
Getting free of toxic tech culture - zdw
https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2018/01/17/getting-free-of-toxic-tech-culture/
======
dang
Ok, shall we see if we can have an interesting conversation here? I've
temporarily turned off flags on the submission, but if the thread goes
flameward we will send it down the flamewar chute.

All: if you comment in this thread, make sure your comment is thoughtful and
edit out any flamey or trollish bits before hitting the button. The same goes
for any thread, of course:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

------
trhway
>What is toxic tech culture? Toxic tech cultures are those that demean and
devalue you as holistic, multifaceted human beings. Toxic tech cultures are
those that prioritize profits and growth over human and societal well being.
Toxic tech cultures are those that treat you as replaceable cogs within a
system of constant churn and burnout.

has there been any factory floor, farm, private or government office where
things have been different? Except may be for a situation like a tenured
professor at Stanford. Or a 4 star general who after having been a cog for
like 30 years finally gets to be the one burning and replacing the cogs at his
will/choice.

If anything, i think tech is among the most progressive places, if only for
the fact that one can easily switch jobs instead of suffering for years for
example under harassing boss like it was before and still is in the other
industries where job market is worse. With employees having such freedom, the
tech companies and management are forced to treat the employees better than at
the other industries. I wonder how many of the people complaining about toxic
tech culture did actually work at non-tech places.

~~~
mpweiher
> "prioritize profits and growth over human and societal well being"

As in: what every corporation is, by law, required to do. If it doesn't,
lawsuits follow.

~~~
geofft
If you're talking about fiduciary duty, one, that only applies to _public_
companies, and two, no, that's not what it means. (For instance, the Supreme
Court has recently stated, "Modern corporate law does not require for-profit
corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do
not.")

------
wcarron
I think this was well written. There were a few instances where, upon first
reading it, I objected. But rereading it, I thought the language used was
chosen well.

I have one main gripe, though: The scope limitation to tech.

> "Toxic tech cultures are those that demean and devalue you as holistic,
> multifaceted human beings. Toxic tech cultures are those that prioritize
> profits and growth over human and societal well being. Toxic tech cultures
> are those that treat you as replaceable cogs within a system of constant
> churn and burnout.

This is __not__ a tech specific problem. This is a systemic aspect of labor in
an overly-capitalist society. Not bashing capitalism, either. But, spare me
the 'woe is me, tech bros are out to get us'. Sure, some are. But these
problems exist in every industry; the service industry, Hollywood and film,
architecture and construction, finance, etc.

As I said, I think the rest of the article was well written and on-topic.
That, though, is trying to paint rice grains with a broom.

~~~
tptacek
In fact, it very probably is a tech-specific problem. Among the STEM fields,
CS is almost uniquely imbalanced. STEM fields in general range from ~30-55%
women, and those fields include things like Mathematics --- anyone who has
gone to an academic cryptography workshop has probably noticed how many more
women there are in the room --- which are strong proxies for CS ability. And,
of course, among the professions in general, the difference is even more
stark; compared to law, we're stuck in the 1960's.

~~~
hueving
>anyone who has gone to an academic cryptography workshop has probably noticed
how many more women there are in the room

As someone who has spent a lot of time in academic security conferences, I
have to wonder what you are comparing them to. The only field with a worse
female participation rate in my experience is networking (e.g. SIGCOMM). Check
out this picture from EuroCrypt in 97 and count the ratio of women to men. It
looks like under 1 in 10 which is worse than general CS enrollment numbers:
[http://www.crypto-uni.lu/jscoron/misc/euro_97.jpg](http://www.crypto-
uni.lu/jscoron/misc/euro_97.jpg)

Anyway, back to the main point.

>CS is almost uniquely imbalanced.

I agree. However, a 1/4 female/male ratio coming out of CS programs is going
to be reflected in the industry and attempting to bring the balance on the
industry side to 50/50 is folly while the enrollment balance stays the same.

Clearly something is discouraging women from enrolling at the college level,
but I can't fathom how 50/50 quotas are supposed to help solve that problem.
Implementing things like Google's "extra interview retries" for minorities
just seems to cause division and make it worse for minorities because some
people assume they are there for the wrong reason.

Are you aware of programs focusing on getting more women enrolled at the high-
school and college level? It seems like it would be significantly more
productive as a community to put a significant focus there in terms of
resources (money, advocacy, etc).

I know almost nobody that has a problem with improving enrollment numbers of
women in CS (equality of opportunity). However, there is a significant chunk
of people that have problems with the "white males are over-represented and we
need to give everyone else an advantage" approach (equality of outcomes).

What am I missing here? Why are so many resources being poured into something
as fundamentally flawed as trying to get equal representation with a supply
that doesn't have equal representation?

~~~
cbm-vic-20
> Clearly something is discouraging women from enrolling at the college level,

Have you ever been in a 100-level CS course? Granted, it's been a while for
me, but they're generally full of 18-year-olds who lack a certain amount of
social grace. IME, most people are pretty okay, but there was a notable
minority of people you just don't want to spend time with: annoying, obnoxious
kids who feel the constant need to correct everyone around them (including the
instructors) to demonstrate how frickin' smart they are, and who don't realize
they're also surrounded by other smart people who aren't as annoying and
obnoxious. And, IME, many of these people actively make young women
uncomfortable with their advances and behavior.

There are still lots of liberal arts schools that are very much gender-
segregated (Wellesley, Smith); I can't think of any "women's" tech schools. I
wonder what the CS classes and enrollment is like at places that are more-or-
less women-only.

~~~
crunchatized
If that's a cause of the disparity, would it show as large numbers dropping
their first course after meeting their classmates, or not enrolling in the
course in the first place?

Of course it also starts before college enrollment. AP computer science
courses in high school have about the same gender ratio (19%). [0] Those would
probably contain the same minority you mentioned, a few years younger.

[0] [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/technology/computer-
coding...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/technology/computer-coding-its-
not-just-for-boys.html)

------
Karrot_Kream
> The refrain of how a startup CEO is going to save humanity is so common that
> it’s actually uncommon for a CEO to not use saviour language when describing
> their startup. Cult leaders do the same thing: they create a unique
> philosophy, imbued with some sort of special message that they alone can see
> or hear, convince people that only they have the answers for what ails
> humanity, and use that influence to control the people around them.

I agree. I've been working in Silicon Valley for a few years now, and it
honestly feels like a page out of Animal Farm. The Orwellian mismatch between
rhetoric and action feels like cult-like propaganda to me.

