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Mark Zuckerberg and those engineers made this customer service representative a millionaire. She repays them by trashing them in the Wall Street Journal. There

by temphn 14y ago

Mark Zuckerberg and those engineers made this customer service representative a millionaire. She repays them by trashing them in the Wall Street Journal. There is nothing wrong with something "unrepentantly boyish", anything more than there is something wrong with women's only schools. Working class men don't go around apologizing for doing difficult construction jobs, white collar men need to stop apologizing for doing the difficult programming jobs. This woman was in customer service. She was lucky to be put on the Facebook rocket ship. So too was Sheryl Sandberg, a nontechnical and obviously ultrapolitical operator, placed on third base as COO yet thinks she hit a triple. Both Losse and Sandberg consider themselves "women in tech". They're not. They're "women on tech", women carried on the backs of real technologists, male and female alike.

kaonashi 14y ago
No offense, but that comes off as extremely conceited.
- lclarkmichalek 14y ago
  Yes, usually any misogyny on hacker news is at least concealed behind pseudo rational arguments.
pnmahoney 14y ago
I'm calling bull. Contributing to a company's success is NOT the exclusive purchase of programmers, nor (as some appear to conflate it) men who program. And, to be clear, there is something unambiguously wrong for a male supervisor to roam the workplace trying to push lesser-ranked employees into sexual acts; worse, for the behavior to go on long enough until SOMEONE (again, by your analysis, a 'woman on tech') thought it was worth fixing. Even if she had to use all that dreaded 'political operations-ing' to make it right.
vamsee 14y ago
Wow. Is this the attitude that people in SV usually have/tolerate towards women? No wonder there are so many complaints. Somehow 'doing difficult programming jobs' entitles you to act shabbily towards women? And somehow she needs to be thankful for all this? Wow, just wow.
lucisferre 14y ago
Honestly when it comes to the subject of women's issues in frat boy tech cultures I've seen people on this site post (and vote up) some stupid f'ing shit, but you may have just won the triple crown with this absolute sexist entilted load of crap. I love how you ended it with "male and female" just so you could feel a bit better about yourself in the morning.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- taligent 14y ago
  I have to agree with you there. This post is every bad stereotype of IT workers rolled into one. In addition to the borderline misogyny is the dismissive attitude towards those not in IT. As someone who has been in IT for 20+ years programming is SIMPLE compared to trying to get groups of people to work towards (and want to work towards) a common goal.
- temphn 14y ago
  You can rant at heretical thoughts all you want. You offer no counterarguments other than pointing and screaming. I want you to recognize that the free speech of the internet means there are men who can and will offer different opinions about these matters. Anonymity means immunity from character assassination over a difference of opinion. After all, who really has the power here? Isn't Sheryl Sandberg the billionaire, and those two engineers the ones whose careers were ruined?
  - taligent 14y ago
    You can't possibly be serious. One engineer propositions other employees for threesomes and the other calls a fellow employee a feminist and is aggressive towards her. In ANY organisation on this planet both would more than likely have been instantly dismissed. It is grossly unprofessional to say the least.
    - temphn 14y ago
      You find her accusations plausible. Others may not. She certainly constructed an elaborate internal discourse out of this bearskin rug photo. And seemed proud of the fact that the engineers were demoted or reassigned without even having a chance to defend themselves. Are false accusations or office politics of such an underhanded nature "grossly unprofessional"?
geon 14y ago
> Mark Zuckerberg and those engineers made this customer service representative a millionaire. She repays them by trashing them in the Wall Street Journal. If you mean she was paid in shares that turned out very valuable years later, thhen she has absolutely no reason to be grateful for them. The only reason she was not paid in cash was that the value of Facebook was uncertain. It could be a success, or it could flop. As with any stock market deals it was a gamble, and she was lucky. Also, she was apaid employee. She would not have been hired if she didn't contribute to the success of the company. Therefore she made "those engineers" millionaries just as much.
- temphn 14y ago
  Therefore she made "those engineers" millionaries just as much. No. All contributions aren't equal. It takes someone special to write HipHop to compile PHP into C++. Engineers can (and do) do customer service in a pinch, customer service reps can't do engineering. Doug Edwards, Google Employee 59, is more self-consciously reflective about this, recognizing explicitly in his biography that the company would have become successful if he weren't there. Losse and Sandberg only pat themselves on the back about hobbling the careers of engineers for their sins, real or imagined. If Losse could turn her own drunken donning of a bearskin rug into some bizarre cause for resentment, who knows what innocuous remark could have gotten transmogrified into cause for demotion or transfer of some hapless, apolitical engineer.
  - apl 14y ago
    > No. All contributions aren't equal. It takes someone > special to write HipHop to compile PHP into C++. > Engineers can (and do) do customer service in a pinch, > customer service reps can't do engineering. The sheer hubris on display here makes me gag.
    - temphn 14y ago
      Is this statement true or false: Engineers can do customer service, but customer service reps can't do engineering. You don't have to point this out as an engineer unless dealing with someone who doesn't realize how relatively incapable they are, like Losse.
sp332 14y ago
"unrepentantly boyish" is OK in certain places. Like, a boys' school, or a strip club or something. Our society has decided that work should not be one of those places, and we've enshrined that in law.
- agateform 14y ago
  What laws? Could you please define "unrepentantly boyish"?
agateform 14y ago
While its true that the majority of people in tech jobs or dangerous working class jobs are man, I understand why some people see misogyny when you wrote "white collar men need to stop apologizing for doing the difficult programming jobs" because it can come across as woman not being capable and not doing those difficult jobs... With that said... It still surprises me that people in HN are quickly to point out misogyny but completely misses the man bashing, "boyish" shaming misandry from this article. The article was not just sexist but also generally demeaning or condescending. "...my first day at Facebook, the young, plain-looking guys in T-shirts..." "...woman in the office—an administrative assistant—was more animated, smiling toothily as she welcomed me in...." The bad types of feminists seems to think that all man have power and/or privileges and are oppressors of woman and woman are always the oppressed victims with no privilege or power. The following quotes made her seem like she might be this type of feminist. "...slight mocking disapproval that was my new colleagues' default tone in response to anything that resisted their power...." "...Facebook album that Monday I was struck by the loaded nature of the image, ripe for interpretation, in which Mark appeared to be commanding a female employee to submit..." "...photo was taken and posted on Facebook is that it didn't occur to anyone in the office that there was anything wrong with it, or that it revealed something unattractive about the culture of Facebook." "...As Mark wrote on his business card with boyish hubris, "I'm CEO, bitch." The image of me in the bearskin was saying that power wasn't something to be questioned; it was something to collect and brandish..." IIRC the "I'm CEO, bitch." business cards had to do with developers not becoming CEO of the company and not making as much money from their own creation. "When I met Sheryl, the first thing I said was that she had really good skin," Mark continued, "and she does," he said, gesturing toward Sheryl, whose face had an admittedly creamy tone. Was Mark talking about the actual skin or that she had good thick skin? It's pretty ironic if this is criticism of Mark considering she writes about peoples appearances in a condescending way.

