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There is an expression which I think is fitting, in a weird way - a successful marriage does not have to last forever. For some reason, we always tend to imagin

There is an expression which I think is fitting, in a weird way - a successful marriage does not have to last forever. For some reason, we always tend to imagine that, once a company or organization is created, it must last forever. That for it to ‘close its doors’ or ‘wind down’ is somehow a failure. And that’s just not true; a professional athletes career does not last forever, and neither does the lifespan of most corporations or non-profits. The organization accomplished what it set out to do; make the tech industry more inclusive and accessible to women. To a large extent, though it wasn’t a primary factor, it aided that journey nicely with its thousands of events that it organized over the years, according to this announcement. It didn’t last forever, but it was never meant to - that would mean the presence of women in tech would never become truly equal to the presence of men. While its goal wasn’t ‘achieved’, this organization did what it could to move things in that direction and now, with its energy spent, it leaves the door open for new contributors to take the next step. The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice. Thank you to everyone who helped organize the events this organization hosted in the last seventeen years.

muglug 2y ago
This was my attitude when I stopped maintaining a large open-source project that I had created. None of us last forever, in life or even just in this industry. To have brought about some sort of positive change is more than good enough.
gramie 2y ago
In fact, we consider a marriage successful if it ends in the death of one of the partners.
- microtherion 2y ago
  That's certainly a theory that Bluebeard would subscribe to.
  - mikhael28 2y ago
    I learned something new thanks to your comment - never heard the story of Bluebeard before.
  - xattt 2y ago
    Qualifier to the GP poster is not deliberate…
- mikepurvis 2y ago
  There are lots of possible definitions for success— making it until death parts you is the obvious one, but "success" can also be producing fruit in terms of community, family, or even career. And there are of course marriages that make it until death, but the partners and everyone around them spend the whole time miserable; that's hardly a success either.
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    >And there are of course marriages that make it until death, but the partners and everyone around them spend the whole time miserable; that's hardly a success either. Maybe according to your personal opinion, but the general opinion of society at large has been, for centuries if not longer, that these miserable marriages were in fact "successful" because they kept the two people married which was apparently much more important for various reasons (like religion or social stability) than whether the people involved were actually happy or not, which was not considered important at all until recent years. I think society is going through a lot of "growing pains" now because of this change in attitude and the idea now that people's happiness is of prime importance in a relationship.
    - mikepurvis 2y ago
      Yes, that is a good point. I don't think it's my "personal opinion", but yes, the rise of people breaking up marriages because they aren't happy or fulfilled enough is definitely a phenomenon of the last hundred years or so; there's much less of a sense of duty to family, community, or God in any of it, and there's arguments to be made there around gender roles as well. That said, I think another factor that's stressed modern marriage is longer life expectancy arising from better diet, healthcare, and working conditions. Even a few hundred years ago lots of marriages might last only a decade or two on account of a partner falling fatally ill or dying in childbirth in their thirties or forties. Nowaways a couple in their thirties are staring down the possibility of five more decades together and it's a lot more reasonable to feel like your whole life is ahead of you still and maybe you want to do the corresponding soul-searching around who will be your companion for such a long period of time.
  - 2y ago
- DonHopkins 2y ago
  Maybe that's that Hans Reiser thought, but an amicable divorce also has its advantages.
- CalRobert 2y ago
  Is this still true? If I knew a couple that had a great ten years but then decided that it was time to part ways on friendly terms for whatever reason, maybe continue being great coparents, I'm not sure I'd consider it unsuccessful.
  - ndriscoll 2y ago
    This roughly describes my parents. Speaking from the perspective of the child, I'd say that is probably not success. It's probably closer to lots of acute behavioral issues along with some lifelong damage.
    - CalRobert 2y ago
      Sorry to hear that. My own parents divorced and it was very much for the best, but their marriage wasn't great beforehand (hardly a surprise given that they got divorced of course!)
      - ndriscoll 2y ago
        It was perhaps for the best, but I'd still call that "a failure that could've gone worse" as opposed to "success".
badgersnake 2y ago
She says she’s closing it “with a heavy heart”. It sounds like she wanted to continue.
- ganoushoreilly 2y ago
  I could read it as either way. It could be a sadness to see it come to and end, but still having full agreement the time has come. It could also be a sadness because financial hurdles or other operation hurdles are making it near impossible. It's hard, but I get it either way.
  - resource_waste 2y ago
    I had a similar thing happen to me. I did science and posted it on my blog. It helped a few million people, but I didn't monetize very hard. I hated people would call it blogspam, despite it being science and it being donation based. I switched to b2b. I'm happy there are people who use business to make the world a better place. I'm never doing that again, profit first.
  - RIMR 2y ago
    You could read it that way, but she said "with sadness and devastation". You are taking some extreme liberties with your interpretation of what she's saying. The sentiment she's sharing is clearly quite negative. I don't think she's happily wrapping up her mission, I think she's going out of business and has no ability to continue her mission as she would like to.
    - mrguyorama 2y ago
      We can still view operating for 17 years to be a success. We can still view helping women in tech for 17 years to have improved the world, even if it cannot continue.
      - RIMR 2y ago
        You (a man) can feel fine about a charity that never benefited you going under? Big shocker that you don't give a shit, Mr. Guyorama. Condolences to the women in your life.
Melomololotolo 2y ago
When I look around my peers, not a lot has changed in the last 10 years for woman in tech
- RIMR 2y ago
  My thoughts exactly. It's one thing to close your doors feeling like you made a difference. It's another thing to close your doors feeling like you have just as much you need to do as you did when you started.
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  FWIW remote work has opened the door to many women who would have left the field otherwise, so they might be less visible. It's still not great in my opinion, but I think there's more senior engineers and managers and an overall better situation than a few decades ago.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    This is an effect of remote work that isn't discussed nearly often enough: it nearly completely removes any non-work-related "culture fit" filter from the equation for hiring and promotions. Without the happy hours, shared lunch breaks, or even the water cooler conversations "fitting in" isn't nearly as important remote as it was in person. This benefits everyone who struggles to fit in with the traditional tech bro class: women, but also the neurodivergent, the deaf, the blind, teetotalers, and many more who would otherwise end up subconsciously perceived as less of a team player.
- mattbrewsbytes 2y ago
  Even though I feel similar and don't have any large data to look at, an unfortunate thought is that their efforts helped keep status quo. Or to put it another way, without that organization's efforts, things could have gotten much worse maybe?
- ilickpoolalgae 2y ago
  I don't feel the same. The last decade or so has seen an explosion of women show interest in joining the tech community. Ratio's on teams I've been on has greatly increased throughout my career. I've been on several teams now where women have outnumbered men. In my experience, the ratio is now flipped when you look at the team as a whole (XFN, etc). I may be biased though as I've only worked at "premier" large tech companies and they are probably in a better position to do DEI at scale. That being said, true senior roles in engineering (VP+) is still very male dominated. Part of that is the pipeline catching up and part of is that I see women leave engineering for other roles more often. For example I would say, in my experience, I've seen more women have an interest and engage in transitions to PM, designer, etc.

