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Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

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Re: Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

#81

Post by astrofinch »

coderdude wrote: post #2

>If I appear to be moronic, self-centered, or sexist… it’s only because I am (I’m a guy). Still I believe my heart is in the right place, and unlike my head, hopefully it’s not in my pants. What the hell? I feel like I'm watching a US TV commercial. "Whoops honey, if I didn't have my sports cap on I'd probably lose my head." "Oh dear, you lovable oaf." Mother and daughter shake heads at retarded male

Give the guy a break. He's clearly trying really hard to be friendly and not offend anyone... and self-deprecation is a good way to do this.

Re: Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

#82

Post by wheels »

delinka wrote: post #66
wheels wrote: post #26

> I’d like to CHALLENGE every woman in tech who’s a) got a nice car, b) owns a nice house, or c) is making over $125K a year In the US you need to have an income of greater than $200k/year or assets not including your home of over $1 million in order to be an accredited investor. [1] You don't have to be an accredited investor to invest in startups, but it does open up the company to additional annoying reporting req…

What's to keep me from investing all my money in my own startup? I note attempting facetiousness, I'm truly curious how they differentiate me starting my own business and investing all my own money (at a substantial percentage of my reported income) or starting a business with a buddy and putting in a serious amount of cash.

There's a provision for raising up to $1 million from "friends and family" (specifically pre-existing contacts only, no solicitation). I presume, though am not certain, however, that personal funds of the executives are exempt from that.

http://www.jdsupra.com/post/documentViewer.aspx?fid=35d8764e...

Re: Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

#83

Post by CamperBob2 »

vorg wrote: post #58
kvnn wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Women get ostracised from I.T. fairly early on What evidence have you found that suggests that women are systematically ostracized from I.T.?

> What evidence have you found that suggests that women are systematically ostracized from I.T.? It's pervasive in everything, even in the names of stuff. E.g. there's a recent programming language that calls its interpolated strings "G-Strings". That's the class name in the code. A method for finding out the length of the "G-String" was added, called "size", in addition to the existing one called "length". So... ass…

And I'm supposed to hire anyone with that much of a stick up their ass, regardless of gender?

Re: Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

#84

Post by derleth »

coderdude wrote: post #2

>If I appear to be moronic, self-centered, or sexist… it’s only because I am (I’m a guy). Still I believe my heart is in the right place, and unlike my head, hopefully it’s not in my pants. What the hell? I feel like I'm watching a US TV commercial. "Whoops honey, if I didn't have my sports cap on I'd probably lose my head." "Oh dear, you lovable oaf." Mother and daughter shake heads at retarded male

It's another example of how sexism hurts everyone.

Re: Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

#85

Post by s_baby »

Volpe wrote: post #80
s_baby wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not something you can completely measure economically. A coal miner makes decent money but how do you put a price tag on black lung or being crushed to death? >When I did the research for a book called The Myth of Male Power I discovered a Glass Cellar that holds far more men than the Glass Ceiling. The Glass Cellar consists of the hazardous jobs and the worst jobs (minimum security, low pay, bad conditions). Th…

I'd be cautious of using a 'Glass Cellar' as an excuse not to act on gender inequality.

I agree, the ratio is so skewed that the possibility of legitimate discrimination should be considered.

But consider this. We're experiencing the first generation of men that will be less educated than their fathers. Women are outpacing men in college education and literacy rates and this divide continues to grow. If we continue to systematically approach "gender equality" from such a lopsided perspective we're all going to hurt as a society. We're on the path to resembling Eastern Europe. Where the social cost of being a man is so high they are disproportionately dying and creating a gap in eligible bachelors.

Re: Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

#86

Post by bherms »

As a guy in tech, I agree wholeheartedly with everything Dave has said, and was surprised he said it in an actually non-offensive way, given his typical writing style..

However, something I took away from this that really surprised me was how little money Dave started with and how little he still has. Don't get me wrong, I would kill to have $300k in the bank, much less $600k+, but I've always assumed that angel investing (despite the small investments) was a game for the incredibly wealthy and I wouldn't be able to invest until I was in my 30's and had exited with more than a few million in the bank. When he points out that anyone with more than $10k lying around can be the next big angel investor, it really jumped out at me. I've never considered investing $5k or so into something I really believe in when $5k-$10k is all I have saved up... However, as he said, it would be hard not to get my money's worth by investing in startups. I'm glad he conveyed how easy it is to become an angel because otherwise I would have never considered it until I had plenty of "fuck you" money.

