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Comment by dijit | Hacker News Reader

Almost no detail of any kind except 60 instances in a rack, and a very brief look at the chassis.

I got the impression that the guide didn't know anything about what they were talking about w.r.t internals or how it's used, but that could be sexism or racism I guess. At no point did they mention anything about why there was an external thunderbolt network controller (or why it was so big).

No information about orchestration or storage or... any detail at all really.

"here's a fan, there's a thunderbolt ethernet", "it fits like this".

Very surface level, which is annoying because its very clearly marketing for developers or technical people who even care about GitHub.

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Just because something isn’t particularly technical doesn’t mean the person who made it doesn’t know what they’re talking about. I’d love to learn a lot more about these racks too, but I don’t look at the video and go “this is the extent of the knowledge these two women have on the thing they’re talking about”. And, for what it’s worth, at least one of the guides posts here quite often, so she might even stop by to answer your questions if she’s allowed to do so and actually wants to interact with you after what you said about her.

By your tone I get the impression that you're offended by my statements.

I can understand that if you read my comment as if I intended to be insulting.

I'd like to point out that: I did not intend it to be insulting to the authors, for 2 reasons:

1) Nobody knows everything; I'm responsible for works which I do not go into detail with. For example, my reports include: Render Architects, Gameplay Programmers, UI/UX Design and things I conventionally understood such as Backend Development/SRE. -- If I spoke on a rendering topic it would be high level, this does not mean I am bad at my job.

2) The way in which this was presented is either: Highly media trained (IE: DO NOT GIVE ANY SECRETS AND WE WILL NOT TELL YOU WHAT IS SECRET WE WILL ONLY EDIT IN POST), which is a situation I've been in before actually, or the person presenting is, like me, managing a team of specialists that she does not go deep technically with.

I want to be clear: I do not think less of any of the people who presented this, I do however think less of GitHub the organisation for presenting this marketing without very much substance.

The crux of my comment was precisely this, certainly not an attack on any individual.

I even tried to acknowledge my potential bias towards sexism, racism (and perhaps also the valley accent): however, on reflection, I genuinely believe that I would have scolded a caucasian male significantly worse for presenting in such a way. I definitely pulled punches based on ethnicity and gender; which is also a form of racism/sexism - just in this case it actually benefits the video and its presenters.

The reason I even consider that they do not know the subject matter in depth was that the conversation stemmed almost entirely on what the presenter was seeing, as if they were finding things they recognised. Like when a person who has built computers opens up a server and recognises RAM, or USB ports. (something I have seen often in my career when non-IT folks get curious when people are working on servers). The second reason is typically engineers love to explain reasons. The why of a thing is usually much more thrilling to discuss and that wasn't talked about at all. IE: why is it clever to have an external thunderbolt ethernet controller, why is it clever to have these machines housed in sleds instead of racking the whole device.

The kinesthetics of how they're just pointing at fans, power and sliding it in and out of the chassis just reminded me of how I was when I got my first server hardware and started playing with it. It lacks the familiarity I would expect.

I hope you understand my position, it's not intended to insult or offend, we all have value of course and I was just uncertain if Github had put her in front of the camera because she represents a high position and doesn't work with this daily; which in my opinion reflects poorly on github, not on her.

There was no substance to this video at all especially when you think about who might be the intended audience for this video as in tech professionals or tech interested people.

I'm not offended by your comment. For one, it's not even talking about me or any work that is closely related to mine. I'm just pointing out that someone who was in that situation may perceive the comment negatively, and explain why that might be the case.

It is (genuinely!) good that you did not intend malice with your post. And being aware of sexism, or any other kind of stereotyping/discrimination, is definitely a good start. That said, just because you did not mean to be insulting does not automatically preclude you from coming across that way. While we all make mistakes, and I assume from your comment that you wish to avoid them yourself, I think what your reply here really shows that you did a poor job at expressing what you really wanted to say. This is unfortunate, because it's actually pretty easy to rephrase it to not come across poorly.

You–and this is a fact–noted that the video does not have much technical content. It's kind of a marketing piece, really. A lot of people here (myself included!) would have probably wanted a deeper dive into the technologies involved. Here are some examples of how you might rephrase to convey that:

"It's interesting to see that they got this working, but I have to admit I'm kind of disappointed by the video. There's not a lot of detail as to how this works. I was hoping they would explain the Thunderbolt adapter, at least." (It's rarely a bad idea to be courteous and polite, especially when you start a comment. This conveys your feelings and where you feel the video falls short. The work itself, rather than any people involved, are brought up.)

"What's with the big Thunderbolt network controller? Anyone know what's up with that?" (Invites others to respond if they know the answer. Perhaps even the author or someone closely related! They often browse the internet just like you.)

"This is really just a marketing video :/ It's kind of stupid that they don't actually explain anything that's going on. I hate companies that keep their cards close to their chest." (This has a much stronger opinion in it, and your idea of what they should do to fix it, but it directs it at GitHub, not the people in the video. GitHub is a lot of people but not one person. It's hard to offend a company.)

"Why did GitHub make this video? It has no technical content and makes it seem like these women are not involved in the engineering process. Why bring out the director of this team if you won't even let her say anything about the actual work she did?" (This is a very strong opinion. If you're careful you might be able to play it, but do note that the women in the video may not appreciate you speaking for them about how the video portrays them.)

