The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

http://modelviewculture.com/pieces/the-myth-of-the-non-technical-startup-employee

by sachitgupta • 12 years ago

282 242 12 years ago

fleitz• 12 years ago

I don't know how people put up with this kinda stuff, I hear a C-suite say something heteronormative and I'm already pretty much on my way out the door.

distracteddev90• 12 years ago

I guess I have just been lucky since every startup I've worked for has had exceptional operations staff that are widely respected and included in all company activities.

natrius• 12 years ago

"Yet the myths we hold so dear — the noble engineer, sleeping under his desk to get the product out on time; the company that cares for its employees’ every need — exclude and marginalize an entire class of people whose contributions to these startups make their success possible."

I'm not sure I can empathize with this. People within the company should be grateful for the work being done by office managers, but why would anyone outside the company be particularly concerned about it? Some work is glamorous. Some isn't. That's life.

theorique2• 12 years ago

From the VBScript and complex spreadsheet wrangling required to perform analysis of key organizational metrics to mastery of numerous different specialized softwares and systems in order to perform basic functions of the job ranging from accounting to people operations, non-technical employees must have a bevy of technical skills at the ready every single day. In fact, I had to code a sample app using the company’s API to get my job as an operations manager — and I committed code to the frontend of the marketing site regularly. I’m not the exception.

That doesn't really sound like a non-technical employee to me. Maybe a question of terminology, or the primary focus of the person's role, but a person who is coding sample apps using the company's API sounds pretty damn technical.

stephenaturner• 12 years ago

Maybe her argument is that she's less technical than the engineers (and therefore looked down upon unnecessarily, leading to this article), even if she has to be far more technical than the average person, just to get the job.

theorique2• 12 years ago

I think you're probably right. "Less Technical" or "Not As Technical" is more accurate.

Perhaps "non-SE" or "non-Programmer" or "non-Engineer" might be closest to what we're trying to say here.

It's unfortunate that some technical people look down on others in these kind of roles.

hobs3• 12 years ago

That was my immediate thought, irregardless of the gender argument. I work with plenty of non-technical ops people, ALL of them REGARDLESS of intelligence, can not code out of a wet paper bag. I have at various points shown them all how to use basic excel formulas and they still use calculators that would not look out of place in a grade school.

Are they good at what they do? Yes. Does what they do require that type of abstract thinking and computer skills? Not that I have seen, they seem effective at what they do, the lights are on, the place runs smoothly.

CGudapati• 12 years ago

Not to be that guy but regardless is the correct form. Irregardless is considered as non-standard or incorrect. But if you do know this, please don't mind this nitpick.

rachellaw• 12 years ago

I'm the "non-technical" co-founder of my startup, and I used to program web server gateways in python. It just happens that our technical architecture that we're using isn't really my area of specalisation (it's my partner's) so I ended up doing most of the business dev, ops, sales/marketing instead of programming.

I think all this really depends on the where the startup is in timeframe. A larger company will have more specialised employees who do only one thing, but a smaller one would have a single employee doing multiple roles even if in both cases their titles were exactly the same.

benjamincburns• 12 years ago

or the primary focus of the person's role

That one.

A implies B does not necessarily mean that B implies A. She's just saying that it's possible for a person to have skills beyond those required for their role. The examples you quoted aren't listed as what should be expectations of her role, they're examples of how she often pulls in her not-in-the-job-req skills in the service of her official duties.

rdl2• 12 years ago

I guess I've mainly worked in environments where it's "operations manager" and an entire ops team, and where they handle things related to revenue or technology (logistics, travel, facilities, equipment, security, etc.), but I've never really seen the operations role as female. Probably less female than any other department with the possible exception of some parts of engineering.

(In my experience, HR is the vastly-female role, and always-useless to employee; sometimes useful to companies for compliance reasons, but rarely. HR's worthlessness has nothing to do with female employees; in dev and product roles where some companies have 20-30% females, they're generally in the upper half of contributors, and in design, which is often somewhat majority female, they're often the key to a company's success. Actual receptionists are also usually female, but rarely do I see those in <100 person tech companies, unless provided by the building management.)

Generally I've just seen founders handle most of these things (taking out trash, ordering lunch, etc.) at the early stage, and then contract it out entirely (use a meal delivery service, office cleaners, etc.) This might be specific to silicon valley tech startups; the other environment I know about, USG/DOD/DOE, has 10x as many people for any role in general, and a clear hierarchy for who does what, but it's based on overt rank or grade, and not gender, age, whatever.

test1235• 12 years ago

QA, design and management is where I've noticed a greater proportion of women outside of HR. What is it about those roles which makes them amenable to women but not tech?

rdl2• 12 years ago

QA seems really split (even in other industries) between non-technical/non-quantitative QA ("we'll react to faults when identified, handle customer communications, etc.) and highly technical, highly quantified QA (the whole TDD crowd, SEI, etc.)

Even in stuff like pharma, you have people who want to do manual physical inspection and handling recalls, vs. people who want to build statistical controls. Somewhere in between there are human-executed procedure development.

Design seems like a clear case of the "designer pipeline" not having big roadblocks to women anywhere from birth to being a competent designer, unlike (until the past 10 years) some more math-based fields. Pure print design and art are fairly gender balanced, so there was a pool of people there when computer design became a thing; it's probably more likely a great generalist designer early in career would learn about computers and become a computer designer, vs. a math programmer becoming a designer.

Manager, no idea.

ameister14• 12 years ago

Running an office is hard to do and a good office manager or HR manager is incredibly valuable. I think you'd be foolish not to recognize that as a founder.

I'm sorry that they haven't captivated people the way a rogue engineer can, but an ops or HR person isn't likely to start a company from a dorm room, garage or basement that makes its way to a multi billion dollar IPO.

As to the office mom thing; I haven't encountered that much, maybe it varies from office to office. I don't doubt it exists, I've just never seen it personally. Anyone know if that's a really common thing?

spinlock• 12 years ago

I think that's the author's perspective on it (which I don't think is wrong). The way I see this is that lots of geeks are absolute slobs and they leave dirty dishes, food, etc.. on their desks (and their neighbors desks). I regularly see - female - office managers clean up after the slobs by doing their dishes and throwing out their trash. I've never really considered the "mom" aspect of this before. I just view co-workers like that as disgusting and self centered (the bugs they attract into the office impact everyone not just them).

johnhess• 12 years ago

This pattern shows up in a great many industries. And not always in favor of engineers.

Almost always, the divide is right along the profit center/cost center line. In finance, traders are revered and engineers are their support staff. In the Air Force, pilots run the show all the way up the chain of command and engineers -- as critical to mission success as they may be -- are support. That's okay. Those jobs can be even more rewarding than working in "tech".

