For part 1 of the series, please see
The third wave and the agenda of awesome
The tweet’s from J’aime Ohm, whose “black box for real life” WiseDame won the Hackathon over the weekend. I embedded it in the post using Storify, my favorite of the startups who presented on the first day of TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco. How cool is that?
Other than Storify and Japanese startup Gunzoo, the first day of the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco didn’t seem particularly disruptive to me. Most of the speakers were white guys, and they said much what you’d expect. Technology is great. The companies we invest in and/or run are great. So are the guys we work with. Hooray! The startups were interesting and I was generally impressed with their pitches but folks like Badgify and all the companies doing check-ins seem pretty darn incremental to me.
Today, though, Chamillionaire’s on the agenda, Montreal-based Shwowp is presenting, and there’s a panel on women in technology, with Rachel Sklar of Change the Ratio and Mediaite, web marketing strategist Michelle Greer, Lauren Leto of Bnter, Leila Chirayath Janah of Samasource, Sara Chipps of GirlDevelopIT, and Cyan Banister of Zivity. If you can’t afford the $2000 to be there in person, it’s streamed live on the web.
So perhaps it’ll be a little more disruptive.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been blogging about Rachel, Michelle, and Cyan in Fretting, asking, and begging isn’t a plan. Â Â So now’s a great time to take a quick look back at the kerfuffle that leading to this panel — and look the the future as well.
Part of changing the ratio is just changing awareness, so that the next time Techcrunch is planning a Techcrunch Disrupt, they won’t be able to not see the overwhelming maleness of it.
— Rachel Sklar, quoted in Shira Ovide’s Addressing the Lack of Women Running Tech Startups in the Wall Street Journal*
Michael responded with Too Few Women In Tech? Stop Blaming The Men. Or at least stop blaming me, arguing that Silicon Valley was a meritocracy and your gender and race don’t matter in the high-tech world. He also quoted Cyan as saying that “women [stink] as entrepreneurs a lot of the time because they are nurturing and not risk-taking enough by nature”. Michelle and others responded in the comments, and the sexism and misogyny got ugly in a hurry. Quite a few bloggers weighed in. Just as things were dying down, Sarah Lacy of TechCrunch poured some gasoline on the flames with Women in Tech: Look Around the World and Stop Complaining.
Putting this in context: Less than 20% of the speakers at Disrupt are women, rapper/CEO Chamillionaire is the only black, and there aren’t any Latin@s. Just 8% of startup founders are women,** only 1% are African-American. Blacks, Latinos and women have all lost ground at Silicon Valley tech companies, and Intel’s age discrimination is front-page news. And it’s worse at the intersections; see for example Cyndi Gallop’s video on EZebis on challenges older women face.
Putting aside our differences in opinions about the complex causes, can we all just agree that it’s economically sub-optimal to disadvantage the majority of the population?
Even though it often feels like pulling teeth, and there’s still a long way to go, the ratios are changing. Women, blacks, Latinas and Latinos, and other people who are tired of being systematically disadvantaged are storming the clubhouse.
It really would be great to see more acknowledgement of this throughout Disrupt. As I said yesterday, white guys actually are allowed to discuss the issue. Wouldn’t it be great if one of the designers in the session right before the women-in-tech panel discussed accessibility, or the techniques they use to get a diverse set of users in user experience research and usability testing? Or if one of the fireside chats talked about how the current situation with 90% of the investment going to white guys isn’t sustainable, and here’s how a big VC or corporation is evolving their strategy? I’m not holding my breath but it would be a helluva a lot more interesting than what we heard Monday.
More positively, though, the women in technology panel is a great chance to discuss the opportunities as well as the challenges. In their brilliant Women Who Tech Telesummit lightning talk on diversity and innovation, Shireen Mitchell and Liza Sabater sketched the value of diversity for a company’s products and strategy; I’d bet dollars to donuts that most of the white guys at TechCrunch have never thought of it that way. And while the panel is a good step, there’s a lot more that needs to be done to diversify Disrupt and TechCrunch’s coverage; it would be great to hear the panelists’ and audiences suggestions on that.
At any rate, thanks to all the women on the panel for being there, and to TechCrunch CEO Heather Harde and Michael Arrington for hosting it. Here’s hoping it’s awesome.
jon
* Although it didn’t attract as much attention as Rachel’s post, Maya Baratz’ The Silicon Ceiling from 2009 brought up the same issues.
