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Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

venturebeat.com

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Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#381

Post by runako »

Manuel_D wrote: post #365
runako wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can’t freeze out white males simple because they are white males. I agree with this. However, I have been working in tech for quite some time now, and I have not seen any place where white males have been frozen out of employment or funding. More typically, in my personal experience, they represent most of the staff and leadership and materially all of institutional funding recipients. Perhaps my experience is…

I have. In April 2019, when I worked at Dropbox, we instituted what we called "Opportunistic Hiring". 20 heads were reserved to hire "opportunistically". What this meant is that when a diverse candidate was hired, the headcount used for that hire didn't come from the team's headcount. It came from the pool of headcount for "opportunistic hires". Unless the "opportunistic hires" pool was already exhausted, then a dive…

Reading your description of the policy, it looks like what it does is say a team can hire from the "Opportunistic" bucket for "free," but does not freeze out anybody else. Is that a correct read?

> 20 heads were reserved

I have not studied Dropbox extensively. In 2019, was 20 hires roughly equivalent to the total overall number of new hires? Or are we talking about a small percentage of overall new staffers? If the latter, how does this anecdote respond to my statements?

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#382

Post by runako »

Manuel_D wrote: post #364
runako wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/inclusion-equity-dive... https://www.axios.com/2024/04/02/dei-backlash-diversity etc. There is a backlash underway against any effort to expand workplace diversity beyond the representative fractions circa 1990.

If there's a field that's 80% women and 20% men, is setting a DEI target of 40% men preventing sexism? Or is it perpetrating sexism?

Nobody can manage anything with this little information. A KPI set at a particular value cannot tell why the KPI has that value. Thus without more information, your hypothetical is not productive.

An illustration by way of example. In a field where other firms have a range of net profit margins of 35% - 45%, one firm sets their net profit target at 10%. Is that because they are not competitive?

Another illustration by way of example. In a field where other firms have a range of revenue per employee of $200k - $300k, one firm has no RPE target at all and its revenue per employee is $15k. Is that worth examining?

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#383

Post by ndriscoll »

CalRobert wrote: post #251
gramie wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, we consider a marriage successful if it ends in the death of one of the partners.

Is this still true? If I knew a couple that had a great ten years but then decided that it was time to part ways on friendly terms for whatever reason, maybe continue being great coparents, I'm not sure I'd consider it unsuccessful.

This roughly describes my parents. Speaking from the perspective of the child, I'd say that is probably not success. It's probably closer to lots of acute behavioral issues along with some lifelong damage.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#384

Post by _05hb »

tptacek wrote: post #339
jimbokun wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point, some one has to sit down and write or debug the code. It's never going to be as human oriented as something like teaching, being a therapist, or managing people full time.

It's more human oriented than writing math proofs! Why is the gap between those two fields double digit percentage points?

Math proofs only need to convince other people. Programs need to convince a compiler. If compilers were people and you talked to them for the first time, the only reasonable response would be to call them assholes and find new friends. The field of mathematics doesn’t have an equivalent of the “Norway Problem.”

Here’s my theory. Learning how to write code causes damage to the mind, particularly in the area of how you relate to other people. When we’re learning to code, men and women both notice this happening, but men care less. Women, on the other hand, tend to think, “this is bad and I should stop.”

It’s hard to become a programmer without becoming a weirdo in the process, and women have a lot more to lose by becoming weirdos. If we knew how to learn programming without the mind damage -- if we could figure out how to allow learners to skip the “coal face” of spending long hours into the night talking to a compiler -- then that would solve the gender imbalance.

Just my theory. For a good long stretch I thought the explanation was that tech compensation wasn't actually all that great compared to what women could earn in other fields, and then the explosive comp growth of the mid-late 2010s happened and I've been wondering about what is the problem ever since.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#385

Post by Manuel_D »

runako wrote: post #381
Manuel_D wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have. In April 2019, when I worked at Dropbox, we instituted what we called "Opportunistic Hiring". 20 heads were reserved to hire "opportunistically". What this meant is that when a diverse candidate was hired, the headcount used for that hire didn't come from the team's headcount. It came from the pool of headcount for "opportunistic hires". Unless the "opportunistic hires" pool was already exhausted, then a dive…

Reading your description of the policy, it looks like what it does is say a team can hire from the "Opportunistic" bucket for "free," but does not freeze out anybody else. Is that a correct read? > 20 heads were reserved I have not studied Dropbox extensively. In 2019, was 20 hires roughly equivalent to the total overall number of new hires? Or are we talking about a small percentage of overall new staffers? If the l…

It's explicit denial of employment on the basis of race and gender. It's illegal no matter what proportion of the headcount this is.

If I have 100 headcount and I say "20 of our headcount is off limits to white and Asian men" is that ok? If I have 80 headcount and I create 20 "opportunistic" headcount exclusive to women and URM is that acceptable? You're smart enough to understand that these are identical policies.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#386

Post by Manuel_D »

runako wrote: post #382
Manuel_D wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's a field that's 80% women and 20% men, is setting a DEI target of 40% men preventing sexism? Or is it perpetrating sexism?

Nobody can manage anything with this little information. A KPI set at a particular value cannot tell why the KPI has that value. Thus without more information, your hypothetical is not productive. An illustration by way of example. In a field where other firms have a range of net profit margins of 35% - 45%, one firm sets their net profit target at 10%. Is that because they are not competitive? Another illustration b…

> Nobody can manage anything with this little information.

I can! Unless you have some reason to believe that one gender is superior at the job than the other, it should match the representation of the field.

> In a field where other firms have a range of net profit margins of 35% - 45%, one firm sets their net profit target at 10%. Is that because they are not competitive?

Net profit margin is not a protected class. Race and gender are.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#388

Post by cudgy »

jimbokun wrote: post #292
strikelaserclaw wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

once interests rate went up all DEI initiatives dried up - these companies don't really have integrity or beliefs beyond doing what is politically correct at the current time.

Almost as if they are organizations formed around the goal of optimizing profits, and not the general benefit of society.

Then what use are they?

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#389

Post by cudgy »

specialist wrote: post #207
TrueGeek wrote: post #66

Better article with more information: https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2024/07/08/girls-... > In an email Monday, founder and CEO Adriana Gascoigne said “Girls in Tech will be closing its doors due to a lack of funding in 2023 and 2024.”

Funding for many, many worthy orgs crashed with COVID-19, and has barely recovered. From the outside looking in, it seems the whole administrative capacity (ecology) of the fund raising world just dried up and needs to be rebuilt.

Perhaps the administrative capacity dried up with the lack of free money once interest rates rose?
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