Remember, the same reason you might choose to work as an engineer in $awesome_field is why your ops/admin/qa team came to your company.

lxt• 12 years ago

I can't upvote this enough! It's why I find jobs where what I do (engineering) is not the core product less rewarding on the whole.

h1karu2• 12 years ago

for those who think these type of office manager roles are essential I'll just leave this here:

https://37signals.com/remote/

lotsofmangos• 12 years ago

Premises are useful if your company makes stuff.

bri3d• 12 years ago

The article lists many things that "operations management" people in early-stage startups do that would be applicable to a remote company as much as an in-person one: taxes, accounts payable, hiring management, equipment management / basic IT, various accounting and finances, travel planning, and so on.

Having someone manage operations is just as essential in a remote company as it is in an in-person one.

I do agree that the crappy snacks management / trash organization facet goes away to a large extent in a remote environment, but I certainly don't think that makes the role described in the article any less essential.

h1karu2• 12 years ago

fair point.. although I personally lump accountants in with lawyers as something you can't live without but hopefully don't need full time. Hiring is much easier when you're remote for the reasons already mentioned in the book and for many organizations it's something a small team of developers can handle themselves.

ericabiz2• 12 years ago

The situation described at the tradeshow in this article has also happened to me, repeatedly and consistently. The difference? I AM technical. I just also happen to be a woman.

I love the tech industry. I've been in it professionally since 1997, and I've run tech startups as a CEO for the past 13 years. And if there's one thing I can count on, it's the consistent, pervasive assumption that I'm not technical.

I hate going to tech events with my fiance (or for that matter, any man), because people will come up to us, acknowledge me, and then ask him brightly: "So why are you here?"

I once thought it would be funny to time it and see how long another person could go talking to only him and not making eye contact with me, even when he mentioned that he was at the event because of me. Current record? 13 minutes. 13 minutes of not looking at me, saying a word, or acknowledging that I was there.

Every male that I've ever told this story to can't believe it until they go to parties and see it in action. It's so consistent, yet it's unbelievable until you see it.

This is what it's like to be a woman in tech, even when you're a technical one. It's assumed that you're non-technical. But don't take that into account and lead with your credentials--whoops, no, that's "aggressive" and you shouldn't do that. Don't go to tech parties with a guy because you're assumed to be "the girlfriend." Don't go alone because you'll get hit on. But don't NOT go to tech parties, because that's where you'll meet investors and other potential contacts.

Being a woman in tech is like walking through a maze with minefields at every turn and never knowing which one you'll hit. I'm here because I love this industry and I couldn't imagine doing anything else. But I hate that my physical appearance and gender connotes so many (invalid and ridiculous) assumptions.

jv222223• 12 years ago

My thought is that it's not because they mean to be rude. It's because they pattern match. I've noticed when folks see the same pattern over and over it's difficult to see outside it.

My friends wife is an F16 fighter pilot. I was surprised to find that out. Truth is I should not have been surprised, but it went against the patterns I'm used to seeing.

I wonder if that's at play here?

booruguru• 12 years ago

The thing is...we've been talking about geeks and discrimination for years now. "Ignorance" is no longer a valid excuse.

parfe• 12 years ago

My thought is that it's not because they mean to be rude. It's because they pattern match. I've noticed when folks see the same pattern over and over it's difficult to see outside it.

Awful lot of words you used to avoid typing "sexism". Hide behind whatever phrasing you prefer, but automatically assigning a person gender roles out of intellectual laziness embodies sexism.

jacalata3• 12 years ago

One of the words you are looking for is 'stereotyping'.

melindajb24• 12 years ago

No, no, no, no and no. Stop it. Pattern matching isn't science. Stop pretending it is.

https://medium.com/best-thing-i-found-online-today/8178b2794...

To be direct: Pattern recognition is bullshit voodoo pseudo-science masquerading as objectivity and meritocracy. It’s sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and xenophobia dressed up as science. It sickens me.

jrs99• 12 years ago

it's not rude at all. I'm a hardcore male knitter and it will always surprise some people when I show up to a meetup for the first time with my yarn and needles. I'm sure it's not mind-blowing, but it's definitely a "Hey, oh, a guy showed up."

The same was true for Bill Gates. If you read his biography, when he was really young, people didn't even shake his hand when they met to talk. They didn't find out he was the CEO until like an hour into the meeting. And when they did, they were surprised.

wpietri2• 12 years ago

My thought is that it's not because they mean to be rude. It's because they pattern match. I've noticed when folks see the same pattern over and over it's difficult to see outside it.

Most rude people don't mean to be rude. They're just thoughtless. That doesn't make their behavior less rude.

For example, the zillion people who, upon learning I'm a computer guy, bust out their computer questions and put me on the spot to diagnose and possibly fix their issues. Are they just pattern matching? Sure. But are they also being thoughtless and self-centered? Definitely.

The problem isn't the pattern matching. Anything with neurons does that. It's the lack of consideration about how other people will feel.

malyk• 12 years ago

The pattern matching IS SEXIST! That's the whole issue. Your using gender as a "pattern" to match against.

The point is to try to overcome making that match.

galago• 12 years ago

There seems to be a big horrible cycle here. I attended VMWorld last year in San Francisco and was shocked by how many booths were staffed by attractive women who where just hired as like, temps or something. They were aggressively friendly and seemed to have the single task of getting my contact information as a sales lead. Their knowledge of the products was generally no deeper than what was printed on the promotional fliers. I probably did tend to ignore women after a few interactions. So, I'm the kind of person you're complaining about, yet I don't like the situation either. Perhaps "booth babes" are part of a successful sales strategy and I'm an outlier. However, its possible that trade show sleaze is just a pattern propelled forward by inertia. Either way, we should speak out against it.

It did occur to me that a correcting mechanism for trade shows would be a gender balance in attendees. Maybe you're working different type of trade shows, but that was my recent experience.

Thirdegree• 12 years ago

'Perhaps "booth babes" are part of a successful sales strategy and I'm an outlier.'

Not according to Spencer Chen.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/13/booth-babes-dont-convert/

driverdan2• 12 years ago

The correcting mechanism is banning booth babes.

drawkbox2• 12 years ago

This is a good example of sexism. But also a hint of target marketing, a few things of note...

Since there are less women in tech, technical people assume they are boring most people with technical jargon including most women (probabilistically). I bet if you dropped some technical info early it would knock it out of that mode quickly. I know when a women knows or doesn't know about tech I do change how I talk but I do this with anyone that is technical/non-technical. The old Feynman tune it to your crowd when you educate/market type of steward.

Also since there are so few women in tech, men don't usually work with them during the day and aren't the most alpha, lots of them could be shy or even have difficulty with eye contact at all. If they are introverted even moreso like many programmers are. Many are also young and not married which leads to awkwardness at times with ladies.