I don't know how veterans of the Valley can keep this up.

~~~
smsm42
I've been in SV for a decade now and I am not observing anything cult-like. I
haven't worked for companies like Google or Facebook or any other giant
behemoths, so no idea how things are there, but in other places it's pretty
far from a cult where I am.

Of course, marketing sometimes goes a bit over the board, and each release of
version 8.4 is the best thing that happened to humanity since v8.3 was
released and before it's time to release v8.5. But that's kind of expected,
nobody I know takes it as a literal truth.

And of course there are mission statements that talk about improving human
condition and expanding horizons and saving the world. Sometimes it happens,
at least to a measure, sometimes it doesn't, but that's not usually what
you're thinking the whole day about, and even not something you think about
every week or every month.

And of course (almost) each startup CEO thinks his (or her) startup is going
to change the world, or at least some part of it. That's how you should think
if you're getting into a startup, otherwise it's not worth the trouble, the
stress and the extremely high chance of failure. Of course the CEO believes
she (or he) found some special thing nobody thought of before and some unique
vision nobody had before - otherwise how the startup could take off the ground
at all?

And really, describing giving up free gym, yoga class and cafeteria as
"something horrible happening to you"... I can't even find adequate words to
describe how wrong this is.

~~~
Karrot_Kream
> Of course, marketing sometimes goes a bit over the board, and each release
> of version 8.4 is the best thing that happened to humanity since v8.3 was
> released and before it's time to release v8.5. But that's kind of expected,
> nobody I know takes it as a literal truth.

> And of course (almost) each startup CEO thinks his (or her) startup is going
> to change the world, or at least some part of it. That's how you should
> think if you're getting into a startup, otherwise it's not worth the
> trouble, the stress and the extremely high chance of failure.

I don't think this should be an "of course". This article highlights toxic
tech culture, namely a culture found in tech that is toxic. Marketing is not
specific to tech, nor are small businesses. Why does Uber tell me they're
going to "make transportation as freely available as running water" but not
Loreal's new shampoo? Why does the small chain of bike repair shops in my
area, also taking the stress and high risk of starting their own business, not
exhort about how their bike repair shop will change the world of bikes
forever?

This overboard marketing and out-of-touch mission statements are much more
commonly found in tech than in elsewhere. This article discusses a culture
formed by overboard marketing and out-of-touch mission statements and labels
it as toxic. Moreover, there's an argument to be made about a field that oft
labels itself as "meritocratic" relies on these hyperbolic forms of marketing
and mission statements to do business, rather than a more traditional,
"stodgy" business.

~~~
smsm42
That's the whole point, let me refine it further: the bad aspects that
mentioned in the article are not unique to tech: the world is full of
overboard marketing, I see ads promising scantly-clad women flocking to me if
I drink sugared water of $BRAND and muscular attractive men inviting me to the
world of opportunities if I use shampoo $BRAND2 - btw, if you think tech world
is sexist and pigeonholing try watching TV ads... And the other aspects are
not bad but just a normal imperfect human behavior. "Toxic" is a very bad term
because it's completely unclear what it means besides "it's something bad". So
is the message of the article "bad things in tech were bad and that's why I
left"? OK, it's nice to know, not exactly anything new but everybody has the
right for one's own biography. Is there any insight there beyond that? One
that pertains specifically to tech world?

> Why does the small chain of bike repair shops in my area, also taking the
> stress and high risk of starting their own business, not exhort about how
> their bike repair shop will change the world of bikes forever?

Maybe if they did, they'd be a large national chain of bike repair shops now?
;) Maybe not, who knows. The point is there's nothing inherently bad in
wanting to change the world of bikes forever. And one day somebody might just
do that.

> Moreover, there's an argument to be made that a field that oft labels itself
> as "meritocratic" relies on these hyperbolic forms of marketing and mission
> statements to do business, rather than a more traditional, "stodgy"
> business.

You can't really rely on mission statements and marketing to do business. At
least not in any long term. And SV companies surely provide ample evidence
that marketing is not the _only_ thing they do. Surely, _some_ companies are
just hype, and those get up, stay up for a short while, and go down to the ash
heap of history, never to be spoken about again (would anybody know what
Juicero was in 5 years? maybe some ubergeeks would). But claiming it's a
defining property of significant part of SV companies to be overblown
marketing only is just false.

~~~
Karrot_Kream
> btw, if you think tech world is sexist and pigeonholing try watching TV
> ads... And the other aspects are not bad but just a normal imperfect human
> behavior.

I didn't claim this. However, there's no correlation between sexist marketing
and sexist work culture. On top of this, writing off bad behavior as "normal
imperfect human behavior" is just an excuse to break rules. Two wrongs don't
make a right.

> Maybe if they did, they'd be a large national chain of bike repair shops
> now?

Are you implying that the hyperbolic marketing of startups is a feature and
not a bug? If so, then we're probably not going to see eye-to-eye in this
discussion. I do _not_ think that hyperbolic marketing is a necessary
condition to success.

> The point is there's nothing inherently bad in wanting to change the world
> of bikes forever.

Indeed, but there's a cognitive dissonance when 500 startup founders believe
they are all changing the world. If 500 intelligent, aware people are all
convinced that they are going to change the world then, well I'm interested in
whatever kool-aid they're drinking and how. Moreover, you seem to be implying
that founders actually believe their mission statements. I'm going to rebut
and say no, most founders use the mission statement as another form of
marketing.

> And SV companies surely provide ample evidence that marketing is not the
> only thing they do.

But there are SV companies which provide ample evidence that marketing is all
the do. Juicero, Yo, etc.

> Surely, some companies are just hype, and those get up, stay up for a short
> while, and go down to the ash heap of history, never to be spoken about
> again (would anybody know what Juicero was in 5 years? maybe some ubergeeks
> would)

While this is a slightly different issue than the one discussed in the
article, I'd like to reply to this. Behind each of these pure hype Silicon
Valley companies are VCs who actually invested in them, who wrote them checks
of $10,000+ that believed in the hype and marketing potential of these
startups. This is a very unique aspect of tech culture, and not at all a good
one in my opinion.

~~~
smsm42
> writing off bad behavior as "normal imperfect human behavior" is just an
> excuse to break rules

Which rules? There are no rules saying "you can't do marketing" or "you can't
claim to change the world".

> Are you implying that the hyperbolic marketing of startups is a feature and
> not a bug?

I am implying it's a natural consequence of a startup being oriented on doing
something new, never done before, and natural consequence of somebody being
about to undertake a high-risk/high-reward activity. That requires certain
mindset. Wanting to change the world highly correlates with such a mindset.
Wanting to improve the cost of fidgelating type A sprockets by 0.1% does not.
Of course, if humans were perfect robots, they'd always be exactly as much
excited as it takes to be able to do a startup, and not one exciton over that.
Imperfect humans frequently get more excited than that.

> there's a cognitive dissonance when 500 startup founders believe they are
> all changing the world

There's million of traders believing they can make a profit (which is
arithmetically impossible) and millions of people believing they all can win a
lottery (which is even more impossible since lottery is a negative-sum game).
Of course, vast majority of these people are wrong. And 499 of the 500 startup
founders will be wrong too. So what? Why is it "toxic"? What's _your_ problem
with them believing it? People hold much more dangerous and useless false
beliefs every day than belief that you can have positive impact on the world.

> But there are SV companies which provide ample evidence that marketing is
> all the do. Juicero, Yo, etc.

Didn't I just admit there _are_ _some_ companies that are just hype in the
very next phrase, and explained why this admission does not disprove my point?

> This is a very unique aspect of tech culture, and not at all a good one in
> my opinion.

High risk investment is in no way unique to SV. There are lots of people that
invest in all kinds of crazy stuff, from hipster juicers to high-stake poker
games. They can afford it, and they are the lifeblood of innovation and
invention. All power to them. I literally can't think of anything bad coming
from a billionaire spending some promilles of his outsized bank account on
some weird innovative project, that may or may not change the world. Some of
those would be stupid, so what. You can't make innovation without doing a
couple of stupid tries on the way.