by temphn 14y ago

kaonashi 14y ago

No offense, but that comes off as extremely conceited.

lclarkmichalek 14y ago
Yes, usually any misogyny on hacker news is at least concealed behind pseudo rational arguments.

pnmahoney 14y ago

I'm calling bull. Contributing to a company's success is NOT the exclusive purchase of programmers, nor (as some appear to conflate it) men who program. And, to be clear, there is something unambiguously wrong for a male supervisor to roam the workplace trying to push lesser-ranked employees into sexual acts; worse, for the behavior to go on long enough until SOMEONE (again, by your analysis, a 'woman on tech') thought it was worth fixing. Even if she had to use all that dreaded 'political operations-ing' to make it right.

vamsee 14y ago

Wow. Is this the attitude that people in SV usually have/tolerate towards women? No wonder there are so many complaints. Somehow 'doing difficult programming jobs' entitles you to act shabbily towards women? And somehow she needs to be thankful for all this? Wow, just wow.

lucisferre 14y ago

Honestly when it comes to the subject of women's issues in frat boy tech cultures I've seen people on this site post (and vote up) some stupid f'ing shit, but you may have just won the triple crown with this absolute sexist entilted load of crap. I love how you ended it with "male and female" just so you could feel a bit better about yourself in the morning.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
taligent 14y ago
I have to agree with you there. This post is every bad stereotype of IT workers rolled into one. In addition to the borderline misogyny is the dismissive attitude towards those not in IT. As someone who has been in IT for 20+ years programming is SIMPLE compared to trying to get groups of people to work towards (and want to work towards) a common goal.
temphn 14y ago
You can rant at heretical thoughts all you want. You offer no counterarguments other than pointing and screaming. I want you to recognize that the free speech of the internet means there are men who can and will offer different opinions about these matters. Anonymity means immunity from character assassination over a difference of opinion. After all, who really has the power here? Isn't Sheryl Sandberg the billionaire, and those two engineers the ones whose careers were ruined?
- taligent 14y ago
  You can't possibly be serious. One engineer propositions other employees for threesomes and the other calls a fellow employee a feminist and is aggressive towards her. In ANY organisation on this planet both would more than likely have been instantly dismissed. It is grossly unprofessional to say the least.
  - temphn 14y ago
    You find her accusations plausible. Others may not. She certainly constructed an elaborate internal discourse out of this bearskin rug photo. And seemed proud of the fact that the engineers were demoted or reassigned without even having a chance to defend themselves. Are false accusations or office politics of such an underhanded nature "grossly unprofessional"?

