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Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

85 points by kunle 14y ago

coderdude 14y ago
>If I appear to be moronic, self-centered, or sexist… it’s only because I am (I’m a guy). Still I believe my heart is in the right place, and unlike my head, hopefully it’s not in my pants. What the hell? I feel like I'm watching a US TV commercial. "Whoops honey, if I didn't have my sports cap on I'd probably lose my head." "Oh dear, you lovable oaf." Mother and daughter shake heads at retarded male
- sopooneo 14y ago
  I agree. And frankly I find it the most grating thing about my generation: no spine. Stand up and speak. Don't try to soften the message with tired jokes and deflection. Just make your point. If people are angry, they're angry. Listen to their reactions and if you think you were in the wrong, apologize. If you think you were right, defend yourself. But you never, ever, open with an apology.
  - sp332 14y ago
    I think it worked. It just disarmed every ad-hominem attack right in the first paragraph.
- roguecoder 14y ago
  He sure holds a low opinion of men, 'tis true. I suppose it's so easier to get through life when everyone assumes you are too stupid to be expected not to pee on the rug.
- einhverfr 14y ago
  More or less. I also think that the issue isn't investing or the like. It's trying to discover what sorts of solutions are available to large organizational problems that make it hard for women to participate comfortably in tech startups. If Marissa Mayer had been pregnant shortly after her job started at Google, what would have been necessary to make it so she could have balanced work and family life better? Right now we have this myth that companies are machines and parts are largely interchangeable, and that gender doesn't matter in the functionality of the part. I call this a myth because it is a model we use to think about business and make sense of it, even if it isn't literally true. Gender does matter. Parts are not interchangeable. And it might be better to think of companies as ecosystems rather than machines. The question I have for women in tech is: If you could start a business that would different about the way it would be run? Forget all models of how things are done. What would you change? I think that's where the solution is.
- astrofinch 14y ago
  Give the guy a break. He's clearly trying really hard to be friendly and not offend anyone... and self-deprecation is a good way to do this.
- derleth 14y ago
  It's another example of how sexism hurts everyone.
InclinedPlane 14y ago
Right, this is just a call for something akin to affirmative action, which has had questionable results at best. The onus here isn't on women. And the right solution is not to preferentially favor women in the tech field. What you'll end up with is a situation where asshole misogynists consider themselves even more justified in treating women in tech as second class citizens. This time because "they only got there through charity". The solution is simple. People in tech need to treat other people in tech like human fucking beings, regardless of gender, race, or age. And more importantly, when we see people treating others based not on the quality of their work but on superficial qualities like gender, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or what-have-you we need to call them out on it. Loudly. Publicly. Repeatedly.
- Volpe 14y ago
  I disagree. I don't see it as 'tokenism' or 'charity'. We are solving a big problem (gender-inequality).
  - gms 14y ago
    Is it a problem that the nursing profession is dominated by women? If so, why?
    - Volpe 14y ago
      I don't know anything about the nursing industry. But I would comment, that increased diversity (whether it is gender/race/age/etc) always yields benefits as you have a more diverse range of viewpoints to draw from. So it is always a problem when one group is over(or under) represented in a given area.
      - LOLtampicoLOL 14y ago
        By extension, do you support "empowering" the employment of men in a female dominated profession by decree with the same zeal you show here toward women in tech?
ntkachov 14y ago
Women don't need to be "empowered". It's not some socieo-ecominic reason that's causing girls to steer clear of tech. It's been discussed here before many, many times and women have weighed in. According to them its the culture and insensitivity towards women thats causing skewed gender ratios. This isn't a problem you can throw money at.
- Volpe 14y ago
  Empowerment isn't just for socio-economic reasons... It's for all equality based issues. > According to them its the culture and insensitivity towards women thats causing skewed gender ratios. There are a multitude of problems, and they all need to be tackled, just because one solution doesn't solve all, doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. > This isn't a problem you can throw money at. I would rephrase that as: This isn't a problem you can just throw money at.
- benmccann 14y ago
  There are far fewer women in tech majors than men and that happens before women ever hit the workplace. The skewed gender ratio starts much earlier in life.
habitue 14y ago
I would suggest that instead of affirmative action in funding women in startups, instead we should encourage successful women in tech to become evangelists. I don't think the issue is as much in the "nobody gives money to women who want to start startups" but rather in the fact that fewer women are in technology because of the cultural bias against it (and as a consequence, less women get funded startups). Just think, if you are a teenager or college age girl, what women programmers do you currently look up to? They exist, but they need to be more visible to break the perception that "women don't become programmers"
