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The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

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Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#111

Post by hobs »

CGudapati wrote: post #100
hobs wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my immediate thought, irregardless of the gender argument. I work with plenty of non-technical ops people, ALL of them REGARDLESS of intelligence, can not code out of a wet paper bag. I have at various points shown them all how to use basic excel formulas and they still use calculators that would not look out of place in a grade school. Are they good at what they do? Yes. Does what they do require that type…

Not to be that guy but regardless is the correct form. Irregardless is considered as non-standard or incorrect. But if you do know this, please don't mind this nitpick.

I actually didn't know that. I googled and learned that it came into use in the 50s, interesting. Edited and changed.

Edit: too old to edit! But still, thanks for the info.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#112

Post by adrianm »

sliverstorm wrote: post #108
adrianm wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what you're implying here, I'm afraid.

He's implying that it is sexist to be bad at talking to women.

Really? Re-reading it with that in mind, I think you're right... I guess my brain presumed that was such an irrational conclusion to draw about me after reading what I wrote that it didn't register at all, I honestly thought I was just not understanding what the poster was trying to say.

It really feels terrible to be insulted when I was trying to contribute a thoughtful comment.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#113

Post by tdavis »

rodly wrote: post #79
ericabiz wrote: post #14

The situation described at the tradeshow in this article has also happened to me, repeatedly and consistently. The difference? I AM technical. I just also happen to be a woman. I love the tech industry. I've been in it professionally since 1997, and I've run tech startups as a CEO for the past 13 years. And if there's one thing I can count on, it's the consistent, pervasive assumption that I'm not technical. I hate g…

Find a field that has been woman-dominated for the last 50 years. Now put a man in that field, who is rather successful (like yourself in technology), and you will get the exact same result in the contexts you describe. I'm sick of this paradox where men and women are equal and yet men (and only men) are capable of making this mistake. It's simple pattern matching, and when the pattern tells you one thing and it's ac…

Cool straw man, bro. Would have been even cooler had she actually made any claim that men were only capable of this "mistake". Or that your carefully constructed counter-argument weren't trivially proven false. But, whatever, you tried.

Simple pattern matching tells me you must have used car parts where your brain should be, so I guess we're all susceptible to this sort of mistake. And I'll be damned if I don't feel at least as confident in my assessment as you are in yours. I don't even know anything about cars! Now I feel like a hypocrite.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#114

Post by mjmahone17 »

stbarnes wrote: post #89

> You only take a job in business operations if you aren’t smart enough to be an engineer (or designer, or product manager, or…) The article claims that this is false. But in fact, it's pretty obvious that the average non-engineer is less intelligent than the average engineer. See for instance this table of IQ by college major: http://www.statisticbrain.com/iq-estimates-by-intended-colle... (And, yes, IQ tests do qui…

1. No, IQ tests capture what a certain type of people mean by intelligence. This is especially true, given that I can consistently perform less well on, for example, the spatial portion of an IQ test than the logical portion. Unless you're willing to say that there is not any other important component (such as say, oratory intelligence) to someone's ability to perform, or be intelligent. My skepticism says it's likely that, in fact, there is a positive correlation between how good you are at manipulating objects and math and your IQ score, whereas there's little to no correlation between emotional acuity and IQ. But if, due to your social skills and emotional abilities, you're not able to cut it in the arts or humanities, you're more likely to become an engineer. Which tells you nothing of what types of majors "roundly" intelligent people (i.e. those with relatively equal IQ and non-IQ intelligence) choose.

2. Your source doesn't even support your assertion, at least if you're claiming non-engineers, in the same companies as engineers, are on average less intelligent. Mathematicians, Philosophers and Economists are overwhelmingly non-engineers. CIS gets the same IQ as "Other Humanities and Art".

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#115

Post by haukilup »

melindajb wrote: post #62
balls187 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, no, no, no and no. Stop it. Nice job in raising the level of discourse here.

oh because claiming a bullshit voodoo science as argument was so earth shattering? seriously. especially coming from someone with "balls" in the name. read the link. Love it, i'm now not being allowed to reply. I love how it's ok for guys on hacker news to denigrate and insult women and minorities but if we say, look stop it, you're all suddenly begging for rationality. NOTHING about pattern matching is rational. So…

I'm having a hard time determining if you comments are meant to be trolling or not. You see to be adamantly against an opinion the people you're replying to don't exactly hold. You're doing the equivalent of yelling out a boilerplate rant anytime a keyword you've been waiting for pops up.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#116

Post by hueving »

kaitai wrote: post #87
rodly wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Find a field that has been woman-dominated for the last 50 years. Now put a man in that field, who is rather successful (like yourself in technology), and you will get the exact same result in the contexts you describe. I'm sick of this paradox where men and women are equal and yet men (and only men) are capable of making this mistake. It's simple pattern matching, and when the pattern tells you one thing and it's ac…

Srsly? Someone's gotta write a program to autopost the stats about men in nursing and men in elementary school teaching, and particularly the way they get promoted faster with less experience. (One source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jennagoudreau/2012/05/21/a-new-o... ) And srsly? The continuing trope that it's "men who are sexist pigs" who are the problem rather than "people who persist in employing infantile patte…

>And srsly?