** Caroline Simard’s Saying High-Tech is a Meritocracy Doesn’t Make it So, Janine de Nysschen’s Why Men Get VC Money and Women Don’t….and How that is Changing, and Vivek Wadhwa’s Silicon Valley: You and Some of Your VC’s have a Gender Problem have more.
jon | 28-Sep-10 at 9:39 am | Permalink
I’m looking forward to experimenting with Storify during the panel. Stay tuned!
jon | 28-Sep-10 at 10:59 am | Permalink
But first a quick digression …
In We got TechCrunch!, Tim of AOL describes the TechCrunch network as “a byword for breaking tech news and insight into the innovative world of start-ups” and says “their reputation for top-class journalism precisely matches AOL’s commitment to delivering the expert content”.
I can why AOL thought it made sense. As marketing campaigns go, $25 to $40 million isn’t a lot, and TechCrunch and friends can potentially plays a big role in shaping the narrative as AOL tries to reinvent themselves. From a business perspective, is TechCrunch a well-known brand, does some very profitable events like Disrupt, and has great employees. Hard to know what it’s really worth but as TechCrunch and friends keep reminding us, valuations are booming these days. If it works out, it could be disruptive.
And similarly I can see why TechCrunch thought it was a good time to cash out. There’s plenty of upside, but risks as well. We’re starting to hear comparisons to previous bubbles, so valuations could plunge, and their go-go boosterism could look old in a hurry. Michael’s antics may be growing old too. Looking at the responses to the recent kerfuffle, they may have hit the limits of their demographic appeal. The price is a nice payout for stockholders, and more than Jason got when he sold his company to AOL. Seems like a win/win situation to me.
Can they make the acquisition work? My startup Intrinsa was acquired by Microsoft back in 1999, and it worked out great; most of us wound up staying around for five or more years, and we had a significant impact. TechCrunch has some great journalists and good business minds, and AOL is at an inflection point, so they could have a huge impact. It’s easy to put too much attention on Michael and whether or not he’ll fit in with the corporate world; TechCrunch also includes CEO Heather Harde, MG Siegler, Sarah Lacy and a lot of others who could really thrive in this environment if they decide they want to. We shall see.
In any case, congratulations to all …
And now, back to our previously-scheduled disruption. The women-in-technology panel starts at 11:30, streamed live on the web. The hashtag is #LadyPanel.
Pass the popcorn!
jon | 28-Sep-10 at 11:05 am | Permalink
Note: Storify’s embedding is having intermittent problems for me. If it’s not showing up in this comment, the quick summary: it was a train wreck. Details here.
jon | 28-Sep-10 at 12:40 pm | Permalink
Indeed. I thought Leila Chirayath Janah said some great things, and along with Rachel Sklar was one of the stars of the panel, but would much rather have seen her on a fireside chat — and there are other women of color who would have been much better matches for this panel.
Then again there are other moderators who would have been better matches too. I guess it wasn’t important enough for Heather to be involved, so instead Arrington told Sarah to moderate it even though she didn’t want to — her words, not mine. And the whole thing turned into a train wreck. Quelle surprise.
As Natalia Oberti Noguera, CEO of Pipeline, points out:
Oh well. Good entertainment value. And that’s what AOL just paid for, right?
jon | 28-Sep-10 at 12:49 pm | Permalink
By the way, for those who were puzzled by Cyan’s attack on collectivism, she gave some background on this in the comments on Sharp Skirts Launches A Quora-Like Community For Women Entrepreneurs:
The article she links to is by Shelby Steele about “white guilt”. For more about Shelby, see dnA’sA bound man on Jack and Jill Politics and A few words for the other Mr. Steele on The Field Negro.
jon | 28-Sep-10 at 1:11 pm | Permalink
Well, that certainly is one of the causes — which is why everybody slams TechCrunch for not having more women speakers at Disrupt. It’s a lot more complex than that of course. There are plenty of references in the main post for those who want to learn more.
Kathy Sierra | 28-Sep-10 at 3:55 pm | Permalink
re: role models…
I haven’t seen convincing evidence (not that it doesn’t exist, but I haven’t seen it) that says “more female conference presenters will lead to more girls entering tech”.
I cannot imagine a scenario where, say, a 12-year old girl has the slightest interest in who is presenting at TCdisrupt, or Web2.0Expo, or really any *other* tech industry event.
