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Lore Harp McGovern built a microcomputer empire from her suburban home

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Re: Lore Harp McGovern built a microcomputer empire from her suburban home

#61

Post by toolz »

leononame wrote: post #58
toolz wrote: post #57

I do believe there are unique challenges to being a woman in tech, but the odds seem in favor of women doing well both back in the 70's and today with todays stats having roughly 20% of CS grads being female while some 23% of SWEs are female. That suggests there are more women in software jobs than women who have been pursing that career academically. What stats do you see that suggest the odds are against women in t…

How ist 20%/23% good? Am I reading the numbers wrong? 40%, that I could agree on. But 23% is very low. Another thing is culture. The in the company's where I've worked at, how the men talked about women was pretty off-putting to be honest. They didn't do it in front of women (obviously), but even your nerdy developers would drop comments that had me wondering whether I was really in the ckrrect field. I'm sure the wo…

well I'm not making a value judgement, but we're talking about odds, not "good" or "bad"...if 20% of women go after a software job and the field is made up of an even higher %, that suggests the odds are amazing for women. Odds don't tell the whole story, but the odds seem in women's favor at the moment.

Re: Lore Harp McGovern built a microcomputer empire from her suburban home

#62

Post by barrenko »

ThomPete wrote: post #56
laurex wrote: post #49

It’s not just that she overcame odds as a woman in the tech business that amazes, but that she was so clearly someone who cared about people, and chose to risk her business and reputation more than once to stay true to her values. That’s perhaps even more rare in this industry than being a successful female CEO.

there are no odds as a woman in the tech business. The tech industry is on of the most inclusive industries because it measures talent and value creation not features no one can do anything about

No industry is inclusive, nor will ever be, that is almost by definition.

Re: Lore Harp McGovern built a microcomputer empire from her suburban home

#63

Post by nimfan »

"Vector was late in moving from machines with 8K processing to 16K, which had become the new industry standard." I was interested in S100 bus machines, but couldn't afford one! If I'd only known, I'd have borrowed to buy a Vector Graphic S100 back then, just for the novelty of having an 8192-bit CPU! ;-)

Re: Lore Harp McGovern built a microcomputer empire from her suburban home

#64

Post by rootusrootus »

leononame wrote: post #58
toolz wrote: post #57

I do believe there are unique challenges to being a woman in tech, but the odds seem in favor of women doing well both back in the 70's and today with todays stats having roughly 20% of CS grads being female while some 23% of SWEs are female. That suggests there are more women in software jobs than women who have been pursing that career academically. What stats do you see that suggest the odds are against women in t…

How ist 20%/23% good? Am I reading the numbers wrong? 40%, that I could agree on. But 23% is very low. Another thing is culture. The in the company's where I've worked at, how the men talked about women was pretty off-putting to be honest. They didn't do it in front of women (obviously), but even your nerdy developers would drop comments that had me wondering whether I was really in the ckrrect field. I'm sure the wo…

Would be nice if it were higher, for sure. And it will become that way, because more women go to college now than men. Will we care about young men being under represented in college before they get down to 20%? I'd like to think so, but I won't take that bet.

Re: Lore Harp McGovern built a microcomputer empire from her suburban home

#65

Post by 1234letshaveatw »

Atreiden wrote: post #34

[flagged]

It's kind of gross and sophomoric to try and portray eg the Harp's relationship in terms of good and evil. I can't imagine that you would characterize their relationship in the same way if the roles were reversed, and what does direct beneficiary even mean in this context? Money was rolling in so suck it up?

Re: Lore Harp McGovern built a microcomputer empire from her suburban home

#66

Post by ekms »

leononame wrote: post #58
toolz wrote: post #57

I do believe there are unique challenges to being a woman in tech, but the odds seem in favor of women doing well both back in the 70's and today with todays stats having roughly 20% of CS grads being female while some 23% of SWEs are female. That suggests there are more women in software jobs than women who have been pursing that career academically. What stats do you see that suggest the odds are against women in t…

How ist 20%/23% good? Am I reading the numbers wrong? 40%, that I could agree on. But 23% is very low. Another thing is culture. The in the company's where I've worked at, how the men talked about women was pretty off-putting to be honest. They didn't do it in front of women (obviously), but even your nerdy developers would drop comments that had me wondering whether I was really in the ckrrect field. I'm sure the wo…

23% > 20% which means if someone goes into the field of computer programming they're more likely to remain in the field if they are a woman than if they are a man. "remain in the field" is used as a proxy for success.

You could argue about whether or not it's a good proxy for success, but your response sounds like you think women would be more likely to drop out of the field alltogether than men, which doesnt appear to be true

Re: Lore Harp McGovern built a microcomputer empire from her suburban home

#69

Post by laurex »

toolz wrote: post #57

I do believe there are unique challenges to being a woman in tech, but the odds seem in favor of women doing well both back in the 70's and today with todays stats having roughly 20% of CS grads being female while some 23% of SWEs are female. That suggests there are more women in software jobs than women who have been pursing that career academically. What stats do you see that suggest the odds are against women in t…

Perhaps rather than simply looking at numbers for SWEs, we might also look at numbers for CEOs of successful companies?

Re: Lore Harp McGovern built a microcomputer empire from her suburban home

#70

Post by yardie »

masswerk wrote: post #39
Atreiden wrote: post #34

[flagged]

To be fair, the fame of Steve Jobs is some of a different story: after his departure from Apple, he had been kind of a persona non grata , and later, with the demise of NeXT (BTW also known for its flat hierarchy and salary structure), not much talked about, either. It was really with the resurgence of Apple and Jobs' 3rd or 4th comeback that he became idolized, especially after the iPhone. This is quite a biography,…

I was just a teen when Jobs becaome iCEO at Apple. It felt like a big deal and the only thing that could have made it bigger was if Woz stepped on stage as well. It really did have the air of the band getting back together. At least that was the case for the Apple faithful.
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