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It might be hard for guys to believe that men would do something like this (except in the movies) but consider this: Do you believe the stories of how many peo

It might be hard for guys to believe that men would do something like this (except in the movies) but consider this: Do you believe the stories of how many people fail the "fizzbuzz" test in interviews? Yes, as wild as the idea is, the phenomena is very real. Not being an interviewer and not having any incompetent programmer friends it blew my mind that someone could be a developer for years and still not know how to code. I've don't remember seeing sexism any place I've worked but being married to a female software developer opens your eyes - it's very real. Just because as guys, we haven't experienced it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

d0m 12y ago
I reread your post a few time but I'm a bit puzzled. Can you explain the connection between the fizzbuzz test, being a real developer, sexism and the article?
- ssharp 12y ago
  He's saying that just because you don't have first-hand experience with something, or can't fathom how something is possible, doesn't mean it can't happen.
  - chrisbennet 12y ago
    Thank you ssharp, that's exactly what I was trying to convey.
    - drig 12y ago
      Huh. I read your comment more as "you can be perceived as an expert in your trade and still suck at it." Groping a potential client's boobs is a clear sign of sucking at being a VC.
- noelwelsh 12y ago
  Summary: it might be hard to believe that things like these happen, but they do. Just because you have not personally experienced it does not mean you should generalise your experience to all people. For example, many programmers fail the fizzbuzz test, despite the parent's inability to find such people amongst his friends and associates.
- taco_emoji 12y ago
  Many more people fail the fizzbuzz test than you would expect. Likewise, more women are treated in this fashion than you would expect.
- damon_c 12y ago
  I believe the OP is saying that while it is often difficult to believe that events like fizz buzz fails or overt sexual misconduct could even be possible because they seem so unlikely and outside of the realm of expectations in our personal daily experiences, that does not mean that they don't happen or are even all that rare given a broader sampling of human interactions.
- gadders 12y ago
  I think he is inferring that just as there are outliers in terms of programming competency, there are also outliers in terms of ethical behaviour.
mc32 12y ago
I don't think it's hard to believe. There are sleazy people out there. They have guys and gals encourage them over the years by either explicit or implicit approval. These are the kinds of guys who have been at it since their youth and it has been accepted by their peer group who look the other way. For a few it might be afforded by some new found power that comes from wealth and they feel 'cavalier' enough to express it without fear of repercussions. Whatever the source, these guys are nothing but lithe predators. And they don't only pray on women, some pray on other men as well -tho they are less common. In retrospect you want to ask, why didn't I protest at the time? It's hard. You freeze, you can't believe it and you want to give the person the benefit of the doubt, even when you know that there is no doubt.
dlss 12y ago
FWIW I do believe sexism exists in tech. My displeasure seeing stories like this one centers around the comments. 1. Commenters seem to be attributing the actions of the investor to character traits, rather than circumstance (ie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error) 2. I don't think the situation is as cut and dry as failing a fizzbuzz (ie there is likely another side to this story) 3. Commenters seem to want the penalty for the investor to be immediate and large (public shaming, ban from YC investment opportunities, etc). I'll basically never support something that can majorly impact a person's livelihood which lacks due process.
- ryguytilidie 12y ago
  "People seem to want the penalty for the investor to be very high (public shaming, ban from YC investment opportunities, etc). I'll basically never support something that can majorly impact a person's livelihood which lacks due process." Well this is a tough situation. I'm not sure she could take this fellow to court for touching her sideboob, so there absolutely will not be due process. With that being the case, he should just be allowed to do the same over and over and the victim shouldn't be allowed to say anything?
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    Two Sundays ago, a woman flirted with my friend and got him to buy her a drink. She was uninterested in him, merely thirsty. Should the victim spread her name far and wide, publicly shaming her? If unexpected and unwanted physical contact is the dividing line, that same day a different woman kissed me without my permission. Should I publicly name and shame her? I suspect most people's demands for a public naming/shaming are merely knee-jerk emotional responses rather than principled positions.
    - chasing 12y ago
      Did this happen in a business setting? Did either women try to use a potential $50k investment as a tool to gain sexual access? If not, your friend should probably just be more careful who he buys drinks for. As for the kissing, you don't provide many details, so I'm going to assume you're talking about your grandmother. In which case, absolutely name and shame. Grandmas have been getting away with that crap for way to long.
rayiner 12y ago
The other thing to think about: if the author hadn't written a blog post about this, would any man have known about the incident? If a guy puts his hand on your leg under the dinner table, are you going to interrupt the meal to tell everyone else at the table? Are you go back to work and tell all your male coworkers? It's not just software developers, by the way. A law firm where a friend works had an incident recently where a male partner coerced a young female associate into performing sexual favors. One day she couldn't take it anymore and rage-quit, and he just got sent to sexual harassment training.
