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Comment by saalweachter | Hacker News Reader

I'm probably just an egotist, but I really think that any drying up of the venture capital is really just going to hurt venture capitalists.

An engineer -- here's the egotism coming -- is a money machine. She may be more effective working together with other force multipliers (marketeers, venture capitalists, a good CEO), but fundamentally a good engineer creates value all by herself. If the VC isn't along for the ride, less value may be created less quickly, but the engineer is still going to get hers and the VC not.

I can think of one example of an engineer who just didn't seek funding and created a whole bunch of value (notch); does anyone know of a good example of a startup which was forced to bootstrap without significant funding (on account of a burst VC bubble) and survived to stick it to 'em?

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does anyone know of a good example of a startup which was forced to bootstrap without significant funding (on account of a burst VC bubble) and survived to stick it to 'em?

I don't know. We started up in the shadow of the dot com bust, so there was not really any funding available for ecommerce companies. That said, we never actively sought any VC money, so it's incorrect to say we are an example of what you're seeking.

Most engineers are male, why do you use 'she'? Also it distracts from your other points.

Because someone would argue the opposite (that engineering needs to be more welcoming to females) if saalweachter used he instead.

Technically in most Latin languages the generic gender is masculine. So it is, in fact, awkward when she is used for the same purpose. Sure it can be used to make a statement "between the lines", but that is what makes it so distracting.

Gender inequality in engineering isn't going to be solved by replacing 'he' with 'she'.

Opinion, not fact. It's not awkward to me. And we would be better off if we didn't worry about which word to use.

better question is, why do you find it so distracting?

Because it's like he is trying to advocate feminism in the middle of his other points.

While somewhat out of style, "she" is often used as a universal gender neutral pronoun. To me, it's far less distracting to read than "he/she" or "(s)he." I personally prefer the singular "they" as a gender neutral pronoun, but some people think it's improper English.

Either way, I don't think that using "she" as a gender neutral pronoun can be considered distracting advocacy of feminism.

As far as I can tell that was never in style.

Historically man and he have been used a universal gender neutral pronouns. In most latin languages this is spelled out clearly as proper grammar (e.g., French). In English it has been left ambiguous. That said, one clearly is making the conscious choice to swim against the tide when specifically using 'she' for this purpose, so it's going to distract some people. Though I agree far less than he/she and (s)he.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_English

By that logic, every time that you use the word "he" when referring to a human of unspecified gender, you're advocating masculinism.

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