Paul Graham Isn't Keeping Women out of Tech

http://thedatingring.tumblr.com/post/71463600468/paul-graham-isnt-keeping-women-out-of-tech-from-ycs

by kbambz • 13 years ago

86 166 13 years ago

thedatingring.tumblr.com

Caligula2• 13 years ago

This article seems to be related to http://valleywag.gawker.com/paul-graham-says-women-havent-be...

It is the first time I saw Paul Graham appear on my Facebook. It is not worth reading, the author is just going for clicks by making baseless accusations. Paul also claims he was misquoted and thinks he should start bringing a recorder to interviews.

It is a shame, one of the appeals of reading a Paul Graham interview or his writing was that it was very open, I hope his no doubt hiring a PR filter or being more reserved with his words will not reduce the quality.

minimaxir3• 13 years ago

It should be noted that the misquote was on The Information's end, not Valleywag.

sgdesign• 13 years ago

Seeing how badly people reacted on Twitter, I don't see any upside for anybody to say anything about this issue at all. Which probably won't help matters much…

minimaxir3• 13 years ago

pg will be writing a clarification soon.

https://twitter.com/paulg/status/416994260995416064

waterlesscloud• 13 years ago

Separate from the merits of the discussion, Twitter is in a phase where it LOVES to get outraged about things.

It's very mobbish right now. It's really a turn-off.

But I do think it's a fad that will self-correct. Once it goes too far people will lose followers for joining the mob-du-jour and will adjust accordingly.

bluekeybox2• 13 years ago

It is the first time I saw Paul Graham appear on my Facebook

Amazing times we live in, isn't it? If this is how the average person finds out who someone like PG is, what hope is there for the world at large?

Please note that had PG been known through standard mass-media channels way earlier, there might have been even a fighting chance that more women (i.e. outsiders) had joined the tech world early on, since this way the news about YC wouldn't spread through what are predominantly male/engineering-graduate-heavy word-of-mouth channels, and we would have avoided this mess in the first place. Yet the press and the world at large is not even interested in the success of something like YC until the YC is big enough to throw rocks at because of some juicy inclusion/exclusion controversy. So what we have is a controversy that, like hundreds of others like it, is nearly "manufactured" by the press itself.

The moment you become big is the moment you become torn apart by the world.

Crito7• 13 years ago

I'm not sure what you mean. If somebody isn't interested in either programming or being involved with tech startups (and the overwhelming majority of people in the world are not) then I don't see any particular reason to expect people to have heard of PG.

Experts in fields are typically widely unknown by the general public. I first learned of Andre Geim (A Nobel Prize winner in Physics; not my field) from a youtube video about beer and magnets. I don't think that suggests anything dreadful about society.

andrewliebchen4• 13 years ago

Having the full interview behind a $400 paywall doesn't help anyone evaluate his words "in context."

Camillo• 13 years ago

Was the ValleyWag article discussed on HN? I seem to have missed it.

gkoberger2• 13 years ago

Gawker is blocked (or at least heavily penalized), and nobody else really wrote about it.

minimaxir3• 13 years ago

Valleywag is a banned domain, so all submissions to the article were autokilled. (and there were many submissions)

Since the original article was under a paywall, those links were also killed.

kmfrk• 13 years ago

People have tried submitting it a handful of times through the mentions of other sites, but they all get censored from the frontpage.

caycep• 13 years ago

For what it's worth it IS a gawker media property and so I usually take these interviews with a few shipping containers worth of salt...

rfnslyr8• 13 years ago

But that doesn’t give us free reign to ignore the problems that exist in universities, accelerators, tech companies and venture capital. These pieces of the funnel need to be thoroughly analyzed and optimized for inclusion - be it for gender, race, age, or other markers, so that we’re able to produce the best sustainable and profitable companies and organizations possible.

Why?

3. ‘Not discouraging’ women isn’t enough - actively encourage them.

Again, why?

I don't understand this "get women in X" movement. There are women everywhere, women are doing fine from what I can see in the tech space.

Why must I go out of my way to specifically pave a way for women in everything I do?

Why not blacks? Why not midgets? Why not "X deviation from being a while male?"

Read my previous comment history for my stance as I'm not going to copy paste everything here. I honestly don't get it. You have all the same opportunities men do, at least in this space.

Women are so entitled nowadays.

sergiotapia2• 13 years ago

It's just a fad in the US.

nsp• 13 years ago

Technical jobs are 90%+ male, but our customer base is generally much closer to 50/50. Don't you think it's pretty plausible that having a woman working with you might add a useful perspective when making your product? I've worked at 3 startups(2 as a dev) and interviewed a couple hundred programmers over that time, and don't think I've yet even had a resume from a female programmer, and honestly that really disappoints me - I'd love to work in a coed environment, just to get more opinions and life experiences informing our discussions.

From a purely selfish standpoint, theres a lot of money to be made and a lot less competition in female-customer-oriented startup spaces - take the phenomenal success of Pinterest for an easy example - unless you're only building for yourself, why would you be opposed to adding a perspective that could potentially double your market size.

*I'm personally bothered by the gender gap for a plethora of reasons that go far beyond purely economic, but women control something like 70% of household spending in the USA, and there's a lot of compelling opportunities there even leaving aside any larger equitable society issues.

rfnslyr8• 13 years ago

I understand you and I fully agree. I actually work with a majority of women. I'm in the corporate sector, and there are more women then men from what I'm seeing.

I still don't get the movement. Everyone knows Computer Science exists. It's just not an interesting or attractive field for everyone. Let's be honest, when you have prospective high school grads you can't make CS more interesting than say, Physics, Bio, Chemistry. A majority of women flock to those fields and humanities. It's not sexism, it's not the patriarchy, it's just statistics.

It just seems like a lot of women just aren't interested in CS, and I get that. It's a fascinating field, but I can totally see why it's not populated with women.