I think there are lots of opportunities for really skilled women but these intricacies should be stated more often so people understand and correct their assumptions. People need examples like this to learn how subtle it can be because just hearing 'sexism' doesn't help educate, more women with more examples as it is eye opening and helps understanding of this problem.

RodericDay• 12 years ago

This is a common belief of geeks and maybe most people everywhere, that breaking down concepts into more easily understandable elements and working on outreach is something necessary for progress. They also seem to expect the oppressed group to do all the heavy lifting- figuring how to complain in the right tone as well as mustering the energy to complain in the first place.

I'm not sure history suggests that this is the way to go. There's no easy, smooth social change, and self-described "moderates" should give more room for people to be angry. Your post, instead of giving some "advice" on how to help tell the message, should just be doing that instead. Skip this condescending explanation! Stop making it about shy males!

More importantly though, many people think they want to be convinced by cause-effect arguments A, B, and C, and they advocate for that kind of context-less discussion forum, but really what they need is to be allowed to discover A, B, and C on their own terms after being presented with a persuasive experience D. But to make it really connect, you need to get the person involved. Calls of sexism help with that. As an intellectually confident person, people calling me out bluntly and confidently about my sexism got way further with me than people trying to sell me some sanitized variant designed for socially stunted males.

I don't mean to blow up on you or anything, but seriously it's every day on HN that someone who gives the impression that "he sees both sides" and has got it all figured out seems to be taking some awkward position as mediating sage instead of following their own advice and helping craft the message. The overall impression is, of course, one of endless condescension.

ap222132• 12 years ago

I think it's a good point, even if it's an unfortunate situation. I empathize with ericabiz - I'd love to see more balance between genders in software development. (and, sadly, I think it's only gotten worse since I started in the 90s). But, having gotten the 'eyes glazed over' look by every professional woman with whom I've tried to talk software within the last year, one just gets sort of trained after awhile. (maybe similar to how women get trained to assume that guys will hit on them.)

But, ericabiz, I recommend going to events solo - you'll meet more people that way. If you get hit on, bring the topic back to software. They'll get the point. Or, alternatively bring one or two female software friends with you. Couples going to events don't work so well, in my experience - regardless of who's the technical one.

Alternatively, wear something that only a coder would wear. Put some technical stickers on your laptop. Give some kind of sign to differentiate yourself.

huherto• 12 years ago

Just a guess. May be they are trying not to appear to be hitting on you. Paraphrasing you ..."Being a man around women is like walking through a maze with minefields at every turn and never knowing which one you'll hit."

me2i81• 12 years ago

I'm not sure where you got that. Treat people professionally and there's no "minefield."

AgathaTheWitch• 12 years ago

My skin color and gender both connote a number of invalid assumptions. This probably applies to most people at some point in their lives. It just doesn't bother me. I'm sorry if it bothers you and I sympathize with others who are annoyed. I just don't relate.

adrianm3• 12 years ago

I'm inclined to agree with much of what you said, but I don't think sexism is always at fault here. If I were that person who struck up a conversation with your fiance, I know I would personally find it difficult to make the "first move" in initiating a conversation with you.

Is it because I'm sexist? No! I'm not a very extroverted or social person and I find it personally very difficult to make initial contact with anyone I don't already know. Given that I'm already talking to your fiance, we can infer that something or someone has broken the ice and hence we are engaged in a conversation.

If you were the person with whom the ice was broken with first, it would be your fiance who would be seemingly "snubbed" by me, unless introduced explicitly by yourself. Maybe non-extroverts, shy, or just socially awkward individuals need to wear a public service announcement or something to make this clear to everyone.

"Disclaimer: I'm not sexist; I'm just socially awkward. Please break the ice and say hello to me!"

I'd also like to add, for your consideration, that some people are better at one-on-ones than navigating the social jungle that is multi-person conversations. I have no idea how to engage multiple persons at once outside of the context of a formal or informal presentation of some sort. This could be that the topics of conversation that I usually engage in with others are not usually of the anecdotal variety, which I imagine are amenable to group conversation, where others can more easily "participate" passively.

Finally, I'd like to point out that I think your social party experiment as you framed it will always generate results that are biased toward your assumption. Just because a phenomena has been observed to exist (in this case the phenomena, according to your testimony, is "men in a technical environment are more inclined to strike up technical conversations with men to the exclusion of the women also present") does not actually tell us anything about -why- this is so.

You can come up with any number of anecdotally reasonable hypotheses, but until you actually test these hypotheses in a well defined and scientific manner with an experiment designed to eliminate all of the potential biases, your experiment is no better (rhetorically speaking) at proving anything than a sexist diatribe along the lines of "why my ex-{girlfriend or wife}'s {anecdotally negative conduct} proves women are {some universal claim about all women}".

frandroid• 12 years ago

You're not sexist, but you have less problems breaking the ice with men than women...

rodly• 12 years ago

Find a field that has been woman-dominated for the last 50 years. Now put a man in that field, who is rather successful (like yourself in technology), and you will get the exact same result in the contexts you describe. I'm sick of this paradox where men and women are equal and yet men (and only men) are capable of making this mistake. It's simple pattern matching, and when the pattern tells you one thing and it's actually the other you're now a giant sexist pig. Now if a guy ignores you for more than a few seconds at one of these events then I agree, the guy needs to wake up, it's 2014.

Also complaining about getting hit on? Really? A person finds you attractive and wants to talk to you. What a monster.

"But I hate that my physical appearance and gender connotes so many (invalid and ridiculous) assumptions."

What is ridiculous about an assumption that is 95% correct in today's world? Perhaps it will be a ridiculous assumption in 5 years, and definitely 10, but it's not far-fetched to run into guys at these events who don't interact with women ever in their day-to-day work lives.

melindajb24• 12 years ago

We are humans and with that comes the ability to override animal thinking. Dare I say, I expect the person to have that thought to override it, think rationally, and say something other than what most of them do?

We've been discussing this issue long enough that the people who keep doing this, need to not be tolerated. We need to stop expecting those without power to always be the ones to take the high road.

stephp• 12 years ago

Sorry, I hate to be this person, but do you know who the high-paid, "celebrity" hair stylists are? Men. If you look at all the communications careers-- teachers, psychologists, marketers. Men make the most money and have the most prestige in female-dominated professions. "Flipping" a scenario is rarely the best way of formulating an argument.

kaitai• 12 years ago

Srsly? Someone's gotta write a program to autopost the stats about men in nursing and men in elementary school teaching, and particularly the way they get promoted faster with less experience. (One source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jennagoudreau/2012/05/21/a-new-o...)

And srsly? The continuing trope that it's "men who are sexist pigs" who are the problem rather than "people who persist in employing infantile pattern-matching in the face of conflicting evidence"? Who said anything about only men making this mistake, anyway? Sensitive much?