- chasing 12y ago
  For what it's worth, I'm a guy and I know of at least one VC in the NYC area who has a habit of, um, blurring the lines with female founders. Which I've learned about just through casual conversation with friends in the biz who are women. So this news does get out there, even if not through overt channels.
- kbenson 12y ago
  Wait, he coerced a coworker into sexual favors, and has to do to sexual harassment training but wasn't fired? I can't even imagine the full extent of liability an event like that might open the company up to. Not to mention how demoralizing it can be to other employees.
  - boomzilla 12y ago
    Not to defend the SOB, but it's never black or white. It will be just "he says, she says" and nothing concrete could be proven. Here's another story that's closer to Silicon Valley: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/the-stanford-undergraduate-and-the-mentor.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/the-stanford-unde...
- silencio 12y ago
  Plus of course, if only "being polite" at the dinner table over a hand on a leg was all that was going on... I recently spoke with a fellow lady friend involved in the Cocoa community on the topic of harassment, and between the two of us, we came up with a list of men in the community we knew that crossed the line in some fashion or another. It sadly added new information to a list I already had in my head from other conversations and personal experiences. Everything from cheating and STIs to physical assault and rape. We don't speak out because people don't care, people wouldn't believe us (no level of proof is ever enough), and sometimes we try to speak out but those people in question are loved no matter what shit gets thrown their way. It isn't worth _our_ ruined reputations and huge emotional toll for telling the truth. And yet some people still manage to express surprise that I'm actively working towards leaving the industry... tech is special, people don't even get sent to sexual harassment training. :(
byEngineer 12y ago
According to research that you smart people need to google up on your own as I'm too lazy to educate you 70% of all the money spent annualy in the usa is spent by women. This much about feminism and inconvenient truths as far as the liberal left goes
- icebraining 12y ago
  FYI, it's consumer spending, not money in general. When you get to deciding where you spend sums that actually have an impact (ie, business spending), they're in a small minority.
  - byEngineer 12y ago
    No, this includes everything. Houses and cars specifically. These aren't retail. The data is true no matter how you slice it and as I said it is about all the money spent in the economy including big ticket items like houses and cars, not just retail as you falsely suggest. If you are interested in data also check how many percent car purchases are done because wife wanted them. Cars salesmen in their training are specifically told that a guy showing up without wife isn't serious about the purchase. They will always tell you to come back with wife. Because she is the one telling the guy to pull the trigger. You just pull the trigger. But you won't do it without her approval. The same with house.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      I said nothing about retail.
      - byEngineer 12y ago
        And then you said about business not cosnumer. So to get your semantics confusion straight: you say that if you know that 70% of your cars are effectively bought on the consumer market because women like them -- it has no impact on your business purchasing decisions? Really? The same with housing. And how is it? Complain that you don't make enough money when you already spent 70% of it? On the consumer market. Because in your world where 70% of money is spent on the consumer market has no impact what-so-ever on how the businesses spent their money or how they invest. Don't pretend to be too dumb, some may believe it.
freshhawk 12y ago
I like your example quite a bit, but to make a side point: Do you really think it might be hard for guys to believe? I absolutely don't. There is a tiny loud minority that might argue this disingenuously but even they don't actually believe it, they are just engaged in a political battle in an attempt to protect themselves from a perceived potential threat. Or they fully endorse identity politics and feel they need to do some PR for their "side". Everyone knows this happens, the issues are specific facts in individual cases and the prevalence overall. This rhetorical technique is consciously being used to avoid the actually issue as it's messy and difficult.
- chrisbennet 12y ago
  "I like your example quite a bit, but to make a side point: Do you really think it might be hard for guys to believe?" That is a good point. In my world view, even the jerks are "nice people trapped in an a-hole's body". I guess I was trying to speak to the "inner nice person" that resides in those guys who don't "get it" yet.
  - freshhawk 12y ago
    That makes sense, I have a different world view and wouldn't think in terms of an "inner nice person" (or "inner evil person" for that matter). You've made me think I have ignored another class of people who automatically disbelieve this kind of thing: people who's world view is naively optimistic and have a lot of emotional pressure to believe the world is too fair for this behaviour to be going on regularly. Seems like you saw that reason for disbelief more easily than I did.
burger_moon 12y ago
I worked in manufacturing before getting into software development and always had one or two female coworkers (sometimes even as my superior) and never experienced sexism among my coworkers. My girlfriend drives semi for a living and in the first 3 years of driving truck never experienced it either until recently when a store owner at a place she deliveTA to said something along the lines of "they let women drive trucks blah blah". I was completely floored that someone could think and say such things. It was the type of situation like you described where you wouldn't think that a business owner could say such things but it happens and it's terrible that it does.

