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Nope. IBM was >30% women engineers when I interned there in 2004/2005. About half the interns were women and there was plenty of racial diversity as well. My bo

Nope. IBM was >30% women engineers when I interned there in 2004/2005. About half the interns were women and there was plenty of racial diversity as well. My boss was a woman, my mentor was a woman, and frankly it was the most diverse place I have ever worked.

crassus 13y ago
Google is reportedly over 30% women, too. I wonder if it is just something about startups - higher risk, lower guaranteed reward, worse training programs, higher pressure. The startup world compares well to the original California gold rush - a risk for a small shot at a high reward - and that was mostly male, too. Also, keep in mind that it's a zero-sum game. If Google and IBM each hire 1,000 female engineers from top schools, that means that startups get less diverse.
- x0x0 13y ago
  google may be 30% women overall but I would be shocked if that where true of engineering; Rachel of rachel by the bay definitely didn't have that experience
- jfarmer 13y ago
  > I wonder if it is just something about startups - higher risk, lower guaranteed reward, worse training programs, higher pressure. This is explained equally well by inexperienced managers hiring people similar to themselves culturally, racially, and socioeconomically. Likewise, if I were a woman, I wouldn't want to work on a team with five dudes oblivious to their dude-dom.
  - hacker789 13y ago
    Across all cultures (perhaps across all of history), women are more risk averse. In fact, feminist activists didn't push to get more women into tech until tech was a higher paying, lower risk endeavor. Only then did it become scandalous that young women were choosing different career paths (but interestingly, the fact that young women are earning more than young men and graduating from college in far greater rates than young men isn't scandalous).
    - jmagoon 13y ago
      Do you have any evidence to back up your broad-brushed claims? And who are these "feminist activist" strawmen(straw-women?) you have set up?
      - newnewnew 13y ago
        5 minutes of googling: "MEN, WOMEN AND RISK AVERSION:EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE" - http://aysps.gsu.edu/isp/files/ISP_Ind_3.pdf http://aysps.gsu.edu/isp/files/ISP_Ind_3.pdf "Sex Differences in Everyday Risk-Taking Behavior in Humans" - http://www.epjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/ep062942.pdf http://www.epjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/ep062942.pdf Reality fits egalitarian beliefs quite poorly.
        jfarmer 13y ago
        You've obviously made a serious study of this and that's why you have such justifiably strong opinions on the matter. Can you do 10 minutes of googling next time and share more? Or maybe 20?! Think of how informed you'd be after 20 minutes!
        mistermann 13y ago
        If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe. It's pretty difficult to have a serious conversation if you have to fully define and prove every single piece of content in a comment. Common sense is getting to be pretty rare around here.
        jfarmer 13y ago
        > If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe. There's plenty of room between "justify everything from first principles" and "perform an ad hoc 5-minute search of the web for research that confirms what I already believe." I'd also say, the closer one is to the former, the more justified one is in feeling certain about their beliefs. > It's pretty difficult to have a serious conversation if you have to fully define and prove every single piece of content in a comment. That's good, because nobody here is advocating that! > Common sense is getting to be pretty rare around here. Well, as they say, "Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down by the mind before you reach eighteen." What's "common sense," here? That women are more risk-averse? I disagree, at the very least until one defines "risk" and "risk-averse" very precisely. My "common sense" tells me otherwise. Shucks. Ain't that the problem with "common sense?"
  - tonecluster 13y ago
    Who in their right mind would want to work on a team of highly-intelligent, socially-challenged, culturally-homogeneous young men whose experience to date is primarily steeped in the casual misogyny, homophobia, and racism of MMORPG chat-channels; dorm-room bike-shedding; and adolescent dude-bro jokes?
    - 3pt14159 13y ago
      The irony of being sexist in this HN thread is breaking my mind man.
    - lmm 13y ago
      If they're good coders, sure. I can ignore work-unrelated stupidity, but if I have to work with someone incompetent at their job that becomes very unpleasant very quickly.
      - tonecluster 13y ago
        It becomes unpleasant very quickly regardless of the quality of the skills of the programmers.
      - webmaven 13y ago
        I'll just note that coding is actually more a collaborative activity than a solitary one, so the 'socially challenged' are not very likely to be 'good coders'.
- judk 13y ago
  30% is probably including sales org, it is high for engineering. Anyway, consider the difference between 2-3 women of 12 people in an startup, vs 200 of 1000 in a big company, where women may cluster on some teams, or have "dotted line" relationships outside their official hierarchy.
frodopwns 13y ago
I think he was referring to a different time frame (1960s-1980s). But he didn't provide evidence so your objection may still be valid.
PakG1 13y ago
I have to say that I dislike it when someone says Bigcorp was like this, that is what Bigcorp's culture is. Having worked in several bigcorps, they are huge, diverse, and it's impossible for one employee to say that their experience is reflective of the entire company. There are differences from department to department, from team to team, and for the multinational bigcorps, from continent to continent. A warehouse worker for Amazon cannot say that they had the same experience as a merchandising agent, and we can't even start to compare those experiences with that of an AWS devops engineer. When someone says, "My experience at Bigcorp was like this!", we should always tone it down to read it as "My experience on the whatsit team in the whazzat department at Bigcorp was like this!" Sorry, just had to get that out there.
- icambron 13y ago
  That was in response to: > In your example, I bet IBM was still predominantly male despite the anecdotal hiring of a few women that you mention. Responding to someone's completely unsupported generalization with an anecdote to the contrary is still a step up in the conversation. If you're genuinely interested in improving the rigor of the conversation, perhaps you should reply to the grandparent with, "how do you know?"