Anyways, all I'm trying to say is when it comes down to it, and I see a good female candidate, I will hire her. I really don't care about the gender, just I get way fewer females candidates. It is what it is.

Why not host more women friendly CS/Info tech workshops to spread interest?

These kinds of blog posts are just hot wind without any real foundation. Affirmative action isn't the way to go about it, spreading interest in the field at an early stage, however, is.

Example: CS classes in high school don't hold a candle to the sciences and are very very poorly taught for the most part. Other sciences are exciting, they out number CS classes like 20 to 1.

ionforce3• 13 years ago

So you're conflating your technical groups with your product groups? And you're saying that your product is a function of gender?

ionforce3• 13 years ago

It's a shame you're getting downvoted. I happen to agree. But I think the volatility of this issue makes it difficult to discuss accurately.

"You have all the same opportunities men do, at least in this space."

I also agree with you. But I'm open to being proven wrong. And I think that's the sticking point here. Some audiences (male or female, doesn't matter) believe that women do not have the same opportunities as men.

In my experience, technology is one of the most meritocratic fields. With or without an education, come in with working code and you have a job. Now, if you're going to move goal posts and say, "well the more well off have more opportunities to write code", that is a different, much more complicated discussion. But as for the primary metric here, raw performance, working code, a running portfolio, I don't see how it is a function of genitalia or gender expression.

In other aspects of life I'm a triple minority. And yet here I am, a working engineer. Where are my handouts? Where are my support groups? Where is my encouragement?

So yeah, I totally agree with you.

"Women are so entitled nowadays."

I wouldn't say that. I would say the people making the most noise are entitled. Everyone else is too busy doing actual work.

(Am I calling social justice not real work? Of course not. It's just ... it feels misguided/trolly at times, when it isn't presented in a rational manner.)

CJefferson2• 13 years ago

After finishing with a statement so women-hating and/or trolling as "Women are so entitled nowadays.", there really can't be a sensible discussion. Downvoting is, I believe, the only reasonable option.

andrewliebchen4• 13 years ago

You said:

Women are so entitled nowadays.

I don't know if you're just incredibly tone deaf, callous to what your words mean, or are trying to be funny.

If you think that women have equal ability to men (by your comment, maybe you don't), and you think that people should hold jobs equal to their abilities, then you should wonder why 50% of your colleagues aren't women...

rfnslyr8• 13 years ago

I manage a top tier development team at the worlds largest bank. I go through 100's of resumes.

The percentage of women applying for pure CS related jobs (not business jobs, but specifically tech) is very little.

It's not my problem that a small part of the resumes I get are women. It's not sexism. It's just statistics.

I work a majority of women actually, they out number us very very hard.

I've yet to find a substantial argument for the men against women in tech movement. Did someone yell into your face "get out of my office you fucking WHORE", or is there some VC that subscribes purely to "I ONLY EVER HIRE MEN". Is there some CEO that raped his co workers?

All I'm seeing is a few nancies getting offended at:

a) they didn't get hired likely because they were not good enough, not because they are women

b) women that feel they are entitled to get offended at any little off putting remark/joke/jab.

Downvote me, I really don't care.

hhw• 13 years ago

Why should 50:50 be the desired ratio? Are you proposing that every industry which isn't at or near that ratio rife with gender discrimination? Do you also believe there is significant sexual discrimination against men in every industry dominated by women? Have you even considered the possibility that men and women are just interested in different things, simply due to natural proclivities, and not because one gender is actively discouraged? Note that I'm not suggesting that there isn't any discrimination in CS, but simply that there is no reason to believe that 50:50 should be the ideal ratio in this, or any other field, be it currently male or female dominated, unless there's research to support that men and women are both equally interested in that discipline.

DanBC2• 13 years ago

Why not blacks? Why not midgets?

Yes, those people too.

Women are so entitled nowadays.

GODDAMN THOSE LAZY WHORES FOR WANTING EQUAL PAY FOR THE SAME WORK.

rfnslyr8• 13 years ago

GODDAMN THOSE LAZY WHORES FOR WANTING EQUAL PAY FOR THE SAME WORK.

From personal experience, a little anecdote:

When I was first hired as a junior developer, I was offered 40k. Me, along with a few women, and a few junior guys.

Now, is it sexism that:

a) I demanded hire pay and was in pay negotiation for 2 months before I was bumped to 60 because I made a compelling case, a long with a few of the guys?

b) That the women who were offered the same position signed off immediately on the agreement?

There is no "we pay women less for the same job" mantra anywhere that matters, and if there is, please point to a concrete example.

It's not my fault that I'm willing to risk a little and fight for higher pay and potential unemployment for doing so.

Dewie4• 13 years ago

GODDAMN THOSE LAZY WHORES FOR WANTING EQUAL PAY FOR THE SAME WORK.

Well that straw-manned quickly.

raganwald2• 13 years ago

Just so you know, your tone is extremely off-putting. It doesn't come across as genuine asking the question, but are instead whining about how you are being forced to change and you don't want to change and don't see why you should budge so much as a single hair on your head.

Also the "Why not blacks? Why not midgets?" line is a particularly poor choice. My understanding is that little people do not like being called midgets, and by slurring them in the same breath that you speak of women and blacks, you give the impression that women, blacks, and midgets are all categories of people you disrespect.

Finally, entitlement refers to the sense that you deserve what you have, not the feeling that you deserve something you ought to have but don't have.

Therefore, ironically, YOU are the entitled one here. You feel you're entitled to carry on as you have been carrying on.

rfnslyr8• 13 years ago

Therefore, ironically, YOU are the entitled one here. You feel you're entitled to carry on as you have been carrying on.

By not paying extra attention to females?

Buddy, I'm here to get a job done, if my applicant is a woman and she is good, I will hire her. Move on with your bullshit.

baddox18• 13 years ago

I follow some prominent feminists in technology, initially out of genuine interest but increasingly out of morbid curiosity, so I think I can respond with my honest impression of their beliefs.

