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It's easy to get hung up on the particulars of Pao's story and get sidetracked into defending or judging her, but I feel that is besides the point. I am more in

• the-dude 9y ago
  Why: because money, she is promoting her book. Tech: she wasn't in tech at Klein, Perkings sjizzle-my-nizzle, she was in finance.
  • Beltiras 9y ago
    If you are wondering about the down-voting I can explain. While both your points are correct your tone is disrespectful.
    • the-dude 9y ago
      While I appreciate your comment, I think you are wrong. The facts don't fit the desired narrative, that's all.
• noir_lord 9y ago
  I've thought since the 90's that programmers need a professional body with teeth. Doctors have them, lawyers have them, civil engineers have them. Lots of software written is at least as critical as what the above professionals do. But software is a young field compared to all the above so I think it'll take time (or several really serious disasters...which is how the civil engineers got theirs).
  • gaius 9y ago
    Well there is the BCS but it is completely irrelevant and it's a mystery how it still exists. It does absolutely nothing for working engineers and seems to be just a front for large employers to perpetuate the skills shortage myth while unemployment among CS grads hovers between 10 and 13%.
    • bshimmin 9y ago
      I dimly recall we were pitched something about joining the BCS when I was doing my master's - I'm not sure if it was a full presentation or just some pamphlets that were passed around. I don't think any of us joined because it was quite expensive (£139 annually now) and it was supremely unclear what the benefits were. Since then, I don't believe I've ever heard it mentioned.
    • greenshackle2 9y ago
      [citation needed] on that unemployment figure. Is that a unemployment for recent graduates, or anyone with a CS degree? I find that figure surprising because: 1) https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2014/11/19/the-college-degrees-with-the-highest-starting-salaries-in-2015 https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2014/11/19/the-colle... 2) This is purely anecdotal, but I've had no problem finding jobs as a self-taught programmer in Canada. I'm paid nearly 6 figures with 3 years of experience in a field where I don't have formal training. If that's not sign of a skills shortage, I don't know what is.
      • gaius 9y ago
        Here you go - 14% according to https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2013/sep/16/computer-science-graduates-unemployment-bme https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/20... The Graun being the Graun they can't make the leap of logic to "supply and demand".
• maehwasu 9y ago
  > In tech people get away with wildly unprofessional behavior as long as "they get stuff done", and personally I never felt that was acceptable. As a decent software developer, if my less talented co-workers, or, god forbid, some HR-type, started telling me constantly about how I needed to be more "professional", I would hand in my resignation the next day and go somewhere that didn't absolutely suck to work.
  • 4c2383f5c88e911 9y ago
    If I understand your reply correctly, you mean to say that it's acceptable to be a total douchebag as long as you are "talented"?
    • ptaipale 9y ago
      I think you don't understand it correctly, and I wonder how you can interpret it that way. I read the point that being "professional" is also about being able to do good programming work and take responsibility for what you do technically - not just appearing at the office at the right time, being courteous to other people and accepting HR buzzwords and policies and opinions without question.
      • CJefferson 9y ago
        I think "wildly unprofessional behavior" is things like sexually harassing other workers in your company, insulting people, that kind of thing. The problem here is I think people have different definitions of "wildly unprofessional behavior".
        • criddell 9y ago
          Figuring out what behavior is appropriate, understanding the corporate culture, and finding the best opportunities for you to help set and advance the agenda are all big parts of being a professional. They are skills you have to develop though and young people will make mistakes as they figure out what the boundaries are. If you are fortunate enough to have a mentor in the business, you have a huge advantage.
• Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  I'd argue it's not about "in tech" though, as another commenter pointed out, this is a completely different world of private jets and deciding where to spend the hundreds of millions these people have on, betting on their 10 million investment becoming a billion. This is the "snorting coke off a model's ass for lunch" world, not tech.
  • icebraining 9y ago
    Not directly, but YC and others constantly emphasize how (1) founders define the whole company culture, at least for the years of the growth phase, and how (2) important VCs are as advisers to founders, who are often fairly inexperienced in managing a company. In the light of those assertions, it sounds fairly hard to believe that the culture of the world described by Pao doesn't have a strong influence in the VC-funded tech startup (and post-startup) world.
    • mcguire 9y ago
      Kleiner Perkins', etc., portfolio: http://www.kpcb.com/companies http://www.kpcb.com/companies
  • Joeri 9y ago
    Does the distinction matter? Are you saying this sort of behavior does not reach the level of concern inside of the world of tech, regardless of how that is defined?
    • justadeveloper2 9y ago
      I don't think it matters in the sense that people with that kind of money can never be reined in--they just spend more money to route around anyone who wants to regulate their behavior.
      • sangnoir 9y ago
        > I don't think it matters in the sense that people with that kind of money can never be reined in They can be reined-in using the same money the value so much. If retirement funds stop putting money into their funds (because of bad PR or any other leverage), then they'll start to behave.
