spocktacular

I'm another early beta user, and have been very pleased with the product. We used spreadsheets for a while, then started running financial models using Opstarts.

I think the biggest benefit for my company has been the ability to rapidly communicate amongst the founders regarding financial options. The visualizations are clear and we spend less time getting on the same page, and more time discussing the trade-offs of different decisions. Less minutiae and more meat.

Looking forward to more support for different business models. Nice work so far.

The trick is that when people you talk to universally assume you're not technical due to your gender, it is simultaneously:

a) exhausting to have to change every person's perception of you prior to being able to really engage in conversation b) demoralizing when your male peers are treated with more respect automatically based on their gender c) a sad loss of opportunity to engage in the discussion, when no opportune moment arises where you can comfortably communicate that you are qualified to participate

The author cited conversations where men she was with did not have the same experience as her. She essentially had to work harder in order to be seen as an equal participant.

The question of what is "appropriate" behavior is not something that has an objective definition. It is a subjective judgement which depends on the participants involved. If someone in a conversation is made to feel uncomfortable by the conversation, it is incumbent upon the participants to understand why, and make an informed decision on how and whether to modify their behavior.

Rejecting a person's objections to a given behavior out-of-hand is tantamount to telling that person "we don't care whether you stay or leave."

We can foster an inclusive industry by instead saying "we want everyone to participate, and we want to understand what you're saying when you say what we're doing makes you feel uncomfortable."

In the end, it's not a male vs female or race vs race thing - it's just a question of adopting essential patterns of civil collaborative engagement.