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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

#141

Post by garius »

buescher wrote: post #128
mkesper wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CPU was a Z80, that must have been RAM. http://www.s100computers.com/Hardware%20Folder/Vector%20Grap...

No, it looks more like a misunderstanding. The Vector 3 was an 8-bit machine with 64K of RAM. https://web.archive.org/web/20110925031455/http://www.vector... The arrival of the IBM PC (and PC-DOS/MS-DOS) in 1981 was an extinction-level event for the CP/M-based, mostly-Z80-based, 8-bit business microcomputer industry. Vector did not weather it.

Yup.

Downside of how much tech has changed is stuff gets missed in a copy edit because the numbers sound so silly (to modern ears) they assume I haven't screwed up a typo or find/replace.

I'll flag it.

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

#142

Post by vidarh »

ThomPete wrote: post #56
laurex wrote: post #49

It’s not just that she overcame odds as a woman in the tech business that amazes, but that she was so clearly someone who cared about people, and chose to risk her business and reputation more than once to stay true to her values. That’s perhaps even more rare in this industry than being a successful female CEO.

there are no odds as a woman in the tech business. The tech industry is on of the most inclusive industries because it measures talent and value creation not features no one can do anything about

It might well be true that it is "one of the most inclusive", but that does not mean it doesn't also have an extensive history of discrimination.

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

#143

Post by masswerk »

jbellis wrote: post #52
Atreiden wrote: post #34

[flagged]

I couldn't tell you the names of the founders of contemporary PC builders like North Star or Cromemco, either. But that's just because none of them lasted more than a decade or so. Even the founders of Commodore, which was 10x more successful, are not household names.

E.g., Ken Olsen is hardly a household name, founder of DEC, once the second largest and hugely influential computer company, and, while staying modest, then the second richest individual in the US. (If you are using an interactive computer, you're sitting on the shoulders of what DEC built.) Also (among those who do know him) well known for flat hierarchies and his support for a diverse group of employees. (DEC even founded a dedicated bank, which is still in operation, when employees faced problems with applications for mortgages and credits on the free market, often for racial bias.)

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

#144

Post by spopejoy »

Atreiden wrote: post #60
blashyrk wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where's the irony? You'll have to point it out to me. > The deal was taken to the board, but the collective decision was made that it was better to stick with the known quantity that was CP/M for the in-development Vector 4. Because, if you find it relevant what the sex of the board members that made that mistake was, how is that any better than the alleged sexism that McGovern had endured? If you think that, you m…

> Because, if you find it relevant what the sex of the board members that made that mistake was, how is that any better than the alleged sexism that McGovern had endured? You've done some subtle editorializing here to try and make your point stronger, allow me to correct it: > ultimately destroyed by men is not what I wrote, what I wrote is > ultimately destroyed by the men who overrode her decisions and opted to tak…

I don't think the article portrays the decision as disrespectful or disregarding of Lore's opinion, just that they took the wrong bet on the future.

While she says later on that she made a mistake not "forcing" that route following her instinct, I read that as a classic leadership dilemma where your gut says go one way but plenty of data disagrees. She is the visionary in this story, and visionaries often struggle with the hard routes their visions suggest and don't always follow them.

IBM made the opposite bet, against CP/M. This was a bold and risky decision at the time because CP/M was massively dominant in business. It was anything but assured that DOS would win.

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

#145

Post by spopejoy »

chasd00 wrote: post #67
Atreiden wrote: post #34

[flagged]

being married to a person and your job is one marriage too many. Divorce and unhappy relationships are very common when one person becomes obsessed with work and the other is left in the cold.

Sorry but that's just false for a huge number of successful male CEOs who not only have stable marriages with supportive wives, but even that the model of the ideal (male) CEO is one in a stable marriage/with a family as part of the "personal brand."

The hard fact is that many straight men even today are all about supporting their female partners until they actually have to take a back seat. The hostility toward Lore's success displayed by her first husband was the norm overwhelmingly then and still common today.

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

#146

Post by flkiwi »

zer00eyz wrote: post #101
flkiwi wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I appreciate your experience and perspective, but it is simply not mine. If anything, I've gotten the impression that it's somewhat easier for the subordinate having a level of "abstraction" in the form of email/Teams/Zoom/etc., but of course that requires a commitment on my part as a leader to adjust my approach to that environment (and, given it's the environment I've spent the most time in as a leader and as a subordinate, that's easy).

I don't mean this as criticism of anyone, but I feel like this whole multiyear discussion has been confounding for anyone working on any kind of multi-office team because it's such a non-issue in our experience. It has similarly been fascinating to watch the teams in my company that are NOT multioffice struggle with a distributed workforce. People aren't usually good at what they don't know, but, in my experience, a distributed workforce is absolutely something a company can accommodate with the right leaders and leadership.

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

#147

Post by vidarh »

nashashmi wrote: post #139
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…

To the people who keep downvoting this, you should explain why.

Because it's deeply sexist biological essentialism.

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

#148

Post by trimethylpurine »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #127
trimethylpurine wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These assumptions and stats are virtually meaningless. Every human being, man or woman, has unique challenges. Classifying these challenges by sex ignores the vast and more important majority of an individual's fitness for one career or another, or lack there of. More than just encouraging your daughter to study tech or any other career (tech might be saturated), encourage them to learn how to interview aggressively,…

> Every human being, man or woman, has unique challenges. And many people get heaped additional challenges by virtue of their birth group - challenges that are commonly supplied by people whose birth group started at the lowest difficulty level.

Yes. Including homelessness, disease, religious background, language, distance from an opportunity, nationality, sexual orientation, financial stability of their parents, lack of lottery winnings or inheritance, mental acuity or lack there of, mental disorder, physical deformity, and indeed sex. And combinations of those and etc.'s that I didn't think of.

Everyone has countless reasons to fail. Sex is by far among the smallest of those reasons.

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

#149

Post by nashashmi »

vidarh wrote: post #147
nashashmi wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the people who keep downvoting this, you should explain why.

Because it's deeply sexist biological essentialism.

Essentialism! That’s a word I never knew existed.

Perceiving old systems that grew up on essential dedicated roles based on biology as sexist is a modern day bias against old eras that needs its own verbiage: time-ism?

Not to go into debate, but my overall outlook is that certain relational contracts are embedded in the formation of relationships. Drifting from those contracts creates a rift. This isn’t essentialism. This is expectationism.

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

#150

Post by trimethylpurine »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #115
trimethylpurine wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These assumptions and stats are virtually meaningless. Every human being, man or woman, has unique challenges. Classifying these challenges by sex ignores the vast and more important majority of an individual's fitness for one career or another, or lack there of. More than just encouraging your daughter to study tech or any other career (tech might be saturated), encourage them to learn how to interview aggressively,…

> Every human being, man or woman, has unique challenges. Have you faced sex based discrimination, intimidation or othering in your workplace? > ignores the vast and more important majority of an individual's fitness The issue is that the capacity of women is backgrounded to the point that they have to do more to be seen as talented as their male counterparts. I'm sure every woman in tech would love to focus on skill…

Women are kicking ass because they kick ass, not because men are "helping" by viewing them as disabled. Ask any successful woman if she needs your help. Lol. Individuality is more important than your labeling by a huge margin.
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