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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

#101

Post by zer00eyz »

flkiwi wrote: post #78
zer00eyz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you just need a boss you can trust. You need to not be a clock puncher of an employee. You need to be present (in an office) for these conversations to happen. This sort of thing still goes on all the time. If your not part of it your either in "Giant Corp" or the wrong company, or you have the wrong boss, or you are the wrong person.

I’ve had (and honored) plenty of those types of conversations with subordinates I’ve never met in person in any of a number of global offices. Physical presence isn’t a prerequisite for being a good boss or worker.

This is true.

It is much harder to get to that level of trust when you cant break bread, when you cant read all the body language. In person does make some things easier... One week a month of hot desking can do a lot for teams.

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

#102

Post by randomdata »

rootusrootus wrote: post #64
leononame wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Will we care about young men being under represented in college before they get down to 20%?

We won't care about men being under represented, but colleges may worry that they are losing out on customers if the male population of college buyers swings that low. That may prompt marketing campaigns to try and attract men into college.

I mean, it is not like we care about women being under represented either. Nobody is ever bothered by just 5% of firefighters being female. Tech was only ever concerned about women in tech because the industry was desperate for a larger pool of workers and women looked like an untapped source of people.

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

#103

Post by nashashmi »

cgh wrote: post #97
nashashmi wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can go into a tirade of how women when achieving the same role as men are treated differently. But then you would be ignoring the underlying roles both were MEANT to play. The man is meant to play the role of breadwinner. If he can’t do that, he is not seen as worthy. The women is meant to play the role of housemaker. If she can’t do that, she is seen as incompetent. But if the other outshines the one at their me…

Consider spending less time online.

I don’t think that’s relevant here.

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

#104

Post by mycologos »

kragen wrote: post #100

article says > With her friend Carole Ely, she grew their company, Vector Graphic, into a major manufacturer of microcomputers wikipedia says > Vector Graphic sales peaked in 1982, by which time the company was publicly traded, at $36 million. It faltered soon after... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_Graphic taking a microcomputer company from nothing to a near-billion-dollar market cap on the public markets is…

"unforgivable level of puffery" seems like an overreaction.

Apple's total sales in 1978 [1] were only 30% higher than Vector's in 1979 [2]. Yeah, the industry growth at the time means comparing even consecutive years gets dicey, but I don't think the gap between the two was enormous at that point. Comparable to Apple in the late 70s sounds pretty major to me.

Also, it is reasonable to say "major" is an absolute description that just means "pretty big" not "one of the biggest". As you mention, their sales peak (IMO, past the company's relevance peak) is pretty big in absolute terms.

Extrapolating this disagreement into "much of the article may be false" is ... confusing.

[1] https://guides.loc.gov/this-month-in-business-history/april/...

[2] http://www.s100computers.com/Hardware%20Folder/Vector%20Grap...

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

#105

Post by randomdata »

Atreiden wrote: post #34

[flagged]

> Their own husbands were resentful of their success. Despite being direct beneficiaries of it.

What partner, male or female, isn't resentful of that kind of success even when benefitting from it? To get there requires a complete domination of time and, it turns out, partners tend to dislike being ignored. Since you mentioned Steve Jobs, there is much the same story about the mother of his first child. Their relationship is told to have come to an end because Jobs was putting all of his attention on Apple instead, and she also expressed feeling unacknowledged for her contributions to the Apple story.

If you dig into the lives of any successful founder on that kind of level, it is likely you will find the same story over and over, regardless of gender. Nothing unusual here.

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

#106

Post by px43 »

userbinator wrote: post #98
worik wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every tech company on the planet is tripping over themselves to hire/promote more minorities That is because of the problems than have been mounting in tech because people only hired people that looked like them. I do not understand what the problem is with DEI. (I am not in the USA, perhaps I am missing out). Making sure that no one is left behind, because they were over looked, seems like a good thing to me.

When you start hiring people because of who they are, and not what they can do, it won't be long before that shows in the results you get. DEI has effectively replaced competence with identity politics.

DEI is a counterweight to unconscious bias, which, as far as I've seen, is still way more of a factor in hiring than DEI.

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

#107

Post by px43 »

hackerlight wrote: post #95
worik wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every tech company on the planet is tripping over themselves to hire/promote more minorities That is because of the problems than have been mounting in tech because people only hired people that looked like them. I do not understand what the problem is with DEI. (I am not in the USA, perhaps I am missing out). Making sure that no one is left behind, because they were over looked, seems like a good thing to me.

That's a real problem. People want to hire people that are just like them. Same school, same degree, same personality, same age, same political affiliation. I have seen the bias for the same race and gender, and not just white on white but with all races selecting their own, although that's on the down low. I don't know what the current MO of DEI programs is, but I hope they're expansive by also targeting ageism and…

Tons of companies out there still do "culture fit" interviews because they are very intentionally trying to hire a mono-culture.

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

#108

Post by kragen »

mycologos wrote: post #104
kragen wrote: post #100

article says > With her friend Carole Ely, she grew their company, Vector Graphic, into a major manufacturer of microcomputers wikipedia says > Vector Graphic sales peaked in 1982, by which time the company was publicly traded, at $36 million. It faltered soon after... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_Graphic taking a microcomputer company from nothing to a near-billion-dollar market cap on the public markets is…

"unforgivable level of puffery" seems like an overreaction. Apple's total sales in 1978 [1] were only 30% higher than Vector's in 1979 [2]. Yeah, the industry growth at the time means comparing even consecutive years gets dicey, but I don't think the gap between the two was enormous at that point. Comparable to Apple in the late 70s sounds pretty major to me. Also, it is reasonable to say "major" is an absolute descr…

i'm not sure it would be accurate to describe apple as a major microcomputer manufacturer in 01978
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