And complaining about getting hit on in work situations -- been covered enough on the internet, but I just want to say I need to be paid a f(*&load more to add that to my job description. It is not in my job description.

sliverstorm5• 12 years ago

Also complaining about getting hit on? Really? A person finds you attractive and wants to talk to you. What a monster.

Amusingly enough, I was just reading an article by a woman, complaining that not enough men hit on her in SF.

srpablo• 12 years ago

Piling on to other commenters: Modern Dance & Ballet. Most of the coveted, paid choreographer positions go to men, despite being a tiny fraction of the dancers.

tdavis• 12 years ago

Cool straw man, bro. Would have been even cooler had she actually made any claim that men were only capable of this "mistake". Or that your carefully constructed counter-argument weren't trivially proven false. But, whatever, you tried.

Simple pattern matching tells me you must have used car parts where your brain should be, so I guess we're all susceptible to this sort of mistake. And I'll be damned if I don't feel at least as confident in my assessment as you are in yours. I don't even know anything about cars! Now I feel like a hypocrite.

offbrand• 12 years ago

The problem is not men hitting on us and it being awkward. I can handle that, whatever. The issue is being seen as ONLY sexual objects. Normally things start out great. Oh, you're a girl in tech? That's so awesome. Now I can talk tech, a topic I'm comfortable with. However, I can't tell you how many times I've mentioned my fiance and the conversation comes to a screeching halt, see ya. Or I let it go on without mentioning anything, and the boundary isn't set and there is awkwardness later on. It is a different dynamic and tricky to navigate. If I was a guy, they'd be happy to talk business and learn about my startup. We never got to that. I find it hard to have as positive of an experience networking as my male coworkers seem to have. I'm not saying this is sexism or any other loaded words, its just a challenge.

So while being a technical female has a lot of positives (we are more rare and stand out and people might find us pretty and want to talk to us), there are legitimate issues regarding professionalism in work and conferences. No one is saying men are monsters...well, I'm certainly not.

tomca32• 12 years ago

From personal experience, I really have to agree.

I'm a male. I'm now an engineer but before I switched careers I was a ballet dancer.

I've heard the phrase "Are you waiting for your girlfriend?" or "Is your girlfriend a dancer?" or some variation of that, countless times when I was at theater/ballet company events/auditions. I hated that, but I couldn't really blame anyone. 90% of other males there were usually just waiting for their girlfriends.

piokoch• 12 years ago

True. My coworker's kid goes to kindergarten where on of the teachers is male. This guy really had a hard time at the beginning. Parents were very suspicious and worried (why "man" is working in kindergarden???) or took him for a repairman.

The article's author is simply a victim of statistics. If at the conference there is 150 "booth babies" and 300 male engineers, but in one booth there is a female engineer, people make educated guess, based on statistical inference, that this must be 151 booth baby.

I think nobody is to blame here. And, in fact, articles author might turn that whole confusion to her advantage (out of 150 other booths, that one surely will be remembered by potential customers). As a matter of fact it has happened already, I guess it is not that easy to hit top rank on Hacker News.

onetwofiveten5• 12 years ago

Do you really find it hard to understand why it would be frustrating for people to not take you seriously and constantly hit on you in a professional context?

And what exactly are you defending here? If you're in a professional situation (which includes work related social events) then you shouldn't make unwelcome sexual advances. That's how you avoid sexual harassment lawsuits. If you don't have the social awareness required to know whether or not someone else is attracted to you, then that's very sad, but it's your problem. You have to work on it in your own time. Don't flail around at work making everyone else uncomfortable, hoping to get lucky.

Also, I can't believe you're defending the right to make patronising snap judgements about people based on statistical correlations. You don't need to prejudge the people you meet in a professional context. Just be polite and pay attention.

kjs3• 12 years ago

Privileged white male erects straw man. 50 years ago tells blacks "society is racist, so you should just get used to it and STFU".

your_throwaway4• 12 years ago

Yeah, except when I do start a conversation with you, I'm hitting on you, and probably being "creepy".

I have to navigate a mental minefield of "don't say this" "don't say that too much" or "don't be overly aggressive", otherwise I get screamed about on twitter, labeled as a misogynist, and possibly fired from my job. (Uh-oh, I said dongle! Or...[1]meritocracy!)

I'm not saying women in tech don't have problems, they do, but I'm really sick of hearing this like it's a completely one-sided problem. The stupid evil men are holding the women down and keeping them from succeeding!

Gender dynamics are hard, for EVERYBODY. Men are having to deal with the fact that suddenly (or maybe not suddenly?) doing things like getting beer after conferences is bad, telling jokes to one another is bad, thinking certain thoughts is bad, using certain words[2] is bad.

I'm sorry if you come to a conference and I don't behave in the ultra-narrowly-defined way that you have determined makes me not part of the problem (although I recently found out that asking if I did it wrong makes me part of the problem).

I don't have a context for this! And it seems like everything I, and other men like me, try to do to make you feel included is WRONG, and we're BAD for doing it!

Invite you to beers after a conference? Hitting on you!

Compliment you on what you're wearing? Hitting on you! Objectifying you! Noticing that you are a partially-physical entity! THE HORROR!

Ask you about your projects? Flirting with you!

Make a suggestion about your project? Mansplaining at you!

Men have to navigate a constantly changing, and VERY hazardous minefield every time we talk to you. I'm really sorry (really, genuinely, that is not sarcasm) that sometimes we get it wrong, or sometimes we just forego trying at all and stay quite around you. A lot of it is really just because we don't want to mess it up and make you angry. Women have a LOT of power over men in these situations, and if we screw up even a tiny tiny bit, it can ruin our lives.

[1] http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug#awesm...

[2] http://banbossy.com

melindajb24• 12 years ago

If you can override the animal instincts to kill other humans, why is it so hard to override your thoughts and just treat all other humans with the same respect you'd give your best friend, at least until you see a valid reason not to?

No one is saying that getting a beer after work is bad, or telling jokes is bad, or that thinking is bad. this is hand waving. We're asking you, again, to a) understand that lots of drinking leads to situations where women are harassed; b) telling sexist, racist, homophobic jokes is not appropriate in any professional context, and that you should be human enough to override your animal instincts.

To be frank, your post comes off as irrational, and immature. You sound very young, and very entitled.

lambda4• 12 years ago

Dude, it's really not hard to have a technical conversation with someone and not come off as creepy. If you feel like you have to worry about this all the time, there's something seriously off about your interpersonal instincts. I'm a pretty socially awkward nerdy guy, and I've never had a problem with being able to have a technical conversation with a woman without being accused of "mansplaining", "being overly aggressive", being "screamed about on twitter" or the like. If all of those things are happening to you, you're probably going about it wrong.

Remember, you hear about the worst incidents online. The things that make it to the news do so because they're newsworthy, not because they're commonplace.

