Do Female Executives Drive Start-up Success? • Hacker News Board

Re: Do Female Executives Drive Start-up Success?

#31

Post by drumdance » Thu, Oct 11, 2012, 5:11 AM UTC

groby_b wrote: post #18

richforrester wrote: post #10

Personally, I don't really give a hoot about the gender of who I work with - pleasing aesthetics are nice, but I'd work with Swamp Thing if he'd get the job done. I'm sure there's just as many well spoken, even-keeled men as there are women, and perhaps women do come out of this test better than men. Maybe because they have to work harder to overcome discrimination, maybe because they charm their way into the mainly…

See, it's statements like that which annoy women. What do "pleasing aesthetics" have to do with anything? Why do you even need to refer to that when you talk about women? And then, just for good measure, the good old "she must've slept her way up the ladder" trope. No, I can assure you, we (for the large majority, at the very least) have not "charmed our way into the work force". We've worked pretty damn hard to get…

Men can be charmers too. Sales being the obvious example.

Re: Do Female Executives Drive Start-up Success?

#32

Post by btilly » Thu, Oct 11, 2012, 5:12 AM UTC

carsongross wrote: post #28

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://boingboing.net/2012/09/24/you-might-be-discriminating...

Well, then, I guess my competitors will take advantage of my cognitive disability, eat my lunch, and I'll learn my lesson, won't I?

If you're like most people, the least likely claim, by far, is I'll learn my lesson.

Most of us manage to come up with theories to explain our failures that direct blame away from us, and for any unsuccessful startup there are so many obvious candidate explanations for failure that useful self-examination would take a miracle.

Re: Do Female Executives Drive Start-up Success?

#33

Post by coolswan » Thu, Oct 11, 2012, 5:21 AM UTC

"Startups who have female first hires typically are those with less discriminatory hiring practices. So the effect is not female hires => higher profits, but rather female hires => startup doesn’t discriminate => startup seeks most efficient outcome => maximizes profits."

Re: Do Female Executives Drive Start-up Success?

#34

Post by Crake » Thu, Oct 11, 2012, 5:22 AM UTC

I really doubt it.

Hormonal differences have a large impact on what traits are most commonly found in the "average" woman (or man, depending on what you're looking for), at the very least in regards to increased chance of risk-taking. I think this is pretty firmly established in scientific literature by now. However, any specific person may be above or below another of the opposite sex in any particular category, since the variables are so numerous. Making hiring decisions on the basis of sex would be rather stupid. "You should hire females because we'd like to have more females around" is just as sexist as "you should hire more males because we'd like to have more males around." How about looking for people to hire, instead of specific sets of genitalia?

I also think that technically inclined females sometimes have more in common with technically inclined males than they do with "normal" women. A personality amenable to huddling away comfortably in front of a computer screen with a ton of coffee for long periods of time is probably the most crucial factor to success. That's one of the great things about programming though, it's much more talent-based than it is concerned with biological sex, how much money your parents spent on your degree, or whatever else that shouldn't really be relevant but in too many career fields, is still heavily emphasized.

Re: Do Female Executives Drive Start-up Success?

#35

Post by dmorgan » Thu, Oct 11, 2012, 5:29 AM UTC

groby_b wrote: post #18

richforrester wrote: post #10

Personally, I don't really give a hoot about the gender of who I work with - pleasing aesthetics are nice, but I'd work with Swamp Thing if he'd get the job done. I'm sure there's just as many well spoken, even-keeled men as there are women, and perhaps women do come out of this test better than men. Maybe because they have to work harder to overcome discrimination, maybe because they charm their way into the mainly…

See, it's statements like that which annoy women. What do "pleasing aesthetics" have to do with anything? Why do you even need to refer to that when you talk about women? And then, just for good measure, the good old "she must've slept her way up the ladder" trope. No, I can assure you, we (for the large majority, at the very least) have not "charmed our way into the work force". We've worked pretty damn hard to get…

>See, it's statements like that which annoy women. What do "pleasing aesthetics" have to do with anything? Why do you even need to refer to that when you talk about women?

Because he cares about it. What's YOUR problem?

Re: Do Female Executives Drive Start-up Success?

