Reflections on Being a Female Founder • Hacker News Board

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#271

Post by jmchuster » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 6:55 PM UTC

AdrianB1 wrote: post #238

jmchuster wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compare your best manager and your best engineer, and the manager _does_ contribute multiples more than the engineer does. You take this to the extreme, and the best CEOs in history have added additional billions in value to the companies that they've helmed.

Anecdotal evidence tells otherwise :) Not kidding, in all the companies I worked for, the best engineers were way better contributors than average managers. Just consider that in many companies management is badly hit by diversity targets, they forcibly promote people to meet these targets and competency suffers.

Yes, I would definitely agree that good managers are much rarer than good engineers. Maybe it's because there's an order of magnitude less managers than engineers at a company, so you have less people to emulate and learn from? Maybe it's because engineers are able to use their off-time to improve their own skills, while for management you really only have books and no easy way for applied practice?

And then if we're talking about technical managers and not just CEOs, the literature there is even more limited, since most middle-management in the past has been of known repetitive tasks, rather than more variable more creative work. And it's not like there are schools that can spend four years teaching you how to be a good manager. MBA programs tend to care more about the details of running a business and let the people aspect figure itself out.

So maybe an analogy might be, if all the engineers you hired were self-taught, and if you only had one engineer assigned to each team. Then maybe your average quality of engineer would match your quality of manager.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#272

Post by danielmarkbruce » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 7:05 PM UTC

galoisgirl wrote: post #234

drobert wrote: post #215

We had gender roles because it was the most effective way to survive and raise a family. The cost was that women were assigned rather basic responsibilities. Because tech and services have evolved families can outsource some of the chors done by women in the past like cooking, cleaning. In the case of making babies the the technology is still in development but we will get there. Artificial wombs will be an option in…

> But few women when given the choice would choose to do what she did. Feeding a baby in the car while doing research seems far from desirable for most women I presume. Then the question is why she did it? I'd say the question is why men do it. In The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, all men say "I wish I hadn't worked so hard". (That's the second after "I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the…

Not many people discuss this. I have wondered as you do, "is a large reason there are more male CEOs etc because men as a group make bad life decisions more frequently than women?".

Anyone who has worked for a few years quickly understands that a large factor driving who makes it to the top is: Has said person made the choice to do an insane amount of work for a long time, to the detriment of almost everything else in life.

After working for a few years most people simply decide they don't want that. An educated guess suggests: what is given up + the chances of making it to the very top = bad decision.

(concrete example: Tim Cook - wow his life looks just awful to me, and he "made it" big time.)

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#273

Post by afarrell » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 8:22 PM UTC

Siira wrote: post #230

strictfp wrote: post #221

I'm convinced that the best thing we as society can do for gender equality right now is to abandon the corporate roles that cater unreasonably much to the stereotypical macho male gender role. These are roles which in principle require you to abandon your private life and spend all your mental energy on the company. Why do we even have these roles? Well, according to behavioural psychology males fight for status, and…

Perhaps the current situation is completely okay? Some people sacrifice their leisure to work for something they care about. These tend to be men because of heightened competition. Who are you to dictate their life to satisfy your statistical egalitarianism? This is just bullying.

Slate Star Codex had an excellent essay about this, the nature of races-to-the-bottom, and the harm they cause to human flourishing.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#274

Post by afarrell » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 8:25 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #217

hinkley wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Postmortems often happen because someone ignored a pain point prior to the failure, rather than taking stock and doing some preventative work. The general pattern of pretending everything is ok is one of my least favorite things about tech culture. I was going to say 'tech people' but it's clear that there are people who don't like this pattern either. They tend to self-identify (sometimes privately) when I buck the…

> The general pattern of pretending everything is ok is one of my least favorite things about tech culture. This goes way beyond tech. It is permeating the business world in general and society at large as well. "How are you? Fine!" -> I'm stable and we can do business. VS: "How are you? Well, to be honest I'm having a lousy day, I've been ill for the last three weeks and three of my customers have left." -> This cus…

One problem is that there isn't a social script for saying "I have been having a low-key mental health crisis for the past 18 months" in a way that people don't interpret as a request for help.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#275

Post by afarrell » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 8:26 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #219

belorn wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many times in the article she perceive male founders as stoic machines that regardless of health or mental state would go to work and operate as if nothing is wrong, and then goes to copy that. That is a stereotype that is hurting both men and women, and removing that would resolve a lot of the hardship.

Honestly though, I feel like some of the higher-up men have serious psychopathic issues; if they do show empathy, it comes across as pretended, as a trained tactic to pursue their goals. I've worked with driven managers who didn't have this and in the high-pressure environment they operated in (mostly high pressure to sell and make money, it was in software dev consultancy) ended up overworked and lost 6-12 months of…

> I feel like some of the higher-up men have serious psychopathic issues; if they do show empathy, it comes across as pretended, as a trained tactic to pursue their goals.

Some people need to deliberately practice social skills in order to successfully communicate what they really mean.

> Have people like Zucc, Bezos, or Trump ever taken an extended period of time off because of stress or giving too much of a shit? No, they just fuck off to their resorts, private islands and yachts, do some cocaine or whatever vice they have and shrug it off.

This seems like a statement that would require stronger evidence before I'd build any conclusions on top of it.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#276

Post by afarrell » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 8:31 PM UTC

ifokiedoke wrote: post #125

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…

My own personal experience as a female software developer is that there is pressure from all sides to go into management, and this pressure can come from both ill and good intent. Others have mentioned that it might be because of perceived superior communication skills (good?), or perceived lack of "good-enough" technical skills (bad?)... both of these add to the problem, but I've also experienced that diversity-awar…

> the bar is lowered for going into management

For someone who cares about their work and cares about the impact their work and exercise-of-power has on others... How do you even possibly "lower the bar" of difficulty for being in tech management?

