tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7989787998613496061.post6287617560877469737..comments2023-12-22T20:57:22.357-08:00Comments on Female Computer Scientist: Google only acquired male parts of startup company; and more #siliconvalleyfailFemale Computer Scientisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16445505185253882833noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7989787998613496061.post-68111207127898490782014-04-30T16:35:06.316-07:002014-04-30T16:35:06.316-07:00I don't think it's relevant if she was a U...I don't think it's relevant if she was a UX person or not. And, besides, lots of UX people are engineers too. The critical point is she was one of the founders of the company, and helped build it. She was deliberately excluded in the company's acquisition. <br /><br />It's important to note that sexism is not always overt sexism, "Hey there, lil' lady!" but also covert - being excluded, being held to unreasonable standards, being judged, being paid less. We need to do a better job as a community to combat this. <br /><br />Finally -- while it's tempting to explain away actions Agent A might feel were sexist, and give Agent B the benefit of the doubt, we should be careful in doing so. Until we achieve some modicum of gender parity in our field, odds are high that Agent A was wronged. Now, it is entirely possible Agent B might not have *meant* to act sexist, that Agent B was a product of their culture, etc. etc., but we should never discount the feelings of Agent A, and we should strive to continue to educate all about the stark reality of sexism in our field.Female Computer Scientisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16445505185253882833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7989787998613496061.post-7765335551795902202014-04-14T18:08:26.397-07:002014-04-14T18:08:26.397-07:00I gotta say that telling this story as Google bein...I gotta say that telling this story as Google being sexist-evil seems like a big stretch to me. From the article, the startup in question "wasn't getting traction". I assume that means it was going nowhere fast. As I read the article, none of the people involved with the company got any significant amount of money in the acquisition. So my guess is that Google was not slurping them up because the company's IP was so valuable, but just to hire some engineers.<br /><br />For better and worse engineers are in way higher demand at companies like Google than UI/UX/marketing people. Maybe there's an interesting story about the systemic sexism of the gender ratios of coding versus UX, but that's at best marginally Google's fault. If anyone behaved badly in this story it seems to me that it was Amy's former colleagues. They could have insisted on a different deal. But it sure doesn't sound like they had a ton of leverage.<br /><br />I'm all for working against sexism in computing, but this story doesn't sound like much of an example of that to me.<br /><br />And just to throw in a couple of anecdotes, just today I noticed that Google hired a researcher whose work has been inspirational to me (Kim Hazelwood), and a couple of my female students are over-the-top excited to start their engineering jobs with Google after graduation.<br /><br />(Also, not that it's super important, but The New Yorker != New York Magazine.)<br /><br />Ben<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04792167918437189668noreply@blogger.com