d0m 12y ago

I reread your post a few time but I'm a bit puzzled. Can you explain the connection between the fizzbuzz test, being a real developer, sexism and the article?

ssharp 12y ago
He's saying that just because you don't have first-hand experience with something, or can't fathom how something is possible, doesn't mean it can't happen.
- chrisbennet 12y ago
  Thank you ssharp, that's exactly what I was trying to convey.
  - drig 12y ago
    Huh. I read your comment more as "you can be perceived as an expert in your trade and still suck at it." Groping a potential client's boobs is a clear sign of sucking at being a VC.
noelwelsh 12y ago
Summary: it might be hard to believe that things like these happen, but they do. Just because you have not personally experienced it does not mean you should generalise your experience to all people. For example, many programmers fail the fizzbuzz test, despite the parent's inability to find such people amongst his friends and associates.
taco_emoji 12y ago
Many more people fail the fizzbuzz test than you would expect. Likewise, more women are treated in this fashion than you would expect.
damon_c 12y ago
I believe the OP is saying that while it is often difficult to believe that events like fizz buzz fails or overt sexual misconduct could even be possible because they seem so unlikely and outside of the realm of expectations in our personal daily experiences, that does not mean that they don't happen or are even all that rare given a broader sampling of human interactions.
gadders 12y ago
I think he is inferring that just as there are outliers in terms of programming competency, there are also outliers in terms of ethical behaviour.

mc32 12y ago

I don't think it's hard to believe. There are sleazy people out there. They have guys and gals encourage them over the years by either explicit or implicit approval. These are the kinds of guys who have been at it since their youth and it has been accepted by their peer group who look the other way. For a few it might be afforded by some new found power that comes from wealth and they feel 'cavalier' enough to express it without fear of repercussions. Whatever the source, these guys are nothing but lithe predators. And they don't only pray on women, some pray on other men as well -tho they are less common. In retrospect you want to ask, why didn't I protest at the time? It's hard. You freeze, you can't believe it and you want to give the person the benefit of the doubt, even when you know that there is no doubt.

dlss 12y ago

FWIW I do believe sexism exists in tech. My displeasure seeing stories like this one centers around the comments. 1. Commenters seem to be attributing the actions of the investor to character traits, rather than circumstance (ie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error) 2. I don't think the situation is as cut and dry as failing a fizzbuzz (ie there is likely another side to this story) 3. Commenters seem to want the penalty for the investor to be immediate and large (public shaming, ban from YC investment opportunities, etc). I'll basically never support something that can majorly impact a person's livelihood which lacks due process.

ryguytilidie 12y ago
"People seem to want the penalty for the investor to be very high (public shaming, ban from YC investment opportunities, etc). I'll basically never support something that can majorly impact a person's livelihood which lacks due process." Well this is a tough situation. I'm not sure she could take this fellow to court for touching her sideboob, so there absolutely will not be due process. With that being the case, he should just be allowed to do the same over and over and the victim shouldn't be allowed to say anything?
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  Two Sundays ago, a woman flirted with my friend and got him to buy her a drink. She was uninterested in him, merely thirsty. Should the victim spread her name far and wide, publicly shaming her? If unexpected and unwanted physical contact is the dividing line, that same day a different woman kissed me without my permission. Should I publicly name and shame her? I suspect most people's demands for a public naming/shaming are merely knee-jerk emotional responses rather than principled positions.
  - chasing 12y ago
    Did this happen in a business setting? Did either women try to use a potential $50k investment as a tool to gain sexual access? If not, your friend should probably just be more careful who he buys drinks for. As for the kissing, you don't provide many details, so I'm going to assume you're talking about your grandmother. In which case, absolutely name and shame. Grandmas have been getting away with that crap for way to long.

rayiner 12y ago

The other thing to think about: if the author hadn't written a blog post about this, would any man have known about the incident? If a guy puts his hand on your leg under the dinner table, are you going to interrupt the meal to tell everyone else at the table? Are you go back to work and tell all your male coworkers? It's not just software developers, by the way. A law firm where a friend works had an incident recently where a male partner coerced a young female associate into performing sexual favors. One day she couldn't take it anymore and rage-quit, and he just got sent to sexual harassment training.

