She was a media darling in part because she was a female founder. I wonder how much damage she's done to the ability of women to get taken seriously. I don't ever really see that angle talked about.
She was also white. And blonde. And non LGBT. And non obese.
Are all these groups now disadvantaged?
I think what is not adequately discussed is the "affinity fraud" aspect of Theranos: she got her initial funding from a parent of her childhood friends, whose house she was often over as a child. And because he is well known, the company was more easily able to recruit other investors and board members, which had the typical snowball effect.
But people act like I'm crazy for suggesting it and like I don't have valid reasons for trying to parse how this got so crazy and what her gender might have to do with how nutty this became. Trying to sort my life? -- not pertinent, clearly. A woman looking at stories about other women couldn't be trying to find an actual viable path forward for herself, no.
Or perhaps shouldn't be looking. "Status quo is god."
I basically posit that the question of sex that hangs in the air is a huge stumbling block for women. Most men know that if they are being friendly and establishing trust, this is a platonic relationship. When men and women try to be friendly and establish trust, it is easily confused for romantic behavior.
And it complicates the hell out of things. Men are very reticent to give women meaty constructive feedback. When they do, women feel attacked instead of aided.
Etc.
Women have much less opportunity to get casual nudges for their idea over drinks or whatever and women seem to much more often get feedback too late in the process, causing the need for very expensive major pivots instead of smaller tweaks at an earlier stage adequately changing the vector, or they get nothing but positive feedback and pats on the head like they are emotionally fragile and can't handle the truth. The result is that they have enormous difficulty doing anything worthwhile.
Sometimes women will marry the right guy and he will make a good business partner or sometimes they seem to do well starting businesses with their adult sons. But if you are a woman and not lucky enough to have one of those two scenarios, you face this huge uphill battle because so much of what is known about business is known by men and they mostly don't seem to share it with women.
I get tired of the same points being endlessly rehashed. People debate if women just lack interest or spend too much time raising children or on and on.
I actually want to get things done, including make adequate money. I can't find the answers I need and no one wants to engage those questions. I've tried. For years. I mostly get feedback that indicates I bother people and should stop being so annoying with my stupid girly questions.
Give actual feedback on the actual project, not on her feelings, her confidence or whatever.
When I get frustrated and start expressing my feelings on HN, I routinely get sympathetic, emotionally supportive noises of the "atta girl" sort. What I need is actual engagement and that's much, much, much harder to come by.
Feelings come from somewhere. If I got what I actually needed, I wouldn't be having a hissy.
Is that at all clear?
That doesn't mean you can't ever say anything about them. There are situations where a statement like "Yes, but you have x track record of performance." is pertinent objective feedback.
What I find problematic is men want to engage me emotionally. They want an emotional connection. They treat me like a vending machine of guaranteed good feelings.
And it has nothing to do with helping me accomplish something. It often actively interferes.
Work/goal oriented as much as possible. Things easily get uncomfortable and confusing otherwise.
You can be warmly supportive of their work. It doesn't have to be a cold situation. Just enthuse about their ideas, their proposal, etc rather than about how smart they are, etc.