But whenever I bring this up, the response involves a huge, gravel-hauling leap (but framed as “systems thinking”), that says the women who speak at these events will somehow end up featured in contexts that young women WILL care about.
Hmmm… I have keynoted at nearly every major technology event at one time or another. I have yet to appear in any other context that either of my now 20-something daughters care about, and that INCLUDES my delivering an opening keynote at a conference my daughter was attending regardless of my involvement: SXSW. She was there for film and art… not tech.
This is a complex issues — I get that — but I have grown so past tired with this particular line of reasoning. If I were a young woman considering a career field, I would run screaming from the tech scene if I listened to the endless discussions of how “uncomfortable/unfair” it all is. For many of us, that is simply not true. Yes there are huge gender imbalances, but the assumptions around the cause make no sense to me. This is not 1995. Today’s young women in the US are nearly ALL ridiculously tech-savvy. That in no way means they want to become programmers and engineers for a living. And may have NOTHING to do with their perception of whether they *could* do it.
I see way too much mistaking “don’t want to” for “don’t believe I can” and too much mistaking “doesn’t sound like a fun JOB” for “sounds like a male-dominated sexist industry that would be too uncomfortable”.
Seriously. These kinds of discussions are simply embarrassing. I think women are way more bad-ass than that. The notion that we need a to feel “invited and welcome” everywhere is just insulting. We can do some of the heavy lifting. We can put in our conference proposals and pay the dues just like the men.
And whoever says that the tech world is mostly about networking and who you know and men promoting men? Wow, in 20 years in the field, I have never seen a compiler that cared. Yes of course there are office politics that factor in one’s career, but I’ve seen way too many people greatly overestimate the impact this has on the typical computer programmer.
jon | 28-Sep-10 at 4:27 pm | Permalink
The reviews are flooding in! Irin Camron in Women In Tech Panel Devolves Into Anger, Ambivalence on Jezebel:
Irin’s got a bunch of excellent tweets, too!
And here’s Zennie Abraham in Sara Lacy Eats The Panelists :
jon | 28-Sep-10 at 6:03 pm | Permalink
A belated response to Kathy’s thoughts above … first of all, thanks for commenting!
> I haven’t seen convincing evidence (not that it doesn’t exist, but I haven’t seen it) that says “more female conference presenters will lead to more girls entering techâ€.
Bringing girls into tech is only one aspect of the problem. Some of the reason that women already in tech fields leave include the lack of recognition and lack of role models. And women are excluded from the incredibly valuable networking at conferences like Disrupt unless they’re present. Tactically, getting comped as a speaker for a $2000 conference is a big deal for a lot of people, and so is having a video and blog post on the TechCrunch site that you can point to.
> These kinds of discussions are simply embarrassing.
Issues of representatation came up a lot at the Women Who Tech TeleSummit and none of the 800 women there seemed to be embarrassed.
> And whoever says that the tech world is mostly about networking and who you know and men promoting men?
The tech startup world is mostly about networking. And with 90% of the investors being guys, and 90% of the money going to guys, it’s historically also mostly been about men promoting men.
jon | 28-Sep-10 at 7:18 pm | Permalink
More from twitter in In the aftermath
Thread by request: Women in Technology panel at TechCrunch Disrupt | Geek Feminism Blog | 29-Sep-10 at 10:53 pm | Permalink
[…] didn’t get to say much anyhow. Julieanne Smolinksi’s got a great writeup on Lemondrop. Here’s my take, which also has a lot of the discussion from tweetstream and links out to other […]
Gminks | 03-Oct-10 at 9:24 am | Permalink
This happened to us at pod camp Boston a couple of years ago. It seems like since we don’t have the conversations, many of us don’t have the vocabulary or scripts to engage in this dialogue in a way that would carry the conversation to a place where we could start to solve the problem.
So how do we do that?
Kathy Sierra | 04-Oct-10 at 6:28 pm | Permalink
Jon, I believe you’re speaking about a fairly narrow slice — though admittedly high-profile — of what it means to work as a woman in tech.
When I see these discussions, they seem to focus on women who want/need to “build their personal brand” and the assumption is that we all seek the limelight as high-profile CEOs, startup entrepreneurs, and keynote presenters, and that is simply *not* what most programmers of either gender have as a top success goal. Most, in fact, would go out of their way to avoid *any* of those things.
