Anybody want to tackle this?
From: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/station/as-seen-on/EDITORIALSBay-Area-Boys-Club-84254282.html
Bay Area Boys Club: Women hit the high-tech ceiling By NBC BAY AREA Updated 3:50 PM PST, Fri, Feb 12, 2010 (video) How could the world’s most innovative region be so backward? Women earn 40% of advanced business degrees, yet they hold a mere tenth of California’s top corporate positions. In the bay area, we have the best and the worst - San Francisco with 16% and Santa Clara County’s technology firms a pitiful 8% of corporate positions held by women. Studies suggest women executives are better risk takers and improve profitability. So why does the glass ceiling still impede technology companies? There are exceptions – HP is one - but overall, the epicenter of innovation does women a disservice, and fails to make best use of our entire workforce. It’s time for Silicon Valley to bust up the boys club, and to appreciate and profit from gender diversity.
By NBC BAY AREA
Updated 3:50 PM PST, Fri, Feb 12, 2010
(video)
How could the world’s most innovative region be so backward?
Women earn 40% of advanced business degrees, yet they hold a mere tenth of California’s top corporate positions.
In the bay area, we have the best and the worst - San Francisco with 16% and Santa Clara County’s technology firms a pitiful 8% of corporate positions held by women.
Studies suggest women executives are better risk takers and improve profitability. So why does the glass ceiling still impede technology companies?
There are exceptions – HP is one - but overall, the epicenter of innovation does women a disservice, and fails to make best use of our entire workforce.
It’s time for Silicon Valley to bust up the boys club, and to appreciate and profit from gender diversity.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
Daniel Muffinburg: Anybody want to tackle this?
I'm salivating.
What makes it backward? Your standard for what's good and right?
I guess women have trouble getting those jobs. It's either sexism, or they just aren't as suitable for the job as men, on average.
Studies suggest women executives are better risk takers and improve profitability.
Other studies suggest the opposite.
So why does the glass ceiling still impede technology companies?
Geek culture? Women aren't into tech all that much? Maybe women just aren't as suited to that job or environment as men are?
HP is an exception. And do they ever regret it. Carly "bankrupt Lucent technologies and drive HP into the ground" Fiorina is an unreasonable idiot. She just has good connections and a good resume. She's never done any quality work, anywhere. That's not an attack on women, I'm just saying that this is the truth about her. Read up on it.
There is no "boy's club". It's just that for whatever reason, men are more likely to enter that area of the workforce and succeed there. Are men jealous of women in the nursing industry or other female-dominated industries? Why not break up the "girl's clubs" there? This is why: women on average are better suited for those jobs and on average, they want those jobs more than men. Simple, huh?
So yes, let's celebrate diversity. From rich to poor, from child-rearing women to men who work 60 hour work weeks. Or we can just force everyone to be exactly "equal" and call it diversity despite the absolute lack of it.
There's nothing holding women down so people have to make up anthropomorphic "ceilings" to placate people.
Women have different interests and different skills. People need to deal with this.
NewLiberty: There's nothing holding women down so people have to make up anthropomorphic "ceilings" to placate people.
I don't know the ins and outs of this, but I'm sure equal opportunity laws hurt women just like they hurt anyone else. Not to mention, if a woman (black, gay, veteran, eskimo) happen to suck at a job, its absolute hell to get rid of them.
But I agree with most people here, its not sexism or some magical glass ceiling keeping women from dominating silicon valley.
they said we would have an unfair fun advantage
Women earn 40% of advanced business degrees, yet they hold a mere tenth of California’s top corporate positions.... It’s time for Silicon Valley to bust up the boys club, and to appreciate and profit from gender diversity.
This is particularly misleading. What are they concentrating/specializing in? Accounting, management, finance, human resources, entrepreneurship, international business, operations management, marketing, real estate, organizational behavior? Which of those would get you to be the CEO of a high tech company?