• camus2 9y ago
  > In tech people get away with wildly unprofessional behavior as long as "they get stuff done", and personally I never felt that was acceptable. Which is completely false and not based on any facts. Businesses have different policies. You can't reduce all IT in world to a few businesses in the Silicon Valley. That's preposterous. And I doubt IT has anymore "unprofessional behavior" than any other industries. There is absolutely no data that demonstrate that.
  • cableshaft 9y ago
    > And I doubt IT has anymore "unprofessional behavior" than any other industries. My girlfriend works for a major company in corporate real estate. The stories she tells put most stuff I've seen leveled at IT to shame. Managers that scream at employees in front of everyone else and bring them to tears, constant bickering, backstabbing, and general refusal to do their own job or help you do your job in any possible way, even though you're on the same team, people getting thrown under the bus constantly, people getting panic attacks and taking leaves from the company because they've been verbally abused so much, you have to have a high level of assertiveness and a fighting attitude to get anything accomplished. She's gone from men in charge of her to women, and she thinks it actually got worse with women in charge, because they pretend to be friendly but are secretly doing everything they can to undermine you. How these people stay employed and these companies stay in business I have no idea. I know the turnover is really, really high at her company, and they've lost a lot of bids recently. It's not true of everyone or every company in corporate real estate, but the nature of it seems to foster and encourages that type of behavior. Big money, high stakes, if you win the company millions of dollars in business they let you be a total asshole. Well, at least if you're high enough on the totem pole. She's been trying to get out of it for years, but she can't find anything else that pays as well for her skillset.
• adekok 9y ago
  > sexism in tech is a thing, and that it shouldn't be. To play devils advocate, sexism is a thing everywhere. In some cases, there are good biological reasons why men and women are treated differently, e.g. child care (mostly women) versus hard physical labor (mostly men) Where those biological differences aren't effective (e.g. typing on a keyboard), then yes, men and women should be treated the same. But even with that, there may be biological reasons why men and women are interested in different things. Which may mean more women in job A, or more men in job B. > Maybe other industries suffer less from these things because they have a longer history and have more guild-like working practices, where professional behavior is more clearly defined. Any job which has "guild-like working practices" is very likely going to be male dominated. Because most guilds were based on men working. e.g. construction, stone masons, electricians, etc. And those jobs are rife with sexism, because of their historical roots. > I studied CS and I never learned about what it means to be a professional software developer. Because schools teach concepts, not social skills. They should probably teach social skills and social practices, IMHO. Everyone would be better off for it.
  • pencilcode 9y ago
    Just to nitpick an issue that some people mix up. On average more interest does not equate on average more skilled within the interested population. Also this gender diff does not play out so starkly in other sciences, eg biology, physics, etc. And, some decades ago in the west, and currently in other countries/civilizations, this gender difference does not pan out. This seems to point to other factors beyond genetic differences.
    • SBCRec 9y ago
      Could you provide a source please? Interested to read about it! Thanks in Advance!
      • sdenton4 9y ago
        Here's a piece in response to the damore memo, written up by an evolutionary biologist. https://medium.com/@tweetingmouse/the-truth-has-got-its-boots-on-what-the-evidence-says-about-mr-damores-google-memo-bc93c8b2fdb9 https://medium.com/@tweetingmouse/the-truth-has-got-its-boot... It spends a while at the beginning on credentials and the importance of using citations (something damore failed at), and starts getting into the science at 'universal across all cultures, are we sure?'
• imaginenore 9y ago
  She couldn't prove sexism in court. Twice now. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pao_v._Kleiner_Perkins https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pao_v._Kleiner_Perkins Why would you defend false allegations by Pao? They hurt women that actually do experience it. They also give more evidence to the fact that women do use the system to get rich quick by suing in hopes of getting a massive settlement. She should be condemned and her claims should not be used to demonstrate sexism, which is what you're trying to do.
  • yorwba 9y ago
    Did you mean to reply to a different comment? This one says > It's easy to get hung up on the particulars of Pao's story and get sidetracked into defending or judging her, but I feel that is besides the point. in its opening sentence.
  • dang 9y ago
    This crosses into personal attack. You don't have anything like the basis you would need to credibly post such inflammatory claims, so this comment breaks the HN guidelines. We ban accounts that do this, and I'm sorry to say you've done it repeatedly in the past. Please fix this if you want to continue commenting here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    • imaginenore 9y ago
      What exactly is a "personal attack" here? I posted widely published information. There's even a link.
      • dang 9y ago
        Obviously you went beyond facts into making an unsupported claim about motive.
• danpalmer 9y ago
  > I studied CS and I never learned about what it means to be a professional software developer. This is a shame. As part of my CS degree I was required to take a "management" module that covered a bunch of legal aspects of the job, and a professional skills module that covered a bit more of what it means to be a professional engineer. The modules weren't great and many (myself included) looked down on them a bit while taking them, but looking back I know they helped and I would advocate for more education like that in CS degrees.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
• justadeveloper2 9y ago
  I disagree with the "many other industries" part--I'd say maturity level overall is pretty low and incompetence among men and women in the US is pretty high. There's not enough emphasis on business ethics, but that isn't the true problem, it really goes back to basic education and how most people don't really have one. Business itself is simply toxic to humans and it doesn't help that it drives people insane.
