
Silicon Valley Could Learn a Lot From Skater Culture, Just Not Meritocracy - wallflower
http://www.wired.com/2015/02/silicon-valley-thinks-can-learn-skater-culture-terrible-idea
======
smoyer
Gasp! I knew girls with hair like that ... and I hung out with girls that
skated (and did BMX and gymnastics). Judged by the timing, I must be about the
same age as Ms. Siera and it's kind of an amazing parallel universe in some
ways (I had an injury I never recovered from enough to return to the so-called
"extreme sports").

In any case, I'm old (yeah ... I said it) now and definitely agree that we
need more diversity in our tech work-places. We have an additional problem as
our applicant pool is extremely homogeneous. How do we fix that?

~~~
m-photonic
"When I'm hiring, I have an HR intern (or the external recruiter) strip
anything that could indicate gender or race from the résumés before they get
their initial evaluation. For the ones that make the first cut, I have the
recruiter print out code from Github, with the username redacted. This has
resulted in a tremendous increase in the number of women who make it through
to an actual interview."

[https://devmynd.com/blog/2015-2-mind-the-
gap](https://devmynd.com/blog/2015-2-mind-the-gap)

~~~
Anderkent
Show us the data. Unless you believe an average woman is better at the job
than the average man, stripping all gender / race information should at best
bring it up to the baseline; with the huge skew at the college level (maybe
10% of my year at graduation were women) this doesn't really result in a
'tremendous increase in the number of women'.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Wish I could upvote twice. Very important insight, and one that is constantly
missed in gender discussions. One shouldn't expect any change downstream to
suddenly cancel out the effects of something high upstream. BTW. the huge skew
at college level seems to be a result of a skew in as early as high-school, or
maybe even earlier. [0] has an interesting discussion on the topic.

[0] - [http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/24/perceptions-of-
required...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/24/perceptions-of-required-
ability-act-as-a-proxy-for-actual-required-ability-in-explaining-the-gender-
gap/)

~~~
PeterisP
You can get a reversal effect by self-selection.

Let's assume a simplified model of reality that has exactly two biased filters
- an "upstream" bias that causes the pool of qualified candidates to contain
only (as an assumed example) 10% women, and a "downstream" bias that causes
qualified women candidates to disproportionally not get chosen or get worse
offers, that results in a majority of companies hiring only (again, assumed
example) 5% women.

If your company gets publicly known for hiring fairly, avoiding the second
filter, then it may actually result in an effect that would "cancel out the
effects of something high upstream" \- simply because qualified women
candidates may preferentially choose to apply at your organization, and _your_
pool of candidates may contain significantly more qualified women developers
than the national average, and thus also the people you hire would contain
more qualified women developers than the national average.

A company with a reputation "if you're of group X, you'll hate it here" can
have a perfectly fair hiring process, but still won't get much of group X
simply because they will avoid that organization. An organization like Ku klux
klan doesn't really need to do racial discrimination when hiring as most black
people simply won't apply.

A fair hiring process would result in a proportion of women employees that
generally matches the proportion of qualified women applicants, but the
proportion of women among qualified applicants may vary significantly between
different companies.

~~~
sokoloff
It doesn't even need that feedback-to-candidates loop to work.

Imagine that the female population of developers is 10%, that they exhibit in
every way a performance distribution equal to males in job and interviewing
performance, but that every company except yours is half as likely to hire a
female candidate as the straight odds would suggest.

The candidate pool as experienced by all companies would consist of more than
10% females (as they would need to apply to twice as many places on average)
and the average quality of the female candidate may well be higher than the
average male candidate because of the adverse selection at play. (Qualified
female candidates are being preferentially passed up in favor of inferior male
candidates, leaving the residual female candidate pool more talent-rich than
the male pool.)

------
chapel
Having read the post, I feel the title here doesn't do it justice. It is also
missing half of the title.