Since many of us are socially awkward nerds here, let me give you a few hints:

Inviting someone for beers after a conference is not hitting on them. But if you're really worried it appearing that way, make sure you invite more than one person; it feels much more like an after-conference beer than an invitation to a date if there's a group of people.

Complementing someone on what they're wearing? I complement my male coworkers on their new sneakers or spiffy new jackets sometimes; it's no more creepy to do the same for a female coworker. But I wouldn't do that to some guy I just met, only someone I've known for a while and already have a professional relationship with. If the first thing I said to a guy was a complement on his shoes, that would sound a little weird, wouldn't it, like I might be hitting on him? Same rule goes. Don't make a complement on a woman's clothes or appearance be the first thing you say to her, that makes it sound like you're hitting on her. But if you've known her a while and you notice that she's gotten a new haircut or new jacket, it's not a problem to mention it.

Asking about someone's projects? How would you imagine that would sound like flirting? Just make sure you're actually interested in someone's projects, and not just using it as a "get to know you" before trying to ask them on a date.

pseut• 12 years ago

Gender dynamics are hard, for EVERYBODY.

I know. But they're probably harder when you're also making less money and having your credentials questioned.

Pherdnut4• 12 years ago

Booth-babe stuff aside, I thought the article was primarily about being non-technical at a startup.

hippich• 12 years ago

I believe no matter if you are technical or not, you still can find certain correlation between person's sex and if he or she is technical or not. I understand that there are a lot of gals in tech, but it is less likely to happen to see couple where female party is technical and male - is not. It is just statistics. Just like it is more likely for gals to have longish hair and for guys - shorter one. It is just how current overall earth as large system evolved.

Just like everybody assumed I am boring when I was young and nerdish, same would happen to gals in tech. I bet that if instead of waiting for 13 minutes you would join conversation whoever approached you and your fiance would happily continue conversation with you two. Yes, his initial assumptions were incorrect, but they are based on current expectations. As soon as there will be close to 50/50 female/male ration in tech I bet these assumptions will disappear.

Don't try hard to find samples of sexism. Just join a conversation.

ipince2• 12 years ago

Erica, I don't know the particulars of your situation, but may I suggest that maybe you're reading too much into (some of) this?

I've seen the lack of eye contact problem happen many times, with a mix of genders/races/etc. Sometimes I'm the one being ignored (I'm male); sometimes I feel weird because the person talking is only looking at me and ignoring everyone else in the group. It feels random to me.

IMHO, it points more to a general lack of social skills than a sexist/racist thing. I try not to take it personally. And I try, in my own conversations, to always be very inclusive (e.g. eye contact with everyone, even if I'm answering one particular person's question) and encourage others to be inclusive as well (e.g. deliberately introducing people, asking questions, or simply giving others in the group eye contact even when I'm on the listening end). I think steps like these can go a long way.

jtfrench• 12 years ago

I've seen this happen as well. As a black male CEO of a VC-funded startup, I've also seen it happen to me in a slightly different way. I gotta hype up the nerdiness, the glasses, and casually name-drop my college degree just to help those around me not embarrass themselves by assuming "I'm not the guy writing the code". Unfortunately, I'm quite used to this though and rarely think to share this experience with anyone because this has been My Whole Life.

Jugurtha5• 12 years ago

You have a kid, you look for a nanny to look after him. You put it on news-paper, there's a 45 year old dude who comes offering his services to look after your kid.

Now tell me that you're so awesome that you'll not think what you are thinking right now.

Exactly.

People use stereotypes to save time. Many stereotypes are wrong, because you'll get them from CNN or Fox. People don't get on the news for being normal.

When you're in a hurry, you don't want to change. You don't have that luxury because you want the result now. You're not in "experimenting, expanding comfort zone, increasing awareness" mode. You're in "Getting it done" mode with as few new parameters.

Usual is better than confusing.

Besides, some stereotypes are true so one can understand people behaviour.

Black people go to jail more, geeks don't do well with girls, etc.

And I know that some people will be butt-hurt and cry foul and it's 2014 and how it's a stone age thinking, but the stats are there.

http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet

(I don't have stats on the sex life of geeks, though).

Someone might be offended at first, but there's a reason for these stereotypes to have had such a long, established life: If they don't represent the truth, they at least reflect it in some distorted way.

The person coming to a booth has probably had a long life where, comparatively, he's met really fewer females in tech and come on, it's not like us humans are so pure that we'll go: Hmm, this is the first time I meet a female in tech. I'll speak to her in spite of being in a hurry, in spite of my question being complex, in spite of being used to talk with dudes all my life and this one comes out now.

When you're in a hurry, you don't want to change, you don't want surprises: Usual is better than confusing.

A lot of time, people won't deal with you simply because they don't like you. A lot of times, people won't deal with you simply because they don't know you.

People who'll talk to you and give you the benefit of the doubt are giving you the benefit of the doubt. Meaning it's a privilege they're granting you, so having an entiteled attitude about it goes against the meaning of the words.

InclinedPlane• 12 years ago

Black people go to jail more, geeks don't do well with girls, etc.

Neither is accurate. Both are exaggerations. Comparing crime between blacks and non-blacks may seem like it's useful data, the rates are pretty significantly different. But it's not, because the majority of people, white, black, whatever, aren't criminals. So if you use that "data" to treat people differently you'll be making an error far more often than being right. That's the danger of stereotypes, because they are so seductive from a confirmation bias perspective. There are no stereotypes that aren't backed by some kernel of "truth". But stereotypes lead to more bad behavior, more ill-treatment of others than they avoid.

GFischer• 12 years ago

Reminds me of the "paradigms" video by consultant Joel Barker (based on Kuhn's work)

The TL;DR version is that everyone creates some "filters" as shortcuts for efficiently analyzing situations (paradigms).

transcript of the video here:

http://ocw.metu.edu.tr/pluginfile.php/3298/course/section/11...

Kuhn's work expanded:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/#3

Dylan168072• 12 years ago

You have a kid, you look for a nanny to look after him. You put it on news-paper, there's a 45 year old dude who comes offering his services to look after your kid.
Now tell me that you're so awesome that you'll not think what you are thinking right now.

Before that second line my mental image was close to Mr. Rogers, after that line it's a huge guy in a prison jumpsuit covered in tattoos. I don't think either one is what you were going for. Maybe a pedophile? I don't have a stereotype for those.

Fuxy• 12 years ago

I feel I have to apologize on behalf of all clueless men out there unfortunately we were brainwashed by the media that all women are non technical.

On the other hand i see nothing wrong with you being aggressive and it would be extremely hilarious if you were to go with your boyfriend to an event and just whisper in his ear what he needs to say every time he gets asked something technical he might not know.

I always enjoy playing on peoples assumptions and making them feel awkward for making them.

