Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Reflections on Being a Female Founder

tracy.posthaven.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 311 posts

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#81

Post by orpheansodality »

tialaramex wrote: post #51
_pzdn wrote: post #23

This was an interesting read. I found it well written and kind of sad, if optimistic and hopeful. Personally, I would love to see a lot more female developers. I am betting there is no significant difference in inherent potential talent between the two genders, so why are almost all coders I've worked with male?

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…

Just based on what I've seen and the women I've talked to - a lot of women in tech are encouraged to move into management because (for a variety of societal reasons) they've just upskilled more in EQ than many of their male peers.

See also: the pressure to be glue [1]

1: https://noidea.dog/glue

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#82

Post by quixoticaxolotl »

gautamcgoel wrote: post #79
quixoticaxolotl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Usually some subset of Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Google

So Big 5, really, but I feel Apple is usually omitted because its primary focus is consumer hardware and the software is usually an ancillary product.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#83

Post by roenxi »

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.

I'll be even worse and note that this is a story that is fundamentally about a woman achieving reproductive success - and it sounds pretty miserable. The male version of this story is something like how much easier it is to sleep with an attractive women because a CEO title is perceived as high status.

Most people shape their lives around having a family - the incentives here are not favourable for females seeking out these sort of positions. Men get a lot more out of being powerful than women - having power is nearly the end of the game for a man. For Tracy it sounds like it was the beginning of a process of disillusionment.

She's obviously robust enough that it didn't really matter to her, but somewhere along the bell curve of personalities that incentive gap will make a difference.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#84

Post by eastbayjake »

gautamcgoel wrote: post #79
quixoticaxolotl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Usually "Big Four" refers to the 4 largest accounting firms: Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PWC.[1] If it's referring to tech, that's an odd/confusing usage when "FANG" is so prevalent for the same concept but explicitly for tech.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Four_accounting_firms

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#85

Post by golemiprague »

_pzdn wrote: post #23

This was an interesting read. I found it well written and kind of sad, if optimistic and hopeful. Personally, I would love to see a lot more female developers. I am betting there is no significant difference in inherent potential talent between the two genders, so why are almost all coders I've worked with male?

Partly because they are not interested and partly because there is so much propaganda about how bad it is for women in this industry that it cause the ones that are interested to be afraid of it even more. I had a chance to work in more "patriarchal" societies and in western countries and it seems like in those patriarchal places there are more women developers and much less hassle and friction.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#86

Post by mrkurt »

ddevault wrote: post #63
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. I hear this a lot from men, too. We have a general problem in the industry of being bad at making senior engineering a rewarding career track.

Right. We glamorize "management" in every way, even going so far as to label devs "individual contributors". As if they only contribute 1x while managers contribute multiples.

I have this gut wrenching feeling that tech companies just can't be fixed. There's way too much that has to change and the powerful people don't have much incentive to do the work.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#87

Post by umvi »

vmception wrote: post #66

> I think I was scared of what others might think of me as a new mother and CEO, maybe because of my own insecurities, maybe because of the societal norms ingrained in me. I see this so much from corporate career ladder focused women. People literally feeling guilty for wanting some aspect of motherhood, or going through some aspect of motherhood. (and then ironically apologizing about that, despite the core of their…

Personally, when I hear that a woman (or man) with kids is running a startup, I think "that kid isn't going to have the full attention of that parent..."

Especially when I read stuff like:

> I pressured myself into proving that I was as dedicated to PlanGrid as I always have been.

I interpret that phrase as "...at the expense of dedication to my kid". I personally think it's okay to "be less dedicated" to work in order to spend more time with kids (for both mothers and fathers).

Kids (esp. little kids) demand a lot of time, and they are only little once. Time is finite. Startups are time black holes. You have to sacrifice time somewhere...

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#88

Post by klyrs »

silvat wrote: post #64
klyrs wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Treat it as a marathon, not a sprint. Making time for your mental health is not a cultural priority, and that results in a high rate of burnout across the industry. I think I'd have made it a lot further in my career, and faster, if I'd avoided that in my 20s.

I think pursuing an idea or project with wreckless abandon can be a beautiful thing. The risk of getting injured in the attempt to push limits is the cost of doing business.

You mean reckless. Wrecklessness is the opposite optimization ;)

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#89

Post by markdown »

umvi wrote: post #87
vmception wrote: post #66

> I think I was scared of what others might think of me as a new mother and CEO, maybe because of my own insecurities, maybe because of the societal norms ingrained in me. I see this so much from corporate career ladder focused women. People literally feeling guilty for wanting some aspect of motherhood, or going through some aspect of motherhood. (and then ironically apologizing about that, despite the core of their…

Personally, when I hear that a woman (or man) with kids is running a startup, I think "that kid isn't going to have the full attention of that parent..." Especially when I read stuff like: > I pressured myself into proving that I was as dedicated to PlanGrid as I always have been. I interpret that phrase as "...at the expense of dedication to my kid". I personally think it's okay to "be less dedicated" to work in ord…

> Personally, when I hear that a woman (or man) with kids is running a startup, I think "that kid isn't going to have the full attention of that parent.

So like, almost every startup ever.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#90

Post by umvi »

markdown wrote: post #89
umvi wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, when I hear that a woman (or man) with kids is running a startup, I think "that kid isn't going to have the full attention of that parent..." Especially when I read stuff like: > I pressured myself into proving that I was as dedicated to PlanGrid as I always have been. I interpret that phrase as "...at the expense of dedication to my kid". I personally think it's okay to "be less dedicated" to work in ord…

> Personally, when I hear that a woman (or man) with kids is running a startup, I think "that kid isn't going to have the full attention of that parent. So like, almost every startup ever.

I was under the impression that a lot of startups are run by single people with time to burn "toiling upward in the night"

I recently read "Masters of Doom" because someone here recommended it, and both id software and ion storm were mainly run by single people working hellish 80-120 hour weeks. Technically John Romero had kids, but... early on in his startup he divorced in order to free up more time for making games.

Post reply on HN