- bishnu 14y ago
  Women in this field who try to be more visible are prone to being labeled as superficial, attention-seeking, untalented (and much, much worse) terms [1]. Culture change is what is required. [1]: http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/175064/forbes-com-contributor-deletes-post-about-sheryl-sandberg-after-people-call-it-sexist/ http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/175064/forbes-c...
rachelbythebay 14y ago
Okay. I left Google because I was fed up with how things were going over there (read my posts - link in profile - if you want to know more). I started my own little business. So, okay, let's go. Throw money at me. I'll make more cool stuff with it. I'm mostly a "plumbing" sort of person, but I've been known to make actual top-level user interfaces on occasion too. Well? Who's with me?
- ajross 14y ago
  I'll bite here on a tangent: are you really interested in taking a $5k check from an individual angel? Do startups (real ones, not just "I started a company!" startups) bother with that stuff? It seems that if you're a three-person YC gang that the effort involved in coming up with an extra week's (if that) worth of runway isn't even close to worthwhile.
  - rachelbythebay 14y ago
    No, I'm interested in building something useful for a reasonable amount of money. That's what I do: a simple exchange of currency for services rendered. Is this about women in tech, or is this some nebulous thing about startups? Because I'm all for the former, and don't really worry so much about the latter.
    - Locke1689 14y ago
      Is this about women in tech, or is this some nebulous thing about startups? Because I'm all for the former, and don't really worry so much about the latter. Why don't you read the article?
      - rachelbythebay 14y ago
        I did. What you quoted is what's known as a reply to the person above me.
staunch 14y ago
If women founders are being underserved by existing investors that would represent a market opportunity. Someone should exploit it out of pure self interest.
- konstruktor 14y ago
  Making this even more of a "put your money where your mouth is" situation. Women in tech fund, where are you and your gigantic returns?
csallen 14y ago
I just finished reading "The Blank Slate", a very interesting book by Harvard (and former MIT) psychologist Steven Pinker. In the book, he argues against the politically correct (but factually incorrect) notion that our minds are infinitely malleable at birth, and that our nature is primarily shaped by culture and the environment. On the contrary, genetics and neurobiology play a comparatively tremendous role in determining who we are. And, like it or not, these physical characteristics may differ across individuals, races, gender, etc. Pinker devotes an entire chapter of the book to gender, and the first half of that chapter to workplace equality. His thesis here is that a lack of 50-50 gender equality in a given profession isn't necessarily indicative of discrimination or unfairness, unless you believe in the blank slate. That is, unless you discount the possibility that women, on average, are interested in different things than are men. He goes on to present a vast amount of evidence that such differences in preference do exist, regardless of cultural conditioning. This isn't to say that discrimination is non-existent. Many of us have seen (or heard) enough to know that it's alive and well. The point is that we shouldn't arbitrarily strive for perfect 50-50 equality. There will always be fields in which men and women outnumber each other by large margins, and that's okay. The best we can do is to try and stamp out discrimination wherever possible.
- knowtheory 14y ago
  1) The Blank Slate was published 10 years ago by a psycholinguist (albeit Pinker an AWESOME psycholinguist but that's besides the point). There's been a lot of research since then to muddy the nature/nurture debate. 2) who's even suggesting that we need a 50/50 gender balance? Where are you getting this straw man from? All McClure has asserted is that there should be more women in tech, and given our 9:1 M:F ratio... there's a lot of room to move before we even start to discuss whether 50/50 is an appropriate ratio.
  - csallen 14y ago
    It's not surprising that new and enlightening nature-vs-nurture research has come out in the last 10 years. But I haven't personally come across anything significant with regard to asymmetry in gender-based interests. Also, I'm not attempting to refute Dave McClure or anyone specific. I never claimed that he claimed we should strive for 50-50 equality, so it's unfair for you to accuse me of a straw man. I'm just making reference to an argument that happened to affect my personal view on the matter. This topic has come up again and again on HN and in tech-related blogs, and I think it's a very common viewpoint that any deviation from a 50-50 distribution is attributable to discrimination. Regardless, I agree with you that that current ratio is overly-extreme, and that we can do better.
wheels 14y ago
