4 ms·

The problem with Silicon Valley is that it doesn't respect intelligent women any more than the rest of the US. Sure, companies or "startups" will hire women as

by dojo 17y ago

The problem with Silicon Valley is that it doesn't respect intelligent women any more than the rest of the US. Sure, companies or "startups" will hire women as marketers to pass out badges or tshirts at big I/O events, answer phones, serve lunches, or vacuum the floors, work in the "massage" parlor . . . but being a female professional who actually has talent is about 1000 times harder than any guy who lives there can possibly understand.

enjo 17y ago
I'm a man, but I'm happy to call bullshit on that. There are a long list of successful women who are taken quite seriously all on their own. Leah Culver springs immediately to mind. My wife, who owns a successful accounting startup is another. I've met countless others, including one particularly memorable engineer at Flock (I'll protect her privacy). The reality is that there are simply very few women that hold the qualifications necessary to be successful in the startup world. When you do find one, the competition for their services is incredibly fierce. In a previous gig I tried desperately to hire a particular woman who had just graduated from MIT. We lost a pretty serious bidding war, not because she was a woman but because her skills were off the charts. It's funny, there are similar articles written about certain disciplines in academia (like accounting). There too it's just a numbers game. My wife, until her latest birthday, was just 1 of 5 female accounting PhD's in the whole country (including foreign born) under 30. Of course there are precious few female accounting professors, there are very few females pursuing accounting PhD's! Of course, that means she enjoys a tremendous advantage over her peers. The pressure to promote diversity means she enjoys a better salary and lot more job security than her male counterparts. The same is true, from my experience, for the few intelligent and talented female engineers that I've met in the valley.
- kscaldef 17y ago
  > There are a long list of successful women who are taken quite seriously all on their own. Leah Culver springs immediately to mind. That's interesting, because Leah Culver is someone who I've frequently heard discussed in the context of who she is dating or who she has dated, with the implication that she's riding on the coattails of her boyfriends. So, maybe that's not such a good example for you to use. (Disclaimer, in case that wasn't clear enough: I'm relaying things I've heard other people say. I don't personally know enough about Ms. Culver to have any opinions on her abilities.)
  - enjo 17y ago
    I think it's an excellent example. She clearly has the programming ability. She's clearly incredibly intelligent. She's clearly taken seriously. That she also runs in higher profile (At least in the valley) social circles hardly discounts her accomplishments.
    - yummyfajitas 17y ago
      Does she clearly have the programming ability? Her blog suggests she is an average programmer at best. http://blog.leahculver.com/2008/11/couchdb-documents-python-objects.html http://blog.leahculver.com/2008/11/couchdb-documents-python-... Using exec to access object fields? Really? There was also a fiasco a while back where she converted floats to strings in order to compute an average (!). She deleted that post, but if you google "leah culver star ratings" you'll find some discussion of it. She's a great marketer, but I'd hardly say she has the programming ability.
      - dojo 17y ago
        She's a great marketer, but I'd hardly say she has the programming ability. Truest words ever written. I can only respect people whose _work_ I admire, and who understand. What has she built? Leah hasn't contributed anything of value to the Internet, unless a few videos or popularity contests count.
        leahculver 17y ago
        http://github.com/leah http://github.com/leah
      - ladyada 17y ago
        Which I find quite interesting. I know plenty of men who are terrible engineers and post pretty bad stuff on their blog, but none get the kinds of evisceration that you are referring to - mentioned over and over again in blogs, forums, etc. The 'Internet' was/is ruthless in laughing at her and putting her down, in a way that I just don't see happening to guys. Could be just that its more apparent with the fewer # of women - people are more likely to remember these faux pas. Would be interesting to hear of specific technical instances of the same occurring with guys.
- dojo 17y ago
  Sorry. I left one item of importance off my list: the valley has no respect for intelligent, professional women who aren't camera whores. Leah whatever her name is the worst example you could have cited.
smokey_the_bear 17y ago
uh, I've had no problem getting hired in silicon valley as a software engineer. They never asked me to pass out t-shirts or give a "massage". Being a woman and being in tech is certainly different than a man could completely understand, and hard for not exactly the reasons a man would expect. But being a man is hard in different ways.

