Reflections on Being a Female Founder • Hacker News Board

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#71

Post by Gibbon1 » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 9:15 PM UTC

eyerony wrote: post #58

tialaramex wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that bugs me: Women I know who wrote software kept finding new roles where they'd be in management instead and then they moan that they liked writing code and miss it. Maybe that tells us that sexism in software development is prevalent and they wanted out, which is no fault of theirs, and maybe they just wanted more money - but it definitely sucks overall. I find blind technical interviewing easy because I…

> Women I know who wrote software kept finding new roles where they'd be in management instead and then they moan that they liked writing code and miss it. Maybe that tells us that sexism in software development is prevalent and they wanted out, which is no fault of theirs, and maybe they just wanted more money - but it definitely sucks overall. I secretly (well not in this moment but ordinarily secret) consider wome…

Possible for a bunch of reasons that women in the field tend to be more assertive and have better communications skills. Those are primary management skills.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#72

Post by globular-toast » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 9:15 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #59

globular-toast wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the article itself is starting a gender flamewar. It could have just been "Reflections on Being a Founder" but it's, of course, "Female Founder". Why is he not allowed to express his experiences as a male?

The article itself is not starting a gender flamewar. The author is reflecting on her experiences. It's interesting. The flamewar starts when some users find parts of it activating and rush to the comment thread to reflexively vent their activation. Better options would be to reflect on one's own reactions long enough for them to turn into something thoughtful [1], or simply not to post. If you don't find it interest…

It quite evidently is. There are no flamewars going on in the comments of other articles that are about technology.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#73

Post by eyerony » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 9:18 PM UTC

Gibbon1 wrote: post #71

eyerony wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Women I know who wrote software kept finding new roles where they'd be in management instead and then they moan that they liked writing code and miss it. Maybe that tells us that sexism in software development is prevalent and they wanted out, which is no fault of theirs, and maybe they just wanted more money - but it definitely sucks overall. I secretly (well not in this moment but ordinarily secret) consider wome…

Possible for a bunch of reasons that women in the field tend to be more assertive and have better communications skills. Those are primary management skills.

Yeah, I dunno why it is, but that could well be. I suspect it has something to do with whatever's resulting in women attending and completing college at a higher rate than men, but that's just a hunch.

[EDIT] jesus it's so hard to write anything about this without walking on eggshells—to be clear I'm not complaining about any of this, including the college thing.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#74

Post by microcolonel » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 9:24 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #42

satyrnein wrote: post #38

I wish there were a clear bad guy here, but most of the hardship seems to have been caused by more diffuse social pressures. What could we have done as an industry to improve the author's experience? Maybe just having more female founders around in general (by removing any barriers) would make some of these circumstances more commonplace.

Many times in the article she perceive male founders as stoic machines that regardless of health or mental state would go to work and operate as if nothing is wrong, and then goes to copy that. That is a stereotype that is hurting both men and women, and removing that would resolve a lot of the hardship.

Is it really hurting them? Seems like both she and the people she sees succeeding as leaders act that way.

Being indomitable and regulating your emotions seems to be part of the formula for effective leadership; why would we expect otherwise?

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#75

Post by analyst74 » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

satyrnein wrote: post #38

I wish there were a clear bad guy here, but most of the hardship seems to have been caused by more diffuse social pressures. What could we have done as an industry to improve the author's experience? Maybe just having more female founders around in general (by removing any barriers) would make some of these circumstances more commonplace.

The bad person here is the social norms and expectations formed due to the field being male-dominated.

Author mostly forced herself to live by those norms, despite facing different challenges. i.e. no male founders have to worry about pumping breastmilk between meetings, so asking to do that feels awkward.

If she chose to embrace her differences, and break more social norms (like taking longer maternity leave), her life will be easier. However, there is also the risk that the company could have failed by a thousand cuts that are difficult to attribute, she wouldn't have known at the time.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#76

Post by jjoonathan » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #48

belorn wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many times in the article she perceive male founders as stoic machines that regardless of health or mental state would go to work and operate as if nothing is wrong, and then goes to copy that. That is a stereotype that is hurting both men and women, and removing that would resolve a lot of the hardship.

Postmortems often happen because someone ignored a pain point prior to the failure, rather than taking stock and doing some preventative work. The general pattern of pretending everything is ok is one of my least favorite things about tech culture. I was going to say 'tech people' but it's clear that there are people who don't like this pattern either. They tend to self-identify (sometimes privately) when I buck the…

Well, the root cause is probably that raising VC depends on keeping up appearances.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#77

Post by jfk13 » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 9:36 PM UTC

ameister14 wrote: post #49

I first truly understood how different it was for women when a friend came home from an investor pitch and casually complained to another woman we lived with that it had been another investor more interested in a date than an investment. It was then that I found out it was common to have potential investors take female founders out for dinner, ostensibly to talk over the potential investment but in reality as an atte…

Ugh. That's deeply infuriating and sad, but it doesn't really surprise me much (if at all).

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#78

Post by globular-toast » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 9:42 PM UTC

andrewg wrote: post #62

globular-toast wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally, I would love to see a lot more female developers. See there you betray a rather sinister idea. If you had said that you want to see any unfair barriers to entry removed, or that you want to ensure equal exposure and opportunity across all people and all fields then I could support it. But instead you made your desires quite clear: you just want female developers. That means the gender, physical appearan…

Oh brother. People aren't work-producing robots, developers included. Different types of people bring different types of experiences, opinions, and viewpoints. So you'll make better products if you have a more diverse group of people making them. On a personal level, wouldn't you like to work with a more diverse group of people as well?

> So you'll make better products if you have a more diverse group of people making them.

Do you have any evidence of this? Any world-leading product that assembled its team specifically for "diversity" rather than talent will do.

> On a personal level, wouldn't you like to work with a more diverse group of people as well?

It doesn't matter what I would like. I will not discriminate based on sex, colour, or religion out of principle and I will fight people who do.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#79

Post by gautamcgoel » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 9:43 PM UTC

quixoticaxolotl wrote: post #29

BillFranklin wrote: post #21

This was an interesting read. Building and selling a company for $875m, that’s amazing! I was a bit confused, did the tech exec just quit without notice when they learned the CEO was pregnant? How would they be able to justify that insanity to their next employer?

I worked at PlanGrid during this event. The exec in question received an offer from one of the Big 4 at an equivalent (and possibly more senior - this was in late 2017, so memory is fuzzy) exec-level position, and simply sent word they wouldn't come into the office the next day. There was no two-week notice or polite exit interview - they just vanished. It was not common news that Tracy was pregnant at the time, so I…

I'm curious, which companies make up the Big 4? Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft?

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#80

Post by Gibbon1 » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 9:44 PM UTC

eyerony wrote: post #73

Gibbon1 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possible for a bunch of reasons that women in the field tend to be more assertive and have better communications skills. Those are primary management skills.

Yeah, I dunno why it is, but that could well be. I suspect it has something to do with whatever's resulting in women attending and completing college at a higher rate than men, but that's just a hunch. [EDIT] jesus it's so hard to write anything about this without walking on eggshells—to be clear I'm not complaining about any of this, including the college thing.

I agree on the eggshell thing. I rewrote what I said three times to try and block off any interpretation other than the one I meant. I have some friends that are female engineers and you a get drink in them and listen to all the bullshit they've had to deal with, you have to imagine how thick their skin is.