> I’d like to CHALLENGE every woman in tech who’s a) got a nice car, b) owns a nice house, or c) is making over $125K a year In the US you need to have an income of greater than $200k/year or assets not including your home of over $1 million in order to be an accredited investor. [1] You don't have to be an accredited investor to invest in startups, but it does open up the company to additional annoying reporting requirements such that almost all advisors suggest staying away from such. From info on his own assets that he's posted in the past, it seems Dave's chosen to skirt said law himself, but it seems quite brash to (without disclaimer) push others to do the same. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor
- seats 14y ago
  This is technically true at the moment but not for long. Once the crowd funding portion of the JOBS act is accepted by the SEC, anyone can invest up to 10% of their annual income in startups.
- delinka 14y ago
  What's to keep me from investing all my money in my own startup? I note attempting facetiousness, I'm truly curious how they differentiate me starting my own business and investing all my own money (at a substantial percentage of my reported income) or starting a business with a buddy and putting in a serious amount of cash.
  - wheels 14y ago
    There's a provision for raising up to $1 million from "friends and family" (specifically pre-existing contacts only, no solicitation). I presume, though am not certain, however, that personal funds of the executives are exempt from that. http://www.jdsupra.com/post/documentViewer.aspx?fid=35d8764e-eee4-4ecc-8ef6-8da9e91b2575 http://www.jdsupra.com/post/documentViewer.aspx?fid=35d8764e...
  - nirvana 14y ago
    Nothing. There's also nothing to stop you from having a $30k income, and taking out a $130k unsecured loan, with a consequential $0 net worth (EG: $130k now n the bank and a $130k loan balance).... and going to Las Vegas and putting all $130k on a single spin of the roulette wheel-- or a weekends worth if they won't' let you bet that much. You can blow all that money gambling if you want, but you can't invest it in startups. (At least not as an accredited investor... and places like angel list will only deal with accredited investors.)
GregBuchholz 14y ago
Finally. It is hard to believe in this day and age that 99.99999% of women have no chance at receiving VC/Angel investments, whereas men only have a 99.9999% chance at not having access to VC/Angel money.
waterlesscloud 14y ago
Did anyone actually read this article? From the comments, I can only assume not. He's asking women in tech to act as angels for other women in tech. This does not seem to be what anyone here is responding to.
- ricardonunez 14y ago
  I agree. I read the post and most comments here apparently didn't get the main point of the article.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- einhverfr 14y ago
  Maybe men don't care about working at a beautify salon? More likely though Real Men(TM) don't want to be hairdressers! That's only for flaming homosexuals! Never underestimate the power of a good social taboo. Now, given that there aren't a lot of gender taboos against women working on Wikipedia or in technology startups, then it seems to me that at least the latter has to be a career choice issue. I think there are very strong reasons to think that men value security and stability of employment less than women, and so are going to be overrepresented in environments which are more risky and less stable than women are. If this is a problem the question is what we do to compensate. Would Marissa Mayer have been able to put in 130 hour work weeks as a new mom? Of course not. That our industry demands such may in fact be the problem.
  - InclinedPlane 14y ago
    If hairdressing were a multi-billion dollar global industry and the foundation of almost the entirety of the future economy that would be more of a problem. Tech, however, is big, important, and getting bigger.
    - einhverfr 14y ago
      However, if other industries and businesses are indications, as the industry matures, women will come. The internet used to have a 50:1 male to female ratio. Open source software engineering today has a similar ratio (compared to a 2:1 ratio in commercial software houses). Maybe the issue is that women don't want to work in a risky and immature industry. Especially when that involves potentially deferring or even giving up on plans to have a family (something men do not have to do to participate in it). You can't be a new mother and try to raise your kid naturally (breastfeeding etc) and work 130 hours a week. It doesn't work.
      - InclinedPlane 14y ago
andyl 14y ago
Old people (older than 40, say) are way under-represented in tech. Can anyone argue with this point? We need culture change, and maybe even affirmative action to force the industry to open up to oldsters. (yes, I'm in the 40+ demographic) In fact, we probably need a whole army of old journalists and bloggers to celebrate the achievements of their beloved demographic, and to get indignant about the injustices when they occur. And come to think of it, I haven't seen many black or hispanic coders lately. They probably need to impose their demands on the industry as well. Just kidding. I'm against quotas for oldsters like me, or any other supposedly marginalized demographic. I look for people who simply excel at writing code and building products, which anyone can do if they devote themselves to the craft.
token_female 14y ago