by dojo 17y ago

enjo 17y ago

I'm a man, but I'm happy to call bullshit on that. There are a long list of successful women who are taken quite seriously all on their own. Leah Culver springs immediately to mind. My wife, who owns a successful accounting startup is another. I've met countless others, including one particularly memorable engineer at Flock (I'll protect her privacy). The reality is that there are simply very few women that hold the qualifications necessary to be successful in the startup world. When you do find one, the competition for their services is incredibly fierce. In a previous gig I tried desperately to hire a particular woman who had just graduated from MIT. We lost a pretty serious bidding war, not because she was a woman but because her skills were off the charts. It's funny, there are similar articles written about certain disciplines in academia (like accounting). There too it's just a numbers game. My wife, until her latest birthday, was just 1 of 5 female accounting PhD's in the whole country (including foreign born) under 30. Of course there are precious few female accounting professors, there are very few females pursuing accounting PhD's! Of course, that means she enjoys a tremendous advantage over her peers. The pressure to promote diversity means she enjoys a better salary and lot more job security than her male counterparts. The same is true, from my experience, for the few intelligent and talented female engineers that I've met in the valley.

kscaldef 17y ago
> There are a long list of successful women who are taken quite seriously all on their own. Leah Culver springs immediately to mind. That's interesting, because Leah Culver is someone who I've frequently heard discussed in the context of who she is dating or who she has dated, with the implication that she's riding on the coattails of her boyfriends. So, maybe that's not such a good example for you to use. (Disclaimer, in case that wasn't clear enough: I'm relaying things I've heard other people say. I don't personally know enough about Ms. Culver to have any opinions on her abilities.)
- enjo 17y ago
  I think it's an excellent example. She clearly has the programming ability. She's clearly incredibly intelligent. She's clearly taken seriously. That she also runs in higher profile (At least in the valley) social circles hardly discounts her accomplishments.
  - yummyfajitas 17y ago
    Does she clearly have the programming ability? Her blog suggests she is an average programmer at best. http://blog.leahculver.com/2008/11/couchdb-documents-python-objects.html http://blog.leahculver.com/2008/11/couchdb-documents-python-... Using exec to access object fields? Really? There was also a fiasco a while back where she converted floats to strings in order to compute an average (!). She deleted that post, but if you google "leah culver star ratings" you'll find some discussion of it. She's a great marketer, but I'd hardly say she has the programming ability.
    - dojo 17y ago
      She's a great marketer, but I'd hardly say she has the programming ability. Truest words ever written. I can only respect people whose _work_ I admire, and who understand. What has she built? Leah hasn't contributed anything of value to the Internet, unless a few videos or popularity contests count.
      - leahculver 17y ago
        http://github.com/leah http://github.com/leah
    - ladyada 17y ago
      Which I find quite interesting. I know plenty of men who are terrible engineers and post pretty bad stuff on their blog, but none get the kinds of evisceration that you are referring to - mentioned over and over again in blogs, forums, etc. The 'Internet' was/is ruthless in laughing at her and putting her down, in a way that I just don't see happening to guys. Could be just that its more apparent with the fewer # of women - people are more likely to remember these faux pas. Would be interesting to hear of specific technical instances of the same occurring with guys.
dojo 17y ago
Sorry. I left one item of importance off my list: the valley has no respect for intelligent, professional women who aren't camera whores. Leah whatever her name is the worst example you could have cited.

smokey_the_bear 17y ago

uh, I've had no problem getting hired in silicon valley as a software engineer. They never asked me to pass out t-shirts or give a "massage". Being a woman and being in tech is certainly different than a man could completely understand, and hard for not exactly the reasons a man would expect. But being a man is hard in different ways.