
Women, Men, And Other Things Done Wrong By Silicon Valley - wglb
http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/02/23/women-men-and-other-things-done-wrong-by-silicon-valley/
======
grellas
Not too long ago, founders were often seen as mere grist for Silicon Valley VC
mills - essential but hardly most vital to a startup's success. This has
changed.

Founders today have significant control of their company’s formation and
development. They no longer have to locate in the Valley but can operate from
almost anywhere worldwide. The web has given them _vast_ amount of knowledge
about how things work, where they were once relegated to trying to pick up
scraps around the water cooler. The infrastructure build-out has significantly
reduced their capital needs, where they once routinely needed immediate large
funding just to launch their basic product. The desktop PC is no longer a
primary software development platform, where it once dominated and defined the
range of startup opportunities available. The barriers are down, and there is
much more room for sheer drive and talent to hold sway and define the path to
success.

The dark side has always been there, as noted in this fine piece, and it will
remain - doing startups does "suck" if one compares it to conventional ways of
making a living but that is why the rewards can be large as well.

But demographic diversity is today quite pronounced in terms of racial,
ethnic, and cultural mix (the white males among the founders I work with are
today a distinct minority). Only on the gender side does it continue to lag.
On that side, I am not sure how much will change in the near term. Given the
otherwise radical changes that have occurred, _whatever_ is causing this state
of things to persist must be pretty deeply ingrained.

------
jdminhbg
I really enjoyed this. To me, the crux is here:

> My beef with the discourse of “diversity” in a nutshell: it screams “give us
> more women” and whispers “give us more women like us”.

The real lack of diversity in startupland doesn't seem to me to be in
chromosomes or melanin, but in experience and target markets. Everyone's
building general-purpose to-do lists and twitter clients instead of
researching and finding underserved markets.

~~~
Retric
Exactly, I think the prevalence of to-do list type apps shows a huge bias in
the startup world. Looking at the successful website few of them target people
building startups. EX: Facebook / Twitter (extroverts and stalkers), EBay
(people who have or want stuff), Google (people looking for things), Fark
(people with nothing to do).

IMO, the most important questions are “what type of person would actually use
this?” and “Why would they use this?”

------
patio11
In a bit of spectacularly poor planning I resolved to write this after I got
home for the day. Then I got off work too late to get home for the day. So I
thought I would dash this off at the Internet cafe and then check into the
hotel before they close the doors at 2 AM. That will be inconvenient for
commenting -- my apologies in advance.

On the subject of social pathologies and the idiot men who sign up for them: T
minus 30 work days until I am no longer a salaryman.

------
wglb
There is a lot of lively discussion going on last couple of days on HN about
diversity, and I very much like Patrick's take on the whole issue, putting it
into perspective.

I was a contractor at a large company that prided itself on diversity, and
from what I could see, the were successful in their hiring and promotion. What
they were not successful in is accepting or promoting diversity of _thought_.
Once you were in the door, you needed to get on board with their way of
thinking.

~~~
prewett
In "Built to Last," Collins observes that the great companies have a certain
uniformity in who they hire. "Fits like a glove or ejected like a virus" was
something along the lines of how he described it. So lack of diversity of
thought is not necessarily bad.

~~~
aswanson
Yeah but he didn't know what the fuck he was talking about:

<http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/88/built-to-last.html>

~~~
natep
> "between August 1994 and August 2004 [...] Citigroup alone has returned a
> breathtaking 848%

Because of their excellent management, right...

------
jackfoxy
The modern definition of diversity is "people who look different and think the
same".

~~~
ovi256
Post-modern, really. We have long ago exited the modern era, which was
rational, progressive, and all that. Or even, according to some far-out
academics, completely by-passed it, and gone directly to the all-apearance and
buzz post-modern.

------
dkarl
_you can hire a stay-at-home mom with a graduate degree in Middle America for
less than $10 an hour. If you figure out a way to exploit that, you’ll end up
very, very rich._

First, just to get this out of the way, it's kind of embarrassing that
pornographers are once again in the vanguard. Now that that's out of the way,
the author has an excellent point. There must be a lot of educated moms who
are having second thoughts about staying at home, for economic reasons or
otherwise, but they look around and think, "Crap, how the hell can I get a
decent job here? I'm stuck in Middle America, nobody cares that I'm an
excellent writer and researcher, and even if I _wanted_ to work as a
receptionist, I'd be ridiculed by my coworkers for the lack of return on my
graduate degree in anthropology." When people have second thoughts about their
lives, maybe they persuade their families to turn their lives upside down, or
maybe they decide not to. Telecommuting from home is a great option for those
who don't. I suspect there's a culture gap between educated stay-at-home moms
and ragingly ambitious (and sometimes very _narrowly_ educated) twenty-
something software entrepreneurs, but they're basically from the same class
and should be able to get along without too much effort.

