661–670 of 1001 posts
Being a CEO or entrepreneur is not easy for anyone, but victim mentality doesn’t make it any easier for yourself.
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What is described in the article isn't sexism - it's fear. Fear of being labeled as a sexist.
Its treating people different based on gender. It depends very much on semantics whether you call that sexism. It is certainly not the form of sexism that people these days are most worried about.
It is treating people differently based on the damage that they can do to you. Generally a woman accusing you of being sexist is will do more damage than a man doing the same (not universally, but usually). So while the outcome is equivalent the decision is based on the very real threat, not the gender.
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There are better and worse ways to communicate, sure. But fundamentally, you cannot control how people interpret the words that you say.
I disagree. Effective communication requires effort, but many people speak impulsively and fail to convey what they actually mean. If someone is unable to clearly express themselves without being misunderstood then either their thoughts need to be distilled further or the statement needs to be carefully worded. If I am not responsible for how people interpret my words, who is?
Not everyone that you speak to is objective or level headed.
Maybe they're low-sugar and crashing. Maybe their dog just died.
You have absolutely no way to prepare for all of the ways someone will be ill-equpped to handle their day. And this is probably a high percentage of people at any given time.
But we can't afford a society where everyone treads on egg shells.
This article is actually a very strong argument for diversity in boards.
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In the public sphere the risk/reward is quite different. What you are talking about is relatively private.
It's not a public vs private thing. I've been in plenty of panel discussions where I have offered advice to female founders publicly. I was in a semi-open mentoring session just a few days ago when I did so. In fact, I've been called out in the pas for not being sensitive to women's perspectives. (No twitter mobs, thankfully) Giving good feedback is a skill. Giving good feedback to people of different races, genders,…
Regardless, I do believe you aren't properly weighing the cost/benefit or risk/reward properly in public v private situations. One can have all the skills in the world, it isn't going to get the risk to zero. And if the reward is little, it doesn't add up for many folks.
I'm not a public person so I'm speculating.
There are many types of founders out there but two stand out: those who do a lot and don’t really sell themselves, and those that sell all the time but never execute (you see them posting. lot of pitch competition wins, necker island visit, private jets, etc) . The former you can see year over year chugging along, iterating quietly, making sure unit economics work, etc. The female founder groups have many people who have been clearly iterating on their projects for years, trying to bootstrap and not have to ask for permission, because it never comes or it comes with bad terms. Then just ask how many of them have seen competitors raise millions on a promise and the floodgates will open. The competitors have a lot of confidence and usually little to no experience or genuine insight. Not sure if that needs to be called or sexism, because Dunning–Kruger makes a lot more sense. The problem is when investors buy it.
On Clubhouse a few months ago, a well known investor said the pandemic has leveled the playing field between charismatic bravado driven founders and those who have execution strengths (the charisma doesn’t do so well via Zoom). So now investors who interview entirely online get to ask more substantive questions and not be swayed by confidence as much. Not sure how much that lasts during reopening, but one can hope.
The payout matrix for "give honest advice / don't give honest advice" has changed, radically. Then some people noticed that, and then their behavior changed to match. It isn't punishing anyone, it's adaptation to a new risk. The "Pence Fence" is a defensive strategem and it didn't arise in a vacuum. It is a costly defense, too, so it being kept up is likely worth the cost to mitigate the risk. Most of what comes afte…
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A lot of Americans of any gender would be put off by a lot of very routine and candid professional communications that happen in Germany. I find American English in general to be tending toward the near universal avoidance of direct speech and statements, independent of speaker/listener identity. Importantly the speaker and listener are not consciously aware of this happening. The net result is that you can say liter…
How does this play out in American companies with lots of employees from Europe and other places?
> I’m not going to suggest a solution to the problem of men clamming up. This is more of a public service announcement than anything else. Is there a solution, though? How do we work around this? I think most of us would like to reach a point where none of this is a concern, and we can just get on with working—yet the prospect of a future without sexism almost seems hopelessly optimistic. Is this just one of those pr…
The problem isn't sexism/racism/etc per-se, and more the current culture of airing dirty laundry in public, amplified by hungry mobs and social media companies who profit off the resulting dumpster fire ("engagement" as they call it). Furthermore, beyond the media (whether social media or traditional media - print, TV, etc) industry profiting off it, some people's careers are entirely based on this problem persisting…
I see the latter as a mere symptom of the former—that is, the angry mob is a side effect of the rampant discrimination. It’s certainly not limited to tech, although I’m sure each industry experiences it differently.
> Nowadays however, it's commonplace to turn it into dirty laundry and air it on social media and wait for the mob to jump in, which also allows false accusations and witch hunts to emerge.
Perhaps, but that all goes away if discrimination is eliminated from our culture. And make no mistake—it’s rampant. It’s not specific to any single industry or country.
What’s curious is that although the specifics of any given case of discrimination are often disputed, there does seem to be a general consensus that it’s an issue. We might not all agree on what constitutes discrimination, but most of us acknowledge that it’s a major social issue for the entirety of humanity. Yet, despite this acknowledgement, we’ve never really found a solution other than, “educate people and wait a few generations.”
We’ve found ways to combat pandemics in ways our ancestors thought impossible. We’ve found ways to travel to the moon. We’ve found ways to communicate instantaneously across the world. Yet imagining such a casual solution to social issues seems to be naïvely optimistic at best, delusional at worst.
Who will be the Gutenberg or Pasteur of our social revolution? I’ve come to expect amazing things from humanity; I’m sure we can pull it off again.
Perhaps male advisers who are worried about such things could ensure they have a female co-adviser they can have frank conversations with. Why should it fall on one investor to tell the founder that they shouldn't be CEO? This article is actually a very strong argument for diversity in boards.