chasing 12y ago
For what it's worth, I'm a guy and I know of at least one VC in the NYC area who has a habit of, um, blurring the lines with female founders. Which I've learned about just through casual conversation with friends in the biz who are women. So this news does get out there, even if not through overt channels.
kbenson 12y ago
Wait, he coerced a coworker into sexual favors, and has to do to sexual harassment training but wasn't fired? I can't even imagine the full extent of liability an event like that might open the company up to. Not to mention how demoralizing it can be to other employees.
- boomzilla 12y ago
  Not to defend the SOB, but it's never black or white. It will be just "he says, she says" and nothing concrete could be proven. Here's another story that's closer to Silicon Valley: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/the-stanford-undergraduate-and-the-mentor.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/the-stanford-unde...
silencio 12y ago
Plus of course, if only "being polite" at the dinner table over a hand on a leg was all that was going on... I recently spoke with a fellow lady friend involved in the Cocoa community on the topic of harassment, and between the two of us, we came up with a list of men in the community we knew that crossed the line in some fashion or another. It sadly added new information to a list I already had in my head from other conversations and personal experiences. Everything from cheating and STIs to physical assault and rape. We don't speak out because people don't care, people wouldn't believe us (no level of proof is ever enough), and sometimes we try to speak out but those people in question are loved no matter what shit gets thrown their way. It isn't worth _our_ ruined reputations and huge emotional toll for telling the truth. And yet some people still manage to express surprise that I'm actively working towards leaving the industry... tech is special, people don't even get sent to sexual harassment training. :(

byEngineer 12y ago

According to research that you smart people need to google up on your own as I'm too lazy to educate you 70% of all the money spent annualy in the usa is spent by women. This much about feminism and inconvenient truths as far as the liberal left goes

icebraining 12y ago
FYI, it's consumer spending, not money in general. When you get to deciding where you spend sums that actually have an impact (ie, business spending), they're in a small minority.
- byEngineer 12y ago
  No, this includes everything. Houses and cars specifically. These aren't retail. The data is true no matter how you slice it and as I said it is about all the money spent in the economy including big ticket items like houses and cars, not just retail as you falsely suggest. If you are interested in data also check how many percent car purchases are done because wife wanted them. Cars salesmen in their training are specifically told that a guy showing up without wife isn't serious about the purchase. They will always tell you to come back with wife. Because she is the one telling the guy to pull the trigger. You just pull the trigger. But you won't do it without her approval. The same with house.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    I said nothing about retail.
    - byEngineer 12y ago
      And then you said about business not cosnumer. So to get your semantics confusion straight: you say that if you know that 70% of your cars are effectively bought on the consumer market because women like them -- it has no impact on your business purchasing decisions? Really? The same with housing. And how is it? Complain that you don't make enough money when you already spent 70% of it? On the consumer market. Because in your world where 70% of money is spent on the consumer market has no impact what-so-ever on how the businesses spent their money or how they invest. Don't pretend to be too dumb, some may believe it.

freshhawk 12y ago

I like your example quite a bit, but to make a side point: Do you really think it might be hard for guys to believe? I absolutely don't. There is a tiny loud minority that might argue this disingenuously but even they don't actually believe it, they are just engaged in a political battle in an attempt to protect themselves from a perceived potential threat. Or they fully endorse identity politics and feel they need to do some PR for their "side". Everyone knows this happens, the issues are specific facts in individual cases and the prevalence overall. This rhetorical technique is consciously being used to avoid the actually issue as it's messy and difficult.

chrisbennet 12y ago
"I like your example quite a bit, but to make a side point: Do you really think it might be hard for guys to believe?" That is a good point. In my world view, even the jerks are "nice people trapped in an a-hole's body". I guess I was trying to speak to the "inner nice person" that resides in those guys who don't "get it" yet.
- freshhawk 12y ago
  That makes sense, I have a different world view and wouldn't think in terms of an "inner nice person" (or "inner evil person" for that matter). You've made me think I have ignored another class of people who automatically disbelieve this kind of thing: people who's world view is naively optimistic and have a lot of emotional pressure to believe the world is too fair for this behaviour to be going on regularly. Seems like you saw that reason for disbelief more easily than I did.

burger_moon 12y ago

I worked in manufacturing before getting into software development and always had one or two female coworkers (sometimes even as my superior) and never experienced sexism among my coworkers. My girlfriend drives semi for a living and in the first 3 years of driving truck never experienced it either until recently when a store owner at a place she deliveTA to said something along the lines of "they let women drive trucks blah blah". I was completely floored that someone could think and say such things. It was the type of situation like you described where you wouldn't think that a business owner could say such things but it happens and it's terrible that it does.