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Ok, so how about we offer a deal like this: 1) Put in 130 hours of work every week except for 3 weeks vacation per year, and 2 months parental leave, and medi

Ok, so how about we offer a deal like this: 1) Put in 130 hours of work every week except for 3 weeks vacation per year, and 2 months parental leave, and medical leave as required by law. Start when you are 20. When you are 40 we will give you a retirement bonus of 30 million dollars. Is this exclusionary to women? I ask because I think the very clear answer is yes. I don't think the key issues are in terms of an exclusionary culture. I think the key issues regarding startups are structural and expectation-based. I don't think it's any coincidence that Marissa Mayer waited until Google was a big mainstream company to get pregnant. So what do you tell a talented 28 year old woman who is thinking maybe about starting a family?

InclinedPlane 14y ago
This is just an illustration of the problem. Look, working crazy hours is absolutely, positively NOT in any way a requirement for success in the tech industry. It's not even a very good way to get work done. But it is commonplace. And it is taken as a shibboleth within this industry. And it does exclude people, especially women but others as well. What do you tell a talented 28 year old woman who is thinking about starting a family? What do you tell a 28 year old man who is thinking about starting a family? I'd say that if you do your homework, concentrate on learning, and work in a smart way then you can manage to make an excellent living working from home, which is fantastic for supporting a family, whether you're a guy or a gal.
- einhverfr 14y ago
  It's a requirement for an engineering position in a technology start-up, which is a prerequisite for the top-tier success. As for what to tell a 28 year old man. Most of them recognize that they may have to take their paternity leave late, or only take the minimum. But the fact that this is an option places the 28 year old man in a very different position than the 28 year old woman. As for the crazy hours deal, I can't imagine many women taking that deal. I can imagine many women pressuring their husbands to take that deal though.
  - BSousa 14y ago
    The hell it is! I'm 29, father of a 2.5 months boy. I work at a start up that is doing quite ok. I took 20 days paternity leave when my kid was born plus a week paid vacation. I'm taking an extra month paternity leave as well in a month. Another colleague (male) is having a baby on the 27th this month, he'll do exactly the same. I hardly work more than 40 hours a week (sometimes I get a call on Sunday to fix an important issue or something, but not regularly). I don't trade work hours (even if it includes pay) for time spent with my kid. I just don't. And you know what? I'm not shunned for it by my boss. Hell, during my wife's pregnancy, I had to take a lot of time off and work a part of it from home and he was actually proud I was putting my family first.
    - einhverfr 14y ago
      If your son had been born during a death march would you have considered trying to push the leave around a bit so as not to further burden your colleagues? I have known men at financial services firms for example, who came in for a week during paternity leave to help out with a PCI audit, or took leave a week late because they were not replaceable quickly for an on-site visit with a consultant.
      - InclinedPlane 14y ago
        If you are working at a company where death marches are the normal development process you've got a lot bigger problems than being able to find the time for paternity leave. Run, run away from that job as fast as you can. There are tons of companies out there, even startups, hiring devs who won't work them to death. I'm a bit disappointed that the state of this industry is still so immature. We've had all of these studies and all of this wisdom from experienced high-caliber devs on the best ways to go about developing software (and none of them include death marches) and yet here we are still bumbling around and fucking it up and folks like you have the audacity to call it not only normal but proper and expected.
        einhverfr 14y ago

InclinedPlane 14y ago

This is just an illustration of the problem. Look, working crazy hours is absolutely, positively NOT in any way a requirement for success in the tech industry. It's not even a very good way to get work done. But it is commonplace. And it is taken as a shibboleth within this industry. And it does exclude people, especially women but others as well. What do you tell a talented 28 year old woman who is thinking about starting a family? What do you tell a 28 year old man who is thinking about starting a family? I'd say that if you do your homework, concentrate on learning, and work in a smart way then you can manage to make an excellent living working from home, which is fantastic for supporting a family, whether you're a guy or a gal.

einhverfr 14y ago
It's a requirement for an engineering position in a technology start-up, which is a prerequisite for the top-tier success. As for what to tell a 28 year old man. Most of them recognize that they may have to take their paternity leave late, or only take the minimum. But the fact that this is an option places the 28 year old man in a very different position than the 28 year old woman. As for the crazy hours deal, I can't imagine many women taking that deal. I can imagine many women pressuring their husbands to take that deal though.
- BSousa 14y ago
  The hell it is! I'm 29, father of a 2.5 months boy. I work at a start up that is doing quite ok. I took 20 days paternity leave when my kid was born plus a week paid vacation. I'm taking an extra month paternity leave as well in a month. Another colleague (male) is having a baby on the 27th this month, he'll do exactly the same. I hardly work more than 40 hours a week (sometimes I get a call on Sunday to fix an important issue or something, but not regularly). I don't trade work hours (even if it includes pay) for time spent with my kid. I just don't. And you know what? I'm not shunned for it by my boss. Hell, during my wife's pregnancy, I had to take a lot of time off and work a part of it from home and he was actually proud I was putting my family first.
  - einhverfr 14y ago
    If your son had been born during a death march would you have considered trying to push the leave around a bit so as not to further burden your colleagues? I have known men at financial services firms for example, who came in for a week during paternity leave to help out with a PCI audit, or took leave a week late because they were not replaceable quickly for an on-site visit with a consultant.
    - InclinedPlane 14y ago
      If you are working at a company where death marches are the normal development process you've got a lot bigger problems than being able to find the time for paternity leave. Run, run away from that job as fast as you can. There are tons of companies out there, even startups, hiring devs who won't work them to death. I'm a bit disappointed that the state of this industry is still so immature. We've had all of these studies and all of this wisdom from experienced high-caliber devs on the best ways to go about developing software (and none of them include death marches) and yet here we are still bumbling around and fucking it up and folks like you have the audacity to call it not only normal but proper and expected.
      - einhverfr 14y ago