I thought it was an interesting article, but by focusing so heavily on how the career ladder works, I think it missed the point. This article is more about why

I thought it was an interesting article, but by focusing so heavily on how the career ladder works, I think it missed the point. This article is more about why there are so few female Eric Schmidt's than why there are so few female Mark Zuckerberg's. And as far as I can tell, the google guys weren't alpha male types charging forward at every stage of the process - they had a lot of self-doubt as well. I'm sure there were mentors, but Sheryl Sandberg is an economics major who was "mentored" by Larry Summers (an impressive guy, to be sure, but this sounds like the career path of someone who earned n impressive severance package after the financial meltdown, not someone who came out of nowhere in the tech world). I'm not saying that the career ladder described in this article doesn't exist in silicon valley - clearly it does, but probably to a lesser extent than in other industries. In short, this article probably explains more about other industries than silicon valley itself.