~~~
kscaldef
I'm lost. What's the connection to pornography?

~~~
jdminhbg
I think he's saying that pornographers are doing a better job utilizing this
resource than everyone else.

------
100k
I just finished reading "The Happiness Hypothesis" by Jonathan Haidt which has
an interesting discussion of what "diversity" means and this post reminded me
of that.

Haidt argues there's two kinds of diversity: demographic and moral.

People who want demographic diversity are arguing for he inclusion of
previously excluded groups.

Moral diversity is a lack of consensus on normal norms and values, and Haidt
argues no one can coherently want moral diversity (e.g., if you are pro-life,
how can you want there to be a diversity of views on abortion with none
dominating?)

In his article Patrick touches on this I think. Some people want Silicon
Valley to be more demographically diverse for reasons of justice; but they
would not feel comfortable if that diversity led to moral diversity. People
want to associate with others who think and believe like themselves.

~~~
blahedo
_...if you are pro-life, how can you want there to be a diversity of views on
abortion with none dominating?_

I don't think it's incoherent to recognise that I don't always have all the
answers, and that I need occasional or frequent reminding that I might be
wrong---which will presumably not come unless there's someone who disagrees
with me.

Furthermore, thoughtful people change their minds on things (which is why
accusations like "flip-flopper" are so ludicrous), and if I agree with
everyone now, what will happen when I change my mind on something later?

I, at least, really do value moral diversity as well as demographic diversity.

~~~
100k
First off, I doubt you would say that about anything you feel very strongly
about, otherwise what is the point of holding that belief?

To expand a little bit, Haidt argues that too much moral diversity leads to
anomie, in which the condition in a society with no clear rules, standards or
norms. This is the case of when there is "too much" individualism, and it is
very difficult to achieve happiness without a coherent social structure.

"In an anomic society, people can do as they please; but without any clear
standards of respected social institutions to enforce those standards, it is
harder for people to find things they want to do. Anomie breeds feelings of
rootlessness and anxiety and leads to an increase in amoral and antisocial
behavior."

Though he is a liberal, one of his points in the book is that the relentless
pursuit of individualism without regard to shared values leads to unsatisfying
lives.

~~~
blahedo
Dude, please respond to what I said, not to what you think I must have meant.
It is not incoherent to acknowledge that one's beliefs, even one's very
strongly-held beliefs, might be wrong. Yes, I think that I'm right, I'm pretty
darn sure I'm right, but what if I'm not? And I'd never find out unless I, at
least sometimes, let people who disagree with me try to convince me they're
right.

~~~
100k
Sure, that makes sense. That's not what I'm saying about anomie though.

Do you want to live in a world where your strongly held beliefs are dominant
(not exclusive, but dominant) or in one where you are in the minority?

Haidt is saying a person would not want to be in the minority. They may
_believe_ in a minority moral opinion but their goal is for that moral opinion
to become a majority opinion, not for it to languish forever.

------
mixmax
Here's a related take on why there are no more women in startups from an
evolutionary perspective.

In reproduction, which is what evolution is made of, men and women are very
different. A woman can only have one baby every nine months, and realistically
maybe every other year. This limits her choices for reproduction so she has to
find the right man for the job meaning someone that has the resources to take
care of the kid and make sure he grows up and has offspring. Men on the other
hand can reproduce as much as they like given they can find a willing woman.
This has some interesting consequences on evolutionary selection.

\- Women are risk averse and look for security, knowing that they only have a
few shots at successful propagation.

\- Since men can have many women, but women can have only one man (a women
with many men will not produce more offspring, but a man with many women will)
the offspring of the men will be unequally divided. The bottom of the pack
won't have any offspring at all while the top of the pack will have a lot.
Ghengis Khan had lots of children with many wives, and so do people with
harems. This means there are men that have no offspring at all.

\- Women look for men that can take care of their offspring. They care more
about them since they have fewer chances than men do. This is why women go for
rich men, and why only rich men have harems.

What this means is that a woman is somewhat guaranteed to find a man that she
can produce offspring with if she is conservative in her choices, and that she
will tend to mate with the most successful man she can find. Men, on the other
hand, don't have this guarantee and have to play a risky game of trying to
make it to the top. The more success a man has the more women will want to
mate with him. On the other hand if he is conservative there's a risk he won't
find anyone to mate with at all thus ending his gene pool.

I think this combined with Patrick's post explains pretty clearly why there
are no more women in Silicon Valley. It's simply too risky.