crassus 13y ago

Google is reportedly over 30% women, too. I wonder if it is just something about startups - higher risk, lower guaranteed reward, worse training programs, higher pressure. The startup world compares well to the original California gold rush - a risk for a small shot at a high reward - and that was mostly male, too. Also, keep in mind that it's a zero-sum game. If Google and IBM each hire 1,000 female engineers from top schools, that means that startups get less diverse.

x0x0 13y ago
google may be 30% women overall but I would be shocked if that where true of engineering; Rachel of rachel by the bay definitely didn't have that experience
jfarmer 13y ago
> I wonder if it is just something about startups - higher risk, lower guaranteed reward, worse training programs, higher pressure. This is explained equally well by inexperienced managers hiring people similar to themselves culturally, racially, and socioeconomically. Likewise, if I were a woman, I wouldn't want to work on a team with five dudes oblivious to their dude-dom.
- hacker789 13y ago
  Across all cultures (perhaps across all of history), women are more risk averse. In fact, feminist activists didn't push to get more women into tech until tech was a higher paying, lower risk endeavor. Only then did it become scandalous that young women were choosing different career paths (but interestingly, the fact that young women are earning more than young men and graduating from college in far greater rates than young men isn't scandalous).
  - jmagoon 13y ago
    Do you have any evidence to back up your broad-brushed claims? And who are these "feminist activist" strawmen(straw-women?) you have set up?
    - newnewnew 13y ago
      5 minutes of googling: "MEN, WOMEN AND RISK AVERSION:EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE" - http://aysps.gsu.edu/isp/files/ISP_Ind_3.pdf http://aysps.gsu.edu/isp/files/ISP_Ind_3.pdf "Sex Differences in Everyday Risk-Taking Behavior in Humans" - http://www.epjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/ep062942.pdf http://www.epjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/ep062942.pdf Reality fits egalitarian beliefs quite poorly.
      - jfarmer 13y ago
        You've obviously made a serious study of this and that's why you have such justifiably strong opinions on the matter. Can you do 10 minutes of googling next time and share more? Or maybe 20?! Think of how informed you'd be after 20 minutes!
        mistermann 13y ago
        If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe. It's pretty difficult to have a serious conversation if you have to fully define and prove every single piece of content in a comment. Common sense is getting to be pretty rare around here.
        jfarmer 13y ago
        > If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe. There's plenty of room between "justify everything from first principles" and "perform an ad hoc 5-minute search of the web for research that confirms what I already believe." I'd also say, the closer one is to the former, the more justified one is in feeling certain about their beliefs. > It's pretty difficult to have a serious conversation if you have to fully define and prove every single piece of content in a comment. That's good, because nobody here is advocating that! > Common sense is getting to be pretty rare around here. Well, as they say, "Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down by the mind before you reach eighteen." What's "common sense," here? That women are more risk-averse? I disagree, at the very least until one defines "risk" and "risk-averse" very precisely. My "common sense" tells me otherwise. Shucks. Ain't that the problem with "common sense?"
- tonecluster 13y ago
  Who in their right mind would want to work on a team of highly-intelligent, socially-challenged, culturally-homogeneous young men whose experience to date is primarily steeped in the casual misogyny, homophobia, and racism of MMORPG chat-channels; dorm-room bike-shedding; and adolescent dude-bro jokes?
  - 3pt14159 13y ago
    The irony of being sexist in this HN thread is breaking my mind man.
  - lmm 13y ago
    If they're good coders, sure. I can ignore work-unrelated stupidity, but if I have to work with someone incompetent at their job that becomes very unpleasant very quickly.
    - tonecluster 13y ago
      It becomes unpleasant very quickly regardless of the quality of the skills of the programmers.
    - webmaven 13y ago
      I'll just note that coding is actually more a collaborative activity than a solitary one, so the 'socially challenged' are not very likely to be 'good coders'.
judk 13y ago
30% is probably including sales org, it is high for engineering. Anyway, consider the difference between 2-3 women of 12 people in an startup, vs 200 of 1000 in a big company, where women may cluster on some teams, or have "dotted line" relationships outside their official hierarchy.

frodopwns 13y ago

I think he was referring to a different time frame (1960s-1980s). But he didn't provide evidence so your objection may still be valid.

PakG1 13y ago

I have to say that I dislike it when someone says Bigcorp was like this, that is what Bigcorp's culture is. Having worked in several bigcorps, they are huge, diverse, and it's impossible for one employee to say that their experience is reflective of the entire company. There are differences from department to department, from team to team, and for the multinational bigcorps, from continent to continent. A warehouse worker for Amazon cannot say that they had the same experience as a merchandising agent, and we can't even start to compare those experiences with that of an AWS devops engineer. When someone says, "My experience at Bigcorp was like this!", we should always tone it down to read it as "My experience on the whatsit team in the whazzat department at Bigcorp was like this!" Sorry, just had to get that out there.

icambron 13y ago
That was in response to: > In your example, I bet IBM was still predominantly male despite the anecdotal hiring of a few women that you mention. Responding to someone's completely unsupported generalization with an anecdote to the contrary is still a step up in the conversation. If you're genuinely interested in improving the rigor of the conversation, perhaps you should reply to the grandparent with, "how do you know?"