~~~
Karrot_Kream
> Which rules? There are no rules saying "you can't do marketing" or "you
> can't claim to change the world".

It was unclear to me whether you were suggesting sexism was under the domain
of "normal imperfect human behavior" or not. If you weren't, then I apologize,
I misread.

> I am implying it's a natural consequence of a startup being oriented on
> doing something new, never done before, and natural consequence of somebody
> being about to undertake a high-risk/high-reward activity.

I agree with this premise, but I'm going to argue that the vast majority of
startup founders are not interested in actually changing the word and are
using hyperbolic rhetoric to both appeal to a cultural standard in the
industry and to convince their employees to work harder for less compensation
and more uncertainty. If I take a glance at AngelList, the vast majority of
startups are trying to fix small problems in niche fields. Admirable attempts
no doubt, but changing the world they are not.

> So what? Why is it "toxic"? What's your problem with them believing it?
> People hold much more dangerous and useless false beliefs every day than
> belief that you can have positive impact on the world.

Because these people make it harder for qualified people with less rhetoric to
gain funding. Because these people employ others who are convinced by their
rhetoric. Gambling laws and Ponzi Scheme laws exist to stop greedy actors from
exploiting human failings. My argument here is that joining a startup is akin
to gambling, and giving them a free pass is akin to taking an amoral stance on
gambling.

> Didn't I just admit there are some companies that are just hype in the very
> next phrase, and explained why this admission does not disprove my point?

Yeah apologies I wasn't super cogent here.

> There are lots of people that invest in all kinds of crazy stuff, from
> hipster juicers to high-stake poker games.

Again, there's regulation around high stake poker games and other such
gambling because it's widely recognized that high risk gambling can be
exploitative and ruinous. I don't see any such urge in tech.

~~~
smsm42
> I'm going to argue that the vast majority of startup founders are not
> interested in actually changing the word

I have no idea. How would you know? And then, who cares - if they do change
the world, it doesn't matter if they really really wanted it or jus kinda, and
if they don't, truly nobody cares.

> If I take a glance at AngelList, the vast majority of startups are trying to
> fix small problems in niche fields.

Vast majority of startups also don't make claims about changing the world. In
fact, we, on average, know absolutely nothing about vast majority of startups,
because there's just too many of them. Everybody knows about Juicero, because
that's in the press, but nobody knows about 10000 non-Juiceros. If you want to
discuss the hyped ones - then let's not lose the focus.

> Because these people make it harder for qualified people with less rhetoric
> to gain funding.

If people with funding make decision on whether somebody uses rhetoric or not,
only, then the rhetoric is not a problem. But frankly, I don't believe it.
People who professionally invest money are not stupider than you or me, if you
can see it, they can see it. So I don't think "we're too honest with our
rhetoric and too beautiful for this cruel world" is a real industry-wise
problem. Lack of communicative or marketing skills to clearly explain the idea
behind the startup may very well be, but that's a different one.

> Again, there's regulation around high stake poker games

Wait, so the whole problem is that there's no Big Dude from Big Government
overseeing it and protecting poor investors from themselves? The the whole
thing is even less substance than I expected. I think exploitation of angel
investor billionaires by overhyped startups is not the problem we should be
too worried about, and probably not in the first 1000 of the problems that our
society faces.

------
staunch
> _white, male, nerds who’ve dropped out of Harvard or Stanford, "_

Literally 99% of white, male, nerds don't fit this description. Every day in
Silicon Valley people show favoritism to individuals that, for _purely
economic reasons_ , got into Stanford or Harvard.

Investors that went to Stanford invest in founders that went to Stanford
because their own investors (LPs) that also went to Stanford will favor them.

This is literally racist because it's a bias against socioeconomically
disadvantaged people, of which people of color are disproportionately
represented. And yet, this bias is openly accepted in Silicon Valley and even
celebrated!

Looking at most investor bio pages, you would think the 99% would have almost
nothing to contribute:
[https://www.ycombinator.com/people/](https://www.ycombinator.com/people/)

The 99% need to start a social movement in Silicon Valley to reform it into
the semi-utopian meritocracy we all wish it was. We should demand an end to
socioeconomic discrimination, which will enable people of all walks of life to
lift _themselves_ out of the shadows, turning Silicon Valley into the cross
section of society it rightfully ought to be.

We should be calling for investors, universities, and companies in Silicon
Valley to move to blind admissions and interview processes, and an end to all
forms of "culture" testing.

We should call for #EqualOpportunity.

~~~
Aloha
If people would stop conflating poverty with racism, I think we'd have a
better chance is solving both.

Poor people, regardless of color, have a remarkably similar experience (with
education, the police, the criminal justice system), while yes, people of
color are more likely to be poor - the harder we focus on race, the harder it
is to fix the underlying issue, a lack of educational, and economic mobility
for the poor.

Most racism (heck, most "-isms" in general), are born from a lack of
familiarity with people who come from a different life background or culture
than they do - if we both encourage opportunity for the poor, and encourage
mixing of socioeconomic strata, the problem will melt away over 40-50 years.

The racism that will remain after solving poverty, will be of a very different
nature I believe than that which exists now.

It's dangerous to fall for the trap that you can adjust for outcomes - but we
can do a far better job of adjusting for inputs - or ensuring the poor have
equal access to education, and economic opportunity.

~~~
zasz
> Poor people, regardless of color, have a remarkably similar experience (with
> education, the police, the criminal justice system)

That's not true. Google "red-lining." Black people face considerable housing
discrimination that white people simply do not. Studies have also shown that
people of color face longer prison sentences for the same crimes. It is false
to say that all poor people have the same experiences.

~~~
mpweiher
> people of color face longer prison sentences for the same crimes

Yep. And yet the same effect exists for men (vs. women) and is about _six_
times as strong. Yet our society is "obviously" sexist against women.

[https://www.law.umich.edu/newsandinfo/features/Pages/starr_g...](https://www.law.umich.edu/newsandinfo/features/Pages/starr_gender_disparities.aspx)

'After controlling for the arrest offense, criminal history, and other prior
characteristics, "men receive 63% longer sentences on average than women do,"
and "[w]omen are…twice as likely to avoid incarceration if convicted." This
gender gap is about six times as large as the racial disparity that Prof.
Starr found in another recent paper.'