~~~
tptacek
Or maybe it's possible that virtually none of what you wrote is meaningfully
correct, which would account for the dearth of women in CS despite the huge
market for practically risk-free CS/IT jobs in the US.

~~~
mixmax
The article and my reply was in relation to startups, not women in CS.

Of course it might be pure gibberish, but I believe it does happen to coincide
with currently accepted wisdom in evolutionary science.

~~~
tptacek
I think if you re-read my comment carefully (with my apologies, as I seem to
have worded it obtusely), you'll see that I'm actually addressing your point,
and not changing the subject to CS.

~~~
mixmax
Ah yes - sorry about that.

------
DaniFong
In my experience people who've never been in a startup don't know what it's
like. Therefore their decisions are based on prejudice. And since most men, as
most women, also refrain from trying to start their own company or follow
their passion (even though both are very common desires) due to their fears
and the social context they've grown up in, I think that if one were to alter
the growth of startups from women (as men) one must focus first on
deconstructing the prejudices and, in particular, just helping people to
start.

I think that YC has done a very good job of that.

~~~
indiejade
Definitely. Regarding the "diversity" issue, I think there's verifiable
evidence that first-generation immigrants tend to be far more successful in
the startup / small business enterprise than those who've been in the US for
many generations.

------
elptacek
Where I grew up, there is a saying for logic like this, "horse manure." I
apologize -- I know you and Tom are cozy. He thinks very highly of you. You
get an "A" for effort, but you're missing the point. Joining start-ups does
not suck. Lemme 'splain.

I survived that whole dotcom boom watching all of my male internet buddies
start, get hired at and then cash out of start-ups. As many times as I
privately asked to be considered, I was denied. My male friends networked for
jobs, got references. I asked for the same and got hems and haws and
shufflings of feet. I had to marry one of them, just to get that opportunity.
It worked: I've stayed with MTSO for 3 years -- longer than any place I've
worked since I left high school. Sounds bitter, doesn't it?

The truth is, I never let myself be bitter. And I've always told the women who
do whine to suck it up. Whining sets a bad example.

So let's review:

\- I'm exceptionally motivated. You put yourself through college scrubbing
toilets and see how motivated you are. So far there is nothing I've tried
that, in time, I did not excel at. Pardon my hubris. But it's impossible to be
at the top of a game you cannot play, right?

\- I would have loved that job. I kept applying and kept getting turned down.
The closest I could get was as a contractor, which is kinda like a temp who
can script instead of type. Sun hired me to train full-time employees.
Contracting came to a swift end when I became pregnant. To quote, "We think
you should reconsider your fit within this organization." You don't forget
words like that.

\- I used to program, decades ago. I quit, but I don't exactly remember why.
It's a mystery, because coding does not feel like work, and I get paid for
that, now. Instead, I spent those decades as a sysadmin. I have a lot of grey
hair and innumerable scars on my arms and legs from running cable and shifting
heavy equipment.