Why does having women invest in startups require a cessation of other forms of activism? I'll buy that having women loudly invest in startups might help the gender gap. But that and other efforts are not mutually exclusive. There isn't even tension between them. It's a false dichotomy. "So forgive me if i’m getting a little tired of people telling me: 1) Why I need to put more women speakers on panels at conferences (we’re trying), 2) How women are still at a disadvantage in tech (yeah, i know), or 3) What MEN should be doing to help WOMEN in tech" Why start out by ostracizing the people who are already vocally fighting against gender discrimination and latent sexism? It just detracts from his point about angel investing. The comment thread here is evidence of this - half the posts are ranting about feminists, affirmative action, and generally anybody who thinks there is a sexism problem in tech. The suggestion about angel investing is lost in the circlejerk. "(sure they [men] could do more, but frankly it’s your [women's] problem not theirs)." This is as false as it is offensive. When smart, talented women are discouraged from going into tech en masse because of a sexist culture, it is everybody's problem. In Bill Gates' words to a Saudi Arabian audience, "Well, if you’re not fully utilizing half the talent in the country, you’re not going to get too close to the top ten.” "To which I reply: Physician, Heal Thy Damn Self. You don’t need men to solve the problem." Men are the ones who dominate the industry now, and it is mostly men who contribute to the sexist culture (note that I am not saying most men contribute to this. I am saying most of the primary contributors to the culture being unfriendly to women are men. There is an important distinction there. Being a man does not make you automatically sexist). We need men AND women to solve the problem. We don't have to choose just one. On a minor note, at the end he writes "thanks to many women who helped proofread early drafts of this post… most of whom I didn’t listen to about how to make it better" I like how he flat out admits that he is ignoring the opinions of women. What was that about it not being men's problem?
chriszf 14y ago
It's wrong to offer up the idea that women somehow are biologically averse to tech. You need only look outside the US to verify this: Malaysia's tech sector is almost evenly split between men and women. It's a cultural thing, which we're loth to admit. We look around and say, "We treat women the same around here", not thinking for a second that maybe that's the problem. I run the Hackbright Academy, a hacker school for women, and I ask all applicants what compels them to apply to our program. Invariably, part of every story is the idea that they were intimidated out of the field in college or high school by their male peers. Whether or not that's the grand reason for the disparity, it's still something that shouldn't be a reason at all.
- astrofinch 14y ago
  Malaysia may not constitute good evidence for it being a cultural thing. Reason: a young male social outcast in Malaysia can't teach himself computer programming the way a young male social outcast in the United States can. So all programmers are college taught, which results in an even gender split. Whereas in the US, male geeks get a head start as kids and intimidate women in college with their accumulated skills. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4062243 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4062243
bherms 14y ago
As a guy in tech, I agree wholeheartedly with everything Dave has said, and was surprised he said it in an actually non-offensive way, given his typical writing style.. However, something I took away from this that really surprised me was how little money Dave started with and how little he still has. Don't get me wrong, I would kill to have $300k in the bank, much less $600k+, but I've always assumed that angel investing (despite the small investments) was a game for the incredibly wealthy and I wouldn't be able to invest until I was in my 30's and had exited with more than a few million in the bank. When he points out that anyone with more than $10k lying around can be the next big angel investor, it really jumped out at me. I've never considered investing $5k or so into something I really believe in when $5k-$10k is all I have saved up... However, as he said, it would be hard not to get my money's worth by investing in startups. I'm glad he conveyed how easy it is to become an angel because otherwise I would have never considered it until I had plenty of "fuck you" money.
- nirvana 14y ago
  The problem is, you do need to be a millionaire to be an angel investor. IF not you open your investments up to liability unless you really are "friends and family". This industry is regulated and McClure sorta completely glossed over it. I would be an angel investor if I was allowed. I would have been doing it for the past 4 years, and I would have much enjoyed doing that. I had 6 figures and 20 years of startup experience and was ready to write checks. I just never found a way around the need to get accreditation. (Note when you have a successful exit you have cash in the bank, but that doesn't mean you necessarily have a $250k a year job, or $1M in the bank!) Maybe in the bay area there are lawyers who can set you up to do this even despite the regulations... I dunno. But this seems to be a glaring omission on his part. Or maybe the law has changed recently and that's why his program could now work.
  - bherms 14y ago
    I actually do believe the law changed recently. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/04/jobs_act_now_ordinary_people_can_lose_big_investing_in_startups_too_.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/04/...
Nursie 14y ago
This doesn't seem to be about women in technology at all, just yet more fluff about startups, founders, exits and angel investors. Maybe Hacker News is the wrong site for me.

