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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

#251

Post by rada »

mcantelon wrote: post #235
rada wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The definition of "AIDS" is that it's a disease, and yet what causes it is a virus. Your parent has pointed out the source or racism/sexism/classism/etc, not the end result. Identify the source, cure the disease.

Sources of racism come from all kinds of things: colonialism, ethnic scapgoating, economic competition between ethnicities, ethno-nationalism, etc. The post I'm replying to seems to suggest it's not possible to be racist towards whites ("For this reason alone ... there is no symmetry in these biases"). I'm merely pointing out that by the popular, and dictionary definition of racism, it's possible. If black youths tar…

I think you misunderstand your parent. Here is the full quote:

there is no symmetry in these biases (e.g. the false equivalence of misogyny and misandry)

It does not mean that there is never a case of sexism against men or racism against whites. What it means is that you cannot simply flip mysogyny and misandry, or racism against minorities and racism against majority. One major reason is the power imbalance - you can read more about it online but the simplest example I can offer is that of sexual harassment where the power imbalance is essential to the problem, i.e. a lowly employee asking for a date with their boss is a fundamentally different problem than a powerful boss asking for a date with their employee. Another reason is systemic vs. individual discrimination - again, other people explain it better than I ever could but a very simple example would be that everyone across the board, meaning men and women both, discriminate against equally-qualified resumes with female names on them, evidencing that our whole culture is systemically sexist in one direction.

And if you read carefully what that parent was responding to, it will make even more sense.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#252

Post by driverdan »

galago wrote: post #28
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…

There seems to be a big horrible cycle here. I attended VMWorld last year in San Francisco and was shocked by how many booths were staffed by attractive women who where just hired as like, temps or something. They were aggressively friendly and seemed to have the single task of getting my contact information as a sales lead. Their knowledge of the products was generally no deeper than what was printed on the promotio…

The correcting mechanism is banning booth babes.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#253

Post by driverdan »

NicheDiver wrote: post #247
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…

I am a self-employed technical female as well but in my case I'm also a semi-recluse so my exposure to such things is greatly limited. Outside of being a developer I'm also known to occasionally fix my own cars and large appliances in lieu of taking them to be repaired. In that context I have experienced similar issues but I chalk it up to people simply not being exposed enough to oddities like me. I am guilty of it…

In case you weren't aware Erica (OP of the parent comment) lives in Austin. The two of you should meet.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#254

Post by melindajb »

balls187 wrote: post #152
melindajb wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that kind of response is exactly what i'm referring to above. I'm a non technical founder and I work literally side by side the same hours as my technical co founder. Maybe at different times, because he's a night owl and a lot of business and marketing stuff can't be done at 3am hopped up on red bull. But the same time. And there was a line of former coworker engineers for the co founder position, so he's not an out…

I expect all founders to work hard. My 5p comment was a joke. I'd be very wary of a founder of an early stage startup that bolted that early. If you want to compare two sides of a founding partnership, the facts is the technical cofounder, early on, is more valuable member of the founding team. Two non-technical co-founders, vs two technical co-founders. Which will have a higher outcome of success? "I've built a prot…

>If you want to compare two sides of a founding partnership, the facts is the technical cofounder, early on, is more valuable member of the founding team.

Hmm. Let's try this on: "if you want to compare two sides of a marriage, the facts are that the wife early on in the more valuable member of the founding team." Nope, doesn't work. There are way, way too many dead "great products" for me to buy that argument.

>-Y Combinator is what, a 3-month bootcamp to teach founders what they need to know about running a startup.

If Y combinator were doing such a fantabulous job of giving technical co founders the basics, their success rate would be much, much higher.

>You can learn a lot about being the non-technical founder by trying your hand at starting a company. The same is not true about writing product.

You can learn a lot about running a company by running one. But you're going to waste a lot of time and money if you've never done it before.

There are also a lot of YC graduates looking for heads of marketing because they've completely cocked it up. If you only knew the kinds of basic dumb ass questions about marketing they don't understand.

I'm not saying it's not possible to do both or that business can't be learned. I am saying the lack of respect towards anyone not a programmer will be the end of the silicon valley species. That's what pushes all new blood out, and what will cause your own downfall.