#36

Post by carsongross » Thu, Oct 11, 2012, 5:44 AM UTC

btilly wrote: post #32

carsongross wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, then, I guess my competitors will take advantage of my cognitive disability, eat my lunch, and I'll learn my lesson, won't I?

If you're like most people, the least likely claim, by far, is I'll learn my lesson. Most of us manage to come up with theories to explain our failures that direct blame away from us, and for any unsuccessful startup there are so many obvious candidate explanations for failure that useful self-examination would take a miracle.

Does this apply to women as well?

Re: Do Female Executives Drive Start-up Success?

#37

Post by btilly » Thu, Oct 11, 2012, 5:51 AM UTC

carsongross wrote: post #36

btilly wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're like most people, the least likely claim, by far, is I'll learn my lesson. Most of us manage to come up with theories to explain our failures that direct blame away from us, and for any unsuccessful startup there are so many obvious candidate explanations for failure that useful self-examination would take a miracle.

Does this apply to women as well?

As far as I know, yes.

Re: Do Female Executives Drive Start-up Success?

#38

Post by alid » Thu, Oct 11, 2012, 5:54 AM UTC

That people are even questioning the value of a person's input based on their sex is a form of subconscious discrimination. The title of this thread - 'Do female executives drive start-up success?' - is a polemic, dichotomous question, inferring a yes/no response. To invert the scenario, it would be intriguing to see the voracity of comments harnessed from an article entitled 'Do male executives drive start-up failure?' - rather absurd, oui?

I leave you with this thought - diversity, in all its forms, is a strength in business and in life.

Re: Do Female Executives Drive Start-up Success?

#39

Post by Jun8 » Thu, Oct 11, 2012, 6:07 AM UTC

btilly wrote: post #27

Jun8 wrote: post #11

One thing that annoyed me (and it's typical of writing on gender and racial issues) is that he bends over backwards to state, effectively, "not that having women execs don't drive success". This hyper-careful threading brings to mind the famous Seinfeld "not that there's anything wrong with that" episode ("The Outing"). My approach in these matters is Bayesian: Do having female, black, Asian, Indian, etc. executives…

Yeah, I know it is cool to throw the word Bayesian around. But it is a lot cooler when it is done by someone who actually knows enough about statistics to be making sense. You clearly don't. Adding your comments about the sloppiness of others makes it just ridiculous. First of all 50/50 "better", "equal" is not a valid Bayesian prior. Here is a simple litmus test to demonstrate that. If you have a valid prior, then y…

So, by throwing big words around and pretending to be an expert I gained a few karma points, fantastic. Please don't get so worked up about sloppy posts and "attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" :-)

The 0.5 prior thing was an irrelevant use of the principle of indifference. What I really had in mind was a situation with the null hypothesis that having early women on board has no effect on the success rate of a startup whereas H_1 would be that they do have an effect. However, from my description I think what came out was a prior of the kind P(success | women).

Without using any terminology, intuitively the point I was trying to make (ineptly, as you point out) was this: the likelihood that I assign to the statement that "having women early in a startup increases its succeed rate" is very low, I need to see many cases, form startups working on diverse areas for me to update my likelihood value for this. Why? Because I don't think that a subset of population selected with no clear connection to success will affect the success of a startup. Clearly, if the selection has some obvious connection, e.g. coming from a highly educated family, being good in programming, etc. then it will affect success. It's just not clear to me how being a female or black or gay or Indian, etc. has such a connection. I may, of course, be wrong.

And what about the irony of me calling the kettle black: I don't hold my HN posts to the same standard as research reports from a major company.

Re: Do Female Executives Drive Start-up Success?

#40

Post by littlegiantcap » Thu, Oct 11, 2012, 6:23 AM UTC

alid wrote: post #38

That people are even questioning the value of a person's input based on their sex is a form of subconscious discrimination. The title of this thread - 'Do female executives drive start-up success?' - is a polemic, dichotomous question, inferring a yes/no response. To invert the scenario, it would be intriguing to see the voracity of comments harnessed from an article entitled 'Do male executives drive start-up failur…

Diversity for diversity's sake is an empty gesture. Not only that, but diversity for diversities sake is demeaning. I love startups. One of the reason is that when I was in school I despised the political correctness of large, bureaucratic institutions. We exist in a meritocracy, and when success in a startup is already so difficult, anything less than choosing a team based on merit is making an already difficult task damn near impossible.