The reason we need to actively encourage women (more so than men) to get into tech is that the tech industry is believed to be fundamentally and structurally sexist. So, for the same reason that victims of violence need special and deliberate treatment, the victims of the structural misogyny need special and deliberate treatment.

This isn't just for getting female children interested in technology, it is even the case for female entrepreneurs seeking funding. Regarding the low percentage of VC funds going to female entrepreneurs, a prominent tech feminist recently said that the percentage of female applicants is irrelevant, and that the men who run the industry should be seeking out and finding female entrepreneurs. https://mobile.twitter.com/shanley/status/417035978025357312... https://mobile.twitter.com/shanley/status/417036172448104448...

Interestingly, tech feminism seems to even support the idea that female entrepreneurs should not apply for VC funding, because it is so misogynistic. https://mobile.twitter.com/CynthiaSchames/status/41703807634...

GammaDelta• 13 years ago

If a particular group is underrepresented there is a reason for that. It's not necessarily your fault, although unless you're very aware of ingrained sexist structures it's possible that you're contributing accidentally. It turns out that the reasons for the imbalance aren't good ones. It's not that women just love to do other things - there are pressures that actively dissuade them from pursuing technical careers. Most of this has happened long before they acquire technical qualifications and are applying for jobs. That IS sexism in our society, and it's not fair.

So where does that leave us white males working in tech?

1. We have to recognise that the gender imbalance is a problem and accept that it should be solved

2. We have to recognise there are ways we can help that are NOT simply "hire a weaker female applicant just to balance the genders"

3. Promote female participation! Sponsor school programs. Create female-only internships. Make sure that everybody in your workplace is actively educated about structural sexism so that things are as comfortable as possible for your female employees. Ensure salaries are equal.

We need to help send the signal to young women contemplating their careers that the tech industry welcomes them. Then, maybe 5 or 10 years from now, we'll be getting closer to equal applicants.

char• 13 years ago

I honestly don't get it. You have all the same opportunities men do, at least in this space.

No. Just no. It's true that we have the same opportunities to TRY (i.e., submit resumes, build what we wish, etc.), but not to actually be IN the space. Have you ever been interviewed and had a male interviewer walk into the room, take one look at you, and immediately change his body language and adopt a condescending tone? Had it happen more than once in a 2 week period? I have. Let me tell you how fun that was. I hadn't even opened my mouth yet.

This is just one example of how entry for women can be a challenge. Clearly not everyone looks at women so blatantly with discomfort, but the fact that it even happens to a noticeable extent is enough to posit that there are completely disparate opportunities for men and women in tech.

There are so many more non-negligible ways women have more of a challenge to enter the tech world, but I wanted to quickly illustrate one example to bring attention to the utter fallacy of your statement.

sergiotapia2• 13 years ago

Why has tumblr become such a cesspool of social justice warriors just aching to find something to be angry about?

How does the Tumblr owner feel about his platform being used by this toxic community?

PavlovsCat• 13 years ago

Wait, are you referring to this article?

gaadd33• 13 years ago

As someone who owns some Yahoo stock (which makes me a Tumblr owner (admittedly 9.9009901e-7 percent)) I feel pretty good about it.

gkoberger2• 13 years ago

Gawker was just looking for page views [1], as with the pg racism [2] claim a few months ago.

This is dangerous. If people are scared to speak openly and honestly about topics such as racism, homelessness and sexism because they don't want Valleywag to label them as racist, elitist or sexist, we'll all be forced to just go on pretending everything is great.

[1] http://pando.com/2013/12/26/look-whos-gawking-inside-nick-de...

[2] http://valleywag.gawker.com/major-fwd-us-donor-says-a-strong...

gms• 13 years ago

It's very unfortunate. I am too scared to voice opinions on these subjects on public forums due to the potential outrage people would react with, which may effect my career.

I really think that people secretly enjoy being outraged.

tptacek4• 13 years ago

People love being outraged. And, even without being outraged, having something to criticize makes writing easier and more enjoyable; it's a quick, cheap path to "flow".

tptacek4• 13 years ago

Gawker is horrible, but if you read the original article in The Information that they're quoting from, it's not that distorted. Graham is asked whether YC discriminates against women. Graham is aware that when he's asked this, the subtext is that there is a marked gender imbalance among YC founders. Graham could answer "no, we don't discriminate, and I don't know why the imbalance exists or exactly what we should do to fix it". But Graham doesn't leave it at that: instead, he writes a small essay about gender imbalance in the industry on the fly, and a lot of what he says is both discouraging and, to my ears, incorrect.

I think Paul Graham is a good, interesting person with a lot of interesting and valuable insight that comes from experience I will never have. But he is not infallible, and I think this is a huge blind spot for him.

Valleywag probably wants to see him burned at the stake, then drawn and quartered by four Uber SUVs. Think of the pageviews!

ionforce3• 13 years ago

Despite its discouraging content, what do you feel is incorrect about it?

zainny• 13 years ago

We're creating an environment now in which it is practically impossible to discuss this topic in tech. Our general irrationality and desire to completely and utterly jump down the throat of anyone who even remotely touches on this topic means that in the future any gender topics are just going to get "no comment" responses.

That's sad and not without a touch of irony precisely because in stifling the discussion we're probably doing more harm than good.

fiatmoney• 13 years ago

Why should the tech world be any different than every other industry which forbids meaningful discussions as a matter of course?

daleharvey• 13 years ago

Its probably worth mentioning that it is technically impossible to have a discussion about this (on hacker news) because virtually every submission about the topic is killed, as it is with previous times this comes up (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6824157).

Fully agree that stifling / censoring is causing a lot more harm than good (as is apparent by a lot of the reactions here)

Einstalbert• 13 years ago

That everything is baited with stuff like the all "white/male bro" tech industry is really what gets me. You're not inviting anyone to change anything with that mindset. I was eager to read and consider their suggestions up until that last bit, when I immediately backed off and just shrugged.

