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Doing a startup is not just about programming ability. Determination, desire, competiveness, a willingness to take risks, etc, are all far more important. Of

Doing a startup is not just about programming ability. Determination, desire, competiveness, a willingness to take risks, etc, are all far more important. Of the long course of human existence, something like 40% of men have reproduced, while 80% of women manage to reproduce ( http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/is-there-anything-good-about-men-and-other-tricky-questions/ http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/is-there-anyt... ). Thus for a woman to reproduce she basically has to not take risks, and not screw up. But the proper reproductive strategy for a man is to take major risks so he can be the top dog with 5 wives, rather than the median man with no wives. The result is that men are by nature far greater risk takers. Startups require a lot of risk and a lot of sacrifice, it's not at all surprising to me that it is so male dominated. All the most risky activities, throughout the entire course of human history have been male dominated. And also, being good at programming is not just about having the smart genes. It's also about liking programming. I'm a nerd, I like spending most of time dealing with abstract logical concepts rather than with people. Most women are not like this. We have several women on our team in QA and product management. They have undergraduate degrees in engineering from top schools. But they don't program. Why? Because they don't like it. Whenever I talk with women about career plans, and mention programming, the usual response is something like, "meh". On the flip side, I'm pretty sure I would hate working in PR. Men and woman are different. And you know what? That's OK. I don't see what this obsession is with putting all of society in a blender until every job as a perfect distribution of every demographic component. Celebrate and embraces differences!

foldr 17y ago
Isn't it maybe a bit of a stretch to go from the hypothetical reproduction strategies of our stone-age ancestors to the gender balance of startup founders? A much simpler and more informative approach would be to compare the gender ratios of startups in less techy/programming fields. If what you say is correct, the predominance of men should be more or less equal in these. It's kind of embarrassing to me that whenever these issues come up on forums like this, people immediately start getting into amateur evolutionary psychology. This is basically code for "I like things the way they are; end of discussion."
- bokonist 17y ago
  The reproduction numbers aren't purely hypothetical, it's based in DNA studies - http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/is-there-anything-good-about-men-and-other-tricky-questions/ http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/is-there-anyt... And a lifetime of observations tell me that men in general are greater risk takers and more competitive. I cannot prove my thesis with 100% rigor, but it's the best explanation of the facts that I've got. It's kind of embarrassing to me that whenever these issues come up on forums like this, people immediately start getting into amateur evolutionary psychology. There's never going to be perfect data on either side that proves any of this. We'll never know for sure how much of the male/female divide is genetic or environmental. Neither sociology nor psychology is a Popperian science. So all we can do is combine knowledge of what science might apply, personal observations, stories from others, personal experimentation, readings from histories, etc, and make a judgement. In a word, we use Phronesis - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phronesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phronesis
  - foldr 17y ago
    I said that the inference to reproduction strategies was hypothetical, not the numbers. As you say, there simply isn't any good evidence available for any position in this domain. For this reason, I don't see the point in making these highly speculative connections between reproduction strategies and startup gender balance. It only serves to cloud the issue by offering a pseuoscientific defense of the status quo (and by going off on a hell of a tangent). The whole thing is a complete distraction from considering the issue in a practical way. If we actually got significant numbers of women in these positions, we could find out whether or not they were inherently unsuited to them.

foldr 17y ago

Isn't it maybe a bit of a stretch to go from the hypothetical reproduction strategies of our stone-age ancestors to the gender balance of startup founders? A much simpler and more informative approach would be to compare the gender ratios of startups in less techy/programming fields. If what you say is correct, the predominance of men should be more or less equal in these. It's kind of embarrassing to me that whenever these issues come up on forums like this, people immediately start getting into amateur evolutionary psychology. This is basically code for "I like things the way they are; end of discussion."

bokonist 17y ago
The reproduction numbers aren't purely hypothetical, it's based in DNA studies - http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/is-there-anything-good-about-men-and-other-tricky-questions/ http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/is-there-anyt... And a lifetime of observations tell me that men in general are greater risk takers and more competitive. I cannot prove my thesis with 100% rigor, but it's the best explanation of the facts that I've got. It's kind of embarrassing to me that whenever these issues come up on forums like this, people immediately start getting into amateur evolutionary psychology. There's never going to be perfect data on either side that proves any of this. We'll never know for sure how much of the male/female divide is genetic or environmental. Neither sociology nor psychology is a Popperian science. So all we can do is combine knowledge of what science might apply, personal observations, stories from others, personal experimentation, readings from histories, etc, and make a judgement. In a word, we use Phronesis - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phronesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phronesis
- foldr 17y ago
  I said that the inference to reproduction strategies was hypothetical, not the numbers. As you say, there simply isn't any good evidence available for any position in this domain. For this reason, I don't see the point in making these highly speculative connections between reproduction strategies and startup gender balance. It only serves to cloud the issue by offering a pseuoscientific defense of the status quo (and by going off on a hell of a tangent). The whole thing is a complete distraction from considering the issue in a practical way. If we actually got significant numbers of women in these positions, we could find out whether or not they were inherently unsuited to them.