7 ms·

Paul Graham & Sexism: Just One More Distraction From Real Work

53 points by ntippmann 13y ago

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
tptacek 13y ago
What we seem to be seeing now is a wave of commentary from people who are familiar only with what other people have said about the Graham interview at The Information, but who have not themselves read that interview carefully.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  What's your takeaway from it? (I don't have a subscription to The Information.)
  - lazugod 13y ago
    This is what he wrote about it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6977623 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6977623
  - tptacek 13y ago
    About the sexism issue? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6980805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6980805 About the interview as a whole? Sadly, I think the whole interview was pretty boring, and the discrimination stuff was the most interesting part of it. Everything else Graham had to say, it seemed like he had said elsewhere before. I'm not criticizing Paul Graham here: I think he made the rest of his points effectively and was well-tuned to the audience. Ironically, Graham spends some time later in the interview talking about "reputation as potential energy" (which rings true to me), and how that energy is part of what makes people "attack" him and YC --- presumably, he means that the energy he has captured is threatening to people. I wonder if he had fielded that question first, before the discrimination thing, if he might have said something different about women in tech.
    - larrys 13y ago
      Haven't you watched any prison movies? Everyone wants to take down the new barn boss. (Sean Penn in "Bad Boys"[1])? I'm joking of course (about the barn boss) but the truth is it's a good sign when you get to the point where people analyze and give a shit about every word that comes out of your mouth. You can then move the needle. I say ignore the controversy and use it to your advantage. [1] Remember the dweeb that built the radio and took down the goon with an explosion?
  - samsolomon 13y ago
    On another note—what do you think of The Information? I'm considering subscribing.
lkbm 13y ago
pg says founders start programming when they're thirteen, and concludes that we have a ten year lag time. The author says founders can be much older than 23, so given that we have a ten year lag time, we can start with people will over 13. pg: x=13 y=23 Therefore z=y-x=10. Author: No, y=40 Therefore x=y-10=30. There's a pretty clear flaw in the author's reasoning here. Why say x=10 when you've just rejected the value from which that ten was calculated?
- zaphar 13y ago
  The author agrees with x=10 based on the 10,000 hours hypothesis as she states in her article. She didn't base her agreement on pg's "hackers start at 13" statement. She agreed with it due to the shear number of hours it takes to get competent in a highly technical skill.
  - lkbm 13y ago
    The 10 000 hours thing is often paired with "3 hours a day for 10 years", but by my recollection there the only number with a basis is 10 000, not the 3 hours or the 10 years. I'm pretty sure she chose 10 years because she was responding to someone who chose 10 years.
ChrisNorstrom 13y ago
Paul, you really need to stop being honest in public. The world doesn't want honesty, it wants lies. It wants to feel good. Wake people up from their politically correct Utopian dream and they will attack you viciously. Just go with the flow and speak freely only to a close group of friends. As I recall last time PG was honest about founders with heavy accents not doing well due to communication problems he attacked as well. American culture (founded on freedom of expression) has turned into a culture of witch hunts and public shaming. Leading more people to simply stop talking about important and many times controversial topics. From freedom of expression to fear of expression, who's the witch hunt's next victim?
- tptacek 13y ago
  I get the rhetorical strategy you're using here, but the truth might be pretty close to what you're actually saying. If reputation is potential energy, then Paul Graham has a lot of energy bound up in what he writes about startups. He also has a lot of the habits and proclivities of a Usenet nerd (takes one to know &c &c). It's a risky combination and may have blown up on him here.
- athesyn 13y ago
  It's this bizarre twitter/social justice generation. After seeing the phenomenon where merely saying the word 'female' is considered sexist, nothing surprises me anymore. It's better to never speak about gender differences.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    To the list of shibboleths that includes "third wave feminism" I will now add "social justice". Thank you. It's convenient that people that hold views like yours are so willing to mark themselves.
    - smtddr 13y ago
      I just want to say that it is very refreshing to see your comments on these types of issues. You're one of the apparently very few people on HN that actually understands what sexism/racism is in the tech-world.
