

Women (and everyone else, really) should do startups - biesnecker
http://zachholman.com/posts/women-should-do-startups

======
ryandvm
He misses her point. It wasn't that women shouldn't be involved in startups,
it was that women are quite capable of figuring out what makes them happy and
harping on them to be founders isn't helping anyone.

Women have complete freedom in the modern workplace and the fact that some of
them choose to stay home is not an indicator that they are broken. Why is it
so offensive that many women have figured out what they enjoy and, more often
then men, it's downshifting their careers around 30 so that they can focus on
their families.

I am the husband of a woman that has decided to put her career on hold in
order to stay home and focus on her children for a few years. And I'm quite
certain my wife knows a hell of a lot more about what makes her happy than
some kid at github.

~~~
tryitnow
I can understand why your sensitive about this considering your wife has
chosen her path, but I don't think the author was directing it at her or other
women saying they made the wrong decision.

He was making a simple point that the startup world can be uninviting towards
women and instead it should be more inviting towards everyone, women included.

One point he discusses is clarifying the misconception that all startups look
the same. That's a worthwhile point not just for women, but for a lot of men
too.

I honestly can't see what is so upsetting or controversial about his
statements.

By the way, I actually disagree with the author, I don't think startups are or
should be for everyone. I am just making the point that his statements are not
an attack on anyone's decision and his arguments seem pretty reasonable (even
though I don't agree 100%).

~~~
kaxline
while i don't disagree with holman's statements, i do think he misses the
point. for me, trunk's article was about how the statement 'women should work
at startups' is patronizing because it implies that they are less capable of
making that decision for themselves than men.

advocating for a more equal distribution of startup awareness and technical
training across demographics is a separate issue and i think holman and some
of the commenters are confusing trunk's message as a denial of that. this is
why her analogy of saying men should stay home and raise children is so apt.
if they wanted to, they would. they don't need anyone's help or special
attention to make sure they know all the opportunities for them in the stay-
at-home-dad scene so that we have an equal number of men and women at home
raising kids. maybe to some degree it's ok that different parts of society are
skewed towards one gender or another since men and women are different.

we don't need to go around forcing our utopian vision of equality on systems
as long as everyone has the opportunity to make the choice for themselves.
whether or not women have that opportunity is a separate question. i think a
lot of women do and it can be a slight to suggest otherwise based solely on
their gender.

~~~
erikpukinskis
_this is why her analogy of saying men should stay home and raise children is
so apt. if they wanted to, they would_

I'm trying to figure out if you're way more privileged than me (unlikely) or
way more capable (possible!) but none of it really adds up. I'm wondering what
world you live in where you think that people can just do whatever they want
to, without resistance. "If women wanted to start companies, they would!" "If
men wanted to stay home and raise kids, they would!"

I mean, I can get behind statements like "If someone really wants something
bad enough... if it burns in their heart and their soul bears down on it like
a million years of rock on a diamond, then they can achieve it."

That I believe.

But this idea that everyone is just doing exactly what they want to be doing,
and that there aren't structural impediments that are unequally distributed
across demographics... I mean, really?

I mean, read this article and tell me that the only thing stopping, say,
American men from staying home and raising kids is that "they don't want to":
[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/world/europe/10iht-
sweden....](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/world/europe/10iht-
sweden.html?pagewanted=all)

------
Kynlyn
Zach completely missed the point. She never advocated that women avoid
startups. She simply said that women are smart and capable enough of figuring
out what they want to do by themselves. If they want to do a startup, then
fine. If they don't then that is also fine. Quit patronizing them is largely
her point.

------
100k
"Doing" a startup and working at a startup as an employee, especially after
the money's been secured, are pretty different things.

------
mooneater
I encourage the people I care about (who are often women), to be confidently
independent when it comes to work.

To me that includes a spectrum of behaviors:

\- assertively asking for raises at their current job \- aggressively
negotiating for the best job \- consulting and setting their own fee \- ...and
a startup would be an extreme end, for the right people

More generally, if you want someone to be successful, then you want to coax
them down the path towards assertiveness and independence in their career,
losing their fear of success, power, money, responsibility.

(I guess after startup, might come "incubator". But after that? Curious how pg
will play it).

~~~
einhverfr
Agreed. I would also separate the arguments that "everyone should look at
starting a business" from "everyone should look at working at a startup." The
latter is a subset of the former. One's own businesses are a _lot_ of work.
However, starting a micro-business gives tremendous freedom, and I think this
freedom gives folks a greater opportunity than anything else.

With a micro-business you can do the things you like to do and work on the
problems you want to work on. Could be coding against technical problems,
interior decorating, catering, or whatever.

------
ericingram
I agree with this:

"I don’t mean to sound like a broken record, but hours are bullshit. You don’t
need to enforce 9-5 hours at a company. You don’t even need a full 40 hour
work week. Companies like GitHub, Heroku, Square, Simple… we’re still in the
minority, but I think it’s safe to say that it’s okay to be successful without
working 90 hour weeks and forcing everyone to come in at arbitrary hours."

