[HN Gopher] Reflections on Being a Female Founder
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Reflections on Being a Female Founder
Author : ralphleon
Score : 251 points
Date : 2020-06-22 16:29 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tracy.posthaven.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tracy.posthaven.com)
| nchelluri wrote:
| This was an interesting read. I found it well written and kind of
| sad, if optimistic and hopeful.
|
| Personally, I would love to see a lot more female developers. I
| am betting there is no significant difference in inherent
| potential talent between the two genders, so why are almost all
| coders I've worked with male?
| vmception wrote:
| I see a lot of different personalities and demographics
| including women coming out of coding academies.
|
| But everyone in the bay area flirts with "getting into tech".
| golemiprague wrote:
| Partly because they are not interested and partly because there
| is so much propaganda about how bad it is for women in this
| industry that it cause the ones that are interested to be
| afraid of it even more. I had a chance to work in more
| "patriarchal" societies and in western countries and it seems
| like in those patriarchal places there are more women
| developers and much less hassle and friction.
| globular-toast wrote:
| > Personally, I would love to see a lot more female developers.
|
| See there you betray a rather sinister idea. If you had said
| that you want to see any unfair barriers to entry removed, or
| that you want to ensure equal exposure and opportunity across
| all people and all fields then I could support it. But instead
| you made your desires quite clear: you just want female
| developers. That means the gender, physical appearance, and
| perhaps even sexual preferences, of developers actually matters
| to you. Do you have any idea why this is?
| Scarblac wrote:
| Aren't workplaces with a more or less even mix just more
| pleasant places to work? People seem to act more normal than
| when it's (almost) only men or (almost) only women.
| andrewg wrote:
| Oh brother. People aren't work-producing robots, developers
| included. Different types of people bring different types of
| experiences, opinions, and viewpoints. So you'll make better
| products if you have a more diverse group of people making
| them. On a personal level, wouldn't you like to work with a
| more diverse group of people as well?
| globular-toast wrote:
| > So you'll make better products if you have a more diverse
| group of people making them.
|
| Do you have any evidence of this? Any world-leading product
| that assembled its team specifically for "diversity" rather
| than talent will do.
|
| > On a personal level, wouldn't you like to work with a
| more diverse group of people as well?
|
| It doesn't matter what I would like. I will not
| discriminate based on sex, colour, or religion out of
| principle and I will fight people who do.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| I've noticed no talent differences. I've worked with men and
| women who were great devs, and I've worked with men and women
| who weren't.
| tialaramex wrote:
| One thing that bugs me: Women I know who wrote software kept
| finding new roles where they'd be in management instead and
| then they moan that they liked writing code and miss it. Maybe
| that tells us that sexism in software development is prevalent
| and they wanted out, which is no fault of theirs, and maybe
| they just wanted more money - but it definitely sucks overall.
|
| I find blind technical interviewing easy because I don't
| usually remember new people after a few moments. My reports say
| "The applicant" not out of a deliberate effort to screen the
| potential hire's name, race, gender - anything like that but
| because if they left an hour ago I already couldn't tell you
| anything whatsoever about them besides that they've got this
| very idiosyncratic approach to loop structures or they seemed
| not to understand what thread safety means or whatever.
|
| The only interviewee I remember at all now was a Russian woman
| for whom it was her first interview in the country, and her
| first interview in English, and my core goal for the entire
| time was to keep her calm enough that I could discern whether
| she knew how to do the job. It isn't humanly possible to stay
| terrified for say months, eventually she will relax if we hire
| her (and she did, she was fine within a week) - but she might
| manage to stay terrified for long enough that I can't tell if
| she actually understands what a compound primary key is and how
| these iterators I'm talking about work and if I'm not sure then
| hiring her would be a big risk.
| eyerony wrote:
| > Women I know who wrote software kept finding new roles
| where they'd be in management instead and then they moan that
| they liked writing code and miss it. Maybe that tells us that
| sexism in software development is prevalent and they wanted
| out, which is no fault of theirs, and maybe they just wanted
| more money - but it definitely sucks overall.