85 points by kunle 14y ago

>If I appear to be moronic, self-centered, or sexist… it’s only because I am (I’m a guy). Still I believe my heart is in the right place, and unlike my head, hopefully it’s not in my pants. What the hell? I feel like I'm watching a US TV commercial. "Whoops honey, if I didn't have my sports cap on I'd probably lose my head." "Oh dear, you lovable oaf." Mother and daughter shake heads at retarded male

sopooneo 14y ago
I agree. And frankly I find it the most grating thing about my generation: no spine. Stand up and speak. Don't try to soften the message with tired jokes and deflection. Just make your point. If people are angry, they're angry. Listen to their reactions and if you think you were in the wrong, apologize. If you think you were right, defend yourself. But you never, ever, open with an apology.
- sp332 14y ago
  I think it worked. It just disarmed every ad-hominem attack right in the first paragraph.
roguecoder 14y ago
He sure holds a low opinion of men, 'tis true. I suppose it's so easier to get through life when everyone assumes you are too stupid to be expected not to pee on the rug.
einhverfr 14y ago
More or less. I also think that the issue isn't investing or the like. It's trying to discover what sorts of solutions are available to large organizational problems that make it hard for women to participate comfortably in tech startups. If Marissa Mayer had been pregnant shortly after her job started at Google, what would have been necessary to make it so she could have balanced work and family life better? Right now we have this myth that companies are machines and parts are largely interchangeable, and that gender doesn't matter in the functionality of the part. I call this a myth because it is a model we use to think about business and make sense of it, even if it isn't literally true. Gender does matter. Parts are not interchangeable. And it might be better to think of companies as ecosystems rather than machines. The question I have for women in tech is: If you could start a business that would different about the way it would be run? Forget all models of how things are done. What would you change? I think that's where the solution is.
astrofinch 14y ago
Give the guy a break. He's clearly trying really hard to be friendly and not offend anyone... and self-deprecation is a good way to do this.
derleth 14y ago
It's another example of how sexism hurts everyone.

InclinedPlane 14y ago

Right, this is just a call for something akin to affirmative action, which has had questionable results at best. The onus here isn't on women. And the right solution is not to preferentially favor women in the tech field. What you'll end up with is a situation where asshole misogynists consider themselves even more justified in treating women in tech as second class citizens. This time because "they only got there through charity". The solution is simple. People in tech need to treat other people in tech like human fucking beings, regardless of gender, race, or age. And more importantly, when we see people treating others based not on the quality of their work but on superficial qualities like gender, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or what-have-you we need to call them out on it. Loudly. Publicly. Repeatedly.

Volpe 14y ago
I disagree. I don't see it as 'tokenism' or 'charity'. We are solving a big problem (gender-inequality).
- gms 14y ago
  Is it a problem that the nursing profession is dominated by women? If so, why?
  - Volpe 14y ago
    I don't know anything about the nursing industry. But I would comment, that increased diversity (whether it is gender/race/age/etc) always yields benefits as you have a more diverse range of viewpoints to draw from. So it is always a problem when one group is over(or under) represented in a given area.
    - LOLtampicoLOL 14y ago
      By extension, do you support "empowering" the employment of men in a female dominated profession by decree with the same zeal you show here toward women in tech?

ntkachov 14y ago

Women don't need to be "empowered". It's not some socieo-ecominic reason that's causing girls to steer clear of tech. It's been discussed here before many, many times and women have weighed in. According to them its the culture and insensitivity towards women thats causing skewed gender ratios. This isn't a problem you can throw money at.

Volpe 14y ago
Empowerment isn't just for socio-economic reasons... It's for all equality based issues. > According to them its the culture and insensitivity towards women thats causing skewed gender ratios. There are a multitude of problems, and they all need to be tackled, just because one solution doesn't solve all, doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. > This isn't a problem you can throw money at. I would rephrase that as: This isn't a problem you can just throw money at.
benmccann 14y ago
There are far fewer women in tech majors than men and that happens before women ever hit the workplace. The skewed gender ratio starts much earlier in life.