P.S. There's no gender neutral interactions so make the most of your gender's image and strengths.

If you want to be treated for who you are and not just a member of your gender you will have to show a strong personality and don't be afraid of being assertive or slightly aggressive sometimes. It gets you respect.

odonnellryan• 12 years ago

I'm not trying to be insulting here in any way, and I hope I come across correctly.

It's not your fault, and it's a horrible situation that many people would love to see changed. I love talking about technology, and it's unfortunate the culture is the way it is where it alienates part of the community for discussion.

However, with all such things -- while it is worthwhile to push for change -- they must be taken in stride and seen as obstacles to overcome.

Take what you think is a weakness in your situation: that you're underestimated, or maybe ignored, as your strength.

mathattack2• 12 years ago

Given that this is a hot topic... Wouldn't a tech company have an enormous competitive advantage if they treated women better?

lmm5• 12 years ago

If it is, great, it'll sort itself out. I was kind of hoping Etsy would resolve this one way or another (they seemed to be heavily feminist as a core corporate value), but I haven't heard much from them lately - which suggests maybe they aren't doing so well?

merrua• 12 years ago

The ones that do, usually do. Mixed boards have better performance. Company's producing products that don't actively drive away some of the market make more sales. Unfortunately people don't always act based on economic best choice, but based on learned behavior.

citadelgrad• 12 years ago

I've seen this "non-technical" assumption many times and I always cringe.

JoeAltmaier4• 12 years ago

Lots of projection about why men are ignoring women. Maybe sometimes its nothing to do with assumptions about competence. Could be awkward unfamiliarity with what to do with a women in an admittedly male-filled industry.

I don't mean that you ought to shoulder the burden of conditioning all the males; or that its fair. Mostly the world isn't fair. But its the current state of affairs.

hmason• 12 years ago

NicheDiver• 12 years ago

I am a self-employed technical female as well but in my case I'm also a semi-recluse so my exposure to such things is greatly limited. Outside of being a developer I'm also known to occasionally fix my own cars and large appliances in lieu of taking them to be repaired.

In that context I have experienced similar issues but I chalk it up to people simply not being exposed enough to oddities like me. I am guilty of it too towards people I come across who break my mental image of how something "is."

For example, I live near Austin, Texas. I recently saw a really tall, very handsome black man wearing a cowboy hat and full-length duster. Certainly that's not the norm for me to see but not too incredibly odd either. That is until I heard him speak with the most refined British accent I'd ever heard in my life. I completely lost my composure and started viewing him if he were a novelty act. I have no doubt I was at least as much of an ass as the men you describe.

As other commenters have pondered, I wonder if these situations will actually start to decrease as the commonality of females in tech starts to increase.

driverdan2• 12 years ago

In case you weren't aware Erica (OP of the parent comment) lives in Austin. The two of you should meet.

spiralpolitik• 12 years ago

A good office manager or PA is worth their weight in gold. Especially one that goes the distance to make sure that everything keeps running smoothly and the business moving forward despite any strange issues. After all I'm sure finding lost luggage or locating mandolin strings in the middle of Austin is a job you want to be troubling your engineers with.

Ask yourself this question. Do you really want to be the one that has to call the building manager every time the toilet gets blocked ?

mw67• 12 years ago

Unfortunately, when it comes to the tech industry at large, it can also mean a constant battle to justify your intelligence, your value, and your very existence.

If your role isn’t technical, you don’t actually understand the product.

We should remember that some great founders like Steve Jobs were also not writing any code and still added lots of value. IMHO understanding the product mostly mean understanding how users interact with it, not understanding how to code it.

jmduke• 12 years ago

For another -- largely concurring -- perspective on this issue, Alexis Ohanian writes about being a proud nontechnical cofounder:

http://alexisohanian.com/on-being-a-proud-non-technical-foun...

gatsby• 12 years ago

Are these really commonly held beliefs?

--You only take a job in business operations if you aren’t smart enough to be an engineer (or designer, or product manager, or…)

--If your role isn’t technical, you don’t actually understand the product.

I don't think many people actually say or believe this. Maybe these were common thoughts in 1999, but as an SF-based ops guy, I've never heard this.

In fact, I would argue that good business operators have it just as good, if not better, than most engineers right now. Startups like Uber, Postmates, Airbnb, Dropbox, etc. are killing it, and they all have really talented (and highly paid) people in sales, ops, marketing, support, etc.

I think most of us are aware that it takes more than engineers to build a company:

http://blog.42floors.com/year-operations-startups/

http://www.cdixon.org/2014/03/15/full-stack-startups/

http://justinkan.com/exec-errands-post-mortem

wpietri2• 12 years ago

I don't think they're commonly stated beliefs. I think that people commonly behave as if they believe those things, though.

My first technical job was working for my university. I learned early on that the admin people were the backbone of the place. They were smart, competent, and hardworking, and a lot of people treated them like furniture. They were used to it, but I found it rage-inducing.

I've definitely seen a lot of stuff like that here. A number of times I've had words with fellow engineers who apparently thought they were too good to get their hands dirty. I've had engineering managers explicitly tell me that engineers were too expensive or important a resource to do anything but code. It doesn't take a lot of that for an implicit caste system to develop.

Pherdnut4• 12 years ago

Does it have to be common or just regularly enough encountered for it to become seriously irritating.

geebee• 12 years ago

I've actually found that the "commonly held belief" is often the opposite:

- You're only (still) an engineer because you lack the ability to move into a product management role.

- If your role is technical, your job is to code up the vision of someone who understands the product.

This is changing, rapidly, in some segments of the tech world But keep in mind, the "developer-driven culture" may be far more prevalent among the kind of organizations represented on HN than the business world at large.

xivzgrev• 12 years ago

People are resistant to change. But change is in the air - self awareness of this issue is growing. The people who are aware, men and women, will rise in rank and create new cultures / new companies with friendlier atmospheres.

It's only a matter of time until the tech industry is a much more women-friendly place. And frankly I can't wait - there's a lot of pain in the world, and we need the brightest minds on them.

asharpe2• 12 years ago

Taking aside the blatant sexism (kudos - we need more people raising this issue), there is a significant 'rolism' in the tech community. I have worked on the business/product side of tech for more than 10 years. What you say is inherently true of too many 'developers' and their views.

It harks back to a belief of "Build it and they will come" that pervades the industry (and yes, I do know the actual quote is "Build it, and HE will come"). There are many successful products that solve a problem or do something. If no-one ever knows about it or works out how to pay you for it, then the business will never be a success. You need all parts of a business (selling, marketing, ops, banking the cheques, making payroll, taking out the garbage) for it to work ... the naivety of some devs about the processes that go on to make that work and their lack of engagement in the wider business is a wake-up call many need to hear.

balls1878• 12 years ago

I agree with you to a point, devs would benefit with understanding "the other side of the house" and that sales, marketing, and administration are all important aspects of building a healthy business.