On the other hand, you said, and I quote, "I got the impression that the guide didn't know anything about what they were talking about w.r.t internals or how it's used". Do you see how this directs your criticism at the people in the video? There are plenty of reasons why they might not go into detail, many of which are out of their control or not relevant. You might have the "impression" that the guide doesn't know what she's talking about as opposed to, say, actually not knowing what she's talking about, but if you go up to someone and say "I get the impression you're stupid" that's basically saying "I think you're stupid" or "you did something stupid". That's not nice, regardless of how you feel about it. From your second comment, your annoyance has nothing to with the people, so why bring them up? Direct your criticism at the thing you care about.

I think a big problem is that people often realize that what they're about to say is difficult to express and can be a sensitive topic (women in tech, here). Unfortunately, saying it anyways and then ducking under "this is hard to describe! I am not being discriminatory! I would say it to white cishet men too!" doesn't actually really help. First off, why would you say it to a white cishet man? Your comment, in a vacuum, doesn't have any sexism in it. It just sucks in general. You probably shouldn't be going around telling men that they give you the impression of not knowing what they're talking about, either! But when you do bring into the picture that women are the target of these comments more often than not, I think you should demonstrate a little more tact. Read it a bit more closely to see who the criticism might be aimed at, and soften or clarify as appropriate. Or ask someone else you trust to help you out!

>I get the impression you're stupid

That's a different claim altogether. You're right about how their phrasing directed criticism at the presenter rather than entirely at the company, so you should steer clear of strawmen while you're ahead.

If you come up to me and say "you don't know what you're talking about" I interpret this as you telling me that you think I am stupid. My feeling is that this would not be an uncommon reaction, either, but if you have other thoughts I'd be happy to hear them.

> I got the impression that the guide didn't know anything about what they were talking about w.r.t internals or how it's used

I got the same impression, and I think it's a fair critique of the video and the presenter. OP simply acknolwedged that unconcious bias may be affecting their judgement, for better or for worse.

I think it was just overly stage-managed and produced. I found the upbeat, ‘super-excited‘ kinetic delivery (from both presenters in that part) fake and off-putting; especially for the engineer, I’m almost certain that this was ‘trained’ by whichever agency they were using for the video production.

They are both in high-level senior management roles and are pretty young. Most people I have encountered like that are not very technically skilled, regardless of race or gender. Either way it’s a marketing video, probably best not to read too much into it.

They both have at least a decade experience in the industry and Iccha Sethi seemed like a knowledgeable engineer. She also seemed pretty genuine and enthusiastic about her team's work on this.

The video is just pretty short and very surface level and it would've been better if it was an 8 - 10 minute video. Then they could have included the people taking the things apart and put some shots of actual work being done in.

It was a weirdly undetailed video.

They didn't give details but it might come across as rude to assume they didn't know anything. The guide is introduced as a director of engineering, IIRC. One rational and charitable interpretation based on that is that they know way more than you do.

Also, even without that introduction, I got the opposite impression. The lady seemed very knowledgeable and had that melding of professionalism, persona and super-smarts that is common is very high performers, in my experience.

Sure, it didn't cater to your exact technical expectations of what the video should have, but such an expectation could be considered somewhat narrow, and it may be difficult to argue that therefore it is without merit. Your point about it seeming to miss the point of its intended audience is well-taken but may result from an a super narrow understanding of the audience segment you mention, which is likely more diverse than suspected. Also, the context suggests it was designed as a mix of PR, marketing, and technical sneak peak / curio, which it seemed to achieve well.

Your self-awareness of how this could be the result of sexism or racism is commendable but by surfacing your awareness of it, it comes across as less likely to be the cause, so I'm going to assume it's some other reason for now! hahaha! :)

Overall your comment could come across as somewhat strident and narrowly focused dismissal of something, and someone, with lots of value! Perhaps you just missed that for whatever reason? That's ok! :)

I watched this, and the commentary from the 2nd tour guide seems non-serious. I did think the "valley girl" accent is what threw me off, but I stopped watching at "super cool sled". I just don't understand who their audience is with this type of commentary.

I hope they're just frying vocals and not m1s

I have an impeccable valley girl accent and just shy of thirty years of production sysadmin experience. Debiasing is hard work, but it’s worth it.

If you sound disinterested and don't articulate your speech for the technical audience you have -> you deserve the perception you get.

Biases exist for a reason. If I'm not hearing the detail I'm looking for or the sincerity I can trust, I know I'm not your audience.

If, in a technical settings, someone consciously interprets the valley girl sound itself as an indication of inarticulate, insincere, and disinterested; then, then they’re perpetuating biases against a regional accent, which is completely unacceptable. The harder problem is getting people to notice when they’re unconsciously doing so, and then to compensate for their own bias when listening to – and judging – others.

(Your comment makes sense otherwise, no argument here — I’m only here for the valley girl subthread.)

Hmm. I will say from past experiences I've only found the 'valley girl' accent to be in certain parts of California, and not representative of Californians. Growing up I remember when my sister and her friends adopted this style of speaking for a time. Usually at school, this was (from my perception) to project an air of being disinterested in bored in conversation toward authority figures. I also found it when someone wasn't capable of demonstrating a deep knowledge of something (where the bias comes into effect). I know it's incorrect, but I have many friends that think Californians don't have an innate accent and I've often thought this about how I sound when going elsewhere.

I think your comment makes sense, and I appreciate the way you detailed this.

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