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I liked the bit where they tried to use the "women in tech are oppressed" narrative to cover her ass: > Tim Draper, the founding partner of Draper Associates a
by BadassFractal 9y ago
I liked the bit where they tried to use the "women in tech are oppressed" narrative to cover her ass:
> Tim Draper, the founding partner of Draper Associates and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, appeared on television on Tuesday—not for the first time—to defend Holmes and Theranos. In an interview on Closing Bell, the world’s most loyal V.C. said Holmes has been “totally attacked,” and that she is “a great example of maybe why the women are so frustrated.”
Same narrative that was invoked in defense of Ellen Pao in her game of thrones with billionaires.
There are people who are fighting for a noble cause, and then there are parasites that use it for their selfish gain.
- scarmig 9y agoIt's not too surprising. As soon as any kind of principle, good or bad, starts to have some kind of power when it's invoked, bad actors will swarm around it to use it for their own ends.
- babesh 9y agoIt isn't just bad actors. Its our fawning nature. I think that many people were reluctant to question Theranos precisely because she was a female entrepreneur. Nowadays, you have many, many successful female tech entrepreneurs: stitch, bumble, ipsy, etc... and hopefully we are past the fawning phase and can apply critical thinking.
- BadassFractal 9y agoExactly. In an industry as sensitive as ours, criticizing Holmes could easily get you labeled as a sexist. Especially on mediums where nuance is hardly achievable, such as Twitter. People's confirmation bias is a real problem in these scenarios.
- gt_ 9y agoI can think of a political example, too.
- entee 9y agoIt's a little unclear to me how this is comparable to the Ellen Pao situation. Admittedly I haven't followed it as closely, but it sounded to me like she had some different ideas about where reddit should go and mishandled a key employee change. One can criticize those choices, but they hardly amount to being terrible at her job or fraud or not deserving the position in the first place. I think a stronger case could be made that she was mistreated than that Elizabeth Holmes was. I don't know enough to have a position on whether that's right or wrong in Pao's case, but I can see the argument. I think Holmes was pretty clearly being attacked for all the right reasons however, and not for being a powerful woman CEO/founder.
- BadassFractal 9y agoThe reference was to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pao_v._Kleiner_Perkins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pao_v._Kleiner_Perkins , not the reddit situation.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]