An Open Letter To All Startup Founders

This seems prudish. This is a restaurant, not a strip club. There is no nudity. They have national TV ads. If you go in, you'll find families with children. You can find that questionable if you want to, but clearly many people don't mind bringing their children there.

Most restaurants hire a lot of female servers. Most have very nice looking women. This is not a coincidence. Most have them wear clothes that in some way accentuates their sexuality, even if it's just nice form fitting attire that shows no skin. They're not given burquas.

Why do good liberal folk rail against the supposed repressed sexuality of the United States, holding up European countries as some kind of enlightened ideal, and as soon as a woman decides to empower herself by working wherever she pleases, including a place that shows her midriff, we all suddenly prude out and talk about lawsuits?

Weirdly, I both care tremendously about gender equality, and also think this is much ado about nothing. I guess the issue is my libertine nature, and refusal to assume that anything with sexual overtones is innately hostile, offensive, insulting, etc.

One of the co-founders at Fogbeam Labs is a woman, so this is not empty rhetoric on my part. I respect women tremendously, and would not have invited this woman to join the team if I didn't have tremendous respect for her technical chops, intelligence, etc. But I don't buy into this PC crap of assuming that taking the team to Hooters for lunch is somehow equivalent to sexual harassment or "creating a hostile work environment."

Now, I'll grant that in some cases there may be a correlation between a team that chooses to eat at Hooters (or strip clubs or whatever) and a team that is made up of guys who only see women as sexual objects, and who might be prone to acting in uncool ways. But I don't believe in throwing the baby out with the bathwater... deal with these things on a case-by-case basis, focusing on the specifics, instead of making wild generalizations, IMO.

Anyway, I believe in celebrating human sexuality and wish that more people (male and female) could quit being so damn defensive about the fact that men like women and women like men.

And please don't take any of this as excusing examples like the ones cited in the article, where a male co-worker physically assaulted a female co-worker; or cases where repeated sexual overtures are made after the initiator has been asked to stop, etc. Sex is good, sexual harassment is bad. Let's just not assume that the two are equivalent, or that one should never mix business and pleasure.

I'm not really sure that the point needed to be restated, as I think that we all know what qualifies as an HR nightmare. Gender inequality is a problem that definitely needs to be avoided, but (what seems to be) the core issue for this article seems to be a non issue. We don't really have any context for the Hooters-ish photo, so I can't make any concrete deductions, but it seems as though an all male startup team decided to go willingly, and most likely unanimously to the wild wings and boobs eatery. If they had female counterparts that felt as though they did not belong then there could be a problem. Again, we don't have much context.

I can understand the sentiment regarding the "unprofessional" nature of the given photo, but I highly doubt that their employee outing is going to be the cause of burned bridges and lawsuits.

"Gender inequality is a problem that needs to be avoided"

Why is gender inequality a problem that needs to be avoided? The economy needs tech startups. What difference does it make that the vast majority are started by men? It would be equally good if most tech startups were started by women, but they aren't. Who cares? The "gender inequality is bad" meme seems to be an unquestioned default that most people hold in their heads. The first thing people will always assume is that any uneven statistical distribution of people in a profession will be due to discrimination. But that's usually not the case. Usually, it comes down to a far simpler explanation. There are significant average motivational differences between men and women when it comes to math and the hard sciences that will always ensure a gender imbalance in engineering-related fields. Statistically, it has little to do with ability (except at very elite levels). Far fewer women than men enjoy thinking about and discussing technology. It's a simple fact of the world that's easily observed in the ever day conversations that men and women choose to have. And it will forever ensure a statistical gender imbalance in tech. Most women aren't interested in technology and women (and men) who are in technology, who keep pushing for this fictional perfect male/female balance would do well to show a bit of respect to the majority of the female population that chooses to be interested in other things that females are typically more oriented towards.

I had a client who used to call me up and ask me to come up and meet them for a "very important meeting", wherein I'd arrive and they'd go to a strip club. They did this several times, and I was never particularly comfortable with it.

They were the opposite of a startup, but at the time I worked for a small company (who didn't want to risk alienating them). My salesperson (who was a woman) was very adamant that I attend these meetings, as they were an important customer.

After my company got acquired, the new, enormous company that I worked for rather sensibly freaked the hell out about those sorts of things (one of the few benefits to working at a large company).

And as an aside, I'm incredibly disappointed to learn that "Twin Peaks" isn't a restaurant themed after the TV show. I'd totally hang out in that place.

I've worked at companies that used strip clubs as part of their sales process. I won't again if I can help it. I'd avoid working at a company that posted a photo like this, too.