|
| I secretly (well not in this moment but ordinarily secret)
| consider women in software development smarter than men, on
| average, due precisely to this observed tendency to spot
| where the social and monetary rewards are (management, other
| social roles "above" developers) almost immediately and start
| aiming for that ASAP.
|
| [EDIT] this is in general bigcos and "startupy" places,
| anyway--I dunno if that trend holds in e.g. FAANG or finance
| or the other places where devs actually do make really,
| really good money rather than just good-for-not-a-manager
| like everywhere else.
| bt4u2 wrote:
| Then you secretly are stupid and sexist. The average IQ is
| one of the few places where men and women are actually
| equal, the data is very clear on this
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Possible for a bunch of reasons that women in the field
| tend to be more assertive and have better communications
| skills. Those are primary management skills.
| eyerony wrote:
| Yeah, I dunno why it is, but that could well be. I
| suspect it has something to do with whatever's resulting
| in women attending and completing college at a higher
| rate than men, but that's just a hunch.
|
| [EDIT] jesus it's so hard to write anything about this
| without walking on eggshells--to be clear I'm not
| complaining about any of this, including the college
| thing.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| I agree on the eggshell thing. I rewrote what I said
| three times to try and block off any interpretation other
| than the one I meant. I have some friends that are female
| engineers and you a get drink in them and listen to all
| the bullshit they've had to deal with, you have to
| imagine how thick their skin is.
| orpheansodality wrote:
| Just based on what I've seen and the women I've talked to - a
| lot of women in tech are encouraged to move into management
| because (for a variety of societal reasons) they've just
| upskilled more in EQ than many of their male peers.
|
| See also: the pressure to be glue [1]
|
| 1: https://noidea.dog/glue
| ddevault wrote:
| >Women I know who wrote software kept finding new roles where
| they'd be in management instead and then they moan that they
| liked writing code and miss it.
|
| I hear this a lot from men, too. We have a general problem in
| the industry of being bad at making senior engineering a
| rewarding career track.
| mrkurt wrote:
| Right. We glamorize "management" in every way, even going
| so far as to label devs "individual contributors". As if
| they only contribute 1x while managers contribute
| multiples.
|
| I have this gut wrenching feeling that tech companies just
| can't be fixed. There's way too much that has to change and
| the powerful people don't have much incentive to do the
| work.
| [deleted]
| ameyv wrote:
| Truly inspirational read. Keep up Tracy.
| dnprock wrote:
| I started a company 8 years ago. I went through startup
| literature. I tried to follow the advices. We got our product
| going for 2 years. But we couldn't make it big. We eventually
| transitioned to contracting work. We were basically working for a
| bigger company. Except we had the freedom to work from home.
| We're about to fold during this pandemic. I'm happy with the
| choices I made.
|
| My take away lesson is most of the startup advices are molding us
| into stereotypes. You have to come up with a business model and
| projection. You have to have more than 1 founder. Silicon Valley
| is where you want to be. We have to do xyz to raise funding.
| These advices distract us from building products and selling to
| customers. They also create unhealthy relationships.
|
| I think corporate structures and funding industries have baked-in
| inequalities. They are optimized for pattern matching. They
| discriminate against a lot of things: company size, gender, race,
| etc. When you follow company building advices, you are trying to
| retrofit into these structures. Stereotypes and discriminations
| come with them. You'll be disappointed and unhappy.
|
| For my next projects, I don't seek out for advices. I build
| stuff, find users, find customers. The only advice filter is:
| help me find customers.
| nudpiedo wrote:
| > To top it all off, I felt I had to be a version of what I
| thought a good male CEO was, so that I wouldn't be judged or
| treated differently. It would take me years before I realized how
| delusional I was. I became a better and happier leader by being
| honest in who I was.
|
| So one of the main problems as female founder was to imitate
| men's idealized CEO role?
|
| Men also suffer trying to imitate idealized roles, but we do not
| have women's specific problems which OP comments. I guess it
| would make a lot of sense that Tracy shows women how is the
| female CEO role that adapts better to her identity rather than
| wish for some sort of equality which will never happen just for
| claiming it.