Title on HN at time of comment: "Silicon Valley Could Learn a Lot from Skater
Culture"

As far as the article, I wasn't aware of the schism in the 80s around
skateboarding culture. I was too young, but even looking back through
documentaries and other media about the history, it seems to have been revised
to ignore it.

I think the article is overall positive, in that there are things to learn so
long as we don't ignore the context and the bad side of what has happened in
the past.

~~~
sctb
We expanded the submitted title a bit. We're open to suggestions for a better
one.

------
jt2190
Not to get too far off topic, but the linked opinion piece got me wondering if
any games attempt to model a shift from an open/inclusive culture to a
closed/exclusive one, and I found this:

    
    
      > Mao... is a card game... in which the aim is to get rid 
      > of all of the cards in hand without breaking certain 
      > unspoken rules. The game forbids its players from 
      > explaining the rules, and new players are often told 
      > only "the only rule you may be told is this one"... 
      > Specifics are discovered through trial and error. A 
      > player who breaks a rule is penalized by being given 
      > an additional card from the deck. The person giving 
      > the penalty must state what the incorrect action was,
      > without explaining the rule that was broken.
    

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_(card_game)](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_\(card_game\))

(edit: Yeah, this is way too off topic. ;-) More generally, I was thinking
about how the system of marketing skateboarding somehow optimized around young
males. From a financial perspective it might make sense for a young, hungry
company go after what appeared to be their most profitable market. On the
other hand, by focusing so hard on serving one group, they may have failed to
nurture a larger, more diverse marketplace.)

~~~
lmm
The experience of playing Mao is just the opposite: you start off as a
foreigner, with no understanding of what's going on, and you accumulate large
numbers of cards. Gradually you start to understand, become part of the group.
In the end you're able to turn the system to your own ends (or, equivalently,
you are captured by the system), becoming one of the ruling class yourself.

(I understand it's partly an allegory for the authoritarian Chinese regime:
the rules are pointless, everyone knows they're pointless, but as you engage
with the system you start to have an interest in the rules being followed, and
in the end you use the rules to enhance your own status at the expense of
naïve newcomers).

------
neves
Hey, I was craving for Kathy Sierra writing since Creating Passionate Users:
[http://headrush.typepad.com/](http://headrush.typepad.com/)

~~~
mahmud
Sierra is a genius. I have been developing for 12+ years when I read her
design patterns book for "newbies", and I learned something from every page.

~~~
wallflower
In case you were not aware, Kathy Sierra has a new book!

[http://www.amazon.com/Badass-Making-Awesome-Kathy-
Sierra/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Badass-Making-Awesome-Kathy-
Sierra/dp/1491919019/)

~~~
tomjen3
Not available on the Kindle?

How is that making your users awesome?

------
shanemhansen
The best part of the article was "skateistan". I'd love to learn more about
how skating became so popular with women in Afghanistan.

~~~
leejo
Then pick up a copy of the Skateistan book:
[http://skateistan.org/book](http://skateistan.org/book) # 100% of the profits
go back to Skateistan.

------
famousactress
Of course, but this is probably true on some level about nearly every sport or
physical activity. Sports probably provide interesting models for individual
and tribal innovation, and something resembling a fairly clean meritocracy...
before a culture gets layered on top of that which puts up nasty guard rails
and biases.

I don't think we have to worry about SV emulating that, it already resembles
that model quite thoroughly. Fortunately I do think the conversation about how
to resolve what distracts from merit in our industry is at least in the
beginnings of happening.