How many gender-blind software architects were out there through this entire technology boom we've seen in the last 40 years? Just tinkering away at platforms and code and programs, not really thinking about anything other than their craft. Someone will jump in and say that it was their privilege to be able to just focus, unlike X minority trying to do the same, and I'll agree with you there. To think that there's some odorous force emanating from these privileged folks, working to keep others out, strikes me as strange. The "bros" in tech are hardly the ones that built or stand near the entry-gates.

jfarmer20• 13 years ago

IMO, folks on HN need to do much less discussing on this topic and a lot more listening. For the most part, HN is collectively blind to issues of power and privilege.

For those interested in learning more about privilege, read these two essays by John Scalzi, Being Poor (http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/) and Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is (http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-th...).

Try to read them without being reflexive or poking holes in them. If you find yourself getting riled up or defensive stop and ask yourself why you're feeling the need to respond that way.

Dewie4• 13 years ago

For those interested in learning more about privilege, read these two essays by John Scalzi, Being Poor (http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/) and Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is (http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-th...).

I don't know what you want to achieve by posting the first one, since I have never seen anyone with any good arguments who argues that being poor is not a significant disadvantage when it comes to things like social mobility. HN seems to lean more to the idea that structural/systemic issues on a societal scale does matter and hinder individuals, as opposed to the thought that an individual can forge his own way and make himself into whatever she wants to be no matter the circumstances, which is another school of thought.

I was hoping the second one would give some arguments for how being a straight white male (emphasize male since being white is pretty obviously an advantage all things considering) is a ridiculous advantage. But then it turned out to just start with the initial assertion, explain it with an RPG analogy and then ... return to the initial assertion. But it's all so clear to me now that I can relate things like leveling up and playing through a game on maxed attributes to my own sex... not.

By the way, is the difficulty the same for white geeky males?

yetanotherphd2• 13 years ago

On the contrary, I would suggest listening to Ram Z Paul (http://www.ramzpaul.com/)

You claim that people at HN experience privilege, and in some sense I agree most of us do. And yet as proponent of a progressive agenda, you also have a different kind of privilege. Most normal people will automatically identify you with the "right" side. You will never have to fear being labelled a racist, sexist or anti-Semite. For example, why is it that you automatically turn to very patronizing language when addressing people you consider insufficiently educated in their privilege? Could it be that you are used to having your sense of moral superiority go unchallenged?

geuis• 13 years ago

Wow the cufon font on that page is awfully blurry on a retina display.

kbambz2• 13 years ago

I was just thinking the same thing...

kyro2• 13 years ago

Is there something that can collectively be done about Gawker (more Vallewag)? I know, freedom of speech, etc, but they time and time again publish the most incendiary articles based on the wildest of intentional misinterpretations. It is the farthest thing from "hard-hitting" or "raw" journalism, and at times borders libelous.

rhizome2• 13 years ago

Is there something that can collectively be done about Gawker (more Vallewag)?

Sure: don't talk to their writers.

supergauntlet• 13 years ago

If there's one thing gawker sites do well, it's nerd baiting.

Yes, there are problems women face in STEM fields. No, getting everyone angry at pg isn't gonna help.

spindritf2• 13 years ago

So another way to figure out which of our taboos future generations will laugh at is to start with the labels. Take a label-- "sexist", for example-- and try to think of some ideas that would be called that. Then for each ask, might this be true?

One of my favourite essays.

http://paulgraham.com/say.html

yetanotherphd2• 13 years ago

Beautiful essay, and a beautiful idea that you quoted. I will have to read more of PG.

baddox18• 13 years ago

Unfortunately for this all female team, feminists will accuse them of working to support the patriarchy just as much as the evil men. Sadly, this is actually what prominent feminists in technology believe: https://medium.com/about-work/e82b7ca7de03 (Ctrl-F "support the patriarchy").

For these feminists, women who fail are obvious evidence of patriarchy, and women who succeed are obviously just working alongside the patriarchy. I firmly believe that if next year the tech industry was 55% female and females received 55% of funding and salaries, feminists would point to that as evidence that the patriarchy is purposefully giving things to women to hide the fact that they're all misogynist pigs. This prominent tech feminism is, according to their own terms, completely unfalsifiable.

erikpukinskis3• 13 years ago

In the Medium essay you link to they are calling out women who deny the existence of sexism in tech:

"The white privilege that benefits many white women in tech plays a huge role in allowing them to occupy a position denying gender oppression, supporting the patriarchy, and undermining feminist activism."

This "female team" is doing the exact opposite. I think they're safe from the feminist horde.

Also, you might get something from this comic: http://www.harkavagrant.com/?id=341 You seem to be experiencing similar terrors.

baddox18• 13 years ago

In the Medium essay you link to they are calling out women who deny the existence of sexism in tech

The essay isn't calling out women who fit that description. It is attributing those denials to successful women in tech.

MorningInfidel• 13 years ago

I was all interested to read the article you linked until I saw the by-line. Read some of Shanley's posts on Medium - her opinion can be safely discounted. Not because she's a woman, but because she's a wacko.

Thankyou for putting into coherent thought what I was never able to - a lot of these arguments you hear from the 'leg up for women in tech' crowd are just that - unfalsifiable. They can never be wrong.

baddox18• 13 years ago

I don't thinking to appropriate to call her a wacko. I would describe her writings as expertly crafted works of misandry and post-modern obscurantism.

tptacek4• 13 years ago

Paul Graham isn't keeping women out of technology. Nor do I believe he wants to. If anything, his interests would be served by there being more women in technology, and thus more candidates for YC.

Also, Valleywag is a cesspool. I ponied up for the whole interview at The Information. I'd rather eat a bug than talk about what a Gawker publication has to say.

But Paul Graham has said some things on this issue that I think are dumb. Moreover, I believe he spends a lot of time worrying about the ways things he says are misconstrued. Reputation is potential energy, as he (correctly) likes to say, and I think he's aware of how much energy is tied up in what he says. Knowing that he is speaking carefully on these issues does not make what he is saying easier to take.