\- I worked 100 hour weeks, anyway. Even now I try to cram work into every
small time slice available (today, that meant coding while waiting for an
x-ray appointment). I always was paid less than my male peers, so the threat
of being paid next to nothing is meaningless to me. I wouldn't trade what I do
now for anything short of "independently wealthy." What does crushing defeat
really feel like? When a famous do-no-evil company interviews you and asks
what your kids will do all day while you're at work. Or a recruiter mentions
she hears your kids in the background and asks for reassurance that you can
work 40 hours a week. That's the moment when it hits you that all the blood,
sweat and tears that flowed from you while you were paying your dues count for
nothing. A friend of mine quit the industry for two years to work as a roofer.
He walked right back into a six-figure salary. Note that I've never had a six-
figure salary, but I know what most of my old co-workers made then and make
now.

\- No, sir, the pinnacle of my career comes at the ripe old age of 40 when I
really don't care if we ever cash out. I'm sure Tom does, but not me. Risk
tolerance? All our eggs are in this one basket. Even though I know that, if
something goes wrong, we can get "regular jobs," this is just too much fun.
Not in it for the money... in it for the bragging rights.

When I went back to work full-time, Tom didn't quite have a sense of what I
was up against. Though I think he got an inkling when I was interviewed by
someone who showed me a picture of his ass during the interview. Heck, I was
even SURPRISED to find out that it was illegal for to be asked what my kids
would be doing while I was at work. And I called that recruiter's boss -- a
woman, also. She peed all over herself, verbally, apologizing.

Your ideas to make startups more palatable are not bad, but they are
expensive. Startups need to run lean. And as for women, a lot of the time
we're trying not to aggravate bias by whining. As my grandmother said, "You
catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar." Nobody likes a whiner.
It's a dignity thing. But I don't have anything to lose. So if you want to
hear more of the gory stories of my work experiences, feel free to track me
down and email me.

Oh, and sorry for the really long response. It was a long post.

~~~
jdminhbg
> Your ideas to make startups more palatable are not bad, but they are
> expensive. Startups need to run lean.

Zuh? His ideas are 'make products to sell,' 'locate somewhere besides SV,'
'don't seek funding,' 'don't overwork people,' and 'don't take advice too
seriously.'

I have no idea which of those things you think is 'expensive.' Maybe the part
about not overworking? From the rest of the post, it seems like you're
responding to things other people have told you over the years, rather than
the OP.

~~~
elptacek
Yes, the part about not overworking people. And, to a lesser extent, the part
about not taking funding.

------
myprasanna
I'm sure the readers of this post, are skewed towards the work-life balance
believers. I don't. Most of the best entrepreneurs I know, don't. Apple.
Facebook. Microsoft. Paul Graham as well.

A few posts I like about this subject:

[http://blog.asmartbear.com/sacrifice-your-health-for-your-
st...](http://blog.asmartbear.com/sacrifice-your-health-for-your-startup.html)
[http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/07/calacanis-fires-
people-...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/07/calacanis-fires-people-who-
have-a-life/) [http://eu.techcrunch.com/2009/11/20/european-startups-
need-t...](http://eu.techcrunch.com/2009/11/20/european-startups-need-to-work-
as-hard-as-valley-ones-or-forget-it/)

~~~
gridspy
Despite how much you might want to succeed, consistently working beyond 40 or
60 hours a week is going to degrade your productivity below the level you
would achieve with 40 hours a week.

There are several factors

\- You make more mistakes \- You have trouble applying yourself \- You loose
the ability to think creatively, so you don't see solutions \- You don't make
the intuitive leaps that used to save so much time \- You stop coming up with
as many great ideas

The best way I know to reduce this effect is to make sure you spend your
leisure time doing productive business stuff. Network, discuss business plans,
email, twitter, blog, research - just don't expect to do any one thing (code
for example) 60-80 hours a week for months and not get bitten on the ass by
your own exhaustion.

------
crux_
This bit caught my eye:

> [...] it [Silicon Valley] has its peculiar jokes and rhythms and closely-
> held shadow beliefs which owe a bit more to repetition than they owe to
> empirical reality

The problem is that those beliefs include a broad perception of women as less
than equal. Lack of diversity is a self-perpetuating prophecy in that way.

\--- Broader reply:

I also think that Patrick is severely underestimating the benefits of a
diverse environment. There are reasons Silicon Valley is next to SF and not
Dallas; many of them have to do with the vibrant mix of cultures there.

Personal anecdote: I've moved across the country in search, specifically, of
greater diversity. I've turned down jobs because the workplace was a
monoculture. And the single biggest negative for me of the space I'm currently
co-working in is that it is entirely composed of white guys under 30. I may or
may not be the best developer ever -- but the best programmers and
businesspeople I've ever met share some of the same values. In other words a
homogeneous environment will not only drive away 'diverse' people, but also
may be doing the same for the best non-diverse people as well.

