Hacker News Reader

Comment by ClassAndBurn | Hacker News Reader

Tracy was the best CEO I ever worked for. Hands down.

She listened to everyone and made PlanGrid a place where everyone was empowered to make change. Her passion to solve problems was obvious and raw. She attracted people who were similarly passionate.

I knew she had it harder than others when I saw one of our own VC's caller her a "little girl" while doing a fireside chat with her at PlanGrid. In spite of it all she built a truly amazing company and culture.

If you are reading this thanks Tracy.

View on HN

She’s also one of the best founders I’ve ever worked with. Her talks at yc are my favorite — incredibly honest, personal, and insightful.

Seconded. Tracy stands out among all the startups I’ve worked for as being ambitious, approachable, and someone who seriously respects the opinions of everyone. My time at PlanGrid was uniquely more fun and productive than many places I’ve come across in my career.

Cheers, Tracy!

Seconded. Tracy was an amazing leader my entire time at PlanGrid.

Also seconding! I've worked for a diverse spread of founders (some good, some bad) but Tracy stands out as truly exceptional.

Seconded. Tracy is a great CEO and worked incredibly hard to make PlanGrid what it was.

It's terrible seeing my female coworkers blaming themselves for not getting promoted and internalizing it as "being too nice" or "being a pushover" when I know for a fact it's not true.

man, that sounds like a trashy thing (for the VC to have done).

I worked for a woman cofounder. It's incredible the things some VCs told her, including trying to get the other founder to drop her from the deal explicitly because of her gender.

Make no mistake about it, the ugly goes way deeper than just a bad comment here or there. Thankfully the trend is toward better.

I'll second this; this was said in public to people that reported to her. What happened behind closed doors was likely much worse. Tracy's example of not using Mother's Rooms shows she was protective of that part of herself and not willing to even touch it when fundraising.

It makes me wonder about the correlation between "the more of an asshole you are, the easier it is to rise in power" and "the more of an asshole you are, the more you treat everyone you can (especially those that aren't the same as you) poorly". I can't think of a single time I've seen someone treated poorly because of race or gender in my professional career (direct treatment; I recognize that systemic problems are both harder to see and potentially more dangerous). I'm also not high up on the power scale.

I feel that in a lot of cases, this is basically just bullying. Where people in power, or at least senior positions, will belittle others to their own benefit. It may not be racist or sexist in its cause, but can be in its nature. Basically, if there is a way to highlight someone for any differences, a bully is likely to use that, especially if it can aim to demean that other person. So it will be sexism, or racism, though not because the originator is racist or sexist, it's just because they are ignorant, not bothered and just like to bully or put down others with any tools at their disposal. Made worse by the way they might rise in power as result of being an asshole in this way. Until they fall

Is the trend towards better? I used to think so but the stories I heard in my time in Google was really, really depressing. The problem is that getting worse can be a self-reinforcing thing. Once a few women get badly treated and leaves the gender imbalance gets worse and the bad behavior gets normalized.

Real change is slow, one of the biggest differences is you used to simply not hear about similar things.

Back during the Bush jr administration my mother’s PHD advisor was getting threading/demeaning phone calls late at night from senior members of the administration over some research she had published. What struck me is the story was shared because the researcher thought it was funny rather than actually intimidating. For context some aspect of no child left behind was being pushed because it would line specific people’s pockets and rather than simply be discreet about they where pushing a narrative.

Presumably they approached things like this because they thought it would work without blowing up in their faces. Now days I think the risk vs reward on such things has changed slightly. In another 20 years things will be likely be mostly the same but probably with minor improvements.

There is always at least one guy in any group more then a handful of people. It is terrible what kind of bullshit women have to go through in this industry.

The first time I read this comment I failed to parse what you meant by 'one guy' and thought you were being sarcastic.

I also wonder what does it mean: "at least one guy"? -- it means one person who says ridiculing things towards women (in this context)?

(I'm not a native speaker)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com