And of course not ALL discussions about women in tech are embarrassing to me, but the TC panel was. And those of us who paid our dues the way *most men* do — by working our ass off to attend professional events so that we could further develop our skills (and learn where to best use our time) can find it a little confusing that anyone would even *want* to short-circuit this. Most would not consider trying to present at most conferences until/unless we spent a lot of time *attending* events, getting a feel for what’s important to the attendees, etc.
Nobody deserves a speaking gig. The fact that there ARE some men who don’t have to pay their dues in this way… that there ARE more men who get a short-cut to high visibility, well, I see that as a net loss for those men, unless we measure success by visibility rather than by developing deeper, sustainable skills.
The other reason these discussions are embarrassing for me is that they often (not always) portray women in a way I don’t believe in. They paint women as, well, NEEDY. The emphasis on NEEDING to change things so that women will feel “comfortable” and “included” and “welcomed to the table” and “part of the conversation” before we can do anything? I may be the only one with this view, but I find that personally offensive. I think we’re better than that. I think we’re a bit more badass.
I appreciate the reasons behind these discussions, but for me–at least–it feels like the exact opposite of the intended goal. It feels like we’re simply reinforcing negative stereotypes, and it’s not a very empowering message. There is only one solid reason to choose a career in technology: because you deeply love it. Because crafting code is a passion. Because engineering reignites that spark of curiosity every single day. Because building things… and most importantly continuing to get BETTER at building things… is profoundly rewarding.
Nobody is holding us back from becoming better programmers and engineers. And that’s an underrated means to long-term success, but not if you define success as high-visibility, fame, etc. I probably have to agree with you if that’s the metric.
jon | 05-Oct-10 at 11:24 am | Permalink
Thanks for the discussion, Kathy. I am still reflecting on how I feel about the whole thing …
The TC panel was really cringe-worthy. It was set up to fail and I felt horrible for all the panelists — and for Sarah Lacy, who Arrington forced to moderate even though she didn’t want to. There was a lot of skepticism when Arrington proposed the panel in the aftermath of the kerfuffle and I think it lived down to everybody’s worst expectations. Arrington, TechCrunch and their new corporate masters at AOL certainly owe everybody involved a big apology.
It’s not that I think women need help; it’s more that I think it’s disgraceful they’re treated unfairly and disrespectfully and think things will change a lot faster if guys do their part. I’m very sorry that it comes across as offensive, I honestly don’t mean it that way. I don’t think women need to feel comfortable any more than I need to — probably less: most of the ones I know are a lot tougher than me. But just like I prefer to spend my time in environments where I’m comfortable and treated as an equal, a lot of the women I know do too.
Agreed that these are very narrow slices of women in technology. It’s a good example of what Skud calls the Women in tech/women near tech tension. Also agreed that the Disrupt environment is very geared towards self-promoters; plenty of people don’t want the limelight and I hope I’m not unintentionally giving the impression I think there’s anything “wrong” with that.
At the same time though I think there’s was a lot of value in the panel. Here’s what Anastasia Hilinski said in It Was Good To See Women Represented At TechCrunch Disrupt 2010
As painful as this panel was it got some women who wanted to be at the conference a chance to go when they wouldn’t have otherwise — and highlighted that they are all badasses in their different ways. Combine them with the female founders who pitched and spoke and there are a lot of role models for the people watching — and a lot of potential business opportunities for those who want to go in that direction. And we got to hear a range of opinions, a good antidote to the notion that all women think alike). Plus like Carla Thompson says, it’s a great opportunity to reframe the debate.
Again I totally agree that it is shameful the way the panel was organized, and can see why opinions differ as to how useful this kind of activism is. Hopefully the panelists and others will continue to share their perspectives once they’ve had some time to recover and reflect …
jon
Liminal states :: Hold that thought (Part 5 of TechCrunch, disrupted) | 10-Oct-10 at 9:21 am | Permalink
[…] posts in the series: The third wave meets the anatomy of awesome, Changing the ratio, A public service announcement, and A celebration of disruptive women image from Authentic […]
jon | 12-Sep-11 at 8:38 am | Permalink
Just in time for this year’s Disrupt, Rachel Sklar’s posted the transcript of the panel on Mediaite.
In my brief post on this year’s conference, I wrote
Sigh.