habitue 14y ago

I would suggest that instead of affirmative action in funding women in startups, instead we should encourage successful women in tech to become evangelists. I don't think the issue is as much in the "nobody gives money to women who want to start startups" but rather in the fact that fewer women are in technology because of the cultural bias against it (and as a consequence, less women get funded startups). Just think, if you are a teenager or college age girl, what women programmers do you currently look up to? They exist, but they need to be more visible to break the perception that "women don't become programmers"

bishnu 14y ago
Women in this field who try to be more visible are prone to being labeled as superficial, attention-seeking, untalented (and much, much worse) terms [1]. Culture change is what is required. [1]: http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/175064/forbes-com-contributor-deletes-post-about-sheryl-sandberg-after-people-call-it-sexist/ http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/175064/forbes-c...

rachelbythebay 14y ago

Okay. I left Google because I was fed up with how things were going over there (read my posts - link in profile - if you want to know more). I started my own little business. So, okay, let's go. Throw money at me. I'll make more cool stuff with it. I'm mostly a "plumbing" sort of person, but I've been known to make actual top-level user interfaces on occasion too. Well? Who's with me?

ajross 14y ago
I'll bite here on a tangent: are you really interested in taking a $5k check from an individual angel? Do startups (real ones, not just "I started a company!" startups) bother with that stuff? It seems that if you're a three-person YC gang that the effort involved in coming up with an extra week's (if that) worth of runway isn't even close to worthwhile.
- rachelbythebay 14y ago
  No, I'm interested in building something useful for a reasonable amount of money. That's what I do: a simple exchange of currency for services rendered. Is this about women in tech, or is this some nebulous thing about startups? Because I'm all for the former, and don't really worry so much about the latter.
  - Locke1689 14y ago
    Is this about women in tech, or is this some nebulous thing about startups? Because I'm all for the former, and don't really worry so much about the latter. Why don't you read the article?
    - rachelbythebay 14y ago
      I did. What you quoted is what's known as a reply to the person above me.

staunch 14y ago

If women founders are being underserved by existing investors that would represent a market opportunity. Someone should exploit it out of pure self interest.

konstruktor 14y ago
Making this even more of a "put your money where your mouth is" situation. Women in tech fund, where are you and your gigantic returns?

csallen 14y ago

I just finished reading "The Blank Slate", a very interesting book by Harvard (and former MIT) psychologist Steven Pinker. In the book, he argues against the politically correct (but factually incorrect) notion that our minds are infinitely malleable at birth, and that our nature is primarily shaped by culture and the environment. On the contrary, genetics and neurobiology play a comparatively tremendous role in determining who we are. And, like it or not, these physical characteristics may differ across individuals, races, gender, etc. Pinker devotes an entire chapter of the book to gender, and the first half of that chapter to workplace equality. His thesis here is that a lack of 50-50 gender equality in a given profession isn't necessarily indicative of discrimination or unfairness, unless you believe in the blank slate. That is, unless you discount the possibility that women, on average, are interested in different things than are men. He goes on to present a vast amount of evidence that such differences in preference do exist, regardless of cultural conditioning. This isn't to say that discrimination is non-existent. Many of us have seen (or heard) enough to know that it's alive and well. The point is that we shouldn't arbitrarily strive for perfect 50-50 equality. There will always be fields in which men and women outnumber each other by large margins, and that's okay. The best we can do is to try and stamp out discrimination wherever possible.

knowtheory 14y ago
1) The Blank Slate was published 10 years ago by a psycholinguist (albeit Pinker an AWESOME psycholinguist but that's besides the point). There's been a lot of research since then to muddy the nature/nurture debate. 2) who's even suggesting that we need a 50/50 gender balance? Where are you getting this straw man from? All McClure has asserted is that there should be more women in tech, and given our 9:1 M:F ratio... there's a lot of room to move before we even start to discuss whether 50/50 is an appropriate ratio.
- csallen 14y ago
  It's not surprising that new and enlightening nature-vs-nurture research has come out in the last 10 years. But I haven't personally come across anything significant with regard to asymmetry in gender-based interests. Also, I'm not attempting to refute Dave McClure or anyone specific. I never claimed that he claimed we should strive for 50-50 equality, so it's unfair for you to accuse me of a straw man. I'm just making reference to an argument that happened to affect my personal view on the matter. This topic has come up again and again on HN and in tech-related blogs, and I think it's a very common viewpoint that any deviation from a 50-50 distribution is attributable to discrimination. Regardless, I agree with you that that current ratio is overly-extreme, and that we can do better.