We have different roles to play in the success of an organization; at different times each role has different values, but as people we're all valuable.

Of course your side of the house is always out of the office by 5p =)

asharpe2• 12 years ago

The only time I have personally left the office before 5, I was back on my MacBook at 8 until midnight. :-p

melindajb24• 12 years ago

that kind of response is exactly what i'm referring to above. I'm a non technical founder and I work literally side by side the same hours as my technical co founder. Maybe at different times, because he's a night owl and a lot of business and marketing stuff can't be done at 3am hopped up on red bull. But the same time. And there was a line of former coworker engineers for the co founder position, so he's not an outlier.

melindajb24• 12 years ago

given how many "product driven" companies fail for lack of marketing or customers, you'd think they'd catch on. but apparently that kind of pattern matching doesn't work for them.

hibikir• 12 years ago

The problems described here aren't just limited to startups: Support personnel is often neglected in large companies too. A couple of years ago, I was working at a very large company that was also suffering from high turnover. Calls were made first by business analysts, who really didn't understand what the heck was going on, and implemented in some fashion or another by developers like me, who were far removed from the realities of the software. With all that turnover, nobody that was actually working on the software understood what the real use cases were, so if a decision actually matched what a user wanted, it was probably by accident.

Having worked at better shops, I realized this was only going to lead to dismal failure, so I started asking around for real information on what was going on. And guess what: There was a support team, 90% female, who nobody actually consulted for anything, and was paid peanuts. And yet, they actually had more information about the practical uses of the application, and where to take it, than the PhD totting analysts. After a few weeks talking to said support team, and explaining how to actually make sense of what we were doing, I was seen as some kind of Messiah by management, when all I actually did was actually pay attention to the people that had the actual knowledge.

As far as sexism, yes, it's very sad that most of us view so few females that are even put in a position to succeed that it's easy to make assumptions about people's knowledge. I've been lucky to have worked with a couple of extremely good female programmers, and about a dozen women doing support work, so that I am at least not astounded when a woman at a user group isn't just a recruiter. But that doesn't mean I won't make wrong assumptions. The best most of us can do is recover quickly, and remember that while there are few women in the industry, their skill and knowledge is no different than the one of men.

mwetzler2• 12 years ago

This related post "Tech companies, stop hiring women to be the Office Mom" describes "empathy work" and how it has almost always been significantly underpaid.

http://qz.com/47154/tech-companies-stop-hiring-women-to-be-t...

I like the reference to the fact that for a large part of history, many women worked completely without pay doing empathy & ops work full time (mothering families and running ops for households and community groups). As a culture maybe we have some residual beliefs about this type of work (and women's time) being basically free/cheap.

cyphunk• 12 years ago

I appreciated the criticism of the article but it largely depends on the company i guess. I know that as a technical person having worked in large companies and startups the office managers were perceived as magicians. They also seem to hold a privileged status in many cases. For one, execs depend on them heavily so they wield influence. In some cases, with startups, they appear to advise the CEO.

jacquesc• 12 years ago

Very well written article. Operations people are driving a new wave of real world/tech hybrid companies and I think they need a lot more respect for their contributions.

One nit, you admonish (rightly) people for thinking just because you are a nontechy that you don't understand the product. But then you make a similar mistake by accusing the young nerdy male engineer who is devouring the beef jerky of not being street wise enough to be able to order lunch.

Simpler explanation: you've set up the expectation that he can eat on the company dime so he's going to take full advantage of that. He can order lunch just fine he just doesn't want to pay for it.

Give him the company credit card (or a company seamless account) and 'problem solved'. Except it's not really a problem since it's better for the company if you can have him working around the company catering times.

doktrin• 12 years ago

I was repeatedly asked if an engineer was around to explain the product before I had a chance to say more than hello.
let's focus on the other assumption: that because a person has a non-technical role, she is fundamentally incapable of assessing whether she is able to answer your question.
While we’re at it, I’d like to dispel the notion that people in non-technical roles don’t have technical skills. From the VBScript and complex spreadsheet wrangling required to perform analysis of key organizational metrics to mastery of numerous different specialized softwares and systems in order to perform basic functions of the job ranging from accounting to people operations, non-technical employees must have a bevy of technical skills at the ready every single day.

It's difficult to recognize what you don't know. As an engineer, I feel like I didn't understand jack a year ago. A year from now, I'll feel the same way about my current level of understanding & skill. Between now and then, I'll speak with confidence about topics I think I understand but probably don't fully grok.

Earlier in my career, I was "semi-technical" with more [technical] experience than the OP. Looking back, I really didn't understand the product to the extent I thought I did.

A little knowledge can be dangerous. YMMV.

edit : if you down voted, care to explain?

mwetzler2• 12 years ago

Understanding your company's product, marketing, financials, hiring, and business strategy makes you an _incredibly_ valuable employee (though perhaps difficult to describe with a job title).

An employee like that shouldn't be spending much time ordering food and cleaning. Those things can be outsourced to people who can do them at scale for many companies at once, at a much lower rate.

At my startup we've used ZeroCater (Food for events), HomeJoy (Cleaning), TaskRabbit (Odd tasks), Zirtual (Scheduling meetings, booking flights), and Advsor (Accounting & Billing).

We also have a full time remote assistant that does things like coordinating team outings, ordering new tshirts, researching stuff, spreadsheet jocky-ing, etc, etc. They would also order food for us if we didn't have it provided at our co-working space.

I hope this comment was helpful and not condescending. I do some business ops work myself in addition to writing code and consulting. As the longtime only-female, I too had to deal with the assumptions about my role (outside the company, not inside).

All of these tasks are important and need to happen for a company to run successfully, but they don't all need to be done by an "Office Manager" just because that's how it works at some startups.

chris_mahan• 12 years ago

I'm just going to link to Don't rely on "Magic Happens Here" from the O'Reilly book "97 Things Every Programmer Should Know".

http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Don%27...

Then I'm going to ask the programmer/engineer to flip the model around and ask that they look at Operations in the same way they wish management see them.

stbarnes• 12 years ago

You only take a job in business operations if you aren’t smart enough to be an engineer (or designer, or product manager, or…)

The article claims that this is false. But in fact, it's pretty obvious that the average non-engineer is less intelligent than the average engineer. See for instance this table of IQ by college major: http://www.statisticbrain.com/iq-estimates-by-intended-colle...