------
throwaway1748
Could constantly identifying oneself as being 'marginalized' contribute to the
feeling of being an outsider? As another commenter pointed out, the Kapor
Center data is not nearly as damning as this piece suggests. Many of the
reported reasons for leaving show similar numbers between genders & races.
Sexual harassment is clearly a bigger problem for women than men, but not as
drastic as this article claims. The Kapor study shows 10% of women surveyed
leaving for sexual harassment, but also shows 8% of men leaving for that
reason.

~~~
tomlock
It could. But what evidence is there of that?

~~~
golemotron
Every study of confirmation bias. If you see yourself as an outsider you look
for evidence of it and it becomes your worldview.

~~~
tomlock
Alright, but how do you determine it isn't a justified belief?

~~~
golemotron
The real question is: how would you ever know if it isn't?

~~~
tomlock
Here's the problem though - how do people determine that they're suitable
judges of whether someone is marginalised or not?

------
JKCalhoun
I agree with essentially everything in the article — and I'm not a
marginalized type (white male, actually).

• Avoid the "cult-like" trappings.

• Avoid "genius worship" and call bullshit on the "reality distortion field".

• Get a life (that is, a life outside of work – build stuff in your garage,
hike, play in a band, paint, whatever).

• Stay healthy. You're valuable to the corporation, they will allow for you to
take exercise breaks, go home when you're exhausted, use your vacation time.

It probably isn't exclusive to the tech industry — I suspect the same is true
on Wall Street. Perhaps it is the Temple of Modern Corporate Culture that we
should shun.

And good advice is still good advice for the non-marginalized.

~~~
thiht
>• Get a life (that is, a life outside of work – build stuff in your garage,
hike, play in a band, paint, whatever).

I notice a trend in being demeaning towards people not wanting to do anything
besides computing/tech. Why is that acceptable? Is my life worse because I
don't do "hiking" or some other stuff? I like spending my free time coding,
and I hate hearing I should do "something better with my life".

~~~
mcv
"Build something in your garage" could be tech related. But it's important to
do things other than work.

~~~
rainbowmverse
The image of the tech titan that got started in their garage was the standard
thing not that long ago. I actually can't remember the last time I saw it. Now
it seems like it's "get in the ground floor on someone else's world-changing
startup."

Is this just my limited perspective or has the narrative really shifted?

------
tlb
I predict people will claim "our culture isn't that toxic. Some of those
things happen, but they don't bother me much."

If any non-zero subset of reasonable people are so offended by a behavior that
they'd leave the industry because of it, we have to cut it out.

So don't ask "would this bother me?" Ask "would it bother someone?" And since
you can't predict this from inside your head, you have to rely on firsthand
accounts of people being bothered. This seems like a good overview of such
accounts.

~~~
finnthehuman
>If any non-zero subset of reasonable people are so offended by a behavior
that they'd leave the industry because of it, we have to cut it out.

I used to think like this. After years and years of refining my own behavior,
a non-work, non-"tech" friend let it slip that my fiends though I had turned
into a non-confrontational, lawyer-sounding, people-pleaser. He wasn't wrong,
I had gotten in the habit of always walking on eggshells, navigating every
conversation like a minefield and letting myself be treated like a doormat. I
did. After all, if I hadn't, I'd be one of those "bros" that only people who
have never met a bro say are filling up the engineering departments.

The very next day I got chided about not being empathetic enough or whatever
the buzzword was at the time. Maybe I could have kept up the facade if I was
simply guilty by association. But it was specifically my behavior that was
"toxic." That was it. And I'm out. I'm done.

The never-docile-enough nature of "tech" is what's toxic. I hadn't been able
to feel comfortable in my own skin for years out of fear of being off-putting
to anyone else. The people who's behavior is worth changing aren't listening
anyway, so I'm done letting it be my fault, and I'm never over-correcting to
make up for it again.

edit: Want to complain about something in "tech"? Why don't you (not you,
specifically, parent poster) start with the ethics of your employer's
products/practices.

~~~
tptacek
As a consultant whose client portfolio used to include F500's in health,
insurance, and NY finance, and whose portfolio now includes nothing but
startups, and having had the pleasure of whiling away many languorous
afternoons in the cube farms of those companies, I find it extraordinarily
hard to believe that the average startup tech employee is "walking on
eggshells" and being performatively docile compared to the day-1 baseline
expectations of, to a first approximation, every non-tech company with more
than 1,000 employees in the US.

The idea that tech employees are docile compared to the accounts receivable
group at a major US insurance company seems pretty hard to support with
evidence.

~~~
tlb
How could tech people be more in touch with that, other than by consulting?

~~~
majormajor
Reading and talking to people are generally the best ones. I've learned about
conditions in other industries by talking to friends who work in them and also
reading articles in more measured publications (I would take anything on e.g.
huffpost with a big grain of salt, or a Vox blog for that matter, to say
nothing of Fox News or other cable/radio sources :o).

So maybe step 0 is: find people who know about them, before you can do the
talking and reading. The New Yorker is my general go-to for measured
introductions to new domains: the authors biases are fairly simple to spot
when relevant (leftish-intellectual-in-US-terms) and the level of detail is
usually high.

Sadly, I don't have a ton more at hand, other than one rule that I'd highly
recommend to use as a filter: if you get the feeling the person is trying to
make you angry, find something else. Polemics are rarely the best way to be
introduced to a topic.

------
amyboyd
This feels like the perfect timing for me to read this. I just quit my job on
Sunday after 1.5 years of trying and failing to get on with the CEO. I'm not
sure I want to stay in tech at all. I'd be interested in hearing other
people's stories about changing careers entirely -- to sales (I'm not a people
person but trying hard to learn the soft skills), to writing a TV show or
movie (theatrics and drama are fun), to non-tech biz dev? Would love to hear
people's stories and how they succeeded or failed to change career, and if
they regretted it?

It's taken 8 years to realise it, but now I realise the tech startup culture
is absolutely horrible and -- as they article says -- full of narcissists. If
you don't realise how bad the culture is, I'd recommend introspecting a bit
(wish I did this sooner).

~~~
x0x0
You may be interested in eevee's story:
[https://eev.ee/blog/2015/06/09/i-quit-the-tech-
industry/](https://eev.ee/blog/2015/06/09/i-quit-the-tech-industry/)

My partner left finance to work in medicine. She makes a lot less money and
likes it a lot better. I dunno where you live, but becoming a physician
assistant can be a pretty good gig: much less school, pretty good salaries,
pretty defined hours, very little debt.

Personally, I worked at a series of toxic startups and needed two years away
to not loath programming. I regret nothing about leaving tech the first time,
and after returning, my biggest regret is waiting so long to start my own
company. Closely followed by tolerating so many shitty bosses. It helped me to
have friends that did things besides work; workaholics are very common in
sfbay. Dunno if that helps, but good luck.

------
temp-dude-87844
The problem with defining toxic tech culture, as the authors have done, as
"those that demean and devalue you as holistic, multifaceted human beings,
(...) those that prioritize profits and growth over human and societal well
being, [and] (...) those that treat you as replaceable cogs within a system of
constant churn and burnout" is that it captures a wide range of behaviors that
are undeniably unpleasant, but widely occur in other labor markets, and as
such, aren't exclusively attributable to tech. Nor do they single out
populations that the authors (and others) would consider to be 'marginalized'.

In fact, reading the essay from beginning to end, it's difficult to pinpoint a
specific complaint; the cult mentality, the intentionally-skewed work-life
balance, the flare-ups of self-awareness amidst lingering self-doubt
identified as warning signs and symptoms are the tradeoffs of a lifestyle that
everyone in tech self-selects. What, then, is the abuse here, the toxicity,
when participation in this environment is a labor transaction?

There are numerous instances of awful, toxic behavior that has occurred in the
field of tech, and exacerbated by this environment that could have been called
out position this essay against behaviors that are abhorrent and should never
be tolerated. But conjecturing an equivalence between a driven, but self-
selecting labor environment and the plight of marginalized groups is a
stretch, but the writing suggests that that link is self-evident to their
target audience. If that's true, the conversation has already lost its nuance,
and can't be refuted without collateral damage, making it a rhetorical trap.

------
leroy_masochist
The tips in here on topics like building relationships outside work, being
financially prudent and learning how to say no are all good nuggets of advice.

With that said, I thought that the article's title was kind of ironic because
in my opinion, the intersectional identity politics espoused by the authors is
itself one of the most toxic aspects of contemporary tech culture. It's the
part of working at a mature venture-funded startup in SV that I miss the
least, by far.