geon 14y ago

> Mark Zuckerberg and those engineers made this customer service representative a millionaire. She repays them by trashing them in the Wall Street Journal. If you mean she was paid in shares that turned out very valuable years later, thhen she has absolutely no reason to be grateful for them. The only reason she was not paid in cash was that the value of Facebook was uncertain. It could be a success, or it could flop. As with any stock market deals it was a gamble, and she was lucky. Also, she was apaid employee. She would not have been hired if she didn't contribute to the success of the company. Therefore she made "those engineers" millionaries just as much.

temphn 14y ago
Therefore she made "those engineers" millionaries just as much. No. All contributions aren't equal. It takes someone special to write HipHop to compile PHP into C++. Engineers can (and do) do customer service in a pinch, customer service reps can't do engineering. Doug Edwards, Google Employee 59, is more self-consciously reflective about this, recognizing explicitly in his biography that the company would have become successful if he weren't there. Losse and Sandberg only pat themselves on the back about hobbling the careers of engineers for their sins, real or imagined. If Losse could turn her own drunken donning of a bearskin rug into some bizarre cause for resentment, who knows what innocuous remark could have gotten transmogrified into cause for demotion or transfer of some hapless, apolitical engineer.
- apl 14y ago
  > No. All contributions aren't equal. It takes someone > special to write HipHop to compile PHP into C++. > Engineers can (and do) do customer service in a pinch, > customer service reps can't do engineering. The sheer hubris on display here makes me gag.
  - temphn 14y ago
    Is this statement true or false: Engineers can do customer service, but customer service reps can't do engineering. You don't have to point this out as an engineer unless dealing with someone who doesn't realize how relatively incapable they are, like Losse.

sp332 14y ago

"unrepentantly boyish" is OK in certain places. Like, a boys' school, or a strip club or something. Our society has decided that work should not be one of those places, and we've enshrined that in law.

agateform 14y ago
What laws? Could you please define "unrepentantly boyish"?

agateform 14y ago

While its true that the majority of people in tech jobs or dangerous working class jobs are man, I understand why some people see misogyny when you wrote "white collar men need to stop apologizing for doing the difficult programming jobs" because it can come across as woman not being capable and not doing those difficult jobs... With that said... It still surprises me that people in HN are quickly to point out misogyny but completely misses the man bashing, "boyish" shaming misandry from this article. The article was not just sexist but also generally demeaning or condescending. "...my first day at Facebook, the young, plain-looking guys in T-shirts..." "...woman in the office—an administrative assistant—was more animated, smiling toothily as she welcomed me in...." The bad types of feminists seems to think that all man have power and/or privileges and are oppressors of woman and woman are always the oppressed victims with no privilege or power. The following quotes made her seem like she might be this type of feminist. "...slight mocking disapproval that was my new colleagues' default tone in response to anything that resisted their power...." "...Facebook album that Monday I was struck by the loaded nature of the image, ripe for interpretation, in which Mark appeared to be commanding a female employee to submit..." "...photo was taken and posted on Facebook is that it didn't occur to anyone in the office that there was anything wrong with it, or that it revealed something unattractive about the culture of Facebook." "...As Mark wrote on his business card with boyish hubris, "I'm CEO, bitch." The image of me in the bearskin was saying that power wasn't something to be questioned; it was something to collect and brandish..." IIRC the "I'm CEO, bitch." business cards had to do with developers not becoming CEO of the company and not making as much money from their own creation. "When I met Sheryl, the first thing I said was that she had really good skin," Mark continued, "and she does," he said, gesturing toward Sheryl, whose face had an admittedly creamy tone. Was Mark talking about the actual skin or that she had good thick skin? It's pretty ironic if this is criticism of Mark considering she writes about peoples appearances in a condescending way.