Re: Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

#87

Post by nirvana »

delinka wrote: post #66
wheels wrote: post #26

> I’d like to CHALLENGE every woman in tech who’s a) got a nice car, b) owns a nice house, or c) is making over $125K a year In the US you need to have an income of greater than $200k/year or assets not including your home of over $1 million in order to be an accredited investor. [1] You don't have to be an accredited investor to invest in startups, but it does open up the company to additional annoying reporting req…

What's to keep me from investing all my money in my own startup? I note attempting facetiousness, I'm truly curious how they differentiate me starting my own business and investing all my own money (at a substantial percentage of my reported income) or starting a business with a buddy and putting in a serious amount of cash.

Nothing. There's also nothing to stop you from having a $30k income, and taking out a $130k unsecured loan, with a consequential $0 net worth (EG: $130k now n the bank and a $130k loan balance).... and going to Las Vegas and putting all $130k on a single spin of the roulette wheel-- or a weekends worth if they won't' let you bet that much.

You can blow all that money gambling if you want, but you can't invest it in startups. (At least not as an accredited investor... and places like angel list will only deal with accredited investors.)

Re: Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

#88

Post by nirvana »

bherms wrote: post #86

As a guy in tech, I agree wholeheartedly with everything Dave has said, and was surprised he said it in an actually non-offensive way, given his typical writing style.. However, something I took away from this that really surprised me was how little money Dave started with and how little he still has. Don't get me wrong, I would kill to have $300k in the bank, much less $600k+, but I've always assumed that angel inve…

The problem is, you do need to be a millionaire to be an angel investor. IF not you open your investments up to liability unless you really are "friends and family".

This industry is regulated and McClure sorta completely glossed over it.

I would be an angel investor if I was allowed. I would have been doing it for the past 4 years, and I would have much enjoyed doing that. I had 6 figures and 20 years of startup experience and was ready to write checks.

I just never found a way around the need to get accreditation. (Note when you have a successful exit you have cash in the bank, but that doesn't mean you necessarily have a $250k a year job, or $1M in the bank!)

Maybe in the bay area there are lawyers who can set you up to do this even despite the regulations... I dunno.

But this seems to be a glaring omission on his part. Or maybe the law has changed recently and that's why his program could now work.

Re: Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

#89

Post by saraid216 »

[deleted] wrote: post #59

[deleted]

> As if women are so weak that they all they can do is just sit there at the door, sobbing "please let us in your industry".

Aaaaand straw man. Citation please. You almost made it, too.

The complaint has never been that there isn't gender parity; that's an indicator, not the substance. It's about as valid as Gallup polls are for political issues: which is to say useful for making large claims, but not useful for actually understanding those claims. We don't change minds on political issues by mashing a button on a Nintendo controller until the number goes from 40% to 60%; we talk to people.

The complaint is that women who are in the industry feel like they're being forced out of it. See: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Othering And also the rest of the Wikia.

(And I'm obliged to note that, despite the faulty premise, you're on target otherwise and I fully agree.)

Re: Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

#90

Post by einhverfr »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #79
einhverfr wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, if other industries and businesses are indications, as the industry matures, women will come. The internet used to have a 50:1 male to female ratio. Open source software engineering today has a similar ratio (compared to a 2:1 ratio in commercial software houses). Maybe the issue is that women don't want to work in a risky and immature industry. Especially when that involves potentially deferring or even giv…

Sure. But how many decades of unfair treatment and exclusionary culture are we willing to tolerate? Especially when you consider that tech is one of the most lucrative industries at present. How much money are people missing out on because of the exclusionary culture of tech? How much is the industry itself being held back?

Ok, so how about we offer a deal like this:

1) Put in 130 hours of work every week except for 3 weeks vacation per year, and 2 months parental leave, and medical leave as required by law. Start when you are 20. When you are 40 we will give you a retirement bonus of 30 million dollars.

Is this exclusionary to women? I ask because I think the very clear answer is yes.

I don't think the key issues are in terms of an exclusionary culture. I think the key issues regarding startups are structural and expectation-based. I don't think it's any coincidence that Marissa Mayer waited until Google was a big mainstream company to get pregnant. So what do you tell a talented 28 year old woman who is thinking maybe about starting a family?

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