unclesaamm 13y ago
> While I fully get the the “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” thing, I just have to say there’s really not much here to be pissed about. The "'hell hath no fury like a woman scored' thing"? That's an offensive thing to say in this context. From PG's interview: >Does YC discriminate against female founders? >I'm almost certain that we don't discriminate against female founders because I would know from looking at the ones we missed. [...] That's not evidence, because YC boosts the success rate of those who get in. That said, I agree with the idea that hacker culture is not something a CS major can impart, and that it helps to have an early start.
- tptacek 13y ago
  It's not evidence that YC isn't discriminatory, that's true, but it's also not evidence that YC is. I think Graham would have been better off saying "I don't think we discriminate, here's why, and I don't know why the gender imbalance exists". Instead, he overexplained.
  - crassus 13y ago
    "Prove that you're not a witch"
    - tptacek 13y ago
      That's not all that's happening here.
  - klipt 13y ago
    > I don't know why the gender imbalance exists Well it depends what age group you're talking about. He says the gender imbalance in 20 somethings is due to a gender imbalance in teens (which just assumes that time spent in your teens is predictive of career choice and skill level), and he doesn't know why the teen imbalance exists, but it needs to be fixed. I don't see how that's over explaining. If you didn't study math or science in highschool, you probably won't be a physicist either.
    - 13y ago
michaelochurch 13y ago
Paul Graham is probably not sexist, and if he's ageist, it's a product of his sampling bias. Most qualified 40+ founders are not going to be that interested in the 6%-for-$15k type of deal that YC offers. Those terms are great for someone out of college; not as much for a seasoned 40+ entrepreneur. There are plenty of very qualified 50-year-old entrepreneurs out there, but I doubt they're applying to YC. I could be wrong; that's just my best guess. I'm not PG's biggest fan, although I admire his Lisp chops. Still, this attack on him is ridiculous. The interview shows him as a decent guy admitting he can't solve a difficult and complicated problem. Really, my feeling is, "Nothing to see here, move along". The truth is that even if Paul Graham were sexist, that wouldn't be such a big deal if the startup industry were healthy, because the biases of one influential individual shouldn't matter. Rather, the VC-funded world is seriously and systemically ill-- and the rarity of female founders is a symptom of that sickness-- and PG is just being made (completely unreasonably, IMO) a lightning rod, even though he's clearly one of the more reasonable (and probably one of the less sexist/racist/classist) investors out there.
- larrys 13y ago
  "50-year-old entrepreneurs" Are also less likely to need what YC offers. I know this because I am one of the people that help those younger people because of what I know already that they don't. I've actually run into people that I've helped that pay my bill by using a bookeeping service that they hire and outsource. While I am sure there are many reasons to do this (investors demand etc.) that was something that when you are bootstrapping (with the amount of bills you have to pay) you can just do in a few hours on the side generally. (This is separate from a payroll service which is something that is time consuming and a pain for sure.)
- tptacek 13y ago
  That would be a more compelling point if the gender imbalance was confined to company founders. But it isn't: the whole industry is rife with it, both in startups and on dev teams at bigcos. Go to an F-500 bank sometime and compare the IT team with a dev team: the IT team will have many more women than the dev team will. It's something about software development in general; it's not the fault of VCs (which I'm not a fan of either).
vezzy-fnord 13y ago
Finally, a relatively rational response. On another note, I just realized that Medium.com is absolutely inundated with blog entries about pg's statements. Wow.
larrys 13y ago
I would be remiss if I didn't reinforce a point that I make frequently that after (as Fred Wilson calls it) this "shitstorm" passes more normals will be aware of Paul Graham and YC do than before. And perhaps that will have an effect on the general conversation as far as women in tech or taking up computing (at age 13 or whatever) and actually do something useful. Never let a good crisis go to waste as the saying goes.
willtheperson 13y ago
Is it really wrong to say that women could be better or worse (in general) at one thing or another? Is it sexist to even point out that men and women are different? I think my wife is pretty awesome and capable of things I would not be able to do. Am I sexist for talking about it? I think in the source PG even says that women are good (maybe better) than men at business focused startups. Or will the world not be balanced until just as many women are making hot or not for XYZ in the off hours