~~~
jdminhbg
"There are reasons Silicon Valley is next to SF and not Dallas; many of them
have to do with the vibrant mix of cultures there."

Erm.

As of the census[1] of 2000, the racial makeup of Dallas was 50.8% White,
25.9% Black or African American, 0.5% Native American, 2.7% Asian, 0.1%
Pacific Islander, 17.2% from other races, and 2.7% from two or more races.
35.6% of the population was Hispanic or Latino of any race.
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Dallas>)

In 2000 the racial makeup of the 9 County Bay Area was 58.10% white, 19.01%
Asian, 0.54% Pacific Islander, 7.53% black, 0.64% Native American, 9.24% from
other races, and 4.93% from two or more races. 19.39% of the population was
Hispanic or Latino of any race.
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area#Demograp...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area#Demographics))

~~~
jdietrich
I think you're both missing Patrick's point here to some extent. A broad
palette of skin colours does not equal diversity. How many evangelical
Christians do you meet in the valley? How many stay at home moms? I think
urban diversity is highly misleading - while you might look around and see the
signs of diversity, how often do you have a conversation with someone who has
totally different goals and aspirations to yourself?

I can only speak from a British perspective, but I think London is a good
example of this - although it is one of the most racially and culturally
diverse cities on earth, it is in practice quite strongly ghettoised by age
and outlook. Most people will scarcely exchange more than a few words with
anyone outside their professional and social circles. It seems to me that
people living in rural communities tend to have more diverse contact as they
are much more likely to actually spend time with people who live lives very
different to their own.

Out of genuine curiosity, I ask all the folks in the Bay Area - when was the
last time you had a conversation with someone who doesn't own a computer (and
isn't your mom)? When was the last time you had a drink with someone who is
barely literate? Myspace has 51 million users in the US, how many do you know?

~~~
crux_
> While you might look around and see the signs of diversity, how often do you
> have a conversation with someone who has totally different goals and
> aspirations to yourself?

If you are interested in doing so, you have the opportunity. You wouldn't if
you were living in Kansas.

You seriously believe that London's ethnic and cultural diversity isn't a
genuine attraction for many who end up there, nor a genuine asset for the
city?

~~~
jdminhbg
I seriously believe that when people say they want "diversity," what they mean
is:

1) People where I currently am aren't like me, so if I go somewhere more
'diverse,' there will be more people like me

2) And the restaurants will be better

EDIT: That's meant as a generalization, BTW, not a pop-psych analysis of
anyone in the thread.

~~~
crux_
I believe (1) may be true for some, but is absolutely false for others.

Also, I think it's safe to broaden (2) to mean "creative culture" -- as in not
just restaurants, but galleries, plays, music, nightlife, and so on; along
with the indirect repercussions of that -- in which case it remains true, but
lacks the shallowness you tried to imply.

------
dojo
The problem with Silicon Valley is that it doesn't respect intelligent women
any more than the rest of the US. Sure, companies or "startups" will hire
women as marketers to pass out badges or tshirts at big I/O events, answer
phones, serve lunches, or vacuum the floors, work in the "massage" parlor . .
. but being a female professional who actually has talent is about 1000 times
harder than any guy who lives there can possibly understand.

~~~
enjo
I'm a man, but I'm happy to call bullshit on that. There are a long list of
successful women who are taken quite seriously all on their own. Leah Culver
springs immediately to mind. My wife, who owns a successful accounting startup
is another. I've met countless others, including one particularly memorable
engineer at Flock (I'll protect her privacy).

The reality is that there are simply very few women that hold the
qualifications necessary to be successful in the startup world. When you do
find one, the competition for their services is incredibly fierce. In a
previous gig I tried desperately to hire a particular woman who had just
graduated from MIT. We lost a pretty serious bidding war, not because she was
a woman but because her skills were off the charts.

It's funny, there are similar articles written about certain disciplines in
academia (like accounting). There too it's just a numbers game. My wife, until
her latest birthday, was just 1 of 5 female accounting PhD's in the whole
country (including foreign born) under 30. Of course there are precious few
female accounting professors, there are very few females pursuing accounting
PhD's!

Of course, that means she enjoys a tremendous advantage over her peers. The
pressure to promote diversity means she enjoys a better salary and lot more
job security than her male counterparts.

The same is true, from my experience, for the few intelligent and talented
female engineers that I've met in the valley.

