111–120 of 121 posts
it strikes me as insane that discussion on these issues centers around the mean (pun intended). being an entrepreneur one is a few sigma away already; we can't even see the average from here so why are we wasting time chatting about it?
I do wish women with a chip on their shoulders would stop getting all aggro about observations that are not prescriptions . You saying "that's not true" is just as globalizing as "this is true." There is just something about women and product businesses that's weird. I recently put on a conference about bootstrapping paying products only, and I looked for ages to find a single woman bootstrapper like myself. They can…
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I know a medical doctor who had 14 kids (oh, those catholics). And she still managed to practise medicine when she was not spreading her legs to launch another baby in this world. Sounds much more impressive than managing a baseball team, imho. The OP wants the HN crowd to assure him of what a special and unique snowflake his sister is, when she's merely doing something that is the norm in some parts of the world.
"Intellectual pursuits are more respectable and rewarding than non-intellectual ones". Personally, I'd say it might be okay to run a little baseball team and make a few dozen people's lives more interesting. Even doing a phd in QFT, as you note, might help some people in the long run. But are you trying to define a heuristic that proposes that one human is better than the other solely due to the field of work? I find…
No. I am merely stating that having kids is not an accomplishment, it's one's biological programming. One should admire people who do things that are challenging and difficult, like proving hard theorems or sailing around the world solo. It's not about status nor academic pedigree, it's simpler: if everything is admirable, then nothing is.
"I'd any-day prefer to be a little-league team manager than troll on comment threads."
Just because I am being downvoted, that doesn't make me a troll. But thanks for the remark. Now you can be all happy that you're on the side of the "moral majority". You're a self-righteous sheep. Be proud.
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"Intellectual pursuits are more respectable and rewarding than non-intellectual ones". Personally, I'd say it might be okay to run a little baseball team and make a few dozen people's lives more interesting. Even doing a phd in QFT, as you note, might help some people in the long run. But are you trying to define a heuristic that proposes that one human is better than the other solely due to the field of work? I find…
"But are you trying to define a heuristic that proposes that one human is better than the other solely due to the field of work?" No. I am merely stating that having kids is not an accomplishment, it's one's biological programming. One should admire people who do things that are challenging and difficult, like proving hard theorems or sailing around the world solo. It's not about status nor academic pedigree, it's si…
By saying things like "And who cares about law school or baseball teams", you are belittling a whole set of people. Saying "sailing solo is more admirable than working towards law school" might be accurate, but the way I read it - "law school? You haven't sailed solo around the world, hence your existence is invalidated".
As for the troll remark, you're a new user with no real identity making relatively controversial and somewhat personal statements with a relatively disrespectful tone. I'm not too sure what the textbook definition of a troll is, but this is the closest one I've seen over here.
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Hi Marilyn. Awesome. But by "pre-traction" are you referring to List Central? Because, by my definition, that isn't a product. Bootstrapping to me means you have to charge. It's not that hard to find women heading up traditional web 2.0 properties, like social networks and social media tools (that don't charge).
List Central was the first go at it. The second go is in stealth. It definitely has a price!
Let me give you a little piece of advice-- unstealth yourself!
When we shipped Freckle, we had $1500 in monthly billing at the end of the first round of 30-day trials, because we put up a little teaser page just like this (for our 2nd SaaS product): http://charmde.sk/.
We had about 400 names on it, from tweeting and talking about it, and a pretty decent conversion rate on that. That headstart was worth at least $18k that year (and probably more, since our main factor for growth is word of mouth). We now have 320 names on the Charm list and that's a much narrower audience, so I think our actual rate of emails vs audience is even better.
Typically speaking, "stealth mode" doesn't do a lick of good for paying products. Most people are too stubborn to make a paying product to begin with, much less copy one that isn't out yet. On the other hand, people love the opportunity to put their name in for a new product that will help them -- and if you don't capture their email, they'll just forget about it.
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Hi Marilyn. Awesome. But by "pre-traction" are you referring to List Central? Because, by my definition, that isn't a product. Bootstrapping to me means you have to charge. It's not that hard to find women heading up traditional web 2.0 properties, like social networks and social media tools (that don't charge).
Totally get your definition of bootstrapping. But it is also in common usage in a much looser sense -- at least i hear it used that way quite a lot! Good luck Marilyn!
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"I'd like to ask why you imagine that in any field there would be equal numbers of men and women? Or indeed why there should be any reason beyond simple preference." Listen: "Women are choosing not to as a matter of preference so there's nothing wrong" is a cop-out. I'll grant you that the reason for the lack of equality is "simple preference." Clearly, because if women "wanted" to do startups/tech, they would. There…
> But if we start from the assumption that gender shouldn't matter There's your problem. By using the word "shouldn't" you seem to be conflating "our best guess at objective reality" with "what we think would be morally correct". It is unfortunate that thinking like this is still allowed to infest some higher educational institutions but it doesn't cut the mustard when nobody's funding is on the line. In terms of obj…
Are there? Cite some for me. And then explain why they mean there are fewer women in tech but not in other fields. Higher IQ variance means that there are more super geniuses and more mentally retarded men. You don't actually need to be a super genius to go into tech. Maybe to found a startup, though that's also a reach, but certainly not to go be a dev somewhere. And moreover, why do you assume that those differences are innate? Maybe they are, but there is also plenty of [uncited] evidence that suggests that many of those differences are learned.