It is one thing to suggest that we should correct biases and imbalances as early as we can, because the sooner someone gets started hacking, the sooner they'll be able to bring those skills to bear on the market. Sure, that's true and probably benign.

It is another thing entirely to suggest that special status is conferred on people who started hacking when they were 13, and that it might be "too late" for people who didn't to join the ranks of that elite.

It is one thing to suggest that there are people that have, for whatever reason (nature or nurture) a natural affinity to working with computer programs and technology. True. Benign.

It is another thing to project backwards from that the idea that if women were going to be good at coding, "they would have found it on their own". That's not true. It presumes that the most important factor in determining whether someone's going to be a good coder is that they have the affinity. But you need more than affinity: you need opportunity and support.

A gigantic blind spot men in technology have is that there are two sides to the problem of gender bias. The side of the coin everyone thinks about is prejudice and bias. Men hear about gender imbalance in technology and interrogate their conscience. "Do I think women are inherently less qualified then men? No! I've never made a decision based on that belief!" They're probably even right about that.

The coin has another side: privilege. Privilege is a simple concept. Certain kinds of people "fit the mold". Paul Graham knows what the typical successful startup hacker looks like. So do most people who work at technology companies. If you ask someone in our field at random to visualize an elite startup hacker and then take bets on the attributes of that imaginary person, you would be nuts to bet on anything but "male", "English-speaking", "20-40", and "white or Asian".

25-year-old English-speaking white males have a privilege, whether they like it or not, because they fit into everyone's mold of a startup hacker. They will sometimes be asked stupid, discouraging questions at job interviews. Like, "do you have any children, and, if so, how will you balance the work of taking care of them with the demanding schedule of this job?". Or, "when did you start coding? We're really looking not so much for someone who can execute this role, but rather who lives and breathes technology". You can tell by looking at some people that they "live and breathe technology" (guilty as charged). That's not a privilege at a bar or a White Sox game, but it is a privilege in our industry.

The existence of privilege is not a scarlet letter on young white dudes who code. But the forceful, repeated, insidious denial of the existence of that privilege is a problem: it reinforces the privilege and allows it to feed on itself.

jdp23• 13 years ago

Well said.

jfarmer20• 13 years ago

First, I'll say, tptacek, virtually everything you write on HN is spot on, but it's most on when you're talking about issues of sexism, racism, power, and privilege. The tech industry suffers from a collective privilege-blindness and I appreciate anyone who spends any amount of their time and energy talking about it coherently and persuasively.

When I was in seventh grade, we were assigned to write a little speech about what we'd do if we were in charge of the school. One of my classmates, Dan, gave a speech about how he'd use computers to more rightly integrate school and home-life. After I was done, I asked, "What about people who don't have computers at home?" He responded with a look of confusion on his face, "What? You mean like poor people or something?"

My family didn't have enough money to afford a computer growing up. I got my first computer in 10th grade: a 486 running Windows 3.1 that my mother's boss was going to simply throw away. Dan's words felt like a slap in the face, even in 7th grade.

If I had read pg's words in 7th grade, they would have felt like a slap in the face, too. Getting my face slapped does not make me or anyone else more interested. It makes people think, "This thing isn't for me."

People in technology, especially men, are utterly blind to privilege. It's astounding. It's also frustrating because explaining privilege to someone who has never seriously experienced the lack of it is like trying to explain to a fish what it's like to breath without water.

Here's another story. I recently mentored a 13-year-old kid through an after-school non-profit. I taught him the basics of programming. He had all the affinity in the world, but it was still hard even with my guidance. Why? There was one laptop shared among all the members of the family — mother, father, 3 brothers, 2 sisters — and he'd only show up to our sessions with the laptop maybe 50% of the time. Any work he'd do between session would often be lost because other people would tinker with it. Everyone around him teased him for playing with computers so much and being so "nerdy" and "gay." Neither of his parents spoke much English — a Spanish translator had to be present when I was having an extended conversation with either.

But obviously my student just didn't want it bad enough.

Blagh.

baddox18• 13 years ago

But what is your proposed solution to this idea of privilege? It seems like you're more disappointed with a lack of awareness of it (although a young child shouldn't be blamed for ignorance of what everyone else's home is like), rather than the existence of it. So if I say "yes, I get it, I'm a white male and therefore life is statistically easier for me," have I sufficiently recognized my "privilege"? Or do I have to spend my entire life keeping to myself the fact that I occasionally have to work hard and occasionally still fail due to my own choices and abilities?

icebraining2• 13 years ago

The last paragraph took some weight from your post, in my opinion. I agree with you in general, but comparing that description of your student with my own experience, I can't help but think that maybe he really doesn't want it enough.

Having a computer at home, he's in a much better position than I was, when I learned programming at 13 by going to a public PC for 3h/week. I also didn't know English, nor did I have any programming classes until many years later.

Later, my first home computer was a BASIC interpreter, and I also couldn't save the programs because it had no storage, so I wrote all the code to paper before shutting it down each time.

I know I'm probably missing a lot of hindrances you haven't described, so I won't judge the situation just from that, but it does make your post weaker, IMHO. Also, why haven't you got him a pen drive yet? ;)

erikpukinskis3• 13 years ago

The irony is that there is an immense amount of money being left on the table by this whole "startup world" ignoring women and people of color.

spindritf2• 13 years ago

Is there? With so many people, including well-off, successful entrepreneurs like tptacek above complaining, somehow there's no one to step in? They could in one swoop contribute to fixing an injustice, receive acclaim and make money, yet no one does?