Eric Schmidt of Google has degrees in engineering; Larry Page, Co-Founder & President, Products; Sergey Brin, Co-Founder & President, Technology; Nikesh Arora, President, Global Sales Operations and Business Development, went to a technology school; Shona L. Brown, Senior Vice President, Business Operations, has a Ph.D. and postdoctoral degree from Stanford University's Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management; W. M. Coughran, Jr., Senior Vice President, Engineering, PhD in computer science; David C. Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, African American; Alan Eustace, Senior Vice President, Engineering & Research, PhD in computer science; Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Operations & Google Fellow, earned a Ph.D. from Stanford University, where his research focused on programming languages and their efficient implementation; Jeff Huber, Senior Vice President, Engineering, engineer; Omid Kordestani, Senior Advisor, Office of the CEO and Founders, engineer; Patrick Pichette, Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer, he holds a master's degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford University, where he attended as a Rhodes Scholar; Rachel Whetstone, Vice President, Public Policy and Communications, has a bachelor’s degree in history from Bristol University; Susan Wojcicki, Vice President, Product Management; see the rest of the Google team.
Paul Otinelli has been with Intel since 1974; Intel chairman Craig Barret has a doctorate in Materials Sciences.
John Chambers, CEO and CotB of Cisco System attended engineering school at Duke; the co-founder of Cisco Systems is a woman.
Steve Jobbs co-founded Apple Inc.; Tim Cook has a degree in industrial engineering; Jonathan Ive, attended a Design for Industry program; Bertrand Serlet has a doctorate in Computer Science; Scott Forstall has a master's in Computer Science.
Larry Ellison founded Oracle Corp.; the CFO is a woman; the president has bachelor's in computer science and a law degree.
Pierre Omidyar founded eBay; the current CEO succeeded a woman.
Michael Splinter, President and CEO of Applied Materials, has a master's in electrical engineering.
David Filo and Jerry Yang founded Yahoo; Caroal Bartz is the CEO and has a degree in computer science.
John Thompson, chairman and former CEO of Symantec, is African America; Ken Barryman and Mark Bregman have PhD's in physics; Chief Human Resources Offficer is a woman; general counsel is African American.
Ahmed Mahmoud, SVP and CIO of AMD has a master's in physics; Emilio Ghiraldi, Chief Sales Officer, has a master's in electrical engineering; Chekib Akrout, Corporate Vice President, Technology Development, has doctorates in electronics and physics; most of the others are engineers.
Well then I guess it's sexism all the way down to education! :p
But last I heard, women were doing better in school then men. I'm stumped.
I think a lot of this is going to show that men and women aren't equal. Value isn't entrusted into you at conception or birth. It is only pegged to you by your evaluation of yourself and by others. Physiology, psychology, and social norms influence this. To say we're "equal" or "should be equal" would be a disgrace to the mathematical term equality, and a disgrace to people for thinking of them in so few dimensions.
Maybe the problem is that they are getting advanced degrees in business and not working? This really shows the value of graduate education vs the value of starting a high tech company.
Besides if the publication wants more women run businesses then the easiest way to do this is to remove regulations that prohibit men, women, minorities, etc from starting high tech businesses. Start with the crushing tax burdens and go through the restricted access to foreign workers.
Bogart: Start with the crushing tax burdens and go through the restricted access to foreign workers.
Start with the crushing tax burdens and go through the restricted access to foreign workers.
What could be interesting, is that these interventions may have non-uniform effects on the professions chosen and pursued by different groups of people, as in the case with women, being further discouraged from risk taking activities like starting businesses, by taxation for example. This could be due to their more longer term natural orientation on average; I remember watching a documentary chronicling and comparing investment habits between men and women.
The men tended to concentrate on shorter term gains and takings, while women tended to secure their gains longer term.
Similiar differences in responses and incentives could be found due to cultural factors for immigrant communities too.
"When the King is far the people are happy." Chinese proverb
For Alexander Zinoviev and the free market there is a shared delight:
"Where there are problems there is life."