|
| Just a suggestion, but overall I enjoyed reading it as it is a
| good insight on some of the struggles female founders face which
| aren't always obvious for men.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| >Not a lot is written about being a female founder and CEO.
|
| Seems like it's the only thing female founders ever talk about.
| I've seen articles on the topic from Sarah Blakely, Bethenny
| Frankel, Elizabeth Holmes, and Sheryl Sandburg. I'm not opposed
| to exploiting any advantage you have as a businessperson but it's
| bold to open with a bald-faced lie.
| microcolonel wrote:
| > _On some days, I would park my car on a sleepy street in Palo
| Alto and pump milk with a silicone hand pump in front of
| someone's nice house, reading profiles of the investors in my
| next meeting from my iPhone. Occasionally someone would drive up,
| or a jogger would run by, and I would feel completely
| humiliated._
|
| I wonder how sometimes I can feel embarrassed even while doing my
| best, I guess that's everyone, all the time.
|
| > _I've heard awful stories firsthand from friends. Horrific
| stories like being offered a term sheet if sex was involved.
| Thankfully, that was not my experience. I believe I am in the
| minority._
|
| In a kinda bitter cynical way, that particular horror story seems
| like a positive. I don't know that there's anything I could offer
| other than competence in a negotiation like that, aside from the
| occasional weird personal request like "Can you hang out with my
| son? I worry about him." that I've received while conducting
| business.
|
| > _When I look at leadership across companies, and leadership
| across countries, it looks predominantly male. And that means our
| world is missing out on a lot of hardworking, self-identifying
| women who can improve it._
|
| I think this is kinda selfish. Why do you assume that the world
| is "missing out" when there is so much accommodation and
| additional work involved? It's not like we're out here in the
| world buying soda, wool blankets, and toilet-grade mobile games,
| making special accommodations for masculinity.
|
| Work is done for a price, and that price is negotiated. If it is
| expensive to work with you, the price has to move, or the
| offering needs to get sweeter.
| satyrnein wrote:
| I wish there were a clear bad guy here, but most of the hardship
| seems to have been caused by more diffuse social pressures. What
| could we have done as an industry to improve the author's
| experience? Maybe just having more female founders around in
| general (by removing any barriers) would make some of these
| circumstances more commonplace.
| belorn wrote:
| Many times in the article she perceive male founders as stoic
| machines that regardless of health or mental state would go to
| work and operate as if nothing is wrong, and then goes to copy
| that. That is a stereotype that is hurting both men and women,
| and removing that would resolve a lot of the hardship.
| hinkley wrote:
| Postmortems often happen because someone ignored a pain point
| prior to the failure, rather than taking stock and doing some
| preventative work.
|
| The general pattern of pretending everything is ok is one of
| my least favorite things about tech culture. I was going to
| say 'tech people' but it's clear that there are people who
| don't like this pattern either. They tend to self-identify
| (sometimes privately) when I buck the trend and do something
| sane instead.
| cortesoft wrote:
| This is probably also true of ACTUAL postmortems....
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Well, the root cause is probably that raising VC depends on
| keeping up appearances.
| hinkley wrote:
| Why is it that everyone wants to be manipulated.
|
| "Shooting the messenger" may looks like it hurts the
| other guy more but I've seen it screw up entire reporting
| hierarchies. By the time things go off the rails nobody
| higher than a level 1 manager has any damn clue what
| really happened, although they think they do based on the
| misinformation they've been fed.
| microcolonel wrote:
| Is it really hurting them? Seems like both she and the people
| she sees succeeding as leaders act that way.
|
| Being indomitable and regulating your emotions seems to be
| part of the formula for effective leadership; why would we
| expect otherwise?
| belorn wrote:
| Pretending that physical and mental health problems does
| not exist is a problem. It is sad aspect of human life that
| we reward social status and monetary rewards to those who
| are successful at hiding it, and punish those that either
| refuse or fail.
|
| It seems worth to ask if there is a better way. It also
| seems that in a time where we care about inclusivity and
| diversity we need to let go of the perception that only
| people with perfect health should be allowed to lead.
| mtgp1000 wrote:
| So if I want to push myself in pursuit of my dreams, I need
| to sandbag because working hard sets bad precedent for
| others?