I don't buy it.

baddox18• 13 years ago

Why do you suppose there are no competitors happily collecting this money?

kyro2• 13 years ago

I didn't find his comments sexist in the least. If anything, they were almost purely observational, and I tend to agree with him. But they were also quite discouraging in regards to picking up programming later in life and how it correlated with success. As someone who was interested in computers at 13, but never had the opportunities or support to pursue that interest until much, much later in life, it's a bit sad to be told that it may be too late. To deliver that message when referring to an entire gender, I can imagine, can be doubly as discouraging.

mercer2• 13 years ago

I feel this is an inherent risk of 'observational' statements, and perhaps a risk taken disproportionately by the more 'geek' types.

It happens so often that I will make an observational statement that is interpreted as a value judgment, that I've started avoiding it. Because even if I carefully point out that it is an observation, and even point out that my observation might be wrong, it often results in a discussion that I didn't want to start.

I've noticed this disconnect especially often with my more artistic friends. It's like they can't discern a statement from an opinion. They also tend to have an intense hatred for any statement that aggregates, preferring to stick to direct observation, but that's another story.

hacker789• 13 years ago

He's concerned about being misconstrued because feminist activists love bullying people with waves of hateful, outrageously uncharitable, deliberately damaging messages at the slightest trigger.

For example, here's what PG recently said on Twitter (https://twitter.com/paulg/status/416994260995416064):

Will write about female founders, but traveling all day so it will have to wait. Reserve judgment? Prob too much to hope for, alas.

The responses are typical of feminist activists:

1. > pg translated: "Shut up. All I did in the last decade is not what I believe in, I will graciously explain it to you when I see fit"

2. > Obviously not an important enough issue to deal with now.

3. > please DO NOT write about women founders until you have a better fucking grasp on the issue.

4. > oh don't you even try to equate being a douchebag "startup" founder with being a hacker

The privilege topic has been discussed to death.

If someone were to use "privilege" to mean "unearned benefits for individuals in specific contexts", then no one could have a problem with it. We could talk about:

- female privileges in the workplace

- male privileges in the workplace

- white privileges at university

- black privileges at university

- gay privileges at bars

- straight privileges at bars

- American-born privileges regarding medical care

- Canadian-born privileges regarding medical care

- etc.

Instead, third-wave feminists have transformed the notion of "privilege" into a targeted weapon for belittling and denigrating the specific demographics they deem hostile to their goals.

When a "friendly" demographic does well, it's a result of hard work and determination. For example, when young women earn more than young men, or when young women graduate from college at far higher rates than young men, it's a result of hard work and determination.

Another example: Have you ever seen tptacek complain about the Asian tech problem, the Indian tech problem, or the Jewish tech problem? Nope. Those people worked hard! That is why they're wildly overrepresented. No need to scold them. No need to demand flagellation from them.

But men doing well? White men? Oh god, it's just their privilege. We need to fix this, and we'll know the problem isn't fixed as long as there is any disparity.

aredridel8• 13 years ago

A white man can be smart, kind, caring and sharing and have troubles of his own. But white MEN are privileged and you know it </meninblack>

baddox18• 13 years ago

The coin has another side: privilege. Privilege is a simple concept.

Privilege is a bogus concept, at least in every manner it has been explained to me. Examine the example you provided. If most elite startup hackers are male, English speaking, 20-40, and white or Asian, then a person giving that characterization would be giving a reasonable one based on observation. What does this have to do with "privilege" or "fitting the mold"? And, more importantly, why should I feel guilty or have some additional responsibility simply because I, through no choice of my own other than refraining from suicide and sex reassignment surgery, fit into one of these "privileged" groups? You might as well claim that the winner of a paper rock scissors competition has privilege.

My questions are actually genuine and not rhetorical. I would appreciate responses, or perhaps corrections of my impression of the concept of privilege.

jfarmer20• 13 years ago

First, privilege is not a bogus concept. If you really believe that — about anything, not just privilege — you'll have a hard time learning it or amending your understanding of it because of things like confirmation bias.

Second, your probability is bad. You're confusing P(A|B) and P(B|A). This is understandable — lots of people do this all the time without realizing it, myself included.

Third, your understanding of privilege is confused. As a successful, white male who has started living in Silicon Valley, I acknowledge my privilege but do not feel guilty about it. That you've bound up the idea of shame in privilege might explain why you find it hard to understand — not because it makes the idea harder to understand but because your "body" is going to have a hard time swallowing an idea that tells you you're a bad person.

Here's one way to think of privilege. Privilege is the sum total of all the things big and small that you don't have to think about on a day to day basis but other people do.

For example, as an innocent white person being approached by a police officer, I never have to wonder whether this police officer is coming to help me or harass me. Indeed, I might even presume something like, "Oh, the officer must be coming to tell me something useful."

As a male, I never have to worry about getting raped while walking down a city street at night, or plan your evening so that I won't be in that situation.

As someone with means, I never have to think about whether you have enough money to buy food to last a week, or what it feels like to have to made a trade off between food or gas this week. Or the terror of being sick without insurance.

Now, you might know these things. I don't know and I'm not presuming. I don't even know whether you're white, male, or anything else. I'm just trying to paint a picture.

If you want reading, I recommend these two essays by John Scalzi: Being Poor (http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/) and Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is (http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-th...).

shantanubala• 13 years ago

Privilege exists when the outward characteristics you describe are used as heuristics for filtering good coders from bad coders.

Unfortunately, most people are unaware of the heuristics they are using when performing such a task. LessWrong explains some of these errors in reasoning quite well [1][2]. When generalized to an entire population, these heuristics construct a "privilege" because anyone with characteristics that do not fit the heuristics will be unfairly disqualified.

Privilege is not an active act of oppression. By having privilege, you are not necessarily actively preventing someone from achieving success. However, the fact that someone has a harder time getting a job for no reason other than not satisfying heuristics for innate characteristics places you in a "privileged" position as a result.

[1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/lg/the_affect_heuristic/ [2]: http://lesswrong.com/lw/lj/the_halo_effect/

EDIT: It is important to note that there are other sources of privilege. One example is the fact that females have a much higher probability of being victims of sexual assault. As a male, I spend less time worrying about my own safety (in general) - that is a privilege.