wheels 14y ago

> I’d like to CHALLENGE every woman in tech who’s a) got a nice car, b) owns a nice house, or c) is making over $125K a year In the US you need to have an income of greater than $200k/year or assets not including your home of over $1 million in order to be an accredited investor. [1] You don't have to be an accredited investor to invest in startups, but it does open up the company to additional annoying reporting requirements such that almost all advisors suggest staying away from such. From info on his own assets that he's posted in the past, it seems Dave's chosen to skirt said law himself, but it seems quite brash to (without disclaimer) push others to do the same. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor

seats 14y ago
This is technically true at the moment but not for long. Once the crowd funding portion of the JOBS act is accepted by the SEC, anyone can invest up to 10% of their annual income in startups.
delinka 14y ago
What's to keep me from investing all my money in my own startup? I note attempting facetiousness, I'm truly curious how they differentiate me starting my own business and investing all my own money (at a substantial percentage of my reported income) or starting a business with a buddy and putting in a serious amount of cash.
- wheels 14y ago
  There's a provision for raising up to $1 million from "friends and family" (specifically pre-existing contacts only, no solicitation). I presume, though am not certain, however, that personal funds of the executives are exempt from that. http://www.jdsupra.com/post/documentViewer.aspx?fid=35d8764e-eee4-4ecc-8ef6-8da9e91b2575 http://www.jdsupra.com/post/documentViewer.aspx?fid=35d8764e...
- nirvana 14y ago
  Nothing. There's also nothing to stop you from having a $30k income, and taking out a $130k unsecured loan, with a consequential $0 net worth (EG: $130k now n the bank and a $130k loan balance).... and going to Las Vegas and putting all $130k on a single spin of the roulette wheel-- or a weekends worth if they won't' let you bet that much. You can blow all that money gambling if you want, but you can't invest it in startups. (At least not as an accredited investor... and places like angel list will only deal with accredited investors.)

GregBuchholz 14y ago

Finally. It is hard to believe in this day and age that 99.99999% of women have no chance at receiving VC/Angel investments, whereas men only have a 99.9999% chance at not having access to VC/Angel money.

waterlesscloud 14y ago

Did anyone actually read this article? From the comments, I can only assume not. He's asking women in tech to act as angels for other women in tech. This does not seem to be what anyone here is responding to.

ricardonunez 14y ago
I agree. I read the post and most comments here apparently didn't get the main point of the article.

deleted 14y ago

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einhverfr 14y ago
Maybe men don't care about working at a beautify salon? More likely though Real Men(TM) don't want to be hairdressers! That's only for flaming homosexuals! Never underestimate the power of a good social taboo. Now, given that there aren't a lot of gender taboos against women working on Wikipedia or in technology startups, then it seems to me that at least the latter has to be a career choice issue. I think there are very strong reasons to think that men value security and stability of employment less than women, and so are going to be overrepresented in environments which are more risky and less stable than women are. If this is a problem the question is what we do to compensate. Would Marissa Mayer have been able to put in 130 hour work weeks as a new mom? Of course not. That our industry demands such may in fact be the problem.
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  If hairdressing were a multi-billion dollar global industry and the foundation of almost the entirety of the future economy that would be more of a problem. Tech, however, is big, important, and getting bigger.
  - einhverfr 14y ago
    However, if other industries and businesses are indications, as the industry matures, women will come. The internet used to have a 50:1 male to female ratio. Open source software engineering today has a similar ratio (compared to a 2:1 ratio in commercial software houses). Maybe the issue is that women don't want to work in a risky and immature industry. Especially when that involves potentially deferring or even giving up on plans to have a family (something men do not have to do to participate in it). You can't be a new mother and try to raise your kid naturally (breastfeeding etc) and work 130 hours a week. It doesn't work.
    - InclinedPlane 14y ago

andyl 14y ago

Old people (older than 40, say) are way under-represented in tech. Can anyone argue with this point? We need culture change, and maybe even affirmative action to force the industry to open up to oldsters. (yes, I'm in the 40+ demographic) In fact, we probably need a whole army of old journalists and bloggers to celebrate the achievements of their beloved demographic, and to get indignant about the injustices when they occur. And come to think of it, I haven't seen many black or hispanic coders lately. They probably need to impose their demands on the industry as well. Just kidding. I'm against quotas for oldsters like me, or any other supposedly marginalized demographic. I look for people who simply excel at writing code and building products, which anyone can do if they devote themselves to the craft.