muglug 2y ago

This was my attitude when I stopped maintaining a large open-source project that I had created. None of us last forever, in life or even just in this industry. To have brought about some sort of positive change is more than good enough.

gramie 2y ago

In fact, we consider a marriage successful if it ends in the death of one of the partners.

microtherion 2y ago
That's certainly a theory that Bluebeard would subscribe to.
- mikhael28 2y ago
  I learned something new thanks to your comment - never heard the story of Bluebeard before.
- xattt 2y ago
  Qualifier to the GP poster is not deliberate…
mikepurvis 2y ago
There are lots of possible definitions for success— making it until death parts you is the obvious one, but "success" can also be producing fruit in terms of community, family, or even career. And there are of course marriages that make it until death, but the partners and everyone around them spend the whole time miserable; that's hardly a success either.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  >And there are of course marriages that make it until death, but the partners and everyone around them spend the whole time miserable; that's hardly a success either. Maybe according to your personal opinion, but the general opinion of society at large has been, for centuries if not longer, that these miserable marriages were in fact "successful" because they kept the two people married which was apparently much more important for various reasons (like religion or social stability) than whether the people involved were actually happy or not, which was not considered important at all until recent years. I think society is going through a lot of "growing pains" now because of this change in attitude and the idea now that people's happiness is of prime importance in a relationship.
  - mikepurvis 2y ago
    Yes, that is a good point. I don't think it's my "personal opinion", but yes, the rise of people breaking up marriages because they aren't happy or fulfilled enough is definitely a phenomenon of the last hundred years or so; there's much less of a sense of duty to family, community, or God in any of it, and there's arguments to be made there around gender roles as well. That said, I think another factor that's stressed modern marriage is longer life expectancy arising from better diet, healthcare, and working conditions. Even a few hundred years ago lots of marriages might last only a decade or two on account of a partner falling fatally ill or dying in childbirth in their thirties or forties. Nowaways a couple in their thirties are staring down the possibility of five more decades together and it's a lot more reasonable to feel like your whole life is ahead of you still and maybe you want to do the corresponding soul-searching around who will be your companion for such a long period of time.
- 2y ago
DonHopkins 2y ago
Maybe that's that Hans Reiser thought, but an amicable divorce also has its advantages.
CalRobert 2y ago
Is this still true? If I knew a couple that had a great ten years but then decided that it was time to part ways on friendly terms for whatever reason, maybe continue being great coparents, I'm not sure I'd consider it unsuccessful.
- ndriscoll 2y ago
  This roughly describes my parents. Speaking from the perspective of the child, I'd say that is probably not success. It's probably closer to lots of acute behavioral issues along with some lifelong damage.
  - CalRobert 2y ago
    Sorry to hear that. My own parents divorced and it was very much for the best, but their marriage wasn't great beforehand (hardly a surprise given that they got divorced of course!)
    - ndriscoll 2y ago
      It was perhaps for the best, but I'd still call that "a failure that could've gone worse" as opposed to "success".