HCIdivision173• 13 years ago

My impression is that it's an implication of arbitrary social momentum. Where a hacker immediately brings to mind a twenty-something white male, other groups would need to expend more effort to be associated with it. Say a brilliantly clever black woman joined a discussion, she shouldn't stand out, but likely would; that's the social imbalance in play: brilliant and clever may not be the foremost and outstanding characteristics noticed.

The bad part is primarily the "arbitrary" bit, as there seems to be bias for characteristics that have nothing to do with personal traits we have control over, like learned skill. The "privilege" is the label for the background that seems to prime a person for easy access to this social group. Without such privilege, a person won't naturally be able to flow into the social group.

I don't think you're supposed to feel guilty, for the same reason lacking privilege shouldn't imply shame. I think it is by definition out of your control. But it can be mitigated over time. So only feel guilt if you help reinforce the imbalance (like commenting on a girl programming, which carries an implication of noteworthiness (since it was noted) and thus perhaps surprise (which could imply by extension social wrongness)). Such complaints may sound small and petty, but if pervasive can easily stack up and amplify into real pressure.

Perhaps this is one reason anonymity is important. The joke "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" can be interpreted to show that there are ways to balance the effect of privilege by just taking it [0]. But in practice, you still need the basics like a computer, which is still outside the monetary ability or gumption for many (like going to a library and programming in 20 minute spurts). Normal levels of dedication wouldn't be enough for such individuals, though it likely is for the group privileged with a background like a white male (which usually has higher resources and better starting conditions). Notably not all who seem privileged are, but that's a similar problem, but in reverse; large flame wars happen when people attempt to qualify which is of a larger magnitude (I have no opinion other than it seems to exist sometimes).

There also seems to be pressure to not appear to be pushing into a privileged group. The individual may be ridiculed for their interest in hacking and such. But I don't really understand that kind of pettiness, other than it exists and I have no idea how to fix it.

Disclaimer: my opinions aren't likely valid, as I'm not really sure where my privilege starts and ends. I think I have a lot to start with, but I also worked hard to overcome some negative things, too. To me that's just life, but I suspect the ease with which I can say that without bitterness is perhaps a good indicator of what "privilege" is in the meta sense. I also am by no means a qualified feminist, merely someone confused and vaguely concerned that I may be doing wrong by someone else for some thoughtless, inconsiderate reason.

[0] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you're_a_dog

rayiner3• 13 years ago

One thing I think is problemetic in the tech community is the failure to separate the profession itself from unrelated cultural aspects of the people in the profession. The industry has trouble conceiving of what makes an excellent programmer except by reference to the characteristics of existing programmers. But there is no objective insight into the probitivity of these characteristics. Nobody really can measure how much programming for fun or by 13 really matters. This leads to a lot of cargo culting ("don't hire anyone without a github!") and deempahsises training people who have aptitude but don't have the same characteristics as other programmers. This is closely related to your point about privilege. Because the industry doesn't have objective ways to evaluate programmers, it over-relies on heuristics and cultural traits that favor people who "fit the mold." The Asian guy who programs for fun gets the opportunity, while the gal who could be an excellent programmer with proper training never gets steered toward the industry.

Crito7• 13 years ago

This is a topic that interests me, since I have not typically fallen in line with many of the "nerd/geek" lifestyle stereotypes (I don't game, watch animated movies, collect figurines or collect comic books... that sort of stuff. Instead I like going to sports bars, weightlifting, and reading sci-fi (...whoops, I guess I do conform there)).

Nevertheless, in a way I still find myself subscribing to the idea that people in tech tend to fit these stereotypes. If I imagine a hypothetical group of [company name here] devs, I imagine them as all anime-watching gamer bros. On the other hand, when I actually encounter any particular developer, it would surprise me more to learn that they are an anime-watching gamer than it would to learn that they are not. I somehow picture groups of people to be members of a cultural group that I consider to be a minority.

I think this apparent contradiction might be caused by a discrepancy with how tech professionals are portrayed in media (as anime-watching gamer bros) with how they actually tend to appear when I meet them in person ('normal' yuppies, often young parents or 'DINKs', with a wide variety of hobbies and interests).

harryh2• 13 years ago

Because the industry doesn't have objective ways to
evaluate programmers, it over-relies on heuristics and
cultural traits that favor people who "fit the mold."

I think this is mostly wrong. It's hard to objectively evaluate many professions. How do you evaluate marketing professionals, or lawyers, or graphic designers? It's all fuzzy. And it's especially fuzzy for 22 years olds without a track record of experience to look at. I don't think that software companies do it much differently than anyone else when it comes to hiring. We base decisions on gateways like prestigious degrees. We look at whatever experience we can (even if it's just a github repo). And we conduct interviews where we do our best to ask real world questions.

Is this process perfect? Of course not. But is it pretty good? I think so. It's obvious who the great programmers are. It's obvious which ones are awful. And there's a mushy middle where it's hard to tell who's gonna work out and who isn't. I suspect that most other fields are about the same in this respect.

Caligula2• 13 years ago

"The existence of privilege is not a scarlet letter on young white dudes who code. But the forceful, repeated, insidious denial of the existence of that privilege is a problem: it reinforces the privilege and allows it to feed on itself."

Seriously what the fuck does this mean? These words try so hard to appear to be insightful but are utterly meaningless.

I lack the privilege of understanding this.

jfarmer20• 13 years ago

He's talking about the reflexive defensiveness many young dudes in the technology industry have when the topic of privilege is brought up. Often it's associated with a feeling of shame, as if the person using the word were trying to put a scarlet letter on the young dude's chest.

They fall prey to bad logic: "If privilege exists then I am a bad person. I am not a bad person. Therefore privilege does not exist." The problem is the first implication, that acknowledging one's privilege somehow makes one a bad person or that it is "bad" to be privileged.

