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The article suggests that power in computing is something men have to give. It isn't. Computing is a market based economy. Anyone can start a computing company,

The article suggests that power in computing is something men have to give. It isn't. Computing is a market based economy. Anyone can start a computing company, and run it as they please. I.e. women can start computing companies, and hire women. Women do not need permission from men to do this, nor do they need favor from men.

afarrell 10y ago
But they do need capital.
- skookumchuck 10y ago
  There's no shortage of women with money.
  - SwellJoe 10y ago
    Compared to the number of men with money, there sure as hell is. 95% (that number is me talking out of my ass, but, I can tell you I only met one female investing partner at a VC, and no female angels, the entire time I lived there, and countless men) of investors in Silicon Valley are men. The whole ecosystem is hugely weighted toward men making decisions.
    - superioritycplx 10y ago
      Are you saying male investors won't invest in a promising start up because it's female-run?
      - SwellJoe 10y ago
        I responded to someone who said "There's no shortage of women with money." So, in this particular comment, I am saying exactly what I said: There is a severe shortage of women with money who are making decisions in the tech funding industry. I'll go even further to suggest that the gap is even larger in tech investing than it is in tech in the general case. But, since you asked: I will now say that there are biases in our industry that perhaps those of us not subject to them do not see. Those biases adversely impact the ability of women (and some people of color) to rise to positions of influence in the tech industry. I don't believe this is a controversial assertion (despite all of my comments to this effect being voted down). I consider the matter well-known to anyone who's willing to listen to the people it affects.
        skookumchuck 10y ago
        I personally know lots of women who are multimillionaires. Maybe you should be asking them why they don't start VC funds. There is nobody to tell them they can't. Why doesn't Marissa Meyers start one? or Melinda Gates? or Chelsea Clinton? or Madonna? or Ellen Pao? or Oprah?
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
        SwellJoe 10y ago
        I can't ask them, because I don't personally know any women who are multimillionaires (except Jessica Livingston, who already does more than nearly anyone on this front). I do personally know a number of men who are multi-millionaires (even a few billionaires). All of them invest in tech; for most of them, I do not know their criteria for choosing what to invest in, but I would guess they try to avoid gender and racial bias...but, what we do not see and understand we can't necessarily address.
        skookumchuck 10y ago
        Talk to any stock broker. You'll find there are plenty of women with substantial investment portfolios. I don't see how it is the fault of men if those women choose not to fund women startups.
        grzm 10y ago
        I'm trying to understand where you're coming from with "I don't see how it is the fault of men if those women choose not to fund women startups." I can follow a chain of logic that goes something like: - there's a lack of gender diversity in tech, in that there are disproportionately fewer women. - this is a problem we should solve - given that there's more men in tech, they're somehow to blame Is this an accurate representation of how you get to "I don't see how it is the fault of men"? I don't see (most) people blaming men as intentionally causing this problem. I see plenty of people, men and women, at trying to figure out how to understand the disproportionate lack of women and do something about it. Similarly, I don't see it as the responsibility of women to do this on their own. If I've completely misinterpreted your comment, it wouldn't be the first time. I don't mean to put words in your mouth. Please do elaborate and correct me if and where I've misunderstood.
    - skookumchuck 10y ago
      Women are free to start a VC fund. Nobody is stopping them. As I said, there are plenty of women with money. Furthermore, VC funds are hardly the only source of funding. Friends and family are traditional sources of startup capital, and loaning money to businesses is a traditional business for banks.
      - SwellJoe 10y ago
        > Friends and family are traditional sources of startup capital, and loaning money to businesses is a traditional business for banks. Have you ever founded a tech startup funded exclusively by friends and family? Have you ever tried to get a loan from a bank for a tech startup?
