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Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy
51–60 of 188 posts
Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy
#52This article is largely garbage. Sure, Silicon Valley isn't a "perfect" meritocracy, but it is the most meritocratic of any other place in the world, at least that I've been in. In Japan, and presumably other places in Asia, women are still supposed to include a photograph with their resume, and employers are reluctant to hire married women past a certain age because they feel they will get pregnant and stop working…
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Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy
#53The war on the word "meritocracy" is just weird. You can just watch it bubble up through twitter to large blogs, to wired.
The weird thing about it is the people who hate the word are arguing not against the actual usage -- "people who demonstrate their merit get ahead" -- but against the illiberal definition they've assigned to it: "people who have inherent merit get ahead".
Disclaimer: I'm not familiar with the valley, and if there really are a bunch of young white males with the right "pedigree" who are getting money thrown at them without having demonstrated any real merit, then I withdraw my objection. However, if they're getting money for things that you don't think have merit, like the Nth photo sharing app, then I think it stands.
Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
but it is the most meritocratic of any other place in the world Really? I think most pro sports leagues would give SV a run for it's money in terms of meritocracy.
Look at how hard Jeremy Lin had to fight for a spot on a team. Still lots of bias in pro sports.
I can't tell if you're serious, but Jeremy Lin isn't that good of a player.... He had an amazing run, but over time fell back to earth.
Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy
#55' Helene Ahl found that in business discourse 70 percent of words used to describe entrepreneurs were male-gendered — these included “self-reliant”, “assertive”, “forceful”, “risk-taking”, “self-sufficient”, “leader”, “competitive”, and “ambitious”.' I don't see anything male about any of these words, I know many women who can be accurately described by these words, as well as many men who cannot. Why is the author c…
Regardless of your sex, you're going to have a tough time as a startup founder if you can't embody those qualities. As of yet, there is no affirmative action in startups, so it's put up or get an easier job.
That's the point, no? "male or female, you will only succeed if you can act in these typically male ways, regardless of how good your idea and execution are." Therefore, the tech scene is clearly not judging you solely on your idea and execution as they believe they are.
Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy
#56' Helene Ahl found that in business discourse 70 percent of words used to describe entrepreneurs were male-gendered — these included “self-reliant”, “assertive”, “forceful”, “risk-taking”, “self-sufficient”, “leader”, “competitive”, and “ambitious”.' I don't see anything male about any of these words, I know many women who can be accurately described by these words, as well as many men who cannot. Why is the author c…
I don't think that that was Ahl's intentions when she labelled those terms as 'male-gendered'. I do not believe that she meant they were male-gendered like say.. 'he' or 'him'. Likely, male-genderedness is suppose to mean something along the lines of "without additional information, most people would assume these words refer to a male rather than a female". The point isn't that you can't use these words to describe f…
> "without additional information, most people would assume these words refer to a male rather than a female"
Surely that is the problem. The problem isn't that those traits are seen as desirable or common for entrepreneurs. The problem is the people think those traits can only be found in men.
Particularly the idea that "self-reliance" is a male trait is a classic example of something that feminists have been successfully refuting for decades. It should be very clear that the notion that women cannot be self-reliant is very old fashioned; if that attitude is still present in the bay area, then it needs to be stomped out.
Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy
#57here is the problem with the concept of "meritocracy". What constitutes "merit"? And if you have two orthogonal, meritorious qualities, which is more deserving of advancement, one who is 100%A, 0%B? Or another who is 0%A, 100%B? Who gets to decide?
Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy
#58The same arguments would prove that math isn't a meritocracy. Which it presumably isn't, entirely, but only because nothing is entirely. And if SV is only as much of a meritocracy as math, that's pretty good. Indeed, that's what the word means in ordinary usage.
Way to miss the point and exemplify it in the same breath.
The article is about how SV thinks it's more meritocratic than it actually is and how this false pride is a problem in and of it's own.
P.S. P.G. When this thread started I was almost tempted to make a snide comment saying "3.. 2.. 1.. Flagged off the front page."
It actually took a bit over an hour but it's now indeed been flagged off of the front page despite getting a significant number of upvotes while it was there.
Is that not just another example of allowing a vocal minority (flag-wise) to silence a majority who are apparently interested in discussions like these?
Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy
#59This article is largely garbage. Sure, Silicon Valley isn't a "perfect" meritocracy, but it is the most meritocratic of any other place in the world, at least that I've been in. In Japan, and presumably other places in Asia, women are still supposed to include a photograph with their resume, and employers are reluctant to hire married women past a certain age because they feel they will get pregnant and stop working…
>$100,000 bonus - Haha what? What department/branch of the bank? No way is it IT. Investment? I work at a bank and the most I've gotten was $10k and that's extremely rare for anyone. Hell, making $100k salaries you need to be here for like 15 years. I'm in the wrong fucking field.
I imagine she's not your average finance person. His whole point was that she worked hard, excelled and was recognized for that. It's probably a fairly rare occurrence. Like anything else, bonuses are top-loaded, so if she's near the top of the pile, she'll do very well.
Look around the country and I'm sure you'll find $100k bonuses in a lot of fields. It's not commonplace though.
Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy
#60tl;dr silicon valley isn't the liberal utopia and therefore not a meritocracy.
That presumes liberals are redefining 'merit' such that it's meaningless. While I would not be surprised in the least if that's the case, I have yet to see indications from any liberal thinkers that they'd ever want to base anything on merit. Even a redefined "merit."