|
| Edit: why is this flagged? Is it not a valid point? If you
| claim that there is a problem in tech because men are stoic
| and work long hours even during times of personal hardship,
| you're effectively shaming these men for working too hard.
| This is something that needs to be discussed before you start
| setting policy.
| klyrs wrote:
| Treat it as a marathon, not a sprint. Making time for your
| mental health is not a cultural priority, and that results
| in a high rate of burnout across the industry. I think I'd
| have made it a lot further in my career, and faster, if I'd
| avoided that in my 20s.
| silvat wrote:
| I think pursuing an idea or project with wreckless
| abandon can be a beautiful thing. The risk of getting
| injured in the attempt to push limits is the cost of
| doing business.
| klyrs wrote:
| You mean reckless. Wrecklessness is the opposite
| optimization ;)
| notkaiho wrote:
| Can be; more often it's destructive, and to what end?
| analyst74 wrote:
| The bad person here is the social norms and expectations formed
| due to the field being male-dominated.
|
| Author mostly forced herself to live by those norms, despite
| facing different challenges. i.e. no male founders have to
| worry about pumping breastmilk between meetings, so asking to
| do that feels awkward.
|
| If she chose to embrace her differences, and break more social
| norms (like taking longer maternity leave), her life will be
| easier. However, there is also the risk that the company could
| have failed by a thousand cuts that are difficult to attribute,
| she wouldn't have known at the time.
| roenxi wrote:
| I'll be even worse and note that this is a story that is
| fundamentally about a woman achieving reproductive success -
| and it sounds pretty miserable. The male version of this story
| is something like how much easier it is to sleep with an
| attractive women because a CEO title is perceived as high
| status.
|
| Most people shape their lives around having a family - the
| incentives here are not favourable for females seeking out
| these sort of positions. Men get a lot more out of being
| powerful than women - having power is nearly the end of the
| game for a man. For Tracy it sounds like it was the beginning
| of a process of disillusionment.
|
| She's obviously robust enough that it didn't really matter to
| her, but somewhere along the bell curve of personalities that
| incentive gap will make a difference.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| > I wish there were a clear bad guy here, but most of the
| hardship seems to have been caused by more diffuse social
| pressures.
|
| Unchecked tech monopolies artificially driving up the cost of
| capital for startups seems like a large contributing factor.
| For sure VCs shouldn't be engaging in sexist or predatory
| behavior, but that's not really the root issue, just one of the
| more salient and proximate manifestations of larger industry-
| specific and broader societal issues.
| ameister14 wrote:
| I first truly understood how different it was for women when a
| friend came home from an investor pitch and casually complained
| to another woman we lived with that it had been another investor
| more interested in a date than an investment. It was then that I
| found out it was common to have potential investors take female
| founders out for dinner, ostensibly to talk over the potential
| investment but in reality as an attempt to sleep with them. These
| women felt that they couldn't really tell anyone about it because
| they didn't want to poison the well of potential investment, so
| they just went on fundraising and being harassed.
|
| I don't know if things have changed much - it's been six years
| since I was out there, but from reading this I think it's likely
| continuing on just the same as it was then.
| jfk13 wrote:
| Ugh. That's deeply infuriating and sad, but it doesn't really
| surprise me much (if at all).
| [deleted]
| ClassAndBurn wrote:
| Tracy was the best CEO I ever worked for. Hands down.
|
| She listened to everyone and made PlanGrid a place where everyone
| was empowered to make change. Her passion to solve problems was
| obvious and raw. She attracted people who were similarly
| passionate.
|
| I knew she had it harder than others when I saw one of our own
| VC's caller her a "little girl" while doing a fireside chat with
| her at PlanGrid. In spite of it all she built a truly amazing
| company and culture.
|
| If you are reading this thanks Tracy.
| nchelluri wrote:
| man, that sounds like a trashy thing (for the VC to have done).
| [deleted]
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| It's terrible seeing my female coworkers blaming themselves for
| not getting promoted and internalizing it as "being too nice"
| or "being a pushover" when I know for a fact it's not true.