I'm not assuming a priori that women are being screwed, but it mystifies me as to why this community tends to assume A) that the tech community is totally immune to societally constructed gender forces that have at some point affected pretty much everything else in the world and B) discrimination is the only bad thing in society that could be keeping women out of tech.
"It isn't as if it is a area that has ever been reputed as having a history of institution chauvinism."
…say what now? Maybe not like law/medicine did, but there's been plenty of chauvinism in tech.
"To me, the weight of evidence points more and more towards the differences in distributions of capabilities and preferences between genders playing a significant part in participation rates in tech. However much of an 'Inconvenient Likelihood' this may be for both the tech industry and many women, it shouldn't blind us to evaluating the evidence as objectively as possible."
What evidence? I'm very happy to evaluate the evidence objectively. But it seems so far that there's been very little evidence presented either way, and a common response then becomes "well, I don't see a problem, there must not be one!", despite the fact that A) this hasn't worked out as an explanation in the past B) there exist several societal factors we could point to that might explain the problem, if we bothered to think about it for two minutes instead of constructing some complicated and totally unfounded explanation based on evolution.
Instead of assuming that I'm a crazy and irrational feminist who cannot be convinced by facts, which is not the case, why not respond to the original argument I made, which was that our society conditions women to be afraid, which may explain why they're more risk averse?
Women did not evolve against risk taking and startups: http://restructure.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/women-did-not-ev...
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"But are you trying to define a heuristic that proposes that one human is better than the other solely due to the field of work?" No. I am merely stating that having kids is not an accomplishment, it's one's biological programming. One should admire people who do things that are challenging and difficult, like proving hard theorems or sailing around the world solo. It's not about status nor academic pedigree, it's si…
I didn't _disagree_ with what you said. Yes there are certain people who have spent a good amount of their time working towards noble and challenging causes who have my utmost respect. I fully agree with your first point. By saying things like "And who cares about law school or baseball teams", you are belittling a whole set of people. Saying "sailing solo is more admirable than working towards law school" might be a…
I suggest you guys take a trip to Siberia where you'll find women in their 30s who have two jobs, several kids they raised by themselves (their husbands traded them for hotter 19 year olds by the time the girls were in their late 20s), and who still find the time to take care of their old, frail parents all by themselves. Compared to that... law school, baseball team, six kids... small potatoes.
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PS: anyone who works hard for 3 years can do law school. Sailing around the world solo requires at least 10 years of training. It also requires a unique set of psychological traits, such as the ability to tolerate loneliness and boredom for weeks. Few people sail around the world solo every year, while millions graduate from law school every year. Given that, yes, some things are more admirable than others. When everything is "awesome", nothing is. Call it the "cry wolf effect". Just because something deserves praise, that does not mean it deserves one's admiration.
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> But if we start from the assumption that gender shouldn't matter There's your problem. By using the word "shouldn't" you seem to be conflating "our best guess at objective reality" with "what we think would be morally correct". It is unfortunate that thinking like this is still allowed to infest some higher educational institutions but it doesn't cut the mustard when nobody's funding is on the line. In terms of obj…
"In terms of objective reality this assumption is unwarranted. There are significant documented differences between the distributions of intellectual capabilities of genders including the higher variance in IQ for men and men's aptitude skew towards maths and away from language." Are there? Cite some for me. And then explain why they mean there are fewer women in tech but not in other fields. Higher IQ variance means…
I'm sure you are aware of them and if you had any actual contradictory position on this you would have mentioned it.
> You don't actually need to be a super genius to go into tech.
I'd say you need to be well above average in 'math IQ' to be useful programmer. When you combine a lower mean in math-like capability with a smaller standard deviation this significantly cuts down the percentage of women who'd be expected to cross that 'threshold'.
> Maybe to found a startup, though that's also a reach, but certainly not to go be a dev somewhere
Can you actually program competently? Cause I'm getting the vibe that you don't have much respect for the art.
> why this community tends to assume A) that the tech community is totally immune to societally constructed gender forces that have at some point affected pretty much everything else in the world
Because at it's heart, the nuts and bolts of tech work is not about social interaction, it is about you and the computer/system. At some level it doesn't matter whether you are an bipolar lesbian midget with major personal hygiene issues or a privileged WASP, the computer doesn't care - your program will either work or not. True geeks don't need to ask for anyone's permission, approval or assistance to get into the area - they just start learning and coding. Sure, this is 'back room' stuff but at the heart of most successful tech startups you will find a healthy 'inner geek' that respects results above contemporary social mores.
> What evidence? I'm very happy to evaluate the evidence objectively. But it seems so far that there's been very little evidence presented either way
I agree in that none of he individual arguments presented are knockout blows. But when you accumulate the maths vs language gap, the variance difference, a reasonable explanation for different attitudes to risk, the successes in previous male bastions (law/medicine) versus the individualistic/mathy tech - it starts to look a lot like mutually supporting evidence.
When it comes to the 'complicated and totally unfounded explanation based on evolution' I see it as stronger than the 'secret societal forces that nobody can seem to put there finger on that stops women from entering tech'. Your argument about fear makes some sense but it is just as easy to argue that founding an ambitious startup is actually irrational in terms life result pay-offs - even for men.
In general I think it is quite too fall into the trap of thinking of people as fundamentally more similar to ones self than they really are, and to explain away the differences as societal influence. Modelling the rest of the world as 'slightly different versions of me' certainly has power but also great inaccuracies. This particular article called 'Generalizing From One Example' was a real eye opener for me.