- newnewnew 13y ago
  > "Is it really wrong to say that women could be better or worse (in general) at one thing or another? Is it sexist to even point out that men and women are different?" Yes to both questions. On the other hand, it's science[1][2]! There's lots of proven differences in personality and ability between the sexes. When the official ideology is against reality, you have to choose between being a "good person" and a good scientist. It's best for your career to choose the first. [1] http://jaymans.wordpress.com/hbd-fundamentals/#sex http://jaymans.wordpress.com/hbd-fundamentals/#sex [2] http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/09/2012-sat-test-results-a-huge-gender-math-gap-persists-with-a-33-point-advantage-for-high-school-boys/ http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/09/2012-sat-test-results-a-hug...
  - gizmo686 13y ago
    >When the official ideology is against reality, you have to choose between being a "good person" and a good scientist. It's best for your career to choose the first. Unless your career is in something like insurance, medicine, or any field where those differences actually matter.
  - ZoFreX 13y ago
    Statistically speaking because I am short I am less likely to do well in my career compared to tall people. If you told me that my code sucked because I was short, I would be pretty mad at you. Yes, there are differences between the genders recorded by science - but you don't have to choose between science and being a good person. Science doesn't compel anyone to attempt to apply statistical differences over a large group to individuals. Furthermore, a difference that is proven now proves nothing other than the current state of affairs. It doesn't dictate what things would be if playing fields were more level, nor does it dictate how things should be or how things will be.
zw123456 13y ago
I recently saw an interview between Eric Schmidt and Sheryl Sandberg on BookTV (www.booktv.org) and Sandberg made basically the same point but I think in a little bit more elegant way. She mentioned that she put her teenage daughter in computer camp and there were only 2 other girls in the camp, both of whom were Sandberg's nieces and she also put them in there. The take away for her was that most parents do not encourage girls to go to computer camp. So there is a self fulfilling prophecy so to speak going on. I think both PG and SS are saying pretty much the same thing, but SS is the better person to say it in my view, not that PG shouldn't comment, it's just that him saying distracts from the key point, it is socialization that needs to change. And they are both correct, to be really good in tech, you need to start them young !
was_hellbanned 13y ago
If technology startups were founded more on business principles and less on hot air, tech hand-waving, and "the Facebook of X", then this probably wouldn't be so much of an issue. Speaking as someone who got a home computer at eight, back when it was still extremely uncommon, and who never stopped programming, I actually think we vastly overvalue this whole "you have to have been hacking since age 13" angle. There are so many other elements that go into actually delivering solid product that I just don't think we can point to that as the issue to focus on. This is a symptom of a problem, not a qualification of proficiency.
- coroxout 13y ago
  I very much agree with this. I'm a woman and at age 13 I was, if not actually "hacking", at least teaching myself to code simple games/graphics. However, "delivering solid product" is a very big leap from that. I'll never be an elite ninja rock star coder or a big name entrepreneur. Conversely, there are plenty of posts on HN from people, mostly 20-something and male, saying they just taught themselves to code from scratch within the past year. Some of those people are already doing pretty damn awesome things, and thankfully they usually get encouraging feedback rather than told they'll never make it because they weren't geeky enough in junior high. (And I was a big nerd all through school, so believe me, I'd love that to be a meaningful qualification!)
robomartin 13y ago
The problem of getting anyone, young or adult, interested in a subject --any subject-- isn't one with a simple solution. Technical subjects have the added difficulty that they require you to use your brain in non-trivial ways. Given equal exposure to the subject matter, I fail to see how a male or female subject would react differently to the idea of learning that subject. This, of course, assuming that both the male and female subjects got to that moment in time with a similar educational and perhaps even cultural frame of reference. If a mother only ever bought a little girl frilly pink and shiny things, well, it is probably unlikely that as a teenage girl or an adult woman she would even remotely show interest in learning more technical subjects. She will probably be a dancer and go into the arts or some other less "brainy" occupation. That's not to say that there aren't exceptions