| AkshatM wrote:
| Seconded. Tracy was an amazing leader my entire time at
| PlanGrid.
| BillFranklin wrote:
| This was an interesting read. Building and selling a company for
| $875m, that's amazing!
|
| I was a bit confused, did the tech exec just quit without notice
| when they learned the CEO was pregnant? How would they be able to
| justify that insanity to their next employer?
| zcheck wrote:
| I think you are reading too much into that part. She was
| telling the height of ups and downs as a CEO in that single
| day.
| AkshatM wrote:
| I worked at PlanGrid during this event.
|
| The exec in question received an offer from one of the Big 4 at
| an equivalent (and possibly more senior - this was in late
| 2017, so memory is fuzzy) exec-level position, and simply sent
| word they wouldn't come into the office the next day. There was
| no two-week notice or polite exit interview - they just
| vanished.
|
| It was not common news that Tracy was pregnant at the time, so
| I do not believe it factored into his decision at all.
|
| The exec in question is very well-known and had lead successful
| teams at much bigger companies before. We speculated, at the
| time, that he had found working for a startup to be a very
| different beast instead.
| BillFranklin wrote:
| Ah I see, thank you for explaining that. I misinterpreted
| that sentence.
| gautamcgoel wrote:
| I'm curious, which companies make up the Big 4? Amazon,
| Apple, Google, Microsoft?
| AkshatM wrote:
| Usually some subset of Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft,
| and Google
|
| So Big 5, really, but I feel Apple is usually omitted
| because its primary focus is consumer hardware and the
| software is usually an ancillary product.
| eastbayjake wrote:
| Usually "Big Four" refers to the 4 largest accounting
| firms: Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PWC.[1] If it's referring to
| tech, that's an odd/confusing usage when "FANG" is so
| prevalent for the same concept but explicitly for tech.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Four_accounting_firms
| whotheffknows wrote:
| I wish every time a male on HN posted an article about his
| struggles as a founder there was intense debate about whether
| males are as qualified as females or not. I guess it's just going
| to happen to females when they are extremely successful, and not
| males. Fun!
| vmception wrote:
| > I think I was scared of what others might think of me as a new
| mother and CEO, maybe because of my own insecurities, maybe
| because of the societal norms ingrained in me.
|
| I see this _so much_ from corporate career ladder focused women.
|
| People literally feeling guilty for wanting some aspect of
| motherhood, or going through some aspect of motherhood.
|
| (and then ironically apologizing about that, despite the core of
| their reconditioning being not to apologize unnecessarily all the
| time)
|
| I am not sure how much this is talked about, as its always been a
| personal conversation when I hear it.
| umvi wrote:
| Personally, when I hear that a woman (or man) with kids is
| running a startup, I think "that kid isn't going to have the
| full attention of that parent..."
|
| Especially when I read stuff like:
|
| > I pressured myself into proving that I was as dedicated to
| PlanGrid as I always have been.
|
| I interpret that phrase as "...at the expense of dedication to
| my kid". I personally think it's okay to "be less dedicated" to
| work in order to spend more time with kids (for both mothers
| and fathers).
|
| Kids (esp. little kids) demand a _lot_ of time, and they are
| only little once. Time is finite. Startups are time black
| holes. You have to sacrifice time somewhere...
| markdown wrote:
| > Personally, when I hear that a woman (or man) with kids is
| running a startup, I think "that kid isn't going to have the
| full attention of that parent.
|
| So like, almost every startup ever.
| umvi wrote:
| I was under the impression that a lot of startups are run
| by single people with time to burn "toiling upward in the
| night"
|
| I recently read "Masters of Doom" because someone here
| recommended it, and both id software and ion storm were
| mainly run by single people working hellish 80-120 hour
| weeks. Technically John Romero had kids, but... early on in
| his startup he divorced in order to free up more time for
| making games.
| tptacek wrote:
| You write "(or man)", but of course, it's not, really. My
| wife was asked in multiple interviews about her children and
| how she planned to care for them while working full-time.
| I've never even heard of a man being asked that.
|
| At any rate, someone else's child care arrangements are
| absolutely none of your business, and this isn't a reasonable
| point to make on this thread.