badgersnake 2y ago

She says she’s closing it “with a heavy heart”. It sounds like she wanted to continue.

ganoushoreilly 2y ago
I could read it as either way. It could be a sadness to see it come to and end, but still having full agreement the time has come. It could also be a sadness because financial hurdles or other operation hurdles are making it near impossible. It's hard, but I get it either way.
- resource_waste 2y ago
  I had a similar thing happen to me. I did science and posted it on my blog. It helped a few million people, but I didn't monetize very hard. I hated people would call it blogspam, despite it being science and it being donation based. I switched to b2b. I'm happy there are people who use business to make the world a better place. I'm never doing that again, profit first.
- RIMR 2y ago
  You could read it that way, but she said "with sadness and devastation". You are taking some extreme liberties with your interpretation of what she's saying. The sentiment she's sharing is clearly quite negative. I don't think she's happily wrapping up her mission, I think she's going out of business and has no ability to continue her mission as she would like to.
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    We can still view operating for 17 years to be a success. We can still view helping women in tech for 17 years to have improved the world, even if it cannot continue.
    - RIMR 2y ago
      You (a man) can feel fine about a charity that never benefited you going under? Big shocker that you don't give a shit, Mr. Guyorama. Condolences to the women in your life.

Melomololotolo 2y ago

When I look around my peers, not a lot has changed in the last 10 years for woman in tech

RIMR 2y ago
My thoughts exactly. It's one thing to close your doors feeling like you made a difference. It's another thing to close your doors feeling like you have just as much you need to do as you did when you started.
makeitdouble 2y ago
FWIW remote work has opened the door to many women who would have left the field otherwise, so they might be less visible. It's still not great in my opinion, but I think there's more senior engineers and managers and an overall better situation than a few decades ago.
- lolinder 2y ago
  This is an effect of remote work that isn't discussed nearly often enough: it nearly completely removes any non-work-related "culture fit" filter from the equation for hiring and promotions. Without the happy hours, shared lunch breaks, or even the water cooler conversations "fitting in" isn't nearly as important remote as it was in person. This benefits everyone who struggles to fit in with the traditional tech bro class: women, but also the neurodivergent, the deaf, the blind, teetotalers, and many more who would otherwise end up subconsciously perceived as less of a team player.
mattbrewsbytes 2y ago
Even though I feel similar and don't have any large data to look at, an unfortunate thought is that their efforts helped keep status quo. Or to put it another way, without that organization's efforts, things could have gotten much worse maybe?
ilickpoolalgae 2y ago
I don't feel the same. The last decade or so has seen an explosion of women show interest in joining the tech community. Ratio's on teams I've been on has greatly increased throughout my career. I've been on several teams now where women have outnumbered men. In my experience, the ratio is now flipped when you look at the team as a whole (XFN, etc). I may be biased though as I've only worked at "premier" large tech companies and they are probably in a better position to do DEI at scale. That being said, true senior roles in engineering (VP+) is still very male dominated. Part of that is the pipeline catching up and part of is that I see women leave engineering for other roles more often. For example I would say, in my experience, I've seen more women have an interest and engage in transitions to PM, designer, etc.