to this, but they are probably few and far between. The same is true of boys. If they are brought-up in front of a playstation, shooting at things, playing sports, and well outside of more academically focused areas he will probably grow up to be a jock and then move on to careers that do well when you use half your brain. Hell, he might even go into sales! Things are vastly different if you feed your kids a constant diet of what they should be learning in order to operate at a different level when they are older. My teenage son finished MIT's CS 6.00.1x course just a few weeks ago. That did not happen magically. That was a lot of work. For me and for him! And that also required a lot of work to get to the point where he could even be shoved into that end of the pool. My little girl is too young to think about formal learning of these kinds of subject, but this year she got introduced to Lego robotics and is starting to like it. Yet, the situation is exactly the same: It requires a ton of time and dedication on my part --as the designated nerd at home-- to keep her exposed to such subjects and make it fun. I have to get silly while teaching something useful. I have to figure out ways to make robotics fun, silly, exciting and something she wants to do. We don't buy lots of silly frilly things for her. That said, I have to tell you, it is hard to fight both genetics and exposure to such things through her peers. I guess my message is that parents needs to be very engaged and active in bringing up a child into the sciences and technology. It will not happen by osmosis. And, I really don't think gender makes a huge difference. It might change the approach, but I don't think it is the primary determinant of success or failure. One way I've explained this in the past to friends who marvel at what my kids are doing is that this is like a Formula 1 car drafting a car in front of them. You need to drive well and use a lot of effort to get close enough to be within the zone where drafting happens. Up until that point you are using a lot more energy to chase the car in front of you. Once you get into the drafting zone you need less power to maintain the same speed. Yet, you still need that foot solidly planted on the accelerator. With kids you have to push, push, push. I have navigated through really frustrating moments when I've gotten angry because I couldn't understand why he (my oldest son) didn't just grab that book I bought for him and launched himself into software development nirvana. Of course, I always reflected upon these things and never externalized them --not much of a motivator to yell and scream at your kid about learning something-- and realized that (a) he is still young and (b) we are not in the "draft zone" yet. It'll take a lot more effort --and this is different from kid to kid-- to get him into the "draft zone". Once we reach that zone it will require a lot less energy on my part and, if interested, he will ultimately need virtually no support from me. This is where I look at some of the things being said about STEM education and can't help but think we are just throwing money into a big bonfire. You can't force people into learning anything. A lot of my kid's friends are, well, jocks or exhibit no interest in anything at all. They are navigating through school with no guidance or encouragement in any direction whatsoever. You can't just throw money at that and expect things to change. For most kids it requires far more work than can be done during the time they are at school. Yes, of course, there are a few kids in every sample group that need almost zero work. These kids get hooked on a subject like programming and just go, go , go. Most kids are not like that. Just like most successful businesses did not get launched with a long coding session over a weekend while eating popcorn. Going back to my little girl, she is not seriously exposed to Lego robotics. In fact, our living room table is an official FLL table with the official field mat and everything. Yes, we are serious about this. I'd rather have a learning environment in my living room than a fancy dinning room table. As far as why there aren't more women in tech today. I don't have the answer for that. I only know that when I was a teenager girls mostly did different stuff. Not because they were being forced away from tech, they simply showed no interest in what we were doing. My guess is that it all came from home. So, as our culture changes so will that aspect of things. Evolution?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
holychiz 13y ago
I normally don't bother to comment on these manufactured outrages but I have to make an exception here. Look, PG clearly were referring in the interview to startup _founders_. The magazine twisted his words to make it sounds like he saying that women can't be _coder_, meaning women can never learn to code well enough to get a job, which he never said. If that's indeed what he say then everyone, you and I can decide to be outrage about it. But that's not what he said. We should really be outraged at the magazine for this hit piece.

