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

201–210 of 311 posts

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#201

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

the_af wrote: post #136
smabie wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids don't actually demand that much time. It just turns out a lot of (Western) people spend tons of time with their kids, so we think they demand a lot of time. For example, I used to live in Africa and in the town where I lived, kids 2 and older were expected to look out after themselves. Regularly, a 4-year old would be asked to go get some bread from the store, or even cigarettes and beer. I think this is natural…

Do you have kids? Are you speaking from experience? A kid of 2 is not able to look after him/herself. Kids that young need lots of attention. I am speaking from experience, by the way.

I have kids. Including a one and a half year old. He wants a lot of attention, and he gets it, especially in these covid times. But wanting attention and needing it are different things.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#202

Post by Der_Einzige »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #121

This was a good read and I thank Tracy for writing it. However, I do have some remarks about the comments I am reading here, so I am writing a top level post so as to not single out a specific comment. It doesn't become ok to stereotype just because the stereotypes are saying nice things about the right demographics. I read a comment here talking about women going into management roles because of higher 'EQ', and bei…

The evidence of woman having on average EQ that is higher than men is overwhelming, at least in experimental settings [1]. The evidence of men having more "technical aptitude" or even "IQ" either doesn't exist or is supremely terrible.

Stereotypes are just heuristics for trying to discern a quality about someone based on their appearance. Sometimes those stereotypes are highly predictive.

For instance, if you have poor eye-sight, than your on average more intelligent than people with better eye-sight[2][3][4] This is why society (rightfully) assumes that you are smarter or more "nerdy" if you wear glasses.

This does not tell you what the cause is, but the stereotype absolutely helps make predictions about individuals when other information is not available. Sorry, it sucks, and it's not fair to be stereotyped one way while not being the person you are stereotyped as, but stereotyping is in general both inevitable and good.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_emotional...

[2]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3417304

[3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2904062).%E2%80%9D

[4] http://www.pum.edu.pl/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/13211/54-0...).%E2%80%9D

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#203

Post by globular-toast »

_pzdn wrote: post #139
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…

there are many good reasons for wanting more women developers, IMO. are there any bad reasons for wanting such? this is not a flip comment. if it causes a laugh i dont see a problem with that but it is honestly not intended to denigrate anyone, but bring people into, well, software, which is probably the greatest thing in existence. diversity is generally considered a good thing in evolution. i dont know if that appl…

People like you are destroying this field. I just can't believe how sheltered and naïve you all are. It's like you've been raised in a bubble, never learnt anything that children are supposed to learn, and now you're an adult earning money, still living in that bubble. It's plain as day that you're lonely. You lack female companionship and the only thing you understand is the bubble so naturally you think the solution is to get women into your bubble.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#204

Post by CalRobert »

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.

If the industry lacked vc's and businesses were forced by the market to be sustainable, a well run business wouldn't need to deal with sexist vc's. Instead a few guys show up, pour _oceans_ of cash on tall fit white dudes copying your idea, and now you're forced to compete with tall white dudes with oceans of cash they can waste undercutting you.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#205

Post by globular-toast »

Manfredo_1 wrote: post #26
fzeroracer wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the industry was gender-biased, then that would mean you would see more female founders, not less. Between this and the issues black CEOs face [1] the industry isn't biased in favor of minorities. As an aside, when we see articles like these and people jumping in to say 'if I were a woman, things would be easier' the implicit argument at play here is that she didn't get to where she's at because of her own ability…

Studies do indicate a statistically significant difference in response rates from VCs in favor of women. But only ~10% difference, not something decisive: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/01/10/do-ventu... . But claiming that just because there are more male founders than female founders there's bias against women is a very simplistic approach. As other commenters point out, there's already a disparity i…

This thread is hilarious. It's simply accepted, without evidence, that female founders find it more difficult. The comment asking for evidence is buried. Then this comment, the only one that actually presents evidence showing the complete opposite is shrugged off as "not something decisive".

I'm starting to see that you're all just sexist. Plain and simple. You hate men.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#206

Post by nitrogen »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #123
marcinzm wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, this is an issue in every company on the planet, not sure why you single out tech. If anything large tech companies have the best IC paths out there.

This is true. Many other industries are absolute cesspools of corruption, nepotism, outright harassment and just all in all hellholes to work in, but the media loves to shit almost exclusively on tech.

Indeed, from people I know, working in a kitchen or as an auto parts delivery person is far, far worse for women than tech (not that tech should stop striving).

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#207

Post by [deleted] »

globular-toast wrote: post #203
_pzdn wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are many good reasons for wanting more women developers, IMO. are there any bad reasons for wanting such? this is not a flip comment. if it causes a laugh i dont see a problem with that but it is honestly not intended to denigrate anyone, but bring people into, well, software, which is probably the greatest thing in existence. diversity is generally considered a good thing in evolution. i dont know if that appl…

People like you are destroying this field. I just can't believe how sheltered and naïve you all are. It's like you've been raised in a bubble, never learnt anything that children are supposed to learn, and now you're an adult earning money, still living in that bubble. It's plain as day that you're lonely. You lack female companionship and the only thing you understand is the bubble so naturally you think the solutio…

[deleted]

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#208

Post by fancyfish »

ClassAndBurn wrote: post #20

Tracy was the best CEO I ever worked for. Hands down. She listened to everyone and made PlanGrid a place where everyone was empowered to make change. Her passion to solve problems was obvious and raw. She attracted people who were similarly passionate. I knew she had it harder than others when I saw one of our own VC's caller her a "little girl" while doing a fireside chat with her at PlanGrid. In spite of it all she…

Seconded. Tracy stands out among all the startups I’ve worked for as being ambitious, approachable, and someone who seriously respects the opinions of everyone. My time at PlanGrid was uniquely more fun and productive than many places I’ve come across in my career.

Cheers, Tracy!

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#209

Post by globular-toast »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #121

This was a good read and I thank Tracy for writing it. However, I do have some remarks about the comments I am reading here, so I am writing a top level post so as to not single out a specific comment. It doesn't become ok to stereotype just because the stereotypes are saying nice things about the right demographics. I read a comment here talking about women going into management roles because of higher 'EQ', and bei…

You'll also notice how the comments are not "wow, it sounds hard to rise to the top 1% of society and amass more wealth than most people will see in their lifetimes" but rather "wow, it sounds hard to be a woman".

I've honestly never seen worse sexism than in this thread. Truly shameful.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#210

Post by spiritplumber »

zomglings wrote: post #165
spiritplumber wrote: post #138

Reflections on being a trans founder: Nobody cares. Prepare to be misgendered a fair amount. Know that you will have to go to bat for your employees which may limit your options when it comes to going to bat for yourself. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

Sounds brutal. Are you still running your company? Sincerely, good luck. I didn't understand what you meant by going to bat for your employees - bat against whom?

Karens, mostly.
Post reply on HN