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Reflections on Being a Female Founder

tracy.posthaven.com

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Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#111

Post by dpoochieni »

roenxi wrote: post #83
satyrnein wrote: post #38

I wish there were a clear bad guy here, but most of the hardship seems to have been caused by more diffuse social pressures. What could we have done as an industry to improve the author's experience? Maybe just having more female founders around in general (by removing any barriers) would make some of these circumstances more commonplace.

I'll be even worse and note that this is a story that is fundamentally about a woman achieving reproductive success - and it sounds pretty miserable. The male version of this story is something like how much easier it is to sleep with an attractive women because a CEO title is perceived as high status. Most people shape their lives around having a family - the incentives here are not favourable for females seeking ou…

This so much! I had a girlfriend, now friend, which is terribly successful and attractive and she regrets it all saying maybe it would have been better to focus on a family early on. She still has a very good chance in doing so, but clearly thinks it would have been better to use her 20s doing that and didn't do it because of the pressure to be a career woman in her circles and educational experiences.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#112

Post by closeparen »

hinkley wrote: post #95
jjoonathan wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the root cause is probably that raising VC depends on keeping up appearances.

Why is it that everyone wants to be manipulated. "Shooting the messenger" may looks like it hurts the other guy more but I've seen it screw up entire reporting hierarchies. By the time things go off the rails nobody higher than a level 1 manager has any damn clue what really happened, although they think they do based on the misinformation they've been fed.

Keynesian beauty contest? A VC may personally appreciate a member of his portfolio showing weakness, but also assume that his peers won't.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#113

Post by dpoochieni »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #71
eyerony wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Women I know who wrote software kept finding new roles where they'd be in management instead and then they moan that they liked writing code and miss it. Maybe that tells us that sexism in software development is prevalent and they wanted out, which is no fault of theirs, and maybe they just wanted more money - but it definitely sucks overall. I secretly (well not in this moment but ordinarily secret) consider wome…

Possible for a bunch of reasons that women in the field tend to be more assertive and have better communications skills. Those are primary management skills.

Yeah agreed, IME women, in average, have better communication and social skills than men, in average, and as you say those are what middle management is mostly made of.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#114

Post by divbzero »

> On some days, I would park my car on a sleepy street in Palo Alto and pump milk with a silicone hand pump in front of someone’s nice house, reading profiles of the investors in my next meeting from my iPhone. Occasionally someone would drive up, or a jogger would run by, and I would feel completely humiliated.

This is just a small bit of everything Tracy wrote. But I would love to see this stigma changed. There should be no shame in caring for your child.

Thank you for sharing your story.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#115

Post by WalterBright »

_7fvc wrote: post #98

I started a company 8 years ago. I went through startup literature. I tried to follow the advices. We got our product going for 2 years. But we couldn't make it big. We eventually transitioned to contracting work. We were basically working for a bigger company. Except we had the freedom to work from home. We're about to fold during this pandemic. I'm happy with the choices I made. My take away lesson is most of the s…

The pattern that matches best is "making a fat profit".

A real estate agent told me once that a client has decided whether he wants to buy the house or not before he opens the front door.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#116

Post by marcinzm »

mrkurt wrote: post #86
ddevault wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Women I know who wrote software kept finding new roles where they'd be in management instead and then they moan that they liked writing code and miss it. I hear this a lot from men, too. We have a general problem in the industry of being bad at making senior engineering a rewarding career track.

Right. We glamorize "management" in every way, even going so far as to label devs "individual contributors". As if they only contribute 1x while managers contribute multiples. I have this gut wrenching feeling that tech companies just can't be fixed. There's way too much that has to change and the powerful people don't have much incentive to do the work.

I mean, this is an issue in every company on the planet, not sure why you single out tech. If anything large tech companies have the best IC paths out there.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#117

Post by victoriasun »

geebee wrote: post #99
tptacek wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You write "(or man)", but of course, it's not, really. My wife was asked in multiple interviews about her children and how she planned to care for them while working full-time. I've never even heard of a man being asked that. At any rate, someone else's child care arrangements are absolutely none of your business, and this isn't a reasonable point to make on this thread.

I don't think they're supposed to ask about that - I believe that kind of question can be legally actionable. You're probably correct that employers assume these things won't be an issue for men - though I did read a paper (sorry no cite) that found employers are unusually punitive toward the relatively small number men who scale back for child care. It's the flip side of the assumption they won't be taking time off…

It is legally actionable but it is unfortunately very difficult to actually prosecute. Lawyers are not really incentivized to take on discrimination cases as they are generally difficult to prove and don't pay out well.

As an aside, during my very first job as a junior (female, 21) engineer, an executive told me, unprompted, that I would end my career by the age of 30 to focus on having children. Ironically enough, he was not entirely wrong; I've been quite lucky to have a successful career in corporate settings, but after a constant barrage of comments like these, being inappropriately approached (read: hit on) by both co-workers and managers, and twice now inappropriately touched by co-workers who received no punishment for their behavior (in fact, I was asked to keep said sexual harassment quiet "for the good of the team"), I am indeed leaving these corporate settings to pursue a path on my own. So his prediction came true, although not for the reason he predicted :)

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#118

Post by icelancer »

tptacek wrote: post #96
umvi wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, when I hear that a woman (or man) with kids is running a startup, I think "that kid isn't going to have the full attention of that parent..." Especially when I read stuff like: > I pressured myself into proving that I was as dedicated to PlanGrid as I always have been. I interpret that phrase as "...at the expense of dedication to my kid". I personally think it's okay to "be less dedicated" to work in ord…

You write "(or man)", but of course, it's not, really. My wife was asked in multiple interviews about her children and how she planned to care for them while working full-time. I've never even heard of a man being asked that. At any rate, someone else's child care arrangements are absolutely none of your business, and this isn't a reasonable point to make on this thread.

I was regularly in my last round of interviews, and I'm a man. Shrug.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#119

Post by freshhawk »

eyerony wrote: post #58
tialaramex wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that bugs me: Women I know who wrote software kept finding new roles where they'd be in management instead and then they moan that they liked writing code and miss it. Maybe that tells us that sexism in software development is prevalent and they wanted out, which is no fault of theirs, and maybe they just wanted more money - but it definitely sucks overall. I find blind technical interviewing easy because I…

> Women I know who wrote software kept finding new roles where they'd be in management instead and then they moan that they liked writing code and miss it. Maybe that tells us that sexism in software development is prevalent and they wanted out, which is no fault of theirs, and maybe they just wanted more money - but it definitely sucks overall. I secretly (well not in this moment but ordinarily secret) consider wome…

Seems more likely that you have two groups here: one that needed to be very politically aware to get there, and one that didn't.

So yeah, the one that had to fight political fights to even end up in the industry are going to be better, on average, than the ones who got welcomed in.

If there was a concerted effort to keep men out of software you would notice that the men still in software were very aware of the political/power dynamics around them real quick. Because the rest would be somewhere else.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#120

Post by toadi »

_7fvc wrote: post #98

I started a company 8 years ago. I went through startup literature. I tried to follow the advices. We got our product going for 2 years. But we couldn't make it big. We eventually transitioned to contracting work. We were basically working for a bigger company. Except we had the freedom to work from home. We're about to fold during this pandemic. I'm happy with the choices I made. My take away lesson is most of the s…

Seems like most people cargo cult companies together or even keep big companies running by cargo culting. Getting praised if they are successful but it''s maybe not on purpose they got successful.
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