If you think you will continue to have market power, given that pretty much every VC is begging the government to fix immigration (aka hire more cheap labor), you're delusional. Perhaps having a business co founder who understands economics might be useful at that point.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#255

Post by hueving »

ersii wrote: post #220
hueving wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Please drop the snarky tone, it does not add anything to your comments. To kaitai: I do suggest that you write out the full word instead of abbreviating it to "srsly" - since that makes the comment a lot less interesting and distracts the otherwise insightful comment.

Snark begets snark. When someone just types 'srsly?', it's just an appeal to ridicule.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#256

Post by [deleted] »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #234
onetwofiveten wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you saying here? People who suffer from discrimination should just learn to understand why they get stereotyped and be more tolerant about it? That's extremely self serving and entitled. If you're in a position of privilege, it's up to you to make the effort to treat everyone as fairly as you can. It's up to you to help break down the unfair boundaries that benefit you. It's your responsibility to do that. O…

They're saying that you shouldn't pretend problems don't exist if you want them fixed. Problems like poverty, crime rate, sentencing rate. They are real, they have real effects, they shouldn't be discounted. Arguing that most people aren't in jail is just a way of ignoring the problem.

[deleted]

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#257

Post by onetwofiveten »

Jugurtha wrote: post #240
onetwofiveten wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you saying here? People who suffer from discrimination should just learn to understand why they get stereotyped and be more tolerant about it? That's extremely self serving and entitled. If you're in a position of privilege, it's up to you to make the effort to treat everyone as fairly as you can. It's up to you to help break down the unfair boundaries that benefit you. It's your responsibility to do that. O…

I am saying that most discrimination cases are bullshit. http://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/adalovelace/ She could hack it. In the 19th century. You mean to tell me that women back then had more rights than they do now ? I am saying that if you are an exception, don't be surprised people assume you belong to the norm. If it walks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a dug, it's probably not a shark. If…

Right, so negative discrimination is not important at all, because it's possible to overcome it if you are sufficiently talented? Bullshit! Everyone has to prove themselves in life, but if you make it harder for one group of people to earn respect than another, then that isn't fair at all. If you've had to put up with an unfair life, that doesn't mean it's bad for other people to complain about unfairness.

Anti-discrimination laws only demand fair treatment. Nothing more. Positive discrimination only happens if organisations choose to follow such a policy. Most organisations actually don't want horribly unqualified people, so it's not as big a deal as you make out.

In political arenas having a percentage quota of women actually makes more sense, because political bodies are supposed to represent the people and 50% of people are women. This is predicated on the notion that everyone is more inclined and better able to represent their own gender's perspective. It doesn't seem too controversial to me, it just seems like an extension of the ideas of proportional representation. Where I've seen it, these quotas are on the list of candidates that political parties nominate, not on the list of elected politicians. It's not that people can't vote in who they like, it's about who the party puts up for election, which is something regular people never have a say in anyway.

Cultural expectations are self-fulfilling prophecies. A hundred years ago, a lot of people had very low expectations about what women (or black people) were capable of. They were wrong, but it took a lot of time and effort to make that change. That is what political correctness is about. Political correctness demands superficial changes to how cultural expectation are expressed. It's a case of "fake it 'til you make it". Even if people deep down feel differently, they are asked to suppress it and treat individuals fairly. That way, the next generation of children grow up with a different view of the world than their parents. With each generation we take a step closer to fairness and equality. People like you know just enough to see that political correctness is superficial, but not quite enough to understand why. So you call it out as hypocritical bullshit, even though it has real, practical, achievable aims. Children pick up on the superficial values of the world around them, and that has a deep effect on them. Check out the Clark experiment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqvJp2gXJI0

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#258

Post by balls187 »

melindajb wrote: post #254
balls187 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect all founders to work hard. My 5p comment was a joke. I'd be very wary of a founder of an early stage startup that bolted that early. If you want to compare two sides of a founding partnership, the facts is the technical cofounder, early on, is more valuable member of the founding team. Two non-technical co-founders, vs two technical co-founders. Which will have a higher outcome of success? "I've built a prot…

>If you want to compare two sides of a founding partnership, the facts is the technical cofounder, early on, is more valuable member of the founding team. Hmm. Let's try this on: "if you want to compare two sides of a marriage, the facts are that the wife early on in the more valuable member of the founding team." Nope, doesn't work. There are way, way too many dead "great products" for me to buy that argument. >-Y C…

"We need more non-technical founders."

- Said by no one, ever.

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