I don't think it's reasonable to say that nothing to learn from or even
emulate about an (admittedly deeply) flawed culture.

~~~
goodmornings
Note that sports didn't really aspire to be a meritocracy before
professionalism. The most meritocratic sports combine inclusiveness with
professionalism i.e. a lot of people can enter the sport and the best are
recognized as such. Programming often favors amateurism[0] like open source,
side projects and being "the right kind of nerdy", while at the same being
elitist in regard to things like education.

I also think a lot of the problems in regard to equality are latent effects of
many who got started in the early days of the personal computer did so because
of their dad [1] (and that gender roles where much stricter at the time).

[0] Which isn't necessarily about skill, while it do tend to change the
meaning of skill.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7677309](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7677309)

------
pakled_engineer
True skate culture is about sharing, when one of you gets sponsored and can
afford to build pipes and new equip you invite everybody down and sometimes
give skate partners struggling money so they can afford to skate F/T and get
into comps with you. Never been about meritocracy that I remember only when
guys like Shaun White showed up and built private only pipes, ditched friends
to hang out in VIP lounges ect.

Skating empty pools listening to TSOL none of us were anything but friends who
supported each other and were friends first and business after, I guess this
would be the last thing you would want in business/startup culture. There were
always women around skating and snowboarding with us too I don't get any of
this article it certainly wasn't like this, W Coast circa early90s til now.

One of our best friends was a sponsored female snowboarder who would pay for
all of us to come heliskiing and boarding with her all season long, even the
friends who couldn't ride for shit came too because true skateboarding
culture.I don't see this working at all in the business unless you run a lab
similar to MIT back in the Stallman days and are willing to put the community
and friends above profits which seems like a good way to kill any business.

------
taurath
Wasn't that the exact same thing that happened with games marketing?

Its amazing to me how many cultural effects are coming out now from the types
of ads that people watched growing up - ads that shaped people's behaviors
(skating is for GUYS ONLY, gaming is for ONLY COOL DUDES). As advertising has
gotten more and more adept at getting into people's heads and being much more
subtly (or not, if you know what to look for) psychological, I wonder what
cultural effects we'll be feeling in the next 5, 10 years.

Anyone know of any egregious examples of advertisers trying to establish a
cultural norm around their industry?

------
stolio
It's really not sexism that freestyle went out of fashion. All the guys that
did freestyle were left behind, too. They were also laughed at and ridiculed.
The only reason Rodney Mullen kept his career going is he learned to skate
street and he did it really well. If one of the female freestylers had done
the same I'm sure the sport would look different.

It really frustrates me that the author complains skateboarding isn't/wasn't a
meritocracy. Number one, when it was one and the sport became more dangerous
and athletic, the girls couldn't keep up. Number two, it isn't a meritocracy
anymore because there are 'girls only' competitions where girls are sheltered
from having to compete with the boys but they still get prize money and gold
medals. If you compare a girl and a guy skater at the same skill level the
girl will have more money and opportunities coming in.

I don't think she really wants skateboarding to be a meritocracy, she doesn't
want the pro female skateboarders to lose their sponsorships because there are
hundreds of guys who are better than them who are looking for sponsorships.
Unless she wants to redefine the merit of a skateboarder as the ability to
convince people to buy things. That's problematic as well. If we're being
honest, doing stupid and dangerous things is largely the domain of young dudes
and that's why they're a better target audience to sell skateboards to.

But this is our current culture, calling things sexism sells.

(edit: it's really disappointing to see this catching downvotes.)

~~~
sp332
This seems unlikely (given only what's in the article). She doesn't say that
the decline of freestyle was sexist. The point is that the target demographic
of commercial skateboard culture shrank drastically. _Males—check; males under
18—check. And as it hit each check point it was reducing the population it was
going to appeal to._