53 points by ntippmann 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

What we seem to be seeing now is a wave of commentary from people who are familiar only with what other people have said about the Graham interview at The Information, but who have not themselves read that interview carefully.

michaelochurch 13y ago
What's your takeaway from it? (I don't have a subscription to The Information.)
- lazugod 13y ago
  This is what he wrote about it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6977623 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6977623
- tptacek 13y ago
  About the sexism issue? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6980805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6980805 About the interview as a whole? Sadly, I think the whole interview was pretty boring, and the discrimination stuff was the most interesting part of it. Everything else Graham had to say, it seemed like he had said elsewhere before. I'm not criticizing Paul Graham here: I think he made the rest of his points effectively and was well-tuned to the audience. Ironically, Graham spends some time later in the interview talking about "reputation as potential energy" (which rings true to me), and how that energy is part of what makes people "attack" him and YC --- presumably, he means that the energy he has captured is threatening to people. I wonder if he had fielded that question first, before the discrimination thing, if he might have said something different about women in tech.
  - larrys 13y ago
    Haven't you watched any prison movies? Everyone wants to take down the new barn boss. (Sean Penn in "Bad Boys"[1])? I'm joking of course (about the barn boss) but the truth is it's a good sign when you get to the point where people analyze and give a shit about every word that comes out of your mouth. You can then move the needle. I say ignore the controversy and use it to your advantage. [1] Remember the dweeb that built the radio and took down the goon with an explosion?
- samsolomon 13y ago
  On another note—what do you think of The Information? I'm considering subscribing.

lkbm 13y ago

pg says founders start programming when they're thirteen, and concludes that we have a ten year lag time. The author says founders can be much older than 23, so given that we have a ten year lag time, we can start with people will over 13. pg: x=13 y=23 Therefore z=y-x=10. Author: No, y=40 Therefore x=y-10=30. There's a pretty clear flaw in the author's reasoning here. Why say x=10 when you've just rejected the value from which that ten was calculated?

zaphar 13y ago
The author agrees with x=10 based on the 10,000 hours hypothesis as she states in her article. She didn't base her agreement on pg's "hackers start at 13" statement. She agreed with it due to the shear number of hours it takes to get competent in a highly technical skill.
- lkbm 13y ago
  The 10 000 hours thing is often paired with "3 hours a day for 10 years", but by my recollection there the only number with a basis is 10 000, not the 3 hours or the 10 years. I'm pretty sure she chose 10 years because she was responding to someone who chose 10 years.

ChrisNorstrom 13y ago

Paul, you really need to stop being honest in public. The world doesn't want honesty, it wants lies. It wants to feel good. Wake people up from their politically correct Utopian dream and they will attack you viciously. Just go with the flow and speak freely only to a close group of friends. As I recall last time PG was honest about founders with heavy accents not doing well due to communication problems he attacked as well. American culture (founded on freedom of expression) has turned into a culture of witch hunts and public shaming. Leading more people to simply stop talking about important and many times controversial topics. From freedom of expression to fear of expression, who's the witch hunt's next victim?

tptacek 13y ago
I get the rhetorical strategy you're using here, but the truth might be pretty close to what you're actually saying. If reputation is potential energy, then Paul Graham has a lot of energy bound up in what he writes about startups. He also has a lot of the habits and proclivities of a Usenet nerd (takes one to know &c &c). It's a risky combination and may have blown up on him here.
athesyn 13y ago
It's this bizarre twitter/social justice generation. After seeing the phenomenon where merely saying the word 'female' is considered sexist, nothing surprises me anymore. It's better to never speak about gender differences.
- tptacek 13y ago
  To the list of shibboleths that includes "third wave feminism" I will now add "social justice". Thank you. It's convenient that people that hold views like yours are so willing to mark themselves.
  - smtddr 13y ago
    I just want to say that it is very refreshing to see your comments on these types of issues. You're one of the apparently very few people on HN that actually understands what sexism/racism is in the tech-world.