| geebee wrote:
| I don't think they're supposed to ask about that - I
| believe that kind of question can be legally actionable.
|
| You're probably correct that employers assume these things
| won't be an issue for men - though I did read a paper
| (sorry no cite) that found employers are unusually punitive
| toward the relatively small number men who scale back for
| child care. It's the flip side of the assumption they won't
| be taking time off - when they do, employers treat it as a
| misrepresentation of intent.
| timsally wrote:
| Tracy, I haven't participated in HN for about two years. This
| article hit me so hard I had to log in to say thank you and
| express my sincere appreciation.
|
| I remember seeing an interview with you when you first started
| PlanGrid and it was clear you were going places. Telling this
| part of the story is deeply important and takes incredible
| courage.
| umwbk9gagy wrote:
| I think if I were female, I'd be a more successful founder. As a
| white male, I found that no investors were even willing to talk
| to me in spite of being an early employee at some great startups
| including Airbnb. I applied (and interviewed) at YC multiple
| times and was rejected for mostly BS reasons, which I think were
| just a cover for "we don't like you". I get it, I'm not a likable
| person, it's something I have to live with every day and I hate
| it about myself (also I'm mildly autistic, which doesn't help).
|
| I've given up on the startup thing because I lack the necessary
| connections to get ahead. Without funding, I can't market
| properly, and I can't hire sales people. It doesn't matter how
| great the product is, because at the end of the day it's all
| about sales and marketing.
|
| There's a significant number of VCs and funds which only invest
| in female founders, which is a huge advantage. The bar is much
| lower, which is great if you're a woman. It's just like hiring
| programmers: 2 sets of standards, one for men and one for women.
| For better or worse, that's the way it is.
| algorithmsRcool wrote:
| > There's a significant number of VCs and funds which only
| invest in female founders, which is a huge advantage.
|
| I understand your reasoning in saying this, but please try to
| understand that being taken seriously as a female founder is
| much more difficult being taken seriously as a male.
|
| These VCs exist to combat this preexisting inequality.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Is the inequality between men and women, or between people on
| the inside who incidentally are mostly men, and people on the
| outside who are also mostly men but include a relatively
| higher fraction of women?
| whotheffknows wrote:
| Are you aware of how many idiots have millions in funding
| for a dating app a chat app a blockchain or ai company that
| is just a knockoff of others with no working MVP and now
| many of those young male founders have thrown expensive
| parties rented expensive cars then bankrupted the company
| and chalked it up to a "downturn in the economy"? If a
| woman did this, she would be nailed to the cross in silicon
| valley for being irresponsible with money and never get
| funding again.
|
| If you believe just because noone gave you funding that
| there are not a ton of young males being thrown money in VC
| with low quality knockoff products you are wrong. Your
| views on this are incredibly anecdotal with broad claims
| about both make and female founders and provide no data and
| seem to just support you wanting to lick your wounds, which
| is exactly what selfish makes do, take a valid woman's
| platform (this article) and somehow turn it into a pity
| party about themselves and use that to claim all women have
| it easier.
| whatshisface wrote:
| How do people get funding for nothing-apps? If anything
| that's evidence that being on the inside is what matters.
|
| (P.S. You forgot to check the username, I'm not the
| parent commenter.)
| globular-toast wrote:
| > being taken seriously as a female founder is much more
| difficult being taken seriously as a male
|
| Where's the evidence of this?
|
| Edit: Just think for a second about the fact that this
| comment, asking simply: "Where's the evidence for this?", is
| getting buried (currently on -3).
| whotheffknows wrote:
| Do you have any data at all to show that the bar is much lower?
| Can you please provide it.
| cheeselip420 wrote:
| Well this is straight poison. This attitude is exactly why we
| are missing out on so much potential engineering talent... You
| came so close to being self-aware enough to know that the
| problem is your own, but you couldn't resist putting the blame
| elsewhere.
| umwbk9gagy wrote:
| Nah, I told it exactly how it is. I know that I'm unlikable,
| I get that. But I still believe it's a huge advantage to be
| female.
