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"Gangbang Interviews" and "Bikini Shots": Silicon Valley’s Brogrammer Problem

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Re: "Gangbang Interviews" and "Bikini Shots": Silicon Valley’s Brogrammer Problem

#291

Post by ojbyrne »

sfrench wrote: post #277
ojbyrne wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt arrived at digg in 2007 if I recall correctly. At that point the culture was being reshaped into what is described in the article. Also lots of women were hired - young, attractive women. And we all know how that worked out. The reason why this culture persists is because people are rewarded for promulgating it. Matt is a VP at Path.

Owen, I think your memory is a little fuzzy on this. If you recall, we overlapped for a few months in 2007 before you left, and the "lots of women" you describe just weren't there.

Fair enough. The thing about women was actually something I was told happened after I left. Will edit the comment. Edit: sorry I missed the edit window.

Re: "Gangbang Interviews" and "Bikini Shots": Silicon Valley’s Brogrammer Problem

#292

Post by dudeguy999 »

fab13n wrote: post #18

> 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…

Geek culture scares away far more females than frat culture, empirically.

Re: "Gangbang Interviews" and "Bikini Shots": Silicon Valley’s Brogrammer Problem

#293

Post by Tichy »

lkrubner wrote: post #77
fab13n wrote: post #18

> 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…

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…

So in reality women don't flock to the alpha frat parties? Because that is the image portrayed in the media (for those who live far away from the US). They prefer to hang out with nerds instead. Great news.

Re: "Gangbang Interviews" and "Bikini Shots": Silicon Valley’s Brogrammer Problem

#294

Post by egillie »

Alex3917 wrote: post #258
egillie wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you give an example of one of the laws? This is new to me too

If I remember correctly there were many laws specifying that men were to be paid less than women and were to be subject to other degrading treatment. It's hard to find a good example of an actual law though because until recently virtually all states regulated education at the local level.

Do you remember the name of one of the books? I found some evidence of the opposite happening to attract men to the profession in OK, but I can easily believe that what you described happened in other states. And it's a pretty infuriating idea... To quote Steinem: “there are very few jobs that actually require a penis or a vagina, and all the other jobs should be open to both sexes.

Re: "Gangbang Interviews" and "Bikini Shots": Silicon Valley’s Brogrammer Problem

#295

Post by kstenerud »

rickmb wrote: post #287
kstenerud wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#2 was not intended to be for real. It was intended as a joke poking fun at the brogrammer thing, but it backfired because too many people thought they were serious. That's what happens when you step over the line while attempting humor.

#2 was 100% real. Yes, it was a joke, but it's only the kind of joke you make if you have absolutely no intention whatsoever of inviting female hackers to your event. The humor didn't cross the line, the being explicitly uninviting to women crossed the line.

You are presuming to have intimate knowledge as to their thought process when they attempted the joke. By inserting your own psyche into their actions, you falsely assume to know that they were malicious in intent. Not everyone thinks the same way you do, or reacts the same way you do. On the other hand, I know Avand personally, and spoke to him shortly after the whole thing blew up.

Hanlon's razor is apt in this situation.

Re: "Gangbang Interviews" and "Bikini Shots": Silicon Valley’s Brogrammer Problem

#296

Post by icebraining »

127 wrote: post #216
Kadin wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My own conjecture is that women don't want to do software development because it's boring and difficult. Why would women find this more of a problem then men do? You're just replacing one unproven assertion with another, the latter that women are more sensitive to "boring and difficult" jobs than men are. I can't think of any compelling reason or even any evidence for that, given the number of "boring and difficult…

>Why would women find this more of a problem then men do? I did not say this. What I said that women have more of a choice not to have a career and still succeed in raising a family.

The census show that stay-at-home women have in general lower education and family income, and are more likely to be Hispanic or foreign-born.

The results indicate it's less of a choice and more of a lack of employment opportunities.

Re: "Gangbang Interviews" and "Bikini Shots": Silicon Valley’s Brogrammer Problem

#297

Post by paulhauggis »

MartinCron wrote: post #235
droithomme wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not trolling and I take exception to the implication that my point is so worthless. There are many parallels. As you point out the interviewee cornered in a room and find themselves attacked by one person after another. Most of the interviewers have the agenda to discredit and intimidate the interviewers whose looks or ethnicity they just don't like. If the person "looks cool" though then they go easy. It's hostile a…

The point isn't worthless, but it's being presented in a jaw-droppingly insensitive way. Would you dare to say what you just said to an actual rape survivor? Are you that emotionally tone deaf or just misanthropic? Having a bunch of people ask you questions in a way you don't like, in a context where you're free to leave at any time, is not a form of violence . Maybe it's a form of aggression but not one that can cre…

My problem with your line of thinking is that as more and more people are silenced because of insensitivity, our freedoms are eroded away.

What he says is insensitive, by why can't we just be adults and ignore it?

After all, pretty much any article on HN involving legalizing MJ offends me, but I wouldn't go to my HR department if I heard people talking about it in the workplace.

Or are you saying I should? When does it end?

Re: "Gangbang Interviews" and "Bikini Shots": Silicon Valley’s Brogrammer Problem

#298

Post by crazygringo »

gte910h wrote: post #148
crazygringo wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one theory which says that men genetically tend to be more "outliers" while women genetically tend more towards the average. Thus there are far more men than women who are wildly rich and successful, but also far more men than women who are failures or in jail. If we're talking about start-ups who need to hire from the top 10% of programmers, who might be from the top 0.5% of the population in terms of logic…

What a horrible idea if you need that mystical 1:200 soul to pull it off.

I dunno... places like Apple and Facebook are very vocal about recruiting only "A" talent, which is probably far less than 1 in 200 people from the general population. From my understanding, Jobs credits the whole execution of the Macintosh to it.

Re: "Gangbang Interviews" and "Bikini Shots": Silicon Valley’s Brogrammer Problem

#299

Post by Tichy »

gawker wrote: post #161
anichan wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, but the problem is that women, particularly in startups, have to walk a fine line of not letting themselves be objectified and not being labeled a bitch. The article even mentions that there isn't really much of a robust HR policy at small start ups. When women in these situations make it clear that some behavior is not acceptable, they'll inevitably be met by "Woah don't be so serious, it's just a joke! Lighten…

I think this extends towards a lot of issues. The "Whoa, don't be so serious, it's just a joke" card gets played time and time again to hide people's insensitivity to others.

I wonder if there would be any jokes left in a 100% PC world.

Re: "Gangbang Interviews" and "Bikini Shots": Silicon Valley’s Brogrammer Problem

#300

Post by crazygringo »

eli wrote: post #177
crazygringo wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one theory which says that men genetically tend to be more "outliers" while women genetically tend more towards the average. Thus there are far more men than women who are wildly rich and successful, but also far more men than women who are failures or in jail. If we're talking about start-ups who need to hire from the top 10% of programmers, who might be from the top 0.5% of the population in terms of logic…

I'm curious, do you think logical ability is the main thing that separates good developers from bad ones?

Well I'm just repeating a theory I found interesting, not necessarily arguing for it.

But while programming obviously involves teamwork, communication, etc., fundamentally it really is about building castles of logical processes, and I'd say your "pure" programming skill is limited mainly by one's logical ability.

Slapping together enterprise components might not need it so much... I'm talking more about complex algorithms, architectures, etc.

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