The conclusion is worse than unsound, though, because it denies something which has a material impact on many people's lives.

His words are clear and concise, IMO.

temphn• 13 years ago

The fundamental upstream question here is whether men and women should show the exact same patterns of ability and interest given their measurably different organs, hormones, chromosomes, lifespans, physiology, and so on. Much of the rest of the body differs systematically, visibly, and predictably between genders; it is unlikely a priori that the brain would remain invariant. Here's the late Doreen Kimura of McGill and Simon Fraser on the topic:

http://www2.nau.edu/~bio372-c/class/behavior/sexdif1.htm

  Men and women display patterns of behavioral and cognitive 
  differences that reflect varying hormonal influences on 
  brain development

  By Doreen Kimura (May 13, 2002)

  Men and women differ not only in their physical attributes 
  and reproductive function but also in many other 
  characteristics, including the way they solve intellectual 
  problems. For the past few decades, it has been 
  ideologically fashionable to insist that these behavioral 
  differences are minimal and are the consequence of 
  variations in experience during development before and 
  after adolescence. Evidence accumulated more recently, 
  however, suggests that the effects of sex hormones on brain 
  organization occur so early in life that from the start the 
  environment is acting on differently wired brains in boys 
  and girls. Such effects make evaluating the role of 
  experience, independent of physiological predisposition, a 
  difficult if not dubious task. The biological bases of sex 
  differences in brain and behavior have become much better 
  known through increasing numbers of behavioral, 
  neurological and endocrinological studies.

  Sex differences in problem solving have been systematically 
  studied in adults in laboratory situations. On average, men 
  perform better than women at certain spatial tasks. In 
  particular, men seem to have an advantage in tests that 
  require the subject to imagine rotating an object or 
  manipulating it in some other way. They also outperform 
  women in mathematical reasoning tests and in navigating 
  their way through a route. Further, men exhibit more 
  accuracy in tests of target-directed motor skills--that is, 
  in guiding or intercepting projectiles.

  Women, on average, excel on tests that measure recall of 
  words and on tests that challenge the person to find words 
  that begin with a specific letter or fulfill some other 
  constraint. They also tend to be better than men at rapidly 
  identifying matching items and performing certain precision 
  manual tasks, such as placing pegs in designated holes on a 
  board.

A graphic accompanies the full article:

http://www2.nau.edu/~bio372-c/images/00018E9D-879D-1D06-8E49...

Here is Louann Brizendine of UCSF:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Female-Brain-Louann-Brizendine/dp/...

  Review 1: Louann Brizendine, a neuropsychiatrist at the 
  University of California, San Francisco, explores 
  groundbreaking issues in brain science...Brizendine 
  graduated from the Yale University School of Medicine and 
  draws on research done at the Women's and Teen Girls' Mood 
  and Hormone Clinic, which she founded at UCSF in 1994.

  Review 2 :This comprehensive new look at the hormonal 
  roller coaster  that rules women's lives down to the 
  cellular level, "a user's guide to new research about the 
  female brain and the neurobehavioral systems that make us 
  women," offers a trove of information, as well as some 
  stunning insights. Though referenced like a work of 
  research, Brizedine's writing style is fully accessible. 
  Brizendine provides a fascinating look at the life cycle of 
  the female brain from birth ("baby girls will connect 
  emotionally in ways that baby boys don't") to birthing 
  ("Motherhood changes you because it literally alters a 
  woman's brain-structurally, functionally, and in many ways, 
  irreversibly") to menopause (when "the female brain is   
  nowhere near ready to retire") and beyond.

There are tens of thousands of papers in this general area on Pubmed.

aredridel8• 13 years ago

Indeed. Any with conclusions that support dismissing women in tech?

bjornsing• 13 years ago

Misogyny is alive and well, from Hacker News devolving into a disgusting sea of victim blaming after a female poster discussed being sexually assaulted at a tech conference, to the HR-free world of venture capital (ask any female founder who has dealt with investors - 9 times out of 10, that investor has used his power to sexually harass the founder).

In my mind that last parenthesised bit stands out like I don't know what... What the f*...?!? :(

Crito7• 13 years ago

I think you are misunderstanding this, due to poor wording.

That quote makes more sense if you replace "that investor" with "a investor". It seems plausible that founders have to deal with many founders, and it seems further plausible that many founders have had at least one bad experience.

9/10ths of founders having at least one bad experience with an investor and founders having bad experiences with 9/10 investors are obviously two very different things.

Of course we should obviously still be asking ourselves "what the fuck?!?"

Reply

apsec112• 13 years ago

"I think what religion and politics have in common is that they become part of people's identity, and people can never have a fruitful argument about something that's part of their identity. By definition they're partisan.

Which topics engage people's identity depends on the people, not the topic. For example, a discussion about a battle that included citizens of one or more of the countries involved would probably degenerate into a political argument. But a discussion today about a battle that took place in the Bronze Age probably wouldn't. No one would know what side to be on. So it's not politics that's the source of the trouble, but identity. When people say a discussion has degenerated into a religious war, what they really mean is that it has started to be driven mostly by people's identities.

When that happens, it tends to happen fast, like a core going critical. The threshold for participating goes down to zero, which brings in more people. And they tend to say incendiary things, which draw more and angrier counterarguments."

http://paulgraham.com/identity.html

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xacaxulu• 13 years ago

"ask any female founder who has dealt with investors - 9 times out of 10, that investor has used his power to sexually harass the founder"

I'd like to see some stats to back that up, i.e. police reports. Sounds like a generalization that's probably not based in reality. Every investor isn't a rapist waiting for a shot at a female CEO.

Reply

ksiegel• 13 years ago

By claiming that "it's already too late" for those who started coding in high school or college, Paul Graham is reflecting the industry bias against those who don't fit the stereotypical white male hacker. It is not too late.

I wrote down some of my thoughts on this issue here: https://medium.com/p/f7efb084e8a

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Paul Graham Isn't Keeping Women out of Tech

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