Sure, you can throw someone into it unprepared... but that sounds about as bewildering and miserable as when I was hired as a Senior Engineer a year after graduating from uni.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#277

Post by icelancer » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 8:50 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #200

icelancer wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Really. Say more.

Job required a lot of travel, I have at least one kid, partner works full-time. Got a bunch of questions about my childcare situation, hinting if I was committed to this job (requires long hours), etc. It's pretty standard in this line of work (dominated by men) to worry about men with families, preferring bachelors instead.

Not saying it's acceptable or anything. But it is really common.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#278

Post by _pzdn » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 9:24 PM UTC

galoisgirl wrote: post #265

_pzdn wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was following the time honored HN tradition of posting one line about the article and then taking up a tangent. That might be a practice to do away with. But to be literal, I asked because I wanted to talk about it and not just read about. However that may have been a mistake on my part; this article, found through my search engine, was pretty good: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/08/why-are... Po…

> I was following the time honored HN tradition of posting one line about the article and then taking up a tangent. I don't have too much of a problem with that, it's asking a question you should research first. It's not that I don't want to talk about it either, I just don't want to explain the basics every time. I'm also not an expert on the issue, many people have much more to say on the matter. If I could add som…

> girls are praised for results and boys for effort

This is a sad thing, if true. If true, it does sound very changeable. From the article you linked:

> bright girls believe that their abilities are innate and unchangeable, while bright boys believe that they can develop ability through effort and practice.

Everyone should learn somehow that effort and practice bring about change in behavior and improvement in skill level. It's the only thing that has brought me much level of success, other than birth.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#279

Post by jariel » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 1:29 AM UTC

yomly wrote: post #169

divbzero wrote: post #114

> 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 sho…

Taking a step back from her story, I find it so weird that we stigmatise some of the most universal human experiences. Essentially every person will piss burp fart and poop. And almost every person has one of two genitals. (EDIT and our biological parents will have one of each). And almost every mother will feed their baby with their breasts. And yet we have become so detached from the animal part of our identity and…

"I find it so weird that we stigmatise "

Remember that this was a perception of stigmatisation, not necessarily an actual stigmatised response.

Personally, I don't think people would bat an eye at a mother pumping milk in their car. Among all of my various acquaintances of every stripe, I can't imagine any of the caring, and I've never once in my life ever heard anyone say anything about it.

Once, a mother was 'open breastfeeding' in the middle of a busy restaurant, I didn't say anything or think much about it, but I thought it was odd she was flouting her bare breast smack in the middle of a busy restaurant, I thought a hint of discretion, like a blanket, or being at the corner table facing a wall would be appropriate. I mean, we are 'eating'. I feel as though this woman was perhaps trying to 'make a point'. Not that I really care.

But I just can't see how anyone would be upset or even noticing someone pumping breastmilk in their car or wherever as long as there's a shade of discretion. Even if someone might 'bat an eye' they still probably don't care.

I don't doubt the authors personal feelings one bit, but that someone feels there is a stigma does not necessarily mean there is.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#280

Post by econcon » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 1:54 AM UTC

galoisgirl wrote: post #234

drobert wrote: post #215

We had gender roles because it was the most effective way to survive and raise a family. The cost was that women were assigned rather basic responsibilities. Because tech and services have evolved families can outsource some of the chors done by women in the past like cooking, cleaning. In the case of making babies the the technology is still in development but we will get there. Artificial wombs will be an option in…

> But few women when given the choice would choose to do what she did. Feeding a baby in the car while doing research seems far from desirable for most women I presume. Then the question is why she did it? I'd say the question is why men do it. In The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, all men say "I wish I hadn't worked so hard". (That's the second after "I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the…

>Why do men chose to live a life they regret later?

I was discussing our experiences with my sister, we are only 1 year apart.

She felt very valuable since she turned a teenager and I felt pretty worthless as a guy I had to study hard and achieve the things to become valuable to people around me meanwhile she was already cool for existing (her own words when she compared herself to me) so she never felt any need to hone other skills.

Fast forward, she has less education and success under her belt and I do support her financially as she's my only sister ofc I am not spoon feeding her but I do give her soft corner no matter what she does I must forgive her.

Why did I choose this weird life where I've overworked myself to death - one reason : it's a nice escape from self doubts and insecurities.

Whenever I did choose to relax my mind wandered off to chasing girls where I got rejected 8/10 times and developed significant obsession and skill honing to bed girls, I later succeeded by increasing my chance to 50-50 on any girl I hit on. Sorry, if it sounds rediculous because this is my experience, you might think of me as con artist but it is what it is.

As I got richer I realized, wealth is not what it all hyped to be - my dating prospects definitely increased but not that much to make difference. But now different kind of people started appearing in life who just wanted things from me.

So I switched my focus from wealth building to becoming famous/important and I succeeded by getting plastic surgery + steroid for sculpted Greek god figure and also good diet and sleep this boost my success with women wayyy more than wealth.

Now I go to distant places as a vagabond hipster and get more women interested in me then when I walk out of a fancy car. So what gives?

Thing is it's not just women's attention that's hardwired in me but men also seem to respect guys with hot girlfriends and wealth and also many times people mistake being rich for being intelligent and I am often suprized that people assume this when you can become rich by being ruthless and morally corrupt.