~~~
adamsea
A) With respect, your experience and the author's experience may vary, for a
variety of reasons, so I'm not sure it makes sense to pit one set of
experiences against another, so to speak.

B) Would you be willing to clarify what was toxic about your experience with
SV startups as you described?

C) Realistically, without denying the problems which probably do exist with
"intersectionaly identity politics", etc, it seems pretty clear (as in there
are studies, etc) that sexual harassment is one of the most toxic aspects, not
only of tech, but of contemporary business and American life. Discrimination
based on the color of one's skin is up there as well. So it does seem a bit
disingenuous to point out the flaws in ways in which people are trying to
ameliorate these problems without acknowledging the problems themselves,
and/or to imply that said flaws are more pervasive than the damaging behaviors
which they are a response to.

~~~
malvosenior
The answer is and always has been to judge people by the output of their work
and nothing else. As soon as you bring identity politics into to equation,
you’ve lost because many people will (rightly) take attacks on white people
and men as racist and sexist respectively.

~~~
geofft
> _The answer is and always has been to judge people by the output of their
> work and nothing else._

Should it not be to judge people by the output of their work relative to their
working conditions?

I'm much more interested in hiring someone who operated 5 servers in a culture
of manual configuration over ssh by introducing automation than someone who
operated 500 servers by following existing procedures and using Ansible
playbooks that they didn't contribute any improvements to, even though the
second person produced quite a bit more output.

(If by "output" you mean to count in this way, then sure, but a lot of people
don't—for instance, lots of people want to see GitHub activity without asking
whether the previous employer had onerous IP rules, or the candidate has a
family they're busy with on evenings and weekends, or whatever.)

~~~
malvosenior
> Should it not be to judge people by the output of their work relative to
> their working conditions?

No we shouldn’t look at that. I only care how you can produce in the role you
occupy.

To clarify by “output” I mean work output, not public display output.

~~~
rifung
> No we shouldn’t look at that. I only care how you can produce in the role
> you occupy.

Aren't you agreeing then? After all, you are looking at output given the role
they occupy right?

~~~
malvosenior
I think you’re right actually.

------
fphhotchips
> Early on, Valerie realized that she unconsciously thought of literally every
> single job other than software engineer as “for people who weren’t good
> enough to be a software engineer” – and that she thought this because other
> software engineers had been telling her that for her entire career.

This spoke to me for two reasons.

1) Plenty of professions are like this. Lawyers, consultants, doctors,
bankers, stock brokers etc. Everyone thinks that their profession is the
'best' one.

2) As someone in tech, but not a Software Developer, the number of times I've
gone into technical conferences (yes, even the 'inclusive' ones) and got the
feeling of being lesser just because I don't write code for a living bothers
me. In particular, the stigma associated with being in customer facing roles
(particularly sales) is strong.

~~~
eanzenberg
Not just for dev. I went to NIPS last year (and am in DS at startups in SF)
and about 80% of the time as you introduce yourself the other person just
stares at your affiliation on your tag. I went to a company (nameless)
afterparty where the host DS literally stared at my tag for 2 seconds with a
look of some serious disgust of how did I happen to get in without
Google/FB/Apple/etc. or MIT/Stanford affiliation.

~~~
itronitron
similar experience here, I'm actually glad that the schools don't coach their
students to tone down the arrogance as it makes interviewing them a lot easier

------
candybar
I'm your garden-variety liberal who works at a tech company and the
description here is entirely foreign to me. I've mostly worked outside of tech
and my social circle outside of work is almost entirely liberal but non-tech -
the tech world is far more progressive, the culture is far more supportive in
general and more specifically in the direction that is favorable to outsiders
and marginalized minorities. Outside of my tech social circle, it's extremely
common to hear casually racist and sexist remarks that would get you either
fired or ostracized at tech companies. And that's before you get to
heteronormativity that is endemic in mainstream society but is frowned upon at
most tech companies. The sensitivity towards transgender people is also mostly
non-existent in non-tech, non-elite mainstream society, even among liberals.

Maybe Valerie Aurora can find places that are more supportive than tech, but
the median work environment in the US is full of Trump supporters and can be
outwardly misogynistic, racist and transphobic. The myopia here among people
who have rarely experienced the life outside the bubble is quite concerning.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
I wonder if a lot of toxicity in tech culture is that it is billed as a
lifestyle and identity more than just a job.

One of the big drivers for civil rights came from the experience in WWII. In
war, there is an overarching purpose. You want to achieve your mission, and
survive the war to make it home to your family. The identity of those who help
you achieve those goals doesn't matter as much (very few people care about the
skin color of someone who saves their life).

What if tech became less of an identity and more of _just_ a job that you did
with your co-workers not to "change to world", but just to make money?

~~~
yakitori
> The identity of those who help you achieve those goals doesn't matter as
> much (very few people care about the skin color of someone who saves their
> life).

This is not true. Color lines were reinforced in ww2. It didn't recede. Black
soldiers were routinely attacked by white soldiers. And japanese american
soldiers couldn't serve in the pacific for a variety of reasons ( including
being killed by their fellow white american soldiers ) and in europe, japanese
soldiers were essentially killed off by their own white commanders in suicide
attacks. Feel free to look up the death rates of japanese american soldiers in
europe. It's horrendous. Pretty much a war crime.

Race riots occurred between american white and black soldiers in australia,
britain, etc. Feel free to google battle of bamber bridge or the battle of
brisbane.

The civil rights movement happened because ww2 WORSENED race relations, not
made it better. And with the advent of tremendous economic wealth, people were
more willing to confront the race relations.