And your comment doesn't address the specific claims of sexist behavior, like
those Enjoi ads or Hubba's "The Girls".

~~~
stolio
Just because "the target demographic of commercial skateboard culture shrank
drastically" doesn't mean it was a conscious or subconscious decision of
anybody involved in the industry. I'm sure there were plenty of skateboarding
companies that tried to stick with the old style and simply went out of
business. Things change, you can't always blame somebody when they do.

On Enjoi: you have to take things in context and even a casual glance at their
ads makes it clear they trend towards the offensive and absurd for the sake of
being offensive and absurd. They also joke about pooping their pants but I
don't think they're trying to advocate for it.

On Hubba: a wheel company I've never heard of that doesn't have a wheel on
Amazon's 100 best selling skateboarding wheels list and only has one set of
bearings on Amazon's 100 best selling bearings. I'm not sure how they're the
representatives of skateboarding culture.

I just don't like the article, I think the people and companies were chosen
specifically to support the narrative of sexism. Elissa Steamer and Leticia
Bufoni matter more to skateboarding than Hubba Wheels ever will, but their
names aren't even mentioned, only the fact that they're told they "skate like
guys" but you don't have their names so it's hard to go find the context of
what that means in skateboarding. If you watch five minutes of girls and five
minutes of guys skateboarding at the XGames you'll realize the girls skate
differently, they have a different posture and a totally different style but
not really in a good way. They often look uncertain. But as is so common these
days the compliments of "skating like a guy" are divorced from context in
order to make them look sexist.

~~~
mtbcoder
"I'm sure there were plenty of skateboarding companies that tried to stick
with the old style and simply went out of business."

All of skateboarding came to the brink of collapse in the late 80s and early
90s. No company was making any kind of money off the sport, only a few made
just enough to keep some small sliver still alive. Major brands went under,
skate parks went under, shops went under, contests ended, ramps went into
disrepair, "vert" was declared dead and anyone who still enjoyed skating was
harassed and ostracised as outcasts.

It wasn't until about a decade later that modern skateboarding, as we see it
today, saw some hope of resurgence and was able to rekindle itself from the
ashes of its former glory. All thanks in part to the those that trudged on
during the rough times just for the love of the sport.

~~~
ripb
>All thanks in part to the those that trudged on during the rough times just
for the love of the sport.

I.e. men.

Like IT: There was no money in it, just a load of guys doing it for the love
of it. 20 years later there's huge money in it, those guys who were there at
the start are at the top of the pile and the women who never previously showed
an interest in it are on the sidelines screaming "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE
WOMYN??!?!".

This whole equality war in IT is becoming incredibly tiring. Endless attacks
from a transparent supremacy movement whose members were calling people in IT
"nerds" 10 years ago.

~~~
sp332
I guess those people exist, but they're an awfully small part of it. I mean
women have a much higher attrition rate than men once they get into the
industry, so it's not just a case of starting at the top.

------
mc32
To be fair, the article cited is in the opinion section, so don't deconstruct
it too much. I think she makes some good points, but awkwardly uses skating
culture and its change to drive her points across.

Mainly, marketing, and marketing targeting has had a huge negative effect on
society. There has been good, and there has been bad, but more bad than good.
With targeted marketing, you get this kind of thing where advertisers go for
the jugular on their core market, abusively ignoring the side-effects. So you
have them marketing violence and counterculture to boys and pink-love-mother-
earth to girls. On the other hand, they get to market narrow markets like fish
sauce to SE Asians, and Vegemite to Commonwealthers, for example. So, while
it's nice that this makes an Aussie feel at home, or a Thai feel like they are
part of the social fabric, on the whole, targeted marketing can have a
stratifying effect, it amplifies the differences and you can end up with
unrecognizable monsters like the ones where sexism is used to sell products,
or shape the youth (to drink sugary drinks). The alternative would be bland
marketing which necessarily would have to appeal to the mainstream, which also
has its drawbacks. but on the whole?

But back to sexism in the workplace. It would be nice, in thought, for there
to be a more or less even distribution, of people in the different industries,
and we can try, but, in the end, I don't think it's going to happen any time
soon. There are too many social aspects which go into this, from social
behavior, to individual behavior. Maybe a start would be for people not to
feel that some jobs have more cachet than others. That there be no such thing
as cliqueishness and clubbism, tribalism. That people didn't recruit from
their pool of friends --and this happens anywhere from Facebook, to Carwashes,
to Airport personnel, to professorships, to ethnic restaurants. And while
we're at it, why not try and make things equal at the lower and top ends of
the scale, not just the middle.

