Why Startups Should Try to Hire Women
This gem of an article showed up in my Twitter stream this morning…and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Basically, Penelope Trunk explains why male founders shouldn’t hire/work with women in startups. Diversity, she says, is a luxury that is great for large companies, but distracts from the focus that a small startup should have.
At first, I thought the article would be just a brain dump with a sensationalist title, like this other article about Why Women Shouldn’t Attend Tech Conferences. But it wasn’t. She attributes the troubles and tensions she’s had with her previous male co-founders completely to the fact that she is a female, (and of course, all females are emotional and throw fits and cry at work), and they found that too difficult to work with.
What infuriates me the most about posts like these is that people have the nerve to make blanket statements about gender based on their own experience. So you’ve found startup life and family hard to juggle? Write about that, but don’t say that all women don’t want to work at startups because they just want children. You’ve had troubles with your male co-founders? Write about that, and I won’t judge you publicly even if your blog posts make it seem like you might be hard to work with. But make blanket statements about gender—my gender–that just aren’t true about everyone (are any?) and I will not be nice about it.
I’ve kept my distance from writing about gender for awhile now, because honestly, it’s getting a bit old. At first, I thought it was everyone agreeing that “we need more women in tech!” but no one really knowing what to do. But then I realized, there are a lot of people saying “Why on earth would we need more women in tech?? There’s no problem here…” And it is the most appalling to me when these comments come from women themselves. I had an email conversation with a woman about a previous blog post, and at some point she said,
“Now could we perhaps change that in childhood, get women to think logically? I don’t know. We still need loving, nurturing mommies, and I’m not sure you can pack too many male characteristics into a female body and still get a mommy.”
That conversation was a major wtf moment for me.
I work at a startup where I am the only female engineer, but we’re only at 13 full-timers right now. For awhile, we had a 1:2 ratio, with two females and four males, but now the male part of the ratio has grown quite a bit. And that’s fine. We’ve built an amazing team that I’m incredibly proud to work with everyday. And I am so uncomfortable with the idea of “lowering the bar” for the sake of diversity. But spending some extra time and effort to network with women in the area to try to find extremely qualified women, and shaping the interview process so that it’s more indicative of how you would perform at the company and less of a macho programming competition? That I’m ok with.
The core group of people you have working at a startup affects everything–who sends you resumes, the reputation of the startup (engineers talk…), the office culture…everything. Having diversity among these early employees is of utmost importance, because the end result is that you come up with better solutions because you have a 360 view of the problem at hand. I haven’t seen that it has been a distraction either, as we have a fairly diverse team and are also able to execute quickly.
Honestly, there comes a point where if you have only 40 (or even 10) engineering guys working at a startup, it develops a certain type of culture, and it’s really hard to change that and make it an appealing place for someone who isn’t like them. Sure, sometimes it’s difficult to work with people who are different. It’s probably human nature to like people who are like you, but learning to work with people with different personalities, genders, and backgrounds makes for a stronger team, not a distracted one.
Related posts:
- The Benefits of Being a Female Software Engineer
- Are All Engineers Better Off Joining Startups?
- Struggling with the Gender Gap
- My Experiences as a Female Software Engineer
- How to Join a Startup Right Out of School
Comments (37)
I completely agree with your view of the situation. Indeed can bring in a fresh perspective. But the problems often lies in the fact that there aren’t a lot of women in the tech industry in general. If my memory serves me right, the current percentage is around 17%, I think. If you put yourself in the shoes of a young founder, he already has a lot on his mind, let alone adding the additional stress of finding an engineer who suits your needs in that small 17% … Founders rarely have the luxury, the time or the energy to take that extra step. You are a rare gem and congratulations to you for that! But as long as the percentage of women doesn’t increase in the tech industry, the numbers just don’t add up, as sad as that may be. But on the other hand, the women don’t have a place in startups… that is just plain stupidity!
Good point. But even young founders should think about the future of their company, how it will grow, etc. and this is as important as anything else in the long-run. It is tough though–even those with the best of intentions (myself included) have trouble finding women to recruit in this field!
Hi Jean,
Just wanted to thank you for your posts. I know you don’t want to keep talking about gender all the time, so I appreciate that you still do bring up these points nonetheless. I also find it sad that there are women discouraging other women from the tech scene – especially coming from someone that influential.