The civil rights movement was a result of more racism, not less and the
wealthy post-ww2 country which provided the environment where people were
willing to consider civil rights. You could argue that the post-ww2 economic
prosperity had more to do with the civil rights movement than anything else.

~~~
tr0ut
>This is not true. Color lines were reinforced in ww2. It didn't recede. Black
soldiers were routinely attacked by white soldiers. And japanese american
soldiers couldn't serve in the pacific for a variety of reasons ( including
being killed by their fellow white american soldiers ) and in europe, japanese
soldiers were essentially killed off by their own white commanders in suicide
attacks. Feel free to look up the death rates of japanese american soldiers in
europe. It's horrendous. Pretty much a war crime.

Why is it that we forget the history of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Which
cost 10-20mil+ Chinese civilian lives? Which was also an extremely grotesque
human rights atrocity of an unbelievable magnitude.

------
ucaetano
I'd add another one: move away from the Bay Area, even if just for a year and
even if still working in a technology company.

Often, just stepping out of the bubble and checking out what the real world
looks like will provide you with plenty of perspective.

If you move or visit emerging markets (outside their little tech bubbles
especially) you will gain even more perspective.

Sadly, most people in the SF Bay Area don't have a clue about how emerging
markets work, and how their users live. And surprisingly this seems to be
valid even for those who came from the same emerging markets.

Step out, even if only temporarily.

PS: My main criticism of the article is lumping many external factors in
"toxic tech culture", but that's minor enough not to matter in the bigger
context.

------
x0x0
Valerie's note about giving people unpaid labor only to see them pitch a fit
when you eventually stop really strikes home.

I continued building some biological image analysis software on a part-time
basis after leaving grad school because I found it interesting, thought the
science was important, and enjoyed the feeling of contributing in some small
way to science. I stopped because a tenured professor got really aggressive
and extraordinarily rude about his needs not being addressed in what he
considered a timely manner -- to an unpaid contributor who now had a full time
job. There's nothing like being yelled at for daring to take a vacation by
someone who isn't paying you.

I've also virtually stopped contributing to open source for similar reasons.
It only takes a couple demanding lazy assholes helping themselves into your
inbox to poison any interest I have in sharing my work.

Our industry is really willing to actively exploit people. See eg the
difference in financial returns to founders vs employees, even (particularly!)
when the startup doesn't succeed. If you have an enormous bias against non-
tech jobs, and all your friends actively reinforce that, you really need new
friends.

------
busterarm
Did anyone else notice problems/errors in the linked Kapor Center study and
have more questions about that than the article?

    
    
        - They list that "Unfairness, however, was the top reason for leaving for women of color (36%)", but their table right below that says that 39% of Women in Color left for "Actively Seeking Better Opportunity".
        - The only significant difference between men and women in this results table is in Unfairness.  Men actually find their jobs almost 10% more unfair than women do!
        - White women seem to be the most unsatisfied with their work environment.
        - Why are women having significantly more unfair experiences than men but so much less likely to leave a job for that reason?

------
oceanghost
I've written software for Intel, Nintendo, Samsung, LG, DirecTV, Applied
Materials, Microsoft, and Apple to name a few. My last project was the basis
for an entire business line at a 500m/yr company.

I am unemployable because I'm a white male whose in his 40s, has a family, and
because somehow, in this industry experience is a bad thing.

It amazes me how intolerant of age and differing opinion tech culture is.

~~~
rifung
> I am unemployable because I'm a white male whose in his 40s, has a family,
> and because somehow, in this industry experience is a bad thing.

What indications do you have that those are the reasons you are unemployable?

I have many well respected, senior coworkers who fit this description so at
least personally I don't understand why people would be hesitant to hire you
based on that description alone..

~~~
tlb
I can attest that many tech companies are hostile to older people. I'm a white
male in my 40s, and I've felt it myself and heard many more accounts. The
existence of counterexamples doesn't falsify the claim.

The temptation to blame victims is strong. I think it comes from wanting to
reassure oneself that "it can't happen to me." So you have to actively silence
that voice in your head, and assume that victims are actually victims unless
there's real evidence to the contrary.

As advice for senior people, I'd suggest: don't apply for junior jobs. Apply
to lead large teams, or start your own company. It can be more stressful than
coding, but that's the way the industry is structured.

~~~
jokola
The software industry has few required degrees, certifications or titles.
There is no rigid career path or unions forcing companies to retain people
they have had influence over for a long time. This is great for people
starting out, but like everything else there is no free lunch. It is entirely
possible, even likely, to navigate this wrongly.

General experience doesn't mean much since there are few standards. Ones
experience would generally be used to take more responsibility, do more
important things or in other ways advance ones career. Not as some measurement
of quality, since that would be very subjective.

In a changing industry it would even be expected that when things change a
certain amount of people won't last, because they get squeezed out between new
people coming up and old people already specialized.

So while surely part of the industry focuses to much on youth I think people
jump the conclusion that it is widespread too quickly.

------
venatiodecorus
This post reads very much like an elitist realizing her own elitism. She talks
about how she viewed others who weren't in tech as inferior, but blames other
engineers for that viewpoint. She talks about people choosing to leave their
jobs, and doesn't consider that lots of folks can't just choose to leave their
job. She talks about conferences and talks and social events, none of which
have ever been a part of my job as a mere developer.

------
0xcde4c3db
I recall being told on a surprisingly regular basis, as a nerdy white boy in
the '90s, that I could be "the next Bill Gates". In light of the debate over
bias in tech, I wonder how many girls and people of color got that same
message. In one sense it's an incredibly small and narrow thing, but it
clearly didn't happen in a vacuum.

------
pmarreck
I'm wondering how much of this is endemic to ANY male-dominated profession, if
you factor in that "tech industry people" are probably disproportionately
likely to blog about their experiences.

I think biology makes it very difficult to see everyone as essentially human-
fungible and not as (even a little bit) their gender. It is extremely
difficult to stay genderblind (dear non-cisgender people: I'm really sorry. It
seems like a very hard path.) So I think you're going to get in-group and out-
group type phenomenons across professions with asymmetric gender membership,
regardless. The problem of course is when those become oppressive.

I don't know what the easy way out of this problem is. Sensitivity training?
Simply trying to have more friends of both genders so you can get more
perspective and therefore have more empathy and less... toxicity?

------
diimdeep
There is podcast that frequently touches relevant topics

[https://greaterthancode.com](https://greaterthancode.com)

[http://www.greaterthancode.com/podcast/063-the-
distribution-...](http://www.greaterthancode.com/podcast/063-the-distribution-
of-brilliance-and-opportunity-with-rehema-wachira/)

[http://www.greaterthancode.com/podcast/058-kindness-and-
pati...](http://www.greaterthancode.com/podcast/058-kindness-and-patience-
with-tara-scherner-de-la-fuente/)

[http://www.greaterthancode.com/podcast/051-creating-safer-
sp...](http://www.greaterthancode.com/podcast/051-creating-safer-spaces-with-
soo-choi/)

------
jrumbut
I believe this article has great advice for everyone in tech, and really gets
at the core of some of the problems that are widespread in the industry.

