted definition of "techbros"? I see the term used quite often but never really understand who exactly it applies to, it just seems like a nonspecific putdown. I don't work in SV though so I could just be out of the loop.

Probably, because Asians are positively stereotyped as being good at STEM. But a stereotype is still a stereotype.

It's late, and sometimes my reading comprehension sucks, so just to be extra clear, are you suggesting that the representation of Asians in tech is due to the stereotype of Asians being good at STEM and not the fact that Asians are well represented in STEM fields at the college/university level, and subsequently are mostly likely quite competent in these fields which are often required in the tech industry?

It's probably a bit of both, exactly in the way that the underrepresentation of women is also perpetuated by the stereotypes that work to convince many women to stay out of tech in the first place.

IT has, for example, become the easiest way to get to the US on an H1B visa. As a result, Asia saw a boom in IT education, has many qualified instructors coming back from the US etc. It also helps that IT is probably the highest-paying profession where language skills are somewhat secondary.

I appreciate your comment, and I should state that I am aware of the impact that stereotypes, both positive and negative, may play in the broader cultural landscape influencing career choice, among many other things. With that being said, saying it's a "bit of both", in my opinion downplays the extraordinary effort that Asians in the US have shown in gaining admittance to many STEM careers. This is particularly important considering Asians suffer from many negative stereotypes, I would unscientifically say far more negative ones than positive ones, and are often held to much higher academic standards than their black, Hispanic, or white peers with regards to college admissions. I understand that no malice was meant on your part but it still strikes me as somewhat downplaying the effort part of the equation.

I'd also add that your response was far more nuanced than the poster I was originally responding to, which is why I was asking for clarification in the first place.

> the tech scene was supposed to be progressive and enlightened

Why? Tech was a haven for nerdy outcasts who want a world that makes sense because the smartest minds are in charge. If anything it was libertarian since the cypherpunk days. Now we have censorious normies playing at identity politics who lack the obsession yet want the paychecks.

There's a range of individuals, and significant differences between front-line technical and management / finance / investment types.

I recall several stories from the 1990s / eary 2000s dot-com boom that were similarly blood-curdling / cringeworthy.

One involved a chief executive with a thing for his (male) adminstrative assistants.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com