I recall liking Penelope’s Trunks posts the times I’ve visited, so this surprised me. What gets me with these ones, other than the obvious, is that I don’t get the feeling she truly buys into what she’s saying herself. She’s still an entrepreneur, starting little businesses here and there from what I can tell. So for her to discourage other women from getting into startups (worse, basically telling men not to hire women), I think is kind of hypocritical…
I’m still in college and not really in the tech/startup scene yet, but so far, neither in my classes/jobs/internships where the ratio of guys to girls is about 6:1, have I ever felt that I was treated differently due to my gender. So it’s great to hear your experience out in the industry has been similar, and that there is a place/need for women in tech.
Thanks,
-An
hi there,
I’m a guy.
in india, the number of women who’re joining IT is increasing. I’ll be willing to bet that in about 10 years, the %age of new women soft. engineers joining the stream will be atleast 20%. What %age of them will be in the top 50% or the bottom 50%, I don’t know.
BR,
~A
We have 2 girls in a team of 6, both of which are mothers, one’s an engineer. It’s much better than an all-guy team.
Totally agree with you Jean! And for the ones like Penelope Trunk.. I’am a startup co-founder myself and women do want to work at startups!
thanks! I also work at a startup, and I love it =)
I do agree with what you are saying and we are trying that, but unfortunately it still holds that most women want children and that they are, more often than not, quite worthless for a company after that. Yes there are plenty of exceptions, but we have seen this a lot; i’m talking 100s of women hired. In our country (NL) you cannot ask during the intake if a woman wants to have children, because that cannot influence the decision process. In most cases (by far), this ends up with them either getting pregnant, sucking the most out of the benefits you get from that and then quitting or being permanently ‘ill’ after that.
We did hire great women, but most of them are kind of anti mothering and actually often explaining to others why children are a bad idea if you want to make an impression in life.
So while it is actually a good idea to hire women and while women are often a really good influence (esp as management), children are a huge problem. We learned to recognize the type of girl that doesn’t want to have children, so when we create a new startup, we try to attract as close to a 50/50 ratio girl/boy.
Thanks for speaking out about this Jean. You’re an encouragement to other female devs. I totally agree. If start-up founders invest in creating a culture that is welcoming to women they will reap considerable benefits.
Hey – really good post. I think the last point about culture resonates with me a lot. Women buy things too (duuh), and your internal culture almost always seeps out into your product. I’m a guy, and I’ve started a company where women are going to make up a decent part of the audience (if not a majority). Input from my wife and other female professional colleagues is so essential to the product, culture, marketing…everything. How can anyone ignore that?
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You should start your own start-up, Jean.
The second article you mention isn’t as bad as the first one. And the last paragraph actually makes sense:
“I think for the most part women shouldn’t go to technology conferences, but maybe they should because there is always that one fleeting moment amidst all the bullshit when you realize maybe there is more to this world than getting sponsored by a soda.”
It doesn’t really support the same viewpoint that the first article does. Its more polarizing and makes a point.
I do agree that this is definitely not a gender issue it’s purely about personal choice, and you are right, it’s a bad idea for someone to make this a gender issue.
I don’t see why male founders shouldn’t hire women. It really should all base on an individual’s merit.
I think the main issue is we have too few women working in tech, or even traditional engineering (e.g. mechanical/civil/electrical engineering). Maybe if we can make engineers as interesting/funny as physicists in TBBT, then more women would join? Also, from your experience, did you find that it’s easier to get hired because you are a woman or not?
I don’t get it, why would you ever pick people on gender or any other attribute, just pick who’s best for the job. That’s it. If person A is better than person B I pick person A, I don’t care with gender, ethnicity blah blah, they are better so I am going to pick them.
I don’t understand how you are appalled by the statement “We don’t need more women in tech”. Seems like hyperbole to me. If there’s discrimination against women in tech industry, you have a case. If you just want more women in for not particular reason, that’s seems silly.
Pick who’s best for the job and will create most value. Full stop. Perhaps men are just better/more interested in tech in general.
A better reason: small groups make more intelligent decisions when they have more women in them.
http://cci.mit.edu/publications/pressmentions.html
Any business that hires a woman over a man for that reason is probably being silly, the effects of the individuals skill and personal merit will have a much bigger impact on the company than gender.
I have worked in technology for over 25 years. I have been the only male in an all female team. I have worked in all male teams. Most often I have worked in mixed teams.