The thought exercise of thinking of yourself as something other than an
engineer/technologist was eye opening. I got very nervous just thinking about
it, and I really do have well rounded interests, other skills, and am not
locked into a 24/7 work lifestyle.

Apparently I've let being a software engineer become a core part of who I am
as a human being, and I think it's very worth my time to consider how that
happened and whether it's healthy for me. I don't believe I judge others for
not being engineers, why would I judge myself so strongly for just thinking
about it?

------
DoreenMichele
Having read most of it, I think it could use a better title. The actual title
sounds like it is smearing all of tech culture as toxic. This is not true.
Maybe something a little more qualified, like "If your tech company has a
toxic culture, this is how to escape it."

I got more out of this than I expected to. It helps explain my reluctance to
join groups marketed as _for women in tech._

I have a Certificate in GIS. I'm a blogger and have been for years, which
makes me tech savvy compared to a lot of people I know. I am pretty
comfortable on HN. But I am not a programmer and I never managed to get a job
in GIS and I do not self identify as _a woman in tech._ I self identify as a
writer, though I still hope to learn to code and would like to write an app or
game or similar.

The working for free thing. I wonder how much this is experienced differently
by different demographics. I did a lot of volunteer work as a military wife. I
have personally struggled with the fact that, yes, people tell me they _value_
what I do, but, no, they don't want to _pay me._ Pats on the head doesn't keep
food on the table.

I am increasingly reluctant to do volunteer work. I am willing to contribute
to not for profits, but in recent months I have been very up front about
limiting the scope of it.

I looked over a bunch of websites for a non profit and wrote up a list of
changes that need to happen. If they ever give me login credentials, I am
willing to do the initial overhaul. I am not willing to commit to ongoing
maintenance.

I would like to see these websites improved. I am willing to role up my
sleeves and do something to make that happen. I am not willing to become slave
labor.

I think this is sort of an unrecognized dark underbelly of things like open
source. Someone needs to do the work and there is no mechanism for paying
them.

The older I get, the more reluctant I am to accept the idea that someone needs
to do work that no one will pay for. If you don't _value_ it enough to
actually _pay me,_ then maybe it isn't really something you need or deserve.

Yet there are things I am still willing to do that I have no idea how to
monetize. I am working on launching a project currently to help people,
including homeless people, figure out how to develop a flexible income. I have
no plans currently to monetize it, nor even set up a non profit. It's just me
and a website and an email list and tentative plans to hold in person
meetings.

It isn't that I won't do stuff for free. But I am much more picky about it
being something I want to do, not something someone else wants me to do. I
increasingly look narrowly upon the latter form of volunteer work as a polite
request for slave labor.

------
mpweiher
As usual, the actual numbers don't back up the narrative. For example,
_significantly_ more men in the study left due to unfairness than women do:
40% vs. 31%. So either women are treated more fairly or these numbers don't
mean anything, yet you would never know it from the text, which is all about
the horrible things that happen to women.

Hmmm...

~~~
whatshisface
The willingness to slog though abusive working conditions is one of the most
highly-selected-for trait in tech. Mature people are, on average, are less
willing to do this than young people of the customarily military age range.

~~~
dang
Please don't post unsubstantive comments or flamebait here. What you say isn't
remotely plausible, since if it were true, software companies would be filled
with non-programmers. Edit: I mean instead of programmers.

~~~
Sacho
I think you read his comment in bad faith and ascribed "flamebait" and
unsubstantiveness to it. Specifically, the comment states:

> The willingness to slog though abusive working conditions is _one of the
> most highly-selected-for trait_ in tech.

The comment claims that "abuse tolerance" is _one_ of the most highly-
selected-for traits, not the only thing you need to become a programmer.
Further, programming skill isn't even necessarily a "trait" \- the colloquial
meaning of "trait" is often a personality trait, not _any possible
characteristic_ of a person.

I don't see how the comment is substantively different from the many others on
this topic.

~~~
dang
The comment was edited after I posted that. Originally it said, "is the most
highly-selected-for trait in tech".

It always shocks me when people silently do that to undermine someone's reply;
it seems so blatantly dishonest. Do we need to make comments non-editable once
they have replies?

~~~
whatshisface
I was actually just trying to file off the flamebait without changing the
meaning - since "the most" was meant as a figure of speech in the first place
I missed that someone could have seen it as a key point.

The sibling essentially sees what was going on here, I was thinking of a
closely-weighted linear classfier where a small change to the weights could
alter their ordering but do little to change the results.

Although it's definitely my responsibility to write clearly, in the future
I'll think more carefully about what my replies are actually disagreeing with
before I make edits that I think are just phrasing!

(And yes, I also had a few edits here before I found a way to write it
clearly.)

~~~
dang
Thanks for explaining. It often happens that I assume bad faith in someone on
HN and then was completely wrong. Sorry about that! I have to work to follow
the site guidelines (which say "assume good faith") as much as anyone.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
cafard
"Early on, Valerie realized that she unconsciously thought of literally every
single job other than software engineer as “for people who weren’t good enough
to be a software engineer” – and that she thought this because other software
engineers had been telling her that for her entire career."

Literally? As in, Thank goodness some people aren't smart enough to code and
have to become neurosurgeons?

------
YeGoblynQueenne
After thinking about this article for a while, I have two observations to
make.

One, if we're at the point where we need a how-to guide for people to _leave_
the technology industry, the industry has a really big problem. And I don't
jsut mean its "toxic culture" as the article puts it. Women and minorities who
make it into a technology career in the first place are probably twice as
competent as others, simply because their work is judged twice as harshly [1]
and there are no end of people eager to make their life harder, one way or
another. So those companies that are losing their women and minority workers,
are losing talent they really want to retain, over and beyond any diversity
considerations.

Two, this is really not the time to leave a career in technology, not for
minorities, not for straight white dudes. Right now, tech skills are in very
high demand and it is quite possible to make a very lucrative career out of
them. This is a unique opportunity for women and minorities to do vey well
professionally through skill and brain power alone. It is adding injustice on
top of injustice to allow yourself to be swept by the wayside when you have
what it takes to get ahead. Despite the "toxic culture", the industry sorely
needs competent technologists. If you are one, you should let nothing stop you
from taking advantage of it.

Now is not the time to give up. You give up now, you're giving up on a
brilliant future and a great career that you absolutely deserve. Don't allow
that to happen. Not "for the good of the industry"\- for your own interest.

We need a guide for surviving and thriving int the industry, in spite of its
culture- not one for bailing out.

_____________

[1] [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-gender-
matte...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-gender-matter/)

    
    
      These studies reveal that in many selection processes, the bar is
      unconsciously raised so high for women and minority candidates that few
      emerge as winners. For instance, one study found that women applying for a
      research grant needed to be 2.5 times more productive than men in order to
      be considered equally competent.

------
alexandercrohde
I really see merit in the toxic-tech culture part of this. I just question if
the minority-centric part and toxic-tech part need to be presented
intertwined.

------
thecortado
Don't have any points to add that haven't been mentioned, but wanted to say I
think the piece was well written.

