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Sep 30

Not Enough Women in Tech? You Really Shouldn’t Blame (All) the Men

September 30, 2010 • View Comments • Events I've Attended

So I spent this past week at TechCrunch Disrupt. I must say, I had a great time and it reinvigorated my interest in technology and its benefit to people around the world. After seeing Eric Schmidt and Beth Comstock speak and just hearing the conversations in the hallways, I realize we are truly blessed to be part of such interesting times.

As you may know, I took part in a panel about women in technology. I didn’t feel we really got anywhere with it and it felt awkward to witness what felt like a cat fight on stage. Ugh. Don’t let that sway you, please. There were some really interesting women up there and it was really hard to get a word in edge wise. There were also some interesting women on panels, like PayPal’s Laura Chambers, who discussed geolocation and mobile payments.

Panel aside, what I noticed was this: most guys were happy I was there. Women complain there is a lack of women in tech. Guess what? SO DO MEN. Imagine you work 12 hours a day on a startup. You don’t have much time to go out. It can be really hard to meet women, not just to date, but even as friends. I found the vast majority of guys at TechCrunch Disrupt to be very supportive and kind. They want women in the space just as much as women want to be in the space.

So while it is indeed true that some guy claiming to be an angel investor from Connecticut pitched me for sex not long after I pitched a startup, it is also equally true that all guys I told this too found it as appalling and funny as I did, and many of them thought it was awesome that I am going to apply to YCombinator. It’s all in our perspective. Life is full of misogynist boogie men and if you let them get you down, you end up missing out on a lot.

So now that that’s said and done, here were some of the highlights of the conference for me:
Eric Schmidt Talks About AI: This talk reinforced my admiration for all things Google. They aren’t just interested in being a search engine. They want to incorporate the ability to find things into our everyday life. Unlike Schmidt, I sorta like driving my car though and would be sad if it drove itself.
Steve Streight Discusses What It Was Like to Found Green Dot: Green Dot isn’t a sexy startup. It’s just one that makes sense. I like that. It was also great to hear from someone who didn’t start a company at 22 with nothing to lose. Streight had six kids and I can’t imagine what it would be like to start a company in that situation.
Michael Arrington Sells TechCrunch to AOL: This was a smart move. Money doesn’t corrupt unless you are corrupt already. Having more cashflow means TechCrunch can do bigger and bolder things for more entrepreneurs. I approve.
Chamillionaire Points Out How Far We Have to Go: It’s easy to get caught up in the insular world of early adopters. Chamillionaire pointed out that there are a lot of talented people who have no clue what this scene is about. They don’t know about Spotify or Creative Commons, and they really should. We can’t just focus on what’s next–we need to see who we are leaving behind and how much good it will cause to bring everyone up to speed.
J’aime Ohm Wins the Hackathon. J’aime created an iPhone app that helps women stay safe called WiseDame. She is awesome and WiseDame looks like a great app. Follow her.
MC Hammer: The guy is too legit to quit. Just ask Erick Schonfeld.

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Sep 27

Why You Should Pay Attention to TechCrunch Disrupt (Even if You Don’t Like TechCrunch)

September 27, 2010 • View Comments • Upcoming Events

I’ve been to quite a few cities and discussed their tech communities with them. The one thing that rings true everywhere you go is this: everyone compares themselves to the Valley. It generally comes up in the first 30 minutes or so of every conversation.

In Austin, we are constantly making the case for why people should move here and invest in startups. I’ve talked with software developers here and in San Francisco, and there is one major difference:

Business acumen.

This isn’t the case for every Austin and San Francisco startup or software developer, mind you. I just know a lot of developers who are happy consulting and/or coding away in Austin. They aren’t making fortunes, but they certainly aren’t starving.

When I talk to many developers (not all, of course) from the Valley, they are savvy to the ways of venture capital and angel investing. They know who is who, what to expect, and how to play the game. It could be because it’s just too expensive NOT to know how to play and they have companies like Google to learn from, but it does give them an advantage.