| young_unixer wrote:
| Both can be true at the same time. OP being not as good as
| others and the industry being gender-biased.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| If the industry was gender-biased, then that would mean you
| would see _more_ female founders, not less.
|
| Between this and the issues black CEOs face [1] the
| industry isn't biased in favor of minorities. As an aside,
| when we see articles like these and people jumping in to
| say 'if I were a woman, things would be easier' the
| implicit argument at play here is that she didn't get to
| where she's at because of her own ability, she got to there
| because she's a _woman_.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23540162
| Manfredo_1 wrote:
| Studies do indicate a statistically significant
| difference in response rates from VCs in favor of women.
| But only ~10% difference, not something decisive:
| https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/01/10/do-
| ventu.... But claiming that just because there are more
| male founders than female founders there's bias against
| women is a very simplistic approach. As other commenters
| point out, there's already a disparity in representation
| among the applicants.
|
| And you go too far in your last sentence. Saying that
| there is an existence of bias is not saying that people's
| achievements are the product of their identity rather
| than their ability. Just that their identity played a
| factor in having that opportunity. E.g. one of my past
| employers gave women and URM 2 chances to pass the phone
| screen and move to the onsite instead of one. This is
| definitely a bias. But the people that got hired still
| had to demonstrate the same level of ability in the
| onsite interviews. Bias just let more of them have that
| chance. It didn't result in unqualified candidates
| getting hired, it reduced the false negative rate for a
| certain segment of candidates.
| young_unixer wrote:
| > If the industry was gender-biased, then that would mean
| you would see more female founders, not less.
|
| Not necessarily.
|
| Males and females are different, our hormones are
| different and it's reasonable to think that our minds and
| interests are different. In fact, practically all
| scientific evidence shows that personality trait
| differences between male and women are statistically
| significant.
|
| I don't know if things (overall) are easier for women.
| Some people are prejudiced against women, some others are
| prejudiced against men. The first group used to be much
| bigger, but at this point I'm not sure which one has a
| bigger influence.
| rumanator wrote:
| > If the industry was gender-biased, then that would mean
| you would see more female founders, not less.
|
| No, because the base population is not uniformly
| distributed to begin with. I've participated in interview
| rounds for software engineer positions where the volume
| of candidates was already showing a gender ratio of
| around 20-to-1 male/female ratio, where half the male
| candidates never had a single CS lesson in their whole
| life. If in the end you get only 1 female-led startup for
| each 20 male-led startups that doesn't mean the VC world
| is biased.
| daleharvey wrote:
| how many women do you think there are in the world?
| [deleted]
| vntok wrote:
| Why are you talking about women in the world? The
| parent's argument is on the vc world, which is pretty
| different.
| Manfredo_1 wrote:
| This is a very simplistic approach. Over 90% of people
| killed by police are men. Does it follow that police are
| heavily biased against men? Over 90% of pediatricians are
| women. Is pediatrics heavily biased in favor of women?
| No, because even though men and women make up roughly 50%
| of the population each they make different choices. Men
| are much more likely to commit violent acts. Women are
| much more likely to go into pediatrics.
| [deleted]
| renewiltord wrote:
| It may be that this path is not for you so you've probably done
| the right thing. The market isn't fair and it's up to you to
| exploit your advantages (unfair or fair) and overcome your
| disadvantages (unfair or fair). If you find that infeasible,
| you can't play the game.
| whotheffknows wrote:
| But of course if a female CEO works the system and exploits
| it the way men does she is highlighted online for lacking
| morals and ethics even though plenty of men run businesses
| the same way all the time and are either not even noticed for
| doing it or otherwise glorified.
| renewiltord wrote:
| People online are insignificant. Online Peter Thiel is some
| sort of vampire who feeds off the lifeblood of young men
| and governments while suppressing the press. In real life,
| Peter Thiel is a respected businessman who is considered
| one of the archetypes of a successful entrepreneur.
|
| In the story, there are parts she openly regrets as having
| optimized for appearance: returning to work so soon after
| having given birth. There are parts she doesn't express
| regret over but mentions (the miscarriage, pumping in the
| car instead of a mother's room and the ensuing feelings of
| humiliation).