++

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irkd
I saw the initial article, saw this one and others, and had a lot to say until
I remembered a rule of the internet. it is paraphrased here in a response
article: [http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/12/stop-telling-women-not-
to-d...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/12/stop-telling-women-not-to-do-
startups-in-paris/) "And here’s a piece of advice to women (or any other
minority) in tech — Every time you get worked up over a dumb blog post, you’re
wasting time that you could have spent building a world-changing company,
writing your own blog post and/or proving pundits like Penelope Trunk wrong.
And that starts with voting with your feet (or pen even)."

Yep. I could discuss Zach's optimism. I could talk about why Penelope's wrong,
or why she may have been misled by truths, but I'd rather prove her wrong.
With my startup. It ain't tech, but just watch me.

------
heyrhett
All seven billion humans should do a startup!

~~~
5hoom
Maybe not. But _any_ of the seven billion humans _could_ do a startup.

~~~
absconditus
Egalitarian nonsense. Different people have different capabilities. Many
people, if not most, have no ability to run a company at any stage.

------
rrrazdan
Is it just me or have we had enough of this topic for a year now? Long story
short, please stop talking about what people should do. Our 'job' as human
beings is to just provide an equal opportunity environment for everyone. Not
provide affirmative action.

~~~
coridactyl
Then please, tell us what we should be doing, in concrete examples, to ensure
equal opportunity for historically disadvantaged minorities in this industry.

Honestly, I'm all ears.

~~~
olalonde
Which minorities are disadvantaged? This is capitalism, discrimination has a
cost and I don't believe many people are willing to spend much on their
sexist/racist tendencies.

------
biesnecker
The fundamental difference is between "let's start a business and make great
things that provide value to our customers" and "let's start a business, dive
into the hype cycle around some newfangled thing, and hope to cash out before
we burn out," no?

If you're doing the first, you can work reasonable schedules (hard, yes, but
not insane), and create value, and build your business. This is, in my view,
what Github (where the author works) does.

If you're doing the latter, then you have to kill yourself because you need to
cash in before everyone realizes what you're doing is either 1) actually
worthless, or 2) not the coolest thing on the block anymore, and moves on to
the next fad.

------
wikkiwa
I have a feeling this comment thread is going to be really productive and
insightful.

------
tlb
Less than 1% of people are suited to founding a startup.

------
j45
Women may be under-represented in startups, or tech. But so are a lot of my
male friends. Who aren't techies. I would say the majority of my personal
friends are outside of tech.

A lot of PEOPLE aren't willing to go through the extremes of becoming, and
staying great at tech. Tech perpetually outdates itself.

They might instead choose to contribute just as meaningfully to the world in
other ways. And dare I say actually do it instead of being in it for their own
enjoyment.

Startups aren't for everyone. Women maybe (sometimes) for family or other
considerations. Men, maybe (sometimes) for family or other considerations.

This isn't about gender to me. Or having children.

It's about risk tolerance, the price you pay to take the risk perpetually, and
what what you miss out on.

All that matters in entrepreneurship is if we can learn to make a go of it...
and what price we're willing to go to find out if we're an entrepreneur.
That's it.

All the other entreporn out there is bs. Being a qualified entrepreneur means
you were able to make money (profit) from a validated product or service, in
any way. Until then you might be someone attempting entrepreneurship, but
staying an entrepreneur is another thing altogether.

If you keep doing the same thing without improving results, that's up to you.
I'm not sure if it's worth connecting it to what is, or isn't between your
legs and what that might mean. What's in our head, heart and gut is far more
important.

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funkah
It just sounds like an insane amount of work for a tenuous, or even
nonexistent, payoff. I work for a company that does not limit my time off,
that respects its employees, and generally provides a great working
atmosphere.

Joining a startup seems like it would be throwing all that away for the joy of
sleeping under my desk and finding out one day that my options are worthless.
I would rather enjoy my life, I think.

~~~
neutronicus
I'm happy enough in academia. If I left it, it would only be for assured big
bucks with job security. So, yeah, I don't think the startup life is really
for me.

~~~
fennecfoxen
Academia also has wonderful vacation policies that are pretty near impossible
to beat. My dad, a professor, hung out with his family for pretty much the
entire duration of summer vacation. Multi-week vacations to visit extended
families 400-800 miles away? Can do! Not a problem!

~~~
m0th87
This is not normal for computer science academia, at least in my current
department or my alma mater's. I've only met one professor who doesn't seem to
work more than an average software developer.

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itmag
A lot of people can be very creative and able to execute projects, but still
not have what it takes to run a startup. Consider all the regular Joes and
Janes being highly creative and structured in leading World of Warcraft
guilds, for instance.

What is needed is some kind of gamified meta-startup, a giant sandbox for
economic activity to take place with the low-level stuff of startups
abstracted away. The day MMORPGs start to have real economic effects (outside
of currency exchange) is the day the economic system will be radically
transformed.

For the record, I didn't think of this myself. Credit goes to John Robb:
<http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/robb20100318>