unclesaamm 13y ago

> While I fully get the the “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” thing, I just have to say there’s really not much here to be pissed about. The "'hell hath no fury like a woman scored' thing"? That's an offensive thing to say in this context. From PG's interview: >Does YC discriminate against female founders? >I'm almost certain that we don't discriminate against female founders because I would know from looking at the ones we missed. [...] That's not evidence, because YC boosts the success rate of those who get in. That said, I agree with the idea that hacker culture is not something a CS major can impart, and that it helps to have an early start.

tptacek 13y ago
It's not evidence that YC isn't discriminatory, that's true, but it's also not evidence that YC is. I think Graham would have been better off saying "I don't think we discriminate, here's why, and I don't know why the gender imbalance exists". Instead, he overexplained.
- crassus 13y ago
  "Prove that you're not a witch"
  - tptacek 13y ago
    That's not all that's happening here.
- klipt 13y ago
  > I don't know why the gender imbalance exists Well it depends what age group you're talking about. He says the gender imbalance in 20 somethings is due to a gender imbalance in teens (which just assumes that time spent in your teens is predictive of career choice and skill level), and he doesn't know why the teen imbalance exists, but it needs to be fixed. I don't see how that's over explaining. If you didn't study math or science in highschool, you probably won't be a physicist either.
  - 13y ago

michaelochurch 13y ago

Paul Graham is probably not sexist, and if he's ageist, it's a product of his sampling bias. Most qualified 40+ founders are not going to be that interested in the 6%-for-$15k type of deal that YC offers. Those terms are great for someone out of college; not as much for a seasoned 40+ entrepreneur. There are plenty of very qualified 50-year-old entrepreneurs out there, but I doubt they're applying to YC. I could be wrong; that's just my best guess. I'm not PG's biggest fan, although I admire his Lisp chops. Still, this attack on him is ridiculous. The interview shows him as a decent guy admitting he can't solve a difficult and complicated problem. Really, my feeling is, "Nothing to see here, move along". The truth is that even if Paul Graham were sexist, that wouldn't be such a big deal if the startup industry were healthy, because the biases of one influential individual shouldn't matter. Rather, the VC-funded world is seriously and systemically ill-- and the rarity of female founders is a symptom of that sickness-- and PG is just being made (completely unreasonably, IMO) a lightning rod, even though he's clearly one of the more reasonable (and probably one of the less sexist/racist/classist) investors out there.

larrys 13y ago
"50-year-old entrepreneurs" Are also less likely to need what YC offers. I know this because I am one of the people that help those younger people because of what I know already that they don't. I've actually run into people that I've helped that pay my bill by using a bookeeping service that they hire and outsource. While I am sure there are many reasons to do this (investors demand etc.) that was something that when you are bootstrapping (with the amount of bills you have to pay) you can just do in a few hours on the side generally. (This is separate from a payroll service which is something that is time consuming and a pain for sure.)
tptacek 13y ago
That would be a more compelling point if the gender imbalance was confined to company founders. But it isn't: the whole industry is rife with it, both in startups and on dev teams at bigcos. Go to an F-500 bank sometime and compare the IT team with a dev team: the IT team will have many more women than the dev team will. It's something about software development in general; it's not the fault of VCs (which I'm not a fan of either).

vezzy-fnord 13y ago

Finally, a relatively rational response. On another note, I just realized that Medium.com is absolutely inundated with blog entries about pg's statements. Wow.

larrys 13y ago

I would be remiss if I didn't reinforce a point that I make frequently that after (as Fred Wilson calls it) this "shitstorm" passes more normals will be aware of Paul Graham and YC do than before. And perhaps that will have an effect on the general conversation as far as women in tech or taking up computing (at age 13 or whatever) and actually do something useful. Never let a good crisis go to waste as the saying goes.