Paying attention to TechCrunch Disrupt (Sept. 27-29) won’t teach you how to create compelling Facebook fan pages, switch to Rails 3 or give you the latest tutorial on HTML5. Here’s what you WILL learn about:

  • How to actually get money for your ideas. Yes, bootstrapping is a noble idea. It’s good to bootstrap…for a period of time. After a while, don’t be surprised when your competition raises a round of funding and then creams you. Or better yet, they just steal your idea pretty much outright. Disrupt will feature both VCs and angel investors and will help you navigate the system.
  • The triumphs and pitfalls of running a company from the founders of companies like LinkedIn and Zynga.
  • What Google is up to these days.
  • What startups are going to get the next wave of hype.
  • What it’s like to be a woman in tech.

Turns out, Michael Arrington respected me for standing up to the nasty commenters on his “Women in Tech” post. He invited me to be on a the Women in Tech panel this Tuesday, which features some interesting women including Leila Chirayath Janah, the founder of an interesting non-profit called Samasource. The panel is being moderated by Sarah Lacy.

So check out TechCrunch Disrupt this week. Software solves problems, and problems exist everywhere. Viable software startups should be everywhere–in the Valley and beyond. I’ll be taking notes and so should you.

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Aug 31

Who Really Was the Man Behind the Curtain in the Women in Tech Debacle?

August 31, 2010 • View Comments • Social Media and Society

Man behind the curtainMichael Arrington can be a harsh person, but he is smart. I wouldn’t say that he and other TechCrunch writers are the nerdiest in the industry, but I’d trust his assessment of whether or not a startup will make money and have a viable future.

Having such brutal honesty offline AND online is hard. People don’t like being told their babies are ugly. They don’t want to hear that their UI sucks, their competitor is leaps ahead of them in advancement, or that there aren’t many compelling software companies founded by women. Michael Arrington has faced criticism from all angles and from every part of the planet, because he and his team happen to run the biggest technology blog the world has ever known. People want power, they believe they deserve power, and telling them they haven’t earned it yet will get some people angry at you.

Shira Ovide singled out the culture of TechCrunch in her Wall Street Journal piece as a factor for why there are so few women leaders in technology. Arrington found this unfair. He, after all, has a female CEO whom he picked himself because of her skills. He would LOVE to see female entrepreneurs in the space and end the sausage fest. So he responded with an invite that TechCrunch is happy to cover software created by women that actually interests people.

I read the piece and thought, “Man, he doesn’t get what it’s like to be a woman out there”. It’s not his fault. He’s a guy, and it’s easy to assume that if YOU are cool with having a female CEO, others would be as open too. I disregarded the post entirely until I noticed commenters saying that women just don’t have the right skills for software. I thought this was a bogus statement, so I commented back. It isn’t nature that ensures there are no women in the tech space. I used to be quite good at math and science. I just gave it up because there are a lot of societal pressures on women and frankly, the sciences are a very lonely place for us and I like having friends.

What ensued honestly freaked me out. People would state their impressive credentials and then would put out some of the most illogical, hateful statements I have ever seen. I continued to comment, trying to keep my cool figuring it would do me no service to be nasty about it. I was continually painted as a whiny, know-it-all manhater, almost always by anonymous or obscured commenters. I was called beyond horrible names. It was bizarre enough to almost be funny. Almost.

Prior to installing Disqus, an innovative commenting system, the men behind the curtain of TechCrunch (in this case Arrington and MG Siegler) would have deleted the nasty comments and then grumbled to themselves that humanity is going to hell in a hand basket. But Disqus is real-time and comments show up literally as fast as people can type them. When a nasty comment would pop up, Arrington or Siegler would attempt to delete it and thirty, often nastier threads would show up after it. As the real-time web becomes more prevalent, it will become easier and easier for online mobs to take these pot shots at people with little fear of repercussion. After all, the moderators can’t control them anymore.

People want power. Nice people want it and mean people want it. Like it or not, TechCrunch has it, so it attracts the good AND the bad element no matter what. That’s just reality. As the web speeds up and becomes more connected, it will be up to US to ensure that this blog and other blogs we read are fair and civil for everyone. It’s up to decent men to tell the sexist ones that their jokes and vitriol are not acceptable. It’s up to women to stand up for each other instead of tearing each other apart, or simply ignoring the the problem. Not just when it is easy to add a +1 to a blog post opposing such buffoonery like my last one, but when someone is getting hounded by trolls for standing up for what is right, when it’s brutally hard. The web, like the real world, can be a cruel place. You can’t expect the man behind the curtain to fix all the nastiness for you. It’s just too hard of a job for one person to handle.

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