        skookumchuck 10y ago
        > friends and family? Yes. Started my tech company with a 4 figure loan from a family member. Am now independently wealthy. I was told I would fail every step of the way from just about everyone. > bank No. Never needed to. Never needed any other outside capital. My aunt got a loan from a bank to start her own successful business. (She was told that women couldn't get loans to start businesses. She was quite a firecracker.)
        SwellJoe 10y ago
        > Yes. Started my tech company with a 4 figure loan from a family member. Am now independently wealthy. I was told I would fail every step of the way from just about everyone. Congratulations for being born into a family that could support you economically. > No. Never needed to. Never needed any other outside capital. That was lucky. Banks don't loan to tech startups. Unless you have assets to put up as collateral (say, your house that you have significant equity in), you will not be able to obtain a loan from a bank to start a tech company. The SBA does enable a limited number of loans for businesses, but they are almost exclusively of the brick and mortar kinda. I have never met a software company founder who could get a loan from a bank to start their company. If you don't already have money, your ability to get money from a bank will be extremely limited.
- superioritycplx 10y ago
  Any VC fund would love to have a primarily female start up on board, there just isn't one.
- Shubley 10y ago
  Not really; I've got a multimillion dollar company started with personal savings. And even leaving aside companies - it doesn't cost anything to contribute to FOSS projects.
kstenson 10y ago
I would reflect on the fact that computing isn't just a market based economy. That is just on facet and even then you're assuming that entry to the market is equal.
- skookumchuck 10y ago
  Nobody needs permission from anyone to start a company.
- kstenson 10y ago
  barriers to starting a company are not based on getting permission, as you rightly say there are other factors such as social economic. The fact that you were able to start your own company and succeed is a mixture of your upbringing, your standing in society as much as your intelligence and access to capital. It's a common fallacy to think that just working harder or having the grit to strike out is the only factor. I would suggest that line of thinking would lead to some form of survivorship bias.
  - skookumchuck 10y ago
    Lists of excuses are easy to come by. I hear a long list of excuses from people who grew up in pretty much the exact same circumstances I did.
superioritycplx 10y ago
It can be literally free to learn programming if you're a woman. Girls Who Code, countless initiatives, you name it, it's there. Yet if you check contributors of any open source project it's going to be all men. What if most women are just... not that interested in programming?
- dboreham 10y ago
  I taught an elective coding class to middle school students. We had somewhat over 50% girls participate and most of the strongest students were girls. Make of that what you will. In my career, I have worked for the same woman boss through several companies. I can't imagine having a stronger, better person to work for. Yet of course I see what everyone else here reports : that there are very few female engineers/developers.
- stale2002 10y ago
  You have the pipeline problem backwards. The women in tech pipeline is a leaky, toxic pipeline that results in talented women being driven out of the industry. Of course many women are not that interested in programming. This is obviously true. Because the women who DO get into programming are quickly driven out by the toxic culture. If I were a woman I wouldn't want to be in the tech industry either. It is a waste of time to focus on widening the top of the funnel, which leads to the toxic pipeline, and will result in most of them leaving anyway. We should focus more on making the industry less sucky for the women who are already here. Once the toxic pipeline is fixed, THEN women will start being more interested in programming and tech.
  - Fishman343 10y ago
    Is there any way to actually measure this? Not the bounce rate of women leaving, but the reasons they do. You say it's the 'toxic culture' but is there any metric to measure it? We need some sort of exit poll data for people leaving the tech industry if that exists. We've seen the data for women giving up after receiving fewer rejections than men, but to my knowledge any accusations of toxicity are purely anecdotal.

