7 ms·

At eBay she also purchased PayPal which added more than $50b in market cap to eBay. Can’t win em all. At HP, market cap also grew significantly on her watch.

by anxman 6y ago

At eBay she also purchased PayPal which added more than $50b in market cap to eBay. Can’t win em all. At HP, market cap also grew significantly on her watch. I feel like implying that she is a failure is almost borderline sexist.

nicbou 6y ago
Unless there is any implication that her gender has something to do with it, it's not sexist. It's just incorrect.
- croon 6y ago
  It's sexist if it's critique she wouldn't have gotten if she were a man, regardless of if the critique focuses on gender. It's impossible to determine this what-if scenario though, so I agree it's best to leave out the speculation.
  - newswasboring 6y ago
    > It's impossible to determine this what-if scenario though, so I agree it's best to leave out the speculation. What are you talking about, CEOs get criticism all the time. Especially on HN where people are aggressive about their opinions. Just because you can't do alternate reality simulation doesn't mean you can't say anything about this.
    - croon 6y ago
      Sure, and if you want to do a meta-analysis on HN CEO-criticism based on gender, adjusted for some metric of performance, I'll concede.
      - mkohlmyr 6y ago
        I mean might hope the requirement to provide said meta-analysis would fall on the person making the claim that the criticism is sexist, not on the person saying it might not be?
        croon 6y ago
        I was not saying it might be, I was stating the premises on which it would be, while also stating that, since we can't claim it either way we should refrain from speculation. GP then suggested we could claim something, and I pointed out the requirements for that, thus putting the onus on them for making the suggestion we could.
        newswasboring 6y ago
        Dude in this thread itself people were riffing on Steve Jobs, one of the most successful CEOs in the history of America. In light of such a thing, I am inclined to think your call for proof is disingenuous. You are asking for a meta analysis of something which might be possible but nobody would do it.
        croon 6y ago
        Again, I wasn't asking for proof, I was saying it's pointless to pass judgement without it. I called you out for wanting to do so without anything to back it up.
        newswasboring 6y ago
        No you are disingenuously setting the bar too high. I gave at least one example of a male CEO being criticised but you are not even willing to update your beliefs slightly in face of some evidence.
        croon 6y ago
        No, it's not evidence in either direction, it's an anecdote. Also, even if it was, there's actually no one criticizing Jobs in the 12 search hits in the thread, but comparing him favorably. So an unfortunate anecdote at that.
wolco2 6y ago
Judging someone differently based on their sex is out in 2020. To not judge her would be sexist. Remember this headline from 2017 "Meg Whitman leaves behind a fractured Hewlett-Packard with no guarantees" https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/meg-whitman-leaves-behind-a-fractured-hp-with-no-guarantees-2017-11-21 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/m... Things were not rosy at hp.

by anxman 6y ago

nicbou 6y ago

Unless there is any implication that her gender has something to do with it, it's not sexist. It's just incorrect.

croon 6y ago
It's sexist if it's critique she wouldn't have gotten if she were a man, regardless of if the critique focuses on gender. It's impossible to determine this what-if scenario though, so I agree it's best to leave out the speculation.
- newswasboring 6y ago
  > It's impossible to determine this what-if scenario though, so I agree it's best to leave out the speculation. What are you talking about, CEOs get criticism all the time. Especially on HN where people are aggressive about their opinions. Just because you can't do alternate reality simulation doesn't mean you can't say anything about this.
  - croon 6y ago
    Sure, and if you want to do a meta-analysis on HN CEO-criticism based on gender, adjusted for some metric of performance, I'll concede.
    - mkohlmyr 6y ago
      I mean might hope the requirement to provide said meta-analysis would fall on the person making the claim that the criticism is sexist, not on the person saying it might not be?
      - croon 6y ago
        I was not saying it might be, I was stating the premises on which it would be, while also stating that, since we can't claim it either way we should refrain from speculation. GP then suggested we could claim something, and I pointed out the requirements for that, thus putting the onus on them for making the suggestion we could.
        newswasboring 6y ago
        Dude in this thread itself people were riffing on Steve Jobs, one of the most successful CEOs in the history of America. In light of such a thing, I am inclined to think your call for proof is disingenuous. You are asking for a meta analysis of something which might be possible but nobody would do it.
        croon 6y ago
        Again, I wasn't asking for proof, I was saying it's pointless to pass judgement without it. I called you out for wanting to do so without anything to back it up.
        newswasboring 6y ago
        No you are disingenuously setting the bar too high. I gave at least one example of a male CEO being criticised but you are not even willing to update your beliefs slightly in face of some evidence.
        croon 6y ago
        No, it's not evidence in either direction, it's an anecdote. Also, even if it was, there's actually no one criticizing Jobs in the 12 search hits in the thread, but comparing him favorably. So an unfortunate anecdote at that.

wolco2 6y ago

Judging someone differently based on their sex is out in 2020. To not judge her would be sexist. Remember this headline from 2017 "Meg Whitman leaves behind a fractured Hewlett-Packard with no guarantees" https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/meg-whitman-leaves-behind-a-fractured-hp-with-no-guarantees-2017-11-21 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/m... Things were not rosy at hp.