|
| There's probably a balance here but it appears that
| optimizing for appearance isn't of much value except when
| you need people to believe in your appearance: meeting
| investors, talking to your team. Since most people online
| are neither, they are not important.
| umwbk9gagy wrote:
| Indeed, so I guess I'll get a job or maybe just suicide
| because what's the point. I don't really feel like working
| hard so someone else can get rich off my labour anymore.
| seibelj wrote:
| You sound clinically depressed. I don't think being a man
| is why you failed. There is nothing wrong with working a
| job and slowly building wealth, especially someone who is
| supposedly a highly skilled software engineer - you can
| make retirement money in not-so-many years if you live
| frugally and save wisely. I seriously think you need some
| professional counseling.
| whotheffknows wrote:
| You're extremely selfish. I met the woman who wrote this
| article and was on a panel with her once five years ago and
| she was incredible and positive and never talked about her
| gender once.
|
| She actually made a super valuable company sold it and gave
| birth to a child during all of this and you are on here
| talking about how sad your life is because you acknowledge
| you're unwilling to have a cofounder because you're so
| unlikeable and because of that saying all women have it
| easier.
|
| Your are toxic. If you want to go cry about how no VCs like
| you then make your own post but this article is not the
| place for you.
| dang wrote:
| For sure this thread was a poor place to change the
| subject in that way and the commenter should not have
| started a flamewar
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23605490). But
| crossing into personal attack is also a big step in the
| wrong direction, and also toxic. Please don't do that on
| HN, regardless of how wrong another user is or you feel
| they are. It only contributes to destroying this place
| further. There's also something to be said about not
| responding to a mention of suicide by aggressively
| hammering a person.
|
| Would you mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and
| sticking to the rules when posting here? We'd be
| grateful. Note the most important one: _Be kind_.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I'm not a clinician, but you replied to my comment so I
| feel obligated to say this: go see a mental health
| professional.
| np_tedious wrote:
| Being a "likable person" is, for better or worse, pretty
| significant in sales / pitching / persuasion of any kind. If
| you really feel you lack this and have limited ability to
| improve, then a partner who fills this gap would be
| indispensable for your endeavors.
| umwbk9gagy wrote:
| Yep, that's why I gave up.
| woah wrote:
| Sounds like your gender is not a problem, since you concede
| that an investment in your venture would likely be wasted
| dang wrote:
| I'm sure many of us can empathize with your struggles, but
| starting a gender flamewar is not a valid way to express them
| on Hacker News, so please don't do that.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| globular-toast wrote:
| To be fair, the article itself is starting a gender flamewar.
| It could have just been "Reflections on Being a Founder" but
| it's, of course, "Female Founder". Why is he not allowed to
| express his experiences as a male?
| dang wrote:
| The article itself is not starting a gender flamewar. The
| author is reflecting on her own experiences. It's
| interesting. The flamewar starts when some users find parts
| of it activating and rush to the comment thread to
| reflexively vent their activation. Better options would be
| to reflect on one's reactions long enough for them to turn
| into something thoughtful [1], or simply not to post. If
| you don't find it interesting, there are other things to
| read and discuss here.
|
| [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=tru
| e&que...
| globular-toast wrote:
| It quite evidently is. There are no flamewars going on in
| the comments of other articles that are about technology.
| bsder wrote:
| > I think it is easier for predators to target their prey when
| they are alone. I was never alone.
|
| I hate that this is true. But it's probably valuable advice for
| any gender.
| ci5er wrote:
| It's rough. And confusing. And surprising. For a guy anyway...
|
| I have no illusions that it isn't 99.9% worse for a female, but
| when I was the founder/exec at a startup in the 90s, and
| driving staff home after happy hours, I was shocked at how
| physically aggressive some of them were about "going for it"
| with me in the driver's seat of a car. Some even got glitter
| all over my family sedan (ewww!). Which I then had to explain
| to my wife (that didn't go very well a couple of times).
|
| Sometimes people didn't have an appropriate upbringing and have
| twisted morals or decision-making apparatii. I have the utmost
| sympathy for women, because they are "at risk" and I am not,
| but it's a weird weird world out there.
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