I have worked with great people and I have worked with no so great people. I can’t think of a time when their gender dictated whether they were good or not.
Your whole post was a major wtf moment for me. I thought (hoped) that attitudes like that had died out. I am a little bit depressed that they haven’t.
I personally believe internet startups without female early employees (especially when you start getting to the magic number 20) in them are less likely to survive and succeed.
Why?
Because sustained social communities on the web are overwhelmingly composed of women. See infographic: http://mashable.com/2009/10/03/women-rule-the-social-web/
So the general idea that you can capture what is essentially 50% or more of your market (and indeed what will ultimately make the difference between success and failure) without hiring women who will give you that perspective is ludicruos. I am tired of the silly argument around diversity in tech companies being couched in naiive terms of “let’s do women a favor by hiring them”. Tech companies are not doing women a favor by hiring them. They are strengthening their positioning so they can build better platforms and communities. Hiring women isn’t a choice for tech companies. It is a matter of survival.
Oh and before I get slapped on with the Feminazi label, I am male.
PS: If I was an angel investor one of my key team metrics of how successful a startup will be is how diverse their team is. In particular how many women are on their team. Why? First, women are way harder to hire especially if like most startups, you are cash strapped. They generally take less risks. They really have to love and believe in the idea to get them on that early and that is a lot of validation for your idea in my opinion. Second, the reason I mentioned above. Women rule the social web. If your company is going to be successful, it must appeal to women in some sense.
I completely agree. I guess I only touched on the “why” briefly in the last few paragraphs, because it seems so simple. But some commenters still don’t get it, so thanks for fleshing out the details =)
Thank you for your articulate and well thought out response to Penelope Trunk’s article. A female start-up founder to be.
The Penelope Trunk post is much of what she’s all about. Attention. That’s why she was so open about sharing her life and personal exploits in a way most of us won’t. She’s tracking how many people read her incendiary statements and won’t care if people don’t agree. That past she’s revealed also showed her as so overly emotional, and would make me never want to hire her for the behaviors she reveals. But that’s the brand she chosen to put out there.
That said, I’m thrilled with your response and so sick of the mommy and kids crap. No one ever expects men to even want to stay home to raise kids and most women I know (myself included) want kids but plan to make it as close to a 50/50 split as possible. I know a ton of great, emotional dads that deserve some credit too.
Shame on Penelope but kudos to you, my friend.
Jean,
Great post. Thank you for this. At the NCWIT Entrepreneurial Alliance (www.ncwit.org/ea) – we work exactly on what you are talking about – getting more technical women at the early growth stage of a startup, so that diverse teams are created from the start. Would love to discuss your startup and our alliance, and to get your first-hand insights based on your experience.
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Unfortunately, too many people believe diversity = strength when in fact it couldn’t be further from the truth. Because of this, unthinking people go out and hire looking for diversity instead of looking for strong candidates who may bring a different perspective.
Sorry, but having a perfect balance of races, gender, sexual orientation, and religion on a team doesn’t equal anything at all. Diversity isn’t strength – sometimes it’s just diversity and it can equal weakness quite easily.
Managers who think having a woman on the team will improve things are biased and acting out of ignorance. Managers who hire the best regardless of gender will succeed. The goal should be excellence and not diversity.
I had to take a diversity class at several employers. One of the questions on the “test” after a class was: “A diverse environment helps me do a better job. True / False”. We all answered “True” because we wanted to keep our jobs, but we all pointed out later how racist that statement was – it says that the race (and gender) of your coworkers has an effect on your performance. So how long has society been trying to say that race does NOT have an effect, that it makes no difference?
I agree that women have the same value-potential to a company as do men on a day-to-day basis, however, the fact remains that many women of child-bearing years do have children, do hang on their job as allowed by law for as long as possible, come back to work for one day and then quit. During that time, the employer had to hold that job for the woman, assign somebody temporarily, and pay benefits for the six months, only to finally lose their investment in that employee, and have to then invest in another employee to take their place. So what is an employer to think, especially at a start-up, when interviewing a young woman, perhaps just married? You want to be fair, but you want your start-up company to succeed and so minimize turn-over of valuable employees.
My own mother did not enter the workforce until I started kindergarten. I remember her saying that she told the hiring manager that she has all the children she will ever have, they are in school, and she has arranged several after-school day care options.