token_female 14y ago

Why does having women invest in startups require a cessation of other forms of activism? I'll buy that having women loudly invest in startups might help the gender gap. But that and other efforts are not mutually exclusive. There isn't even tension between them. It's a false dichotomy. "So forgive me if i’m getting a little tired of people telling me: 1) Why I need to put more women speakers on panels at conferences (we’re trying), 2) How women are still at a disadvantage in tech (yeah, i know), or 3) What MEN should be doing to help WOMEN in tech" Why start out by ostracizing the people who are already vocally fighting against gender discrimination and latent sexism? It just detracts from his point about angel investing. The comment thread here is evidence of this - half the posts are ranting about feminists, affirmative action, and generally anybody who thinks there is a sexism problem in tech. The suggestion about angel investing is lost in the circlejerk. "(sure they [men] could do more, but frankly it’s your [women's] problem not theirs)." This is as false as it is offensive. When smart, talented women are discouraged from going into tech en masse because of a sexist culture, it is everybody's problem. In Bill Gates' words to a Saudi Arabian audience, "Well, if you’re not fully utilizing half the talent in the country, you’re not going to get too close to the top ten.” "To which I reply: Physician, Heal Thy Damn Self. You don’t need men to solve the problem." Men are the ones who dominate the industry now, and it is mostly men who contribute to the sexist culture (note that I am not saying most men contribute to this. I am saying most of the primary contributors to the culture being unfriendly to women are men. There is an important distinction there. Being a man does not make you automatically sexist). We need men AND women to solve the problem. We don't have to choose just one. On a minor note, at the end he writes "thanks to many women who helped proofread early drafts of this post… most of whom I didn’t listen to about how to make it better" I like how he flat out admits that he is ignoring the opinions of women. What was that about it not being men's problem?

chriszf 14y ago

It's wrong to offer up the idea that women somehow are biologically averse to tech. You need only look outside the US to verify this: Malaysia's tech sector is almost evenly split between men and women. It's a cultural thing, which we're loth to admit. We look around and say, "We treat women the same around here", not thinking for a second that maybe that's the problem. I run the Hackbright Academy, a hacker school for women, and I ask all applicants what compels them to apply to our program. Invariably, part of every story is the idea that they were intimidated out of the field in college or high school by their male peers. Whether or not that's the grand reason for the disparity, it's still something that shouldn't be a reason at all.

astrofinch 14y ago
Malaysia may not constitute good evidence for it being a cultural thing. Reason: a young male social outcast in Malaysia can't teach himself computer programming the way a young male social outcast in the United States can. So all programmers are college taught, which results in an even gender split. Whereas in the US, male geeks get a head start as kids and intimidate women in college with their accumulated skills. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4062243 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4062243

bherms 14y ago

As a guy in tech, I agree wholeheartedly with everything Dave has said, and was surprised he said it in an actually non-offensive way, given his typical writing style.. However, something I took away from this that really surprised me was how little money Dave started with and how little he still has. Don't get me wrong, I would kill to have $300k in the bank, much less $600k+, but I've always assumed that angel investing (despite the small investments) was a game for the incredibly wealthy and I wouldn't be able to invest until I was in my 30's and had exited with more than a few million in the bank. When he points out that anyone with more than $10k lying around can be the next big angel investor, it really jumped out at me. I've never considered investing $5k or so into something I really believe in when $5k-$10k is all I have saved up... However, as he said, it would be hard not to get my money's worth by investing in startups. I'm glad he conveyed how easy it is to become an angel because otherwise I would have never considered it until I had plenty of "fuck you" money.

nirvana 14y ago
The problem is, you do need to be a millionaire to be an angel investor. IF not you open your investments up to liability unless you really are "friends and family". This industry is regulated and McClure sorta completely glossed over it. I would be an angel investor if I was allowed. I would have been doing it for the past 4 years, and I would have much enjoyed doing that. I had 6 figures and 20 years of startup experience and was ready to write checks. I just never found a way around the need to get accreditation. (Note when you have a successful exit you have cash in the bank, but that doesn't mean you necessarily have a $250k a year job, or $1M in the bank!) Maybe in the bay area there are lawyers who can set you up to do this even despite the regulations... I dunno. But this seems to be a glaring omission on his part. Or maybe the law has changed recently and that's why his program could now work.
- bherms 14y ago
  I actually do believe the law changed recently. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/04/jobs_act_now_ordinary_people_can_lose_big_investing_in_startups_too_.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/04/...

Nursie 14y ago

This doesn't seem to be about women in technology at all, just yet more fluff about startups, founders, exits and angel investors. Maybe Hacker News is the wrong site for me.