I want to work with more women

sighs Look, I would not want to work somewhere if there was even the slightest chance that I got the job on account of my gender. I do not want to be some progressive nice guy's feel-good story, I want to be good at what I do. So while I do appreciate this enthusiasm for helping women succeed in tech, I respectfully would ask that the best way to help is to mentor, teach, and advise -- not to make us feel like we've become someone's pet diversity project. I mean, I want to be a great coder someday, not a great woman coder, y'know?

In short: help us tap into resources and conferences and classes and seminars where we can hone our skills, and we can take it from there. (Etsy's recent program to develop more female engineers is probably the gold standard to emulate in this regard: http://www.fastcolabs.com/3005681/how-hack-broken-gender-dyn... ) Help us network and hack and build shit. Submit pull requests to our lonely little open source projects. Call other guys out publicly if they act like jerks to us at conferences. Just...please don't blog about how you wish we would come keep you company at your start-up, as if we were elusive butterflies you want to pin to your wall.

Also? Every time the "women in tech" conversation happens, the elephant in the living room that no one likes to mention is that women tend to be the primary caregivers for their kids (or later, for their elderly parents, or disabled siblings, etc.). This is true of techie women too, and it totally has an effect on the kinds of jobs we take, and when. Most techie women I know have young kids at home or are planning to have them within the next few years before our biological clocks run out. (I'm 34 and I have two, ages 5 and 2.) Does a start-up like Dwolla offer childcare credits or benefits? Onsite daycare? Emergency nanny services? Because a lot of big companies do this, but a lot of startups have no idea that these benefits even exist, much less offer them to their employees.

If I know I'm going to be going back to work full-time after having children, what kind of a company do you think I'm going to look at first, a traditional big company or a start-up? Which one is going to likely offer me better hours and more stability, at a time when my income (and health benefits) are really crucial to other people who are depending upon it? And that's to say nothing of the culture at the company. Do I want to work at some start-up that advertises beer nights and paid company dinners as if they're obvious perks, when I honestly look at them and think that ugh, this is yet more time I would have to spend away from my kids.

In short, our priorities may not mesh perfectly with your priorities. :-)

10 women out of 40 are women is prrrrobably a higher proportion than most tech companies, no?

This strikes me as being a little bit...weird, and could maybe put women off..? Perhaps it could be explained in a more robust manner than saying they have excellent planning skills and have "exceptional minds" as if it's some sort of universal truth. It comes across as sounding artificial and...weird.

Young men and women of HN: If you apply to Ben Milne's company, he won't be particularly excited if he discovers you have a penis. If he discovers have a vagina, though, he'll be much more excited.

Good for you, Ben.

As I'm sure many of you have noticed, it's almost always hyper-privileged men who triumphantly make these (and similar) pronouncements. And as always, by urinating on lower-status men, Ben risks very little social standing; his potential social benefits, however, are enormous.