~~~
kscaldef
> There are a long list of successful women who are taken quite seriously all
> on their own. Leah Culver springs immediately to mind.

That's interesting, because Leah Culver is someone who I've frequently heard
discussed in the context of who she is dating or who she has dated, with the
implication that she's riding on the coattails of her boyfriends. So, maybe
that's not such a good example for you to use.

(Disclaimer, in case that wasn't clear enough: I'm relaying things I've heard
other people say. I don't personally know enough about Ms. Culver to have any
opinions on her abilities.)

~~~
enjo
I think it's an excellent example. She clearly has the programming ability.
She's clearly incredibly intelligent. She's clearly taken seriously. That she
also runs in higher profile (At least in the valley) social circles hardly
discounts her accomplishments.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Does she clearly have the programming ability? Her blog suggests she is an
average programmer at best.

[http://blog.leahculver.com/2008/11/couchdb-documents-
python-...](http://blog.leahculver.com/2008/11/couchdb-documents-python-
objects.html)

Using exec to access object fields? Really? There was also a fiasco a while
back where she converted floats to strings in order to compute an average (!).
She deleted that post, but if you google "leah culver star ratings" you'll
find some discussion of it.

She's a great marketer, but I'd hardly say she has the programming ability.

~~~
ladyada
Which I find quite interesting. I know plenty of men who are terrible
engineers and post pretty bad stuff on their blog, but none get the kinds of
evisceration that you are referring to - mentioned over and over again in
blogs, forums, etc.

The 'Internet' was/is ruthless in laughing at her and putting her down, in a
way that I just don't see happening to guys. Could be just that its more
apparent with the fewer # of women - people are more likely to remember these
faux pas. Would be interesting to hear of specific technical instances of the
same occurring with guys.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_I know plenty of men who are terrible engineers and post pretty bad stuff on
their blog, but none get the kinds of evisceration that you are referring to -
mentioned over and over again in blogs, forums, etc._

Most of those terrible engineers have not been featured in Wired and
Technology Review. If Leah Culver were a man, no one would criticize her
because no one ever would have heard of her. Do you really think anyone would
have cared about her facebook/twitter clone if she weren't pretty?

 _Would be interesting to hear of specific technical instances of the same
occurring with guys._

ESR wrote some crappy code a while back. Comments:

John Graham Cummings: "It's amusing to actually look at the source code of
this...Reading it, it looks like a total hack job by a poor programmer..."

Other HN readers:

"He's [esr] certainly a talented self-publicist, but I'd go no further than
that. He's the Michael Moore of software. Or the Paris Hilton."

"He's more Nichole Richie. He doesn't rise to the level of Paris, who was
surprised by jail, but never surprised by wealth."

"Truth is, he is loud, but... he's not very good at writing software."