• jerf 9y ago
  "Isn't it time we have conversations about what it means to be a professional in tech?" Many cultures and subcultures in many times and places have had cultural protocols for people to indicate that they are interested in each other and would potentially like to do whatever, and protocols for acceptance and rejection of said advances. Perhaps tech (and to be honest the office workplace in general) needs to work something out for that. Most "nice" people end up holding themselves to restrictions that turn out to be grossly stricter than what the actual law says, so the "nice" people feel stifled when they actually aren't, and the not-so-nice people have no real guidelines and just do as they please. It would at least give some guidelines to people on how to act, because right now the guidelines are all mostly negative... don't do this, don't do that, don't do the other thing, but I don't know the positive guidelines. That's sort of difficult to navigate through. So, caveats. First, please don't read into my first paragraph anything that isn't there. I am not endorsing any particular set of protocols nor claiming that any particular set was perfect. I am simply saying it might be helpful if something existed; feel free to craft it to your sensibilities. Second, I'm married with no intention of changing that, not in SV, and psychologically and politically not a match for SV culture anyhow, so I'm not trying to suggest any specific protocol because anything I'd suggest wouldn't stick anyhow. (Or possibly there is a clear protocol and I'm just so out of it that I don't know what it is on account of not caring, but I'd expect more people to be discussing it in these matters and I don't see that, so I assume this is not the problem.) Third, I make no claim that the mere existence of such protocols would suddenly magically make all harassment go away, but having something, especially something with positive suggestions about how to go about courting, would be a good start. It's hard to referee a game with no lines on the field. (That may be the most important sentence in this post.) My only specific feedback is that "nobody should ever be approached for anything ever and anyone who is approached has all rights to go arbitrarily ballistic on social media" is simply unrealistic; humans are gonna human. Part of the eventual contract would have to be that whatever an "approach" is, you do get one chance, and if you get the "go away and never raise this again" then yes, you are obligated to do that. The protocol could include some way of opting out entirely; without an argument that this should be used by tech, as an example, I would point out this is one of the purposes wedding rings serve.
• dmix 9y ago
  I can't imagine anything more unprofessional than raving about meeting a washed up porn star and then talking about sex workers in the company of people you are not intimately familiar with. Although you could say it was a 'social' moment on the jet, not a professional meeting (as Pao seems to believe it was) where there should always be much more latitude on conversation topics, it's still very distasteful. I normally have a very high tolerance for talking about any topic but anyone who says that stuff in public and not in the small company of close friends has bigger issues than just sexism. As others have pointed out most of these situations sound like grown men acting like frat boys or teenagers, not adult males with a singular problem with how they treat women. These are men who need to learn how to act around other adults and how to treat people with respect in public. Or at a very minimum leave it for your off-time among close friends in private. Software has largely confronted the 'brogrammer' issue publicly, and I believe is working to improve itself, but it's well known that finance is still heavily influenced by untamed frat boy culture. This is a culture where these immature boys don't get their behaviour properly confronted and corrected. Especially when you throw personal wealth into the occassion.
  • nitrogen 9y ago
    Not to defend frat culture, but who defines what topics are or are not publicly discussable, and where is this list maintained? Aren't taboos sometimes more harmful than whatever harm the taboo is supposed to prevent?
    • xhedley 9y ago
      You can define it by imagining a male co-worker in a meeting with your mother/sister/daughter/other female relative/female friend. Are you comfortable with your male co-worker discussing pornography and sex work in that level of detail with her? If not sure, ask your mother/sister/daughter/other female relative/female friend. If you don't have a female relative or friend to ask - random HN user and Ellen Pao advise you that discussing pornography and sex work in business meetings can make women feel uncomfortable.
      • 9y ago
• dlwdlw 9y ago
  I think an interesting issue is that the higher you are in a hierarchy the more rules don't apply. It's impossible to govern with rules because they are the source of rules themselves. Some rules transcend companies and are socially tethered like ethic, morals, maturity, responsibility, etc... But disregard for social judgement is actually a strength in achieving power. This may be why grassroots true change takes so long. The upper levels needs to pass away because they can't be convinced because they aren't bound by anything. Most people think they can handle power, but the "true" freedom it provides will corrupt almost anyone because most people are unaware of just how much they delegate thoughts and outlooks to outside frameworks. ("Culture")
• thsealienbstrds 9y ago
  It's an interesting suggestion, but it may also distract from the sexism issue. For instance, the company in question discriminates against women when it comes to promotion of employees. I have a friend who worked at a very well known company where she experienced the same problem. I think these apparently structural problems should receive continuous attention, otherwise maybe they will never be solved. So, I think it might not be a good idea to shift the focus away from that discussion.
• gorbachev 9y ago
  "I'm wondering though: is this just about sexism, or is it about professionalism and maturity?" I don't think it has anything to do with either one of those things, but everything to do with some people just being sociopaths. It seems to be concentrating on people with power over others.