Wow these articles really show how far the hacker community is oblivious to the effects of this kind of thing on their work. The whole point is that startups are leaving themselves up to litigation and even worse (from the company perspective) is that they will find it hard to attract female programmers and potentially female customers. I work in a male-dominated field and we're one of the few companies that employ females as skilled labour, some of the feedback i received from a 360 degree review was that some of the women felt excluded by some of the conversations that some of the male crew were having. I cant even imagine how going to a place like this for a work gathering would make them feel.

When I first read this post I thought "Great! A story on cases of less explicit forms of gender-discrimination told in a way that makes business and economic sense. Seems like a good argument to have in my backpocket as someone who cares about gender issues." Then, out of further curiosity I checked the conversation on HN.

Gender issues are not like making someone feel uncomfortable for their eating habits, or their consumption of alcohol. Your eating habits, especially in Silicon Valley, are not something that systemically keep you back from achieving success. Gender and implicit sexism do.

Perhaps as a man, respecting women for their brains and their bodies feels "orthogonal" to you, but I doubt it does to most of the women you work with. Ask them, but in a way where they can really respond.

More than anything that's the important idea here. Being a woman in technology is different than being a man. If you are a man and have opinions about this and have not sought out the opinions of the women you work with in a genuine way, in an environment where they can be honest, then you don't know what you are talking about. I've asked and it's always surprised and dissapointed me.

Maybe from now on we should use IANAW to talk about gender issues as men, because honestly, its are stacked in our favor. Only by understanding the other side can we understand what the problems with gender issues look like.

One of the big reasons I love the hacker culture is the lack of sexism, if you are good you are good, doesn't matter what sex, race or religion. The only thing true hackers care about is your level of skill and dedication.

There's only one right message in this article: linking your company brand to Hooters might be detrimental to your bottom line< no pun intended > Now that that's out of the way, there is absolutely nothing wrong about doing this. In fact, her complaint exhibits the lack of respect for freedom of choice and expression one can take advantage of, without paying a price in the public court of opinion.

It boils down to this: she was offended, she should avoid the company. Instead she's publicly trying to gang up on them, where it actually might cause them to lose some coin. Live and let live.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that a work environment shouldn't be difficult for one person, and easy for another based on a discriminating factor, but let's be realistic people!

There are going to be situations in life where you'll be uncomfortable. It might be because of your values, gender, faith, or race. It will happen. It will happen to the person standing next to you at some point.

How about we all grow up and move past these points, and build cool stuff? I don't care if it is done in a Hooters or a Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

I would think that investors (and/or shareholders) would be very interested in their investments not having their runway dissolved by some discrimination lawsuit.

So are investors just not watching? I would think that one call or email from one of your VCs where they condone That Sort Of Thing would be enough to scramble the PR machine and never do something like that again.

But it seems that every month (at least) we see some startup doing something dumb like this. Are VCs just not watching what their investments are doing?

By the way, an easier way to potentially avoid situations like this (for those wondering what is/isn't appropriate in a work environment but are having trouble conceptualizing what's "appropriate" in a work context):

Just don't go to shitty lunch places (like Hooters).

I can't think of any place that's objectionable in this context that's actually a decent place to go.

This is probably as much a function of age inequality as much as gender inequality, to be honest. Get a bunch of 21-25 year old men together for long periods of time, and shenanigans of a crass and sexist and possibly misogynistic nature will ensue.

All men have been there, most men outgrow it.

Do you think it's OK to go to such places outside of a company organized event? Would it be OK if the employees went there on their own?

Some interesting back and forth between the OP and the founder of the startup in question: https://twitter.com/kathrynhough/status/212368001494818816

The issue doesn't have much to do with gender, really.

Firstly, one need not be male in order to be happy going to a place like Twin Peaks. The only time I've been to Hooters, I was dragged there by a bunch of chicks.

Secondly, one need not be female in order to be unhappy going to a place like Twin Peaks. Older, more respectable-looking men, men with daughters who would be round about the right age to be waitresses there, or extremely religious men, would feel uncomfortable there.

Thirdly, this isn't the only kind of company outing that can make people feel uncomfortable. Going to a steak-only restaurant can make vegetarians uncomfortable; on the other hand going to a vegetarian restaurant will make the omnivores uncomfortable.

Anyway, the point of the story is to organize your company outings, if you must have them, at someplace everyone will enjoy. Which, as far as advice goes, falls into the category "bloody obvious". No need to stick your genitals into it.

They're probably all "brogrammers".

Lame... so lame. Maybe her boyfriend was in that picture and that's what this post is all about.

I bet everyone is smiling in that pic.