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=923660>

~~~
ladyada
Woah! Are you sure that pownce got attention solely because of "Leah's looks"?
or do you think its more likely that its because it was founded by Kevin Rose,
who has had _much_ bigger press (cover on Business week, TR is peanuts in
comparison) and web exposure (like running one of the most popular sites on
the Internet)?

(Will grant that ESR is a pretty good example, for Atwood I dont see the
attacks reaching as low a level)

------
maxklein
This article is long and pointlessly avoids saying things in clear text. Your
list:

Gay Jewish man in New York, an Englishman in London, a 4th generation zainichi
kankokujin (ethnically Korean who was born in Japan), and an Irish Catholic
dogmatist

Could be as diverse as anything, but they could also be very similar. I
actually think they are very similar, because in foreign countries, the
collaboration that usually falls in place is similar to that.

Real diversity happens when age, gender, culture barriers are crossed.
English, New Yorker, Irish and even an Australian man of roughly the same age
have very similar though processes, because they consume the same media.

It also points at a fundamental misunderstanding - intellectual diversity does
not mean bringing in people that think the same as you, but have lived in
slightly different neighbourhoods. Intellectual diversity actually starts when
you find it difficult to understand the other persons point of view. When the
cultural difference is so large that there is a difficulty communicating, then
you have created an intellectually diverse place.

These oh-let-me-pat-myself-on-the-back posts are boring and offer exactly the
same arguments as the other two posts. If you want to write a blog post where
two other blog posts have been written, then make an effort to actually offer
a viewpoint that is really unique to the situation.

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jasonlbaptiste
were all focused on what's happening at the "they are female and want to work
for a startup" point. we really need to focus on the steps that happen before
that point.

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pw0ncakes
_But my gut instinct has always been that people avoid joining startups
because joining startups sucks. The question isn’t what are we doing that’s
keeping ladies out of the Valley, gentlemen. The question should be why in
God’s name are we still here._

The startup failure rate after 5 years is actually closer to 60 than 90%. Two
comparisons come to mind:

In a standard company job, career stagnation and unrecognized toil are the
standard. If you don't become the protege of someone important-- someone who
will look out for you and make sure you're on the best projects-- in the first
two years, it's no longer worth it to go to work in a lot of companies. Most
people don't become proteges.

So, if you're ambitious at all, there's above a 60% chance you'll be looking
for work again in 5 years no matter what you do.

Second, although the boring corporate job is safer, the enjoyment of startups
comes from the fact that you're doing relevant, useful work (so long as the
product you're working on has a successful launch and trajectory). To do
relevant work isn't an option for most people in their early-mid 20s; even if
they're brilliant, most companies expect them to "pay dues" before they can do
anything interesting, and there are so many arcane, IO-bound permissions
systems before even the smallest technological changes can be made.

In the startup, you have a 100% chance of doing relevant work for a product
that has a sub-50% chance of ever existing. In the safe corporate job, less
than 20% of what you'll do in your first three years is relevant work. It's
tough to say which wins.

Personally, I chose the startup route under the belief that, no matter what
happens, I'll learn a lot more-- that's a lot more important than what job
title I get or what my pay is (as long as I can stay afloat). I figure that I
can rewrite my own story a million times-- I've never had to resort to
"creative career repair", but if I need to invent more impressive titles or
inflate compensation, I can. On the other hand, knowledge and skill are
completely impossible to fake. So I focus on a path where I learn a lot, not
one where I get my tickets punched.

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tptacek
There's a rationalization used by underemployed startup workers that goes
something like, "you're going to lose your BigCo job anyways, so the startup
isn't that much riskier".

It isn't valid.

When a startup fails, you are very likely to be broke. The only thing you've
added to your resume is a company nobody has heard of. You've been working and
networking with people who are going to stay in startups. It's also harder to
leave a startup preemptively, because all startups look risky all the time.

When you leave a BigCo job, you are very likely to have a nest egg, because
they paid you consistently and generously and you were able to tune your
standard of living. You've been working and networking with people who then
diffused through a variety of other BigCo's in your area. Everybody you
interview with knows the company you worked for. And if layoffs are coming,
you saw them coming at least 6 months ago.

The risks involved in startups aren't comparable to the risks of a BigCo
career. That's why most people in our industry work for BigCo's, profitably,
for the entirety of their careers.

Also, speaking as a long-term veteran of startups: career stagnation and
unrecognized toil are the standard _everywhere_.

~~~
pw0ncakes
Fair enough. Your points are correct, and for this reason I'd advocate not
working at a personal loss for more than 6 months, and only for equity (with
the caveat not to put money or time into a business that you can't afford to
lose).

I'm not advocating working in startups to the detriment of all else, but I
think it's worth doing when young, if you'll learn a lot by doing so. That
said, if my current project were to fail, I'd probably use the experience to
get into grad school or a place like Google (on better terms than I'd be able
to get without the experience, I hope).

