"Or are white males just that much more "lucky" than women and minorities?" I take exception to this because I have advised a bunch of non-technical peopl

"Or are white males just that much more "lucky" than women and minorities?" I take exception to this because I have advised a bunch of non-technical people on how to get into coding, probably about a dozen or so. White males simply ask more. That's what "luck" is here. Asking, then doing. Among all those people I've had one black African ask me. I sat down with him for a while giving him tons of advice and corresponded a few times more after that until I got swamped by work. I've had only one woman ask me (recently, just this past week), but only superficially. She had recently picked up a book on generative art because she fancies being able to do that. Ironically, we have the same exact book at the office because I work with one of the best generative artists in the Bay Area, Reza Ali, so I actually had some decent advice on where to start if she was serious. The conversation was shallow and brief before she got into general discussions about life with my girlfriend who was also in the room. It was simply a qualitatively different way of asking for advice which isn't likely to lead to success. Not all women are like this, I know. But I only have on anecdote thus far and I'm disappointed by this. I'd personally love it if more women coded so I could nerd out about programming with both men and women equally. The above are only anecdotal (and the plural of anecdotes is not data). Maybe I only have many more male white friends, but my girlfriend certainly does not and her friends are all aware of what I do for a living and I do have a decent amount of contact with them. Near as I can tell from above, the number of minorities that ask for help is roughly in line with base rates. The number of women who ask is not. Women are roughly 50% of the population. If they want to learn and do this kind of thing, they need to ask and then do. This definition of asking and doing for women is "luck". Woman do not lack contact with people that can help if they just asked. For minorities, it's a bit more sinister in that luck also has an element of propinquity that is far more outside the control of an individual. A minority in a poor neighborhood in the Bay Area is unlikely to come in contact with me or someone like me, so they will never have an opportunity to ask. The guy in this posted article on the other hand does have the luck of propinquity. All he needs to do is walk up to Google employees either before or after his shift and ask a few of them if they are an engineer and if they can offer him advice on how to learn to do what they do. I'd be surprised if he didn't get actionable advice that can get him out of the rut he is in in about 2-3 years.