afarrell 10y ago

But they do need capital.

skookumchuck 10y ago
There's no shortage of women with money.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  Compared to the number of men with money, there sure as hell is. 95% (that number is me talking out of my ass, but, I can tell you I only met one female investing partner at a VC, and no female angels, the entire time I lived there, and countless men) of investors in Silicon Valley are men. The whole ecosystem is hugely weighted toward men making decisions.
  - superioritycplx 10y ago
    Are you saying male investors won't invest in a promising start up because it's female-run?
    - SwellJoe 10y ago
      I responded to someone who said "There's no shortage of women with money." So, in this particular comment, I am saying exactly what I said: There is a severe shortage of women with money who are making decisions in the tech funding industry. I'll go even further to suggest that the gap is even larger in tech investing than it is in tech in the general case. But, since you asked: I will now say that there are biases in our industry that perhaps those of us not subject to them do not see. Those biases adversely impact the ability of women (and some people of color) to rise to positions of influence in the tech industry. I don't believe this is a controversial assertion (despite all of my comments to this effect being voted down). I consider the matter well-known to anyone who's willing to listen to the people it affects.
      - skookumchuck 10y ago
        I personally know lots of women who are multimillionaires. Maybe you should be asking them why they don't start VC funds. There is nobody to tell them they can't. Why doesn't Marissa Meyers start one? or Melinda Gates? or Chelsea Clinton? or Madonna? or Ellen Pao? or Oprah?
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
        SwellJoe 10y ago
        I can't ask them, because I don't personally know any women who are multimillionaires (except Jessica Livingston, who already does more than nearly anyone on this front). I do personally know a number of men who are multi-millionaires (even a few billionaires). All of them invest in tech; for most of them, I do not know their criteria for choosing what to invest in, but I would guess they try to avoid gender and racial bias...but, what we do not see and understand we can't necessarily address.
        skookumchuck 10y ago
        Talk to any stock broker. You'll find there are plenty of women with substantial investment portfolios. I don't see how it is the fault of men if those women choose not to fund women startups.
        grzm 10y ago
        I'm trying to understand where you're coming from with "I don't see how it is the fault of men if those women choose not to fund women startups." I can follow a chain of logic that goes something like: - there's a lack of gender diversity in tech, in that there are disproportionately fewer women. - this is a problem we should solve - given that there's more men in tech, they're somehow to blame Is this an accurate representation of how you get to "I don't see how it is the fault of men"? I don't see (most) people blaming men as intentionally causing this problem. I see plenty of people, men and women, at trying to figure out how to understand the disproportionate lack of women and do something about it. Similarly, I don't see it as the responsibility of women to do this on their own. If I've completely misinterpreted your comment, it wouldn't be the first time. I don't mean to put words in your mouth. Please do elaborate and correct me if and where I've misunderstood.
  - skookumchuck 10y ago
    Women are free to start a VC fund. Nobody is stopping them. As I said, there are plenty of women with money. Furthermore, VC funds are hardly the only source of funding. Friends and family are traditional sources of startup capital, and loaning money to businesses is a traditional business for banks.
    - SwellJoe 10y ago
      > Friends and family are traditional sources of startup capital, and loaning money to businesses is a traditional business for banks. Have you ever founded a tech startup funded exclusively by friends and family? Have you ever tried to get a loan from a bank for a tech startup?
      - skookumchuck 10y ago
        > friends and family? Yes. Started my tech company with a 4 figure loan from a family member. Am now independently wealthy. I was told I would fail every step of the way from just about everyone. > bank No. Never needed to. Never needed any other outside capital. My aunt got a loan from a bank to start her own successful business. (She was told that women couldn't get loans to start businesses. She was quite a firecracker.)
        SwellJoe 10y ago
        > Yes. Started my tech company with a 4 figure loan from a family member. Am now independently wealthy. I was told I would fail every step of the way from just about everyone. Congratulations for being born into a family that could support you economically. > No. Never needed to. Never needed any other outside capital. That was lucky. Banks don't loan to tech startups. Unless you have assets to put up as collateral (say, your house that you have significant equity in), you will not be able to obtain a loan from a bank to start a tech company. The SBA does enable a limited number of loans for businesses, but they are almost exclusively of the brick and mortar kinda. I have never met a software company founder who could get a loan from a bank to start their company. If you don't already have money, your ability to get money from a bank will be extremely limited.
superioritycplx 10y ago
Any VC fund would love to have a primarily female start up on board, there just isn't one.
Shubley 10y ago
Not really; I've got a multimillion dollar company started with personal savings. And even leaving aside companies - it doesn't cost anything to contribute to FOSS projects.

kstenson 10y ago

I would reflect on the fact that computing isn't just a market based economy. That is just on facet and even then you're assuming that entry to the market is equal.

skookumchuck 10y ago
Nobody needs permission from anyone to start a company.
kstenson 10y ago
barriers to starting a company are not based on getting permission, as you rightly say there are other factors such as social economic. The fact that you were able to start your own company and succeed is a mixture of your upbringing, your standing in society as much as your intelligence and access to capital. It's a common fallacy to think that just working harder or having the grit to strike out is the only factor. I would suggest that line of thinking would lead to some form of survivorship bias.
- skookumchuck 10y ago
  Lists of excuses are easy to come by. I hear a long list of excuses from people who grew up in pretty much the exact same circumstances I did.

superioritycplx 10y ago

It can be literally free to learn programming if you're a woman. Girls Who Code, countless initiatives, you name it, it's there. Yet if you check contributors of any open source project it's going to be all men. What if most women are just... not that interested in programming?

dboreham 10y ago
I taught an elective coding class to middle school students. We had somewhat over 50% girls participate and most of the strongest students were girls. Make of that what you will. In my career, I have worked for the same woman boss through several companies. I can't imagine having a stronger, better person to work for. Yet of course I see what everyone else here reports : that there are very few female engineers/developers.
stale2002 10y ago
You have the pipeline problem backwards. The women in tech pipeline is a leaky, toxic pipeline that results in talented women being driven out of the industry. Of course many women are not that interested in programming. This is obviously true. Because the women who DO get into programming are quickly driven out by the toxic culture. If I were a woman I wouldn't want to be in the tech industry either. It is a waste of time to focus on widening the top of the funnel, which leads to the toxic pipeline, and will result in most of them leaving anyway. We should focus more on making the industry less sucky for the women who are already here. Once the toxic pipeline is fixed, THEN women will start being more interested in programming and tech.
- Fishman343 10y ago
  Is there any way to actually measure this? Not the bounce rate of women leaving, but the reasons they do. You say it's the 'toxic culture' but is there any metric to measure it? We need some sort of exit poll data for people leaving the tech industry if that exists. We've seen the data for women giving up after receiving fewer rejections than men, but to my knowledge any accusations of toxicity are purely anecdotal.