3 ms·

I wouldn't believe for a second that Meg Whitman, Marissa Mayer, Virginia Rometty, or Carly Fiorina have this problem. Parmer's column is accurate but not perp

I wouldn't believe for a second that Meg Whitman, Marissa Mayer, Virginia Rometty, or Carly Fiorina have this problem. Parmer's column is accurate but not perplexing given what she said about being the CEO of Lady Geek. Her choice of target market (explained fairly well in its name) defines the context of her target audience.

VLM 13y ago
"Meg Whitman, Marissa Mayer, Virginia Rometty, or Carly Fiorina" Terrible examples. I was motivated enough to wikipedia them to gather the following data. Whitman and Fiorina have no tech background at all and have never worked tech jobs, pure management material all the way. Fiorina is legendary for destroying HP not exactly a glowing endorsement for women in anything. Mayer and Rometty went to school for tech but between the two of them they've only got about 5 years experience in tech/engineering before succumbing to the dark side of management. If anything the message to young women with a list like that is women should get out of tech and into mgmt/marketing/beancounting ASAP because tech is a dead end for women. Now, rather than 1%er management crooks, why not an example of a techie like Limor Fried? There's a real engineer, who happens to be female, someone who would make a good hero for young women in engineering / tech / programming. If you don't know who she is, you should look her up on wikipedia. There are of course a zillion other good techies who happen to be female, but an EE-chauvinist like myself is going to promote another EE. I can think of a relatively famous FPGA dev and many others.
- ChikkaChiChi 13y ago
  Very fair point. I pointed them out mostly because these are "celebrities" in the tech world that you could easily find giving talks at various venues. Real people who get real work done tend to not have time for such nonsense :) I could/should have noted Mayer only because I consider her to be one of the most influential people in the (FTSE equivalent mentioned by Parmer) NASDAQ. While the jury is still out on her tenure at Yahoo!, several of Google's recent missteps _could_ be attributed to her absence at Big G.
  - VLM 13y ago
    I think you're still missing my point. A management drone, or at least a more or less non-techie, prognosticating about cultural issues in tech, is almost meaningless other than maybe simple P.R. "we care about diversity" and such. Unless you have techies in the executive suite, the answer to techie problems is not going to come from the executive suite, or at least not any more likely than any other random unqualified group. Its not enough for one's subordinates 8 times removed be techies, or to have a PR campaign aimed at techies. There's an impedance mismatch. It would be like sending me as a missionary to encourage young black men to enter the religious seminary, and then being surprised at my remarkable ineffectiveness. Why, VLM has a lot of karma on HN, how could he not have been effective?
    - ChikkaChiChi 13y ago
      I don't disagree and I think the only fair balance is to have stronger technology-oriented personalities at the table for balance to be achieved. I think without engineers or at the very least representatives that can be the true voice of the engineers any company is doomed to produce waste and a disconnect between what is, what can be, and what isn't. My point is management drones love to talk, and techies by a large majority are much more comfortable staying out of the executive suite and staying in the labs. Until a balance occurs, the mismatch will always be present. I think this is more of a cultural divide issue than a gender one, however.
      - VLM 13y ago
        "stronger technology-oriented personalities at the table" Women Techies dream team version 0.001: Limor Fried, Jeri Ellsworth, Radia Perlman (noobs probably don't know who she is... hint... Spanning Tree Protocol and a epic 90s book titled "Interconnections"). "the table" needs techies like those three women, not some famous bean counters. I would much rather have my daughter look up to those three (or about a bazillion others) than, say, "Job Destroyer Carly"

VLM 13y ago

"Meg Whitman, Marissa Mayer, Virginia Rometty, or Carly Fiorina" Terrible examples. I was motivated enough to wikipedia them to gather the following data. Whitman and Fiorina have no tech background at all and have never worked tech jobs, pure management material all the way. Fiorina is legendary for destroying HP not exactly a glowing endorsement for women in anything. Mayer and Rometty went to school for tech but between the two of them they've only got about 5 years experience in tech/engineering before succumbing to the dark side of management. If anything the message to young women with a list like that is women should get out of tech and into mgmt/marketing/beancounting ASAP because tech is a dead end for women. Now, rather than 1%er management crooks, why not an example of a techie like Limor Fried? There's a real engineer, who happens to be female, someone who would make a good hero for young women in engineering / tech / programming. If you don't know who she is, you should look her up on wikipedia. There are of course a zillion other good techies who happen to be female, but an EE-chauvinist like myself is going to promote another EE. I can think of a relatively famous FPGA dev and many others.

ChikkaChiChi 13y ago
Very fair point. I pointed them out mostly because these are "celebrities" in the tech world that you could easily find giving talks at various venues. Real people who get real work done tend to not have time for such nonsense :) I could/should have noted Mayer only because I consider her to be one of the most influential people in the (FTSE equivalent mentioned by Parmer) NASDAQ. While the jury is still out on her tenure at Yahoo!, several of Google's recent missteps _could_ be attributed to her absence at Big G.
- VLM 13y ago
  I think you're still missing my point. A management drone, or at least a more or less non-techie, prognosticating about cultural issues in tech, is almost meaningless other than maybe simple P.R. "we care about diversity" and such. Unless you have techies in the executive suite, the answer to techie problems is not going to come from the executive suite, or at least not any more likely than any other random unqualified group. Its not enough for one's subordinates 8 times removed be techies, or to have a PR campaign aimed at techies. There's an impedance mismatch. It would be like sending me as a missionary to encourage young black men to enter the religious seminary, and then being surprised at my remarkable ineffectiveness. Why, VLM has a lot of karma on HN, how could he not have been effective?
  - ChikkaChiChi 13y ago
    I don't disagree and I think the only fair balance is to have stronger technology-oriented personalities at the table for balance to be achieved. I think without engineers or at the very least representatives that can be the true voice of the engineers any company is doomed to produce waste and a disconnect between what is, what can be, and what isn't. My point is management drones love to talk, and techies by a large majority are much more comfortable staying out of the executive suite and staying in the labs. Until a balance occurs, the mismatch will always be present. I think this is more of a cultural divide issue than a gender one, however.
    - VLM 13y ago
      "stronger technology-oriented personalities at the table" Women Techies dream team version 0.001: Limor Fried, Jeri Ellsworth, Radia Perlman (noobs probably don't know who she is... hint... Spanning Tree Protocol and a epic 90s book titled "Interconnections"). "the table" needs techies like those three women, not some famous bean counters. I would much rather have my daughter look up to those three (or about a bazillion others) than, say, "Job Destroyer Carly"