261–270 of 375 posts
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My money would be on something along the lines of, "Yeah, those guys got a lot of backlash, but my presentation is different , it's funny! "
That might very well be the case, in general. Though not foreseeing a backlash about "gangbang interviews" at this point strains credulity - the network of tech conference presenters is small and well connected.
> To literally handicap yourself by 50 percent is insanity. This is very PC, but BS nonetheless. At the stage when people can be profitably hired by start-ups, the male/female ratio is nowhere near 50% among technical candidates. I'm not saying that frat culture isn't harmful, nor would I dare to guess why women are underrepresented among development professionals; but defending a thesis with such grossly false asser…
Yeah, the handicap is already baked in.
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What, if anything, there is to be gained by encouraging women to join men in wasting their lives away in the IT salt mines, is another question entirely. You make more than your peers and your boss. It takes a couple days to land multiple job offers, in any economy, all you have to do is stop saying no. The work is intellectually gratifying and the results are immediately visible. You are largely immune from corporat…
> How can you be stuck in the salt mines... > The work is intellectually gratifying Most likely, this is where we differ. The only programming work that I find truly gratifying happens to be my 100%-non-monetizable life project. ( http://www.loper-os.org ) Everything else is just a way to pay the bills. That is to say, salt mine labor. In order to eat and pay rent, I burn my prime waking hours working on things other…
If you had to choose again, what would you've done that wasn't 'salt-mine labor' then?
Well you still have job adverts from big boys like twitter saying 'responsible enjoyment of beer' as a prerequisite. https://twitter.com/jobs/positions?jvi=ooE7VfwO,Job If that's not appealing to the frat boy crowd then I don't know what is. Not to mention the fact that a lot of people don't actually drink ( I know hard to believe! ), or have a life that doesn't involve drinking all the time. As someone who's been th…
My company has a fully stocked bar. We don't force people to drink, but we have plenty of employees (including women) who enjoy it especially after a long day or in celebration of something.
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You are trying to build a narrative that it's men stopping women from participating in software development. I find that problematic and harmful. Where is your proof, other than pure conjecture? My own conjecture is that women don't want to do software development because it's boring and difficult. I'm sure they could if they wanted to, they just do not. With a few notable exceptions to the rule.
It might not be the primary reason but it certainly doesn't help. Back in high school, I was really excited to join the robotics team and I really had a passion for it but I only stayed in it for a year before quitting. I was the only girl on the team and the attitude people took with me was infuriating. It felt like such a boy's club. Sure, you can just pass it off as "boys will be boys", high school boys are stupid…
Homogeneity makes people complacent. The guard comes down, and the 'behaviour filter' that people would otherwise have in a more heterogenous environment disappears.
This type of thing bugs me because I worry that it desensitizes me and makes me careless when I visit clients, or change workplaces.
So, hiring or soliciting hires on the basis of cultural compatibility, where legal, is just a tradeoff. You lose by turning off or dismissing part of the total pool, but if the culture is good, you get more out of those who are compatible with it.
Copying the latest fad culture is counterproductive. The companies piling on without any authenticity are idiotic. They'll end up with dregs pretty soon if they all keep going to the bro well (which I assumed was ironically intended - who knows any sincere bros?)
Of course, ironic culture is real (ironic) culture.
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I agree with you to a degree, but you simply can't put it as strong as you did. It is absolutely possible to make a joke that is understood as sexist without being one yourself. That's actually the schtick that a lot of comedians go by. Prefacing your comment with "I'm going to hell for this" is perfectly fine and in most cases, it does show that the person truly understands they're making a comment that could offend…
The way that I have always tried to explain this to other people is that it's not a matter of "being sexist" or "not being sexist" (or racist, or whatever). It's a matter of what you actually do . Whether or not you "are sexist" on some innate level is between you and God, or your psychologist, or whatever. Nobody at work gives a damn, really. What matters are your actions , and in particular the effect they have on…
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I think you misread that paragraph. He does not seem to be writing only about programmers, but about everyone that a startup might need to hire. Read this again: "Shapiro, who has blogged in the past about sexism in the tech industry, notes that "it is a widely understood truth that the single biggest challenge to a successful startup is attracting the right people. To literally handicap yourself by 50 percent is ins…
Since we're being 'realistic', the opportunity cost to a business for a disparity in talent in HR barely registers. Relatively minor differences in skill between programmers can mean millions of dollars to a business.
Recruiting is one of the absolute most important things a startup does. Don't make the mistake of conflating Fortune 500 HR (lame training, policies, etc) with startup HR. Startup HR is about finding great people, building a good company culture, and retaining people. Those things matter.
And while the team of 3 great developers can probably recruit and hire developers, can they recruit good marketing people? Good operations people? Good PR people? All those things matter quite a bit.