(And, yes, IQ tests do quite accurately capture what is meant by "intelligence".)

mjmahone17• 12 years ago

1. No, IQ tests capture what a certain type of people mean by intelligence. This is especially true, given that I can consistently perform less well on, for example, the spatial portion of an IQ test than the logical portion. Unless you're willing to say that there is not any other important component (such as say, oratory intelligence) to someone's ability to perform, or be intelligent. My skepticism says it's likely that, in fact, there is a positive correlation between how good you are at manipulating objects and math and your IQ score, whereas there's little to no correlation between emotional acuity and IQ. But if, due to your social skills and emotional abilities, you're not able to cut it in the arts or humanities, you're more likely to become an engineer. Which tells you nothing of what types of majors "roundly" intelligent people (i.e. those with relatively equal IQ and non-IQ intelligence) choose.

2. Your source doesn't even support your assertion, at least if you're claiming non-engineers, in the same companies as engineers, are on average less intelligent. Mathematicians, Philosophers and Economists are overwhelmingly non-engineers. CIS gets the same IQ as "Other Humanities and Art".

anauleau• 12 years ago

If you need an engineer to describe your product it is too complicated.

mattlong• 12 years ago

I was fortunate enough to work with the author at the startup she mentions. And I don't use the word "fortunate" lightly; she was absolutely a key player on the team. I'm happy to see that she had a positive experience with the rest of the (male) team!

Maintaining a good company culture™ was very important to me and the other founders and we were very aware of how much our early hires would contribute to it. An important part of that culture was only hiring the best and smartest people (yes, it's cliché, I know). It did not even cross our minds to hire an operations manager (or any other role) who could not understand and comfortably explain our product, for instance. I think that did a lot to set a tone that no one should have lower expectations set for them nor was somehow in a "second-class" role.

P.S. In my defense, it was darn good beef jerky.

EDIT: English is hard.

mooreds• 12 years ago

Loved the refreshing different view of the startup world. I'm technical and not in SV, but I've seen this behavior in other scenarios. (Not so blatant, however.) It seems like every company has a class of employees, typically either sales, executives, or technical in my experience, that are valued just a bit more than everyone else.

Even though it is everybody putting their shoulder to the grindstone every day that really moves the company forward.

TheMagicHorsey• 12 years ago

Technical people are hard to find, whereas I can get about 100 non-technical ops resumes in 5 minutes from liberal arts majors at top ten schools, who will kick ass at ops.

There are a lot of smart people you can groom into good ops people. There are also a lot of seasoned ops people looking for jobs, if you look outside silicon valley and bring someone here from a business in another city.

Whereas, we can't for the fucking life of us get good mobile developers, programmers with machine learning experience, or robotics experience ... unless we pay large sums and offer great perks.

That's why nobody talks much about, or pays much attention to Ops.

I've been an Ops guy.

rainmaking• 12 years ago

If you're not killer at tech, you better be killer at sales and marketing. If you're neither, what exactly are you complaining about?

richliss• 12 years ago

TL:DR - You pure development guys are more likely to have success if you realise you have a need for people with other complimentary skills, and you need to have respect for them, their intelligence and their role.

I've seen this so many times its tragic, and it comes down to largely one thing IMHO... the arrogance of extremely intelligent people with specialties in maths/physics or other numeracy focused backgrounds over other people.

How about an office move where developers sat around and bitched because network cables hadn't been moved across yet? Young office admin girl shows initiative and drives to old office and gets all the network cables. They now see her as their runner as they know that she's paid less so therefore its optimal.

Its crunch time and a ScrumMaster who goes and gets coffee for the team before a release so they stick to working is then perpetually told "We're busy, coffee needed", and is slowly reduced to Team Mom, or worse Janitor.

A startup's CTO and part shareholder overrules the Head of Marketing and lead designers on their design choice because he's read an article saying how Arial is optimal for reading, and then gets involved in every decision. Only once the CTO is moved on does the sales and marketing team really start performing and the company is saved.

I've seen numerous friends who are extremely technically capable Java developers create excellent technical solutions in the finance space to problems that people won't pay for, or don't need solving, or that they don't know how to market or keep running 24/7. They see MBA's as a waste despite their MBA friend saying "Look at the market segmentation, and consider your positioning to see if you can compete" - A valid point that could have answered the question before the £80K in lost wages.

I've had conversations where I've quoted a previous stand-in lecturer who was worth £110m from 3 different startups who told of the importance of a well rounded team including sales, finance etc. to young developers who think that DHH is basically a prophet, they only need tech guys and if you build it they will come, and their answers to me were words to the effect of "I disagree because HN said so".

I'd rather put £1000 of investment money in the hands of a proven sales guy's startup than a proven back-end developer, as I've seen first hand that a great sales guy can sell crap and make money.

hifier• 12 years ago

This is not unique to operations in tech startups. It also happens with "IT" employees in insurance companies and banks. It is what happens to people whose roles are considered peripheral by the core parts of the business. It is natural and to some extend it is valid, within limits. I'm not saying that overt disrespect and dehumanizing behavior is valid, however let's not be naive. Not all roles are as important to the business as others and if respect for your role is a primary motivator for you, I would suggest finding a business where your role is central to the core product.

jonwachob91• 12 years ago

I think the author has mistaken what her role in the company is. If you want to answer technical questions than become a tech employee. The same way you don't want a random tech employee trying to handle the complicated operations pieces, you should let the tech employee's answer the tech questions.

I co-founded an engineering startup that works on high-heat machinery. I have degrees in mathematics and information analysis, I fully understand the technical aspect as I contributed to a lot of the work, yet I refuse to answer tech questions. I serve in an operations role right now and don't spend my entire day developing the technology; thus I am not the best qualified to answer any tech questions.

You are right that tech companies can only afford to hire the smartest, but that doesn't mean you have to be a jack-of-all-trades - that applies to co-founders. Do the job you were hired to do and do it better then any one else can.

antonapa2• 12 years ago

There are a lot of very provoked males in these comments. Could this possibly correlate to the article which is based on experiences from someone not being a male in tech? It seems easier for most to get into lengthy counter arguments about why it isn't like the article states, rather than acknowledge that there might actually be a real problem here. How come so many female tech people seem to share these same experiences if it isn't structural?

lmm5• 12 years ago

How come so many female tech people seem to share these same experiences if it isn't structural?

Selection bias. Women who have ordinary experiences don't write angry blog posts about them, or don't get upvotes.

antonapa2• 12 years ago

Or they don't write blog posts because they don't want to have to endure the flame war that follows.

dleskov• 12 years ago

That's crazy life you live in the Valley. We are nearly as remote from SF Bay Area as a place on Earth can possibly be (18 hour net flight time with two stops) and do not have many perks, but I would be very surprised to hear about a non-technical person being deprived of something because of being non-technical. Has do to something with our not-so-distant Soviet past, perhaps.

As far a job titles go, I read an article a day ago where the author suggested that when it comes to salary negotiation and you are not quite happy with the monetary part of the offer, you should at least demand a title that would show progress when put on your resume.

The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

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