English, do you speak it?

>And complaining about getting hit on in work situations

The grandparent was talking about at social events. Not work situations.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#117

Post by melindajb »

srpablo wrote: post #109
rodly wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Find a field that has been woman-dominated for the last 50 years. Now put a man in that field, who is rather successful (like yourself in technology), and you will get the exact same result in the contexts you describe. I'm sick of this paradox where men and women are equal and yet men (and only men) are capable of making this mistake. It's simple pattern matching, and when the pattern tells you one thing and it's ac…

Piling on to other commenters: Modern Dance & Ballet. Most of the coveted, paid choreographer positions go to men, despite being a tiny fraction of the dancers.

not to mention film directors, theatre directors, and speaking roles in television and film.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#118

Post by Pherdnut »

ericabiz wrote: post #14

The situation described at the tradeshow in this article has also happened to me, repeatedly and consistently. The difference? I AM technical. I just also happen to be a woman. I love the tech industry. I've been in it professionally since 1997, and I've run tech startups as a CEO for the past 13 years. And if there's one thing I can count on, it's the consistent, pervasive assumption that I'm not technical. I hate g…

Booth-babe stuff aside, I thought the article was primarily about being non-technical at a startup.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#119

Post by melindajb »

your_throwaway wrote: post #110
ericabiz wrote: post #14

The situation described at the tradeshow in this article has also happened to me, repeatedly and consistently. The difference? I AM technical. I just also happen to be a woman. I love the tech industry. I've been in it professionally since 1997, and I've run tech startups as a CEO for the past 13 years. And if there's one thing I can count on, it's the consistent, pervasive assumption that I'm not technical. I hate g…

Yeah, except when I do start a conversation with you, I'm hitting on you, and probably being "creepy". I have to navigate a mental minefield of "don't say this" "don't say that too much" or "don't be overly aggressive", otherwise I get screamed about on twitter, labeled as a misogynist, and possibly fired from my job. (Uh-oh, I said dongle! Or...[1]meritocracy!) I'm not saying women in tech don't have problems, they…

If you can override the animal instincts to kill other humans, why is it so hard to override your thoughts and just treat all other humans with the same respect you'd give your best friend, at least until you see a valid reason not to?

No one is saying that getting a beer after work is bad, or telling jokes is bad, or that thinking is bad. this is hand waving. We're asking you, again, to a) understand that lots of drinking leads to situations where women are harassed; b) telling sexist, racist, homophobic jokes is not appropriate in any professional context, and that you should be human enough to override your animal instincts.

To be frank, your post comes off as irrational, and immature. You sound very young, and very entitled.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#120

Post by offbrand »

rodly wrote: post #79
ericabiz wrote: post #14

The situation described at the tradeshow in this article has also happened to me, repeatedly and consistently. The difference? I AM technical. I just also happen to be a woman. I love the tech industry. I've been in it professionally since 1997, and I've run tech startups as a CEO for the past 13 years. And if there's one thing I can count on, it's the consistent, pervasive assumption that I'm not technical. I hate g…

Find a field that has been woman-dominated for the last 50 years. Now put a man in that field, who is rather successful (like yourself in technology), and you will get the exact same result in the contexts you describe. I'm sick of this paradox where men and women are equal and yet men (and only men) are capable of making this mistake. It's simple pattern matching, and when the pattern tells you one thing and it's ac…

The problem is not men hitting on us and it being awkward. I can handle that, whatever. The issue is being seen as ONLY sexual objects. Normally things start out great. Oh, you're a girl in tech? That's so awesome. Now I can talk tech, a topic I'm comfortable with. However, I can't tell you how many times I've mentioned my fiance and the conversation comes to a screeching halt, see ya. Or I let it go on without mentioning anything, and the boundary isn't set and there is awkwardness later on. It is a different dynamic and tricky to navigate. If I was a guy, they'd be happy to talk business and learn about my startup. We never got to that. I find it hard to have as positive of an experience networking as my male coworkers seem to have. I'm not saying this is sexism or any other loaded words, its just a challenge.

So while being a technical female has a lot of positives (we are more rare and stand out and people might find us pretty and want to talk to us), there are legitimate issues regarding professionalism in work and conferences. No one is saying men are monsters...well, I'm certainly not.

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