willtheperson 13y ago

Is it really wrong to say that women could be better or worse (in general) at one thing or another? Is it sexist to even point out that men and women are different? I think my wife is pretty awesome and capable of things I would not be able to do. Am I sexist for talking about it? I think in the source PG even says that women are good (maybe better) than men at business focused startups. Or will the world not be balanced until just as many women are making hot or not for XYZ in the off hours

newnewnew 13y ago
> "Is it really wrong to say that women could be better or worse (in general) at one thing or another? Is it sexist to even point out that men and women are different?" Yes to both questions. On the other hand, it's science[1][2]! There's lots of proven differences in personality and ability between the sexes. When the official ideology is against reality, you have to choose between being a "good person" and a good scientist. It's best for your career to choose the first. [1] http://jaymans.wordpress.com/hbd-fundamentals/#sex http://jaymans.wordpress.com/hbd-fundamentals/#sex [2] http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/09/2012-sat-test-results-a-huge-gender-math-gap-persists-with-a-33-point-advantage-for-high-school-boys/ http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/09/2012-sat-test-results-a-hug...
- gizmo686 13y ago
  >When the official ideology is against reality, you have to choose between being a "good person" and a good scientist. It's best for your career to choose the first. Unless your career is in something like insurance, medicine, or any field where those differences actually matter.
- ZoFreX 13y ago
  Statistically speaking because I am short I am less likely to do well in my career compared to tall people. If you told me that my code sucked because I was short, I would be pretty mad at you. Yes, there are differences between the genders recorded by science - but you don't have to choose between science and being a good person. Science doesn't compel anyone to attempt to apply statistical differences over a large group to individuals. Furthermore, a difference that is proven now proves nothing other than the current state of affairs. It doesn't dictate what things would be if playing fields were more level, nor does it dictate how things should be or how things will be.

zw123456 13y ago

I recently saw an interview between Eric Schmidt and Sheryl Sandberg on BookTV (www.booktv.org) and Sandberg made basically the same point but I think in a little bit more elegant way. She mentioned that she put her teenage daughter in computer camp and there were only 2 other girls in the camp, both of whom were Sandberg's nieces and she also put them in there. The take away for her was that most parents do not encourage girls to go to computer camp. So there is a self fulfilling prophecy so to speak going on. I think both PG and SS are saying pretty much the same thing, but SS is the better person to say it in my view, not that PG shouldn't comment, it's just that him saying distracts from the key point, it is socialization that needs to change. And they are both correct, to be really good in tech, you need to start them young !

was_hellbanned 13y ago

If technology startups were founded more on business principles and less on hot air, tech hand-waving, and "the Facebook of X", then this probably wouldn't be so much of an issue. Speaking as someone who got a home computer at eight, back when it was still extremely uncommon, and who never stopped programming, I actually think we vastly overvalue this whole "you have to have been hacking since age 13" angle. There are so many other elements that go into actually delivering solid product that I just don't think we can point to that as the issue to focus on. This is a symptom of a problem, not a qualification of proficiency.

coroxout 13y ago
I very much agree with this. I'm a woman and at age 13 I was, if not actually "hacking", at least teaching myself to code simple games/graphics. However, "delivering solid product" is a very big leap from that. I'll never be an elite ninja rock star coder or a big name entrepreneur. Conversely, there are plenty of posts on HN from people, mostly 20-something and male, saying they just taught themselves to code from scratch within the past year. Some of those people are already doing pretty damn awesome things, and thankfully they usually get encouraging feedback rather than told they'll never make it because they weren't geeky enough in junior high. (And I was a big nerd all through school, so believe me, I'd love that to be a meaningful qualification!)