Regardless of whether we like, this is a real problem (not hiring women, but how women can be as available to the employer as a man, and be wonderful mothers at the same time) that has yet to be solved. That may sound ‘sexist’, but it is reality.
I believe there should always be equal opportunity. It should not matter if it should be a male or a female for whichever position or job (as long as they are techies that are working really great
). I hope employers should consider that.
By the way, great post. You must have been an inspiration to many women.
Hi Jean
I’m the (male) founder of a startup, http://www.roleconnect.com. At an early stage I went out to find a co-founder and the person I picked happened to be a woman. Gender had no part to play in the decision, the woman I now work with ticked all the boxes, acknowledged leadership in technology, great reputation etc. We work really well together and I dont see our different perspectives as being split along gender lines, its really different perspecives bourne out of our different experience.
I really value that I can work with someone who has a different slant to mine, I believe we are much stronger for it. There seems little point to me of having a ‘hall of mirrors’ in any startup !
Why that’s crazy talk. The whole point of the employment interview is to discriminate between people who can do the job and who can’t. Diversity is craziness. If you have polite people with good people skills, do you balance them with abrasive jerks? If you have positive, competent people do you balance them with whiny goof-offs? And I thought computer people were logical…
As a man of color in the U.S., who began his career in the early 70′s and benefitted from the awareness brought about by Equal Opportunity, this resonates with me. Any woman with the right skillset for the job should be considered a prime candidate. Period. Furthermore she should not have to conform to the habits of the boys, but be accepted solely for what she brings to the table.
I am a woman, a great mom (an MD child from a world-class medical school), and a techie. To a lot of people, I do have everything in life!
I have worked in big, small, middle sized, start-up, well-established companies. 99% times, I am working with men, not women. I never feel I was discriminated or treated unfairly because of gender. To be honest, that women making 70% of men’s pay is really BS to me. You definitely cannot make as much as a man when that man is engineeing an enterprise system while you are answering the phones. It is what you do, not your gender.
So to those young women eyeing the tech field, I say, come in and enjoy your life as an engineer and a decent income. Forget all that gender BS. But I do have 2 pieces of advise, first, make sure you are as competitive as anyone out there with your talents, your ability. If you don’t treat yourself like you are secondary to other people, no one would treat you that way! Your own perception is the problem. Second, unlike the myth, you can enjoy a happy family life, being a great mom in the tech field like in any other thinkable fields, you don’t have to sacrifice anything. But if you are planning to have 5 children, then think twice before getting your CS degree. However, you will have tough time holding any job with 5 kids anyway:)
When I first was thinking about jobs I often thought “I need a job that will get me to point A in my life so that I can start part B”. A job was a means to an ends, my ambition was low and I had NO confidence to pursue a job that I found out later I was interested in as well as qualified for. I had to learn to value myself as well as speak up when the conversation about women in tech, startups or just in business came up. Thrilled that companies looking to attract talent are flexible to both men and women providing childcare, flex time and other ways to make their personal dreams of having a family and a career possible.
However, with startups the culture needs to start early. Is this a culture where everyone is expected to work 12 hours a day 6-7 days a week? That at the very least isn’t going to be encouraging or attractive to many, not just women.
First off we need to support each other, men and women to speak up about what they want personally as well as professionally and not get cornered into a culture that pushes them into believing they are worth less or can’t have a family.
I have been singing the praises of a diversified workplace for years, and it is very refreshing to see that someone else thinks that Penelope Trunk has lost her mind. Everything I ever read from her is 100% against conventional wisdom and common sense, and I often wonder if she really understands what she is writing about? You are absolutely right that building the right team means having the right interview process, and too often the interviewers are just looking at skills and stats to fill a slot. Sad that we have come to the point of just wanting a body in a seat instead of the most skilled AND best fit for the team. My employer doesn’t think that way (thankfully!) and as a result we have a small company that has weathered the economic storm thus far. I think I’ll tune in for your posts more often and just leave Penelope out in the cold with her counter-productive views.
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Companies should hire a person based on their individual merit and whoever will create the most value. While there are more men in the tech field currently, more women are joining the workforce in general and the percentage of female hires is continuing to increase. This company is a perfect example. http://on.fb.me/voxI1A ~ AIL offers an opportunity to work around your family’s schedule and still make a great living.