------
jackaroe78
Beautiful night for a walk

------
tailrecursion
Women should start up their own companies and show men how to do it better.
They can make a company that pursues financial rewards and also balances
humanity, compassion, does not seek to enrich itself by hurting others.

The fact that corporations tend not to treat employees as multifaceted human
beings does not strike me as a gender issue. In fact none of the feminist
items that I've heard since the late 80s strike me as gender issues. Instead,
it seems to me that in complaining, feminists ignore the fact that all the
same things happen to men too. Most men are not in power. We get passed up for
promotion. We get ignored in meetings. We don't get treated like multifaceted
human beings and aren't payed what we're worth -- in our opinion.

Roughly 90% of mechanical engineers are men. Roughly 90% of the people in
prison are men. If a feminist is going to insist that one is the result of
sexism and the other is not, then feminism is going to have serious trust
issues in the near future.

It's common these days for activists coming out of humanities departments to
deconstruct some area of enterprise, like video games, according to the
ontology of feminism. These people, feminists, have been giving themselves a
bad reputation for nonsense for many years now. It's difficult to take much of
what they say seriously anymore.

Of course Silicon Valley culture is toxic. People are driven to move here not
because of a strange affinity for the soul of the machine; but to make money.
It seems as if everyone talks the same way, and has the same bland ideas. I'm
sure that it's not really that bad, but it seems that way from what we hear on
line and off line. Some of the corporate world is invigorating, especially
start ups, and I truly enjoyed PG's essays that talked about viaweb and fixing
bugs with the customer on the phone. But much of corporate structure is so
empty and even deceptive, it pisses me off.

Women are deliberate thinkers. They ruminate on important decisions. In my
opinion women should stop blaming other people and take up their own agency,
and show us how to do it better. Lead by example. Not as an employee: you'll
have to start your own company. To be blunt I believe such an exercise will be
humbling for the women who try it. But there's no reason companies can't be
structured and run much better by being run by women. There must already be
examples out there.

~~~
hypatiadotca
Perhaps you missed this in the post, but both Susan and Valerie have founded
companies.

------
venatiodecorus
[http://www.securitybsides.com/w/page/35868077/BSidesSanFranc...](http://www.securitybsides.com/w/page/35868077/BSidesSanFrancisco)

------
kmicklas
I left Google for very many of the reasons mentioned in the article and I'm a
white male. So I can only imagine how hard it must be for minorities.

Thankfully I had the opportunity to make this change early in my career,
although my financial situation is suffering dearly for it. And it's hard to
swallow when everyone you know is making 2x your salary and just about all of
them have a bunch of family money as well. (I grew up thinking I was upper
middle class and somehow was the poorest person in pretty much all my social
circles when I was at Google. The tech bubble is real.)

Keeping perspective and realizing that even if you leave toxic tech and take a
pay cut you'll probably still be in the upper echelons of the world inequality
distribution is hard but super important. And you'll realize that rich people
are on average way shittier and probably not worth hanging out with anyway.

~~~
xya3453
A rich man desires a simple life. A poor man a rich life. There is little
sense chasing to play in a game you can never win.

------
peterwwillis
What is the point of allowing discussion? HN would not allow a post on this
topic from an opposing viewpoint to get to the front page. Moreover, this
particular point of view is from a radical organization - you can't really
have intellectual discourse with people who refuse to see any other position
than theirs.

~~~
adamsea
> HN would not allow a post on this topic from an opposing viewpoint to get to
> the front page.

Proof?

> Moreover, this particular point of view is from a radical organization

Define "radical."

> you can't really have intellectual discourse with people who refuse to see
> any other position than theirs.

How does one tell if this is the case? How does one tell _which_ party refuses
to see things from another position? How does one tell if it is in fact
miscommunication, or lack of a shared understanding? How does one tell if in
fact one of the parties is not discussing in good faith?

~~~
peterwwillis
[http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Blogs/Off-the-Beat-
Bruc...](http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Blogs/Off-the-Beat-Bruce-
Byfield-s-Blog/The-Ada-Initiative-leaves-a-mixed-record-behind-it)

------
ant_mc
> Early on, Valerie realized that she unconsciously thought of literally every
> single job other than software engineer as “for people who weren’t good
> enough to be a software engineer” – and that she thought this because other
> software engineers had been telling her that for her entire career.

Just want to add that the "lets teach everyone to be programmers" idea that
constantly gets paraded around is just another form of this. Not everyone
waants to do it, not everyone is capable of doing it, and not everyone needs
to do it. It comes from a place of wanting to help people, but it's still "in
tech vs not in tech".

~~~
kodablah
Not that I completely disagree, but I wonder if this was once said about
reading and writing.

------
mjg59
Very meta query, but if you feel you need to disable flags to keep a
potentially interesting story on the front page, doesn't that imply that
there's something broken with the way the current flag model gets used?

~~~
dang
I'd say no. The system has a lot of noise in it, so we're never going to get
precise results. At a coarse-grained level, my impression is that it's
reasonably well balanced, just messy, and it would be a mistake to try for
finer-grained control than that. The way we get the latter is by occasionally
manually intervening.

I know it disappoints some of the systematizers here, but IMO there's no
substitute for human judgment being in the mix. HN functions best as a complex
system with many feedback loops between community, software, and moderation.

(We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16182520](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16182520)
and marked it off-topic.)

------
ant_mc
> especially the ones that you have been planning to read but never got around
> to

So um, all of them.

I do try to do stuff unrelated to work. I actually love this stuff though, so
other stuff can feel like a chore. Especialyl stuff that takes a lot of
investment (e.g. getting good enough at an instrument for it to be fun).

------
OnlyRepliesToBS
The moderation mechanisms are the very tools that enforce this cult-like
mentality.

And threat of suppression, of course.

~~~
dang
Bit of an awkward moment for a searing indictment, as we'd just turned off
flags on the OP. With suppression like that, who needs promotion?

It's a common misconception, but Hacker News really isn't identified with or
immersed in Silicon Valley. Those of us moderating it are largely on the
margins of SV and always have been, and the community by no means has its
center of gravity there. It's globally distributed and on the whole rather
anti-SV in orientation.

(The parent was originally a reply to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16182520](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16182520)
but I detached it to contain this offtopicness.)

~~~
neveroffensive
If you're actually asserting HN doesn't censor, and wouldn't censor even more
if people actually felt free to express their true opinions here, I question
you're intellectual honesty.

~~~
dang
People use the word 'censor' to mean so many different things, it's not
possible to assert anything coherent in general. We do some of those things,
there are others we don't do, and it's not as if any of it is secret. Some
people like to ask questions about this stuff and get answers, others prefer
to rage against the machine. To each their own.

------
auggierose
What I would be interested in is how many people look for images of Valerie
Aurora that would not look for images if the article would be from a male
author.

+1 if you did look but wouldn't in case of a male author, -1 otherwise.

~~~
dang
Please don't do this here.

~~~
auggierose
Ok. It's becoming a little bit too kindergarten for me here anyway.