robomartin 13y ago

The problem of getting anyone, young or adult, interested in a subject --any subject-- isn't one with a simple solution. Technical subjects have the added difficulty that they require you to use your brain in non-trivial ways. Given equal exposure to the subject matter, I fail to see how a male or female subject would react differently to the idea of learning that subject. This, of course, assuming that both the male and female subjects got to that moment in time with a similar educational and perhaps even cultural frame of reference. If a mother only ever bought a little girl frilly pink and shiny things, well, it is probably unlikely that as a teenage girl or an adult woman she would even remotely show interest in learning more technical subjects. She will probably be a dancer and go into the arts or some other less "brainy" occupation. That's not to say that there aren't exceptions to this, but they are probably few and far between. The same is true of boys. If they are brought-up in front of a playstation, shooting at things, playing sports, and well outside of more academically focused areas he will probably grow up to be a jock and then move on to careers that do well when you use half your brain. Hell, he might even go into sales! Things are vastly different if you feed your kids a constant diet of what they should be learning in order to operate at a different level when they are older. My teenage son finished MIT's CS 6.00.1x course just a few weeks ago. That did not happen magically. That was a lot of work. For me and for him! And that also required a lot of work to get to the point where he could even be shoved into that end of the pool. My little girl is too young to think about formal learning of these kinds of subject, but this year she got introduced to Lego robotics and is starting to like it. Yet, the situation is exactly the same: It requires a ton of time and dedication on my part --as the designated nerd at home-- to keep her exposed to such subjects and make it fun. I have to get silly while teaching something useful. I have to figure out ways to make robotics fun, silly, exciting and something she wants to do. We don't buy lots of silly frilly things for her. That said, I have to tell you, it is hard to fight both genetics and exposure to such things through her peers. I guess my message is that parents needs to be very engaged and active in bringing up a child into the sciences and technology. It will not happen by osmosis. And, I really don't think gender makes a huge difference. It might change the approach, but I don't think it is the primary determinant of success or failure. One way I've explained this in the past to friends who marvel at what my kids are doing is that this is like a Formula 1 car drafting a car in front of them. You need to drive well and use a lot of effort to get close enough to be within the zone where drafting happens. Up until that point you are using a lot more energy to chase the car in front of you. Once you get into the drafting zone you need less power to maintain the same speed. Yet, you still need that foot solidly planted on the accelerator. With kids you have to push, push, push. I have navigated through really frustrating moments when I've gotten angry because I couldn't understand why he (my oldest son) didn't just grab that book I bought for him and launched himself into software development nirvana. Of course, I always reflected upon these things and never externalized them --not much of a motivator to yell and scream at your kid about learning something-- and realized that (a) he is still young and (b) we are not in the "draft zone" yet. It'll take a lot more effort --and this is different from kid to kid-- to get him into the "draft zone". Once we reach that zone it will require a lot less energy on my part and, if interested, he will ultimately need virtually no support from me. This is where I look at some of the things being said about STEM education and can't help but think we are just throwing money into a big bonfire. You can't force people into learning anything. A lot of my kid's friends are, well, jocks or exhibit no interest in anything at all. They are navigating through school with no guidance or encouragement in any direction whatsoever. You can't just throw money at that and expect things to change. For most kids it requires far more work than can be done during the time they are at school. Yes, of course, there are a few kids in every sample group that need almost zero work. These kids get hooked on a subject like programming and just go, go , go. Most kids are not like that. Just like most successful businesses did not get launched with a long coding session over a weekend while eating popcorn. Going back to my little girl, she is not seriously exposed to Lego robotics. In fact, our living room table is an official FLL table with the official field mat and everything. Yes, we are serious about this. I'd rather have a learning environment in my living room than a fancy dinning room table. As far as why there aren't more women in tech today. I don't have the answer for that. I only know that when I was a teenager girls mostly did different stuff. Not because they were being forced away from tech, they simply showed no interest in what we were doing. My guess is that it all came from home. So, as our culture changes so will that aspect of things. Evolution?

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holychiz 13y ago

I normally don't bother to comment on these manufactured outrages but I have to make an exception here. Look, PG clearly were referring in the interview to startup _founders_. The magazine twisted his words to make it sounds like he saying that women can't be _coder_, meaning women can never learn to code well enough to get a job, which he never said. If that's indeed what he say then everyone, you and I can decide to be outrage about it. But that's not what he said. We should really be outraged at the magazine for this hit piece.