I think it is time to begin pushing back more against articles like this and their underlying data, which is superficial at best and genuinely dishonest and one-sided at worst. They may have a couple positive diversity studies, but when I look out my window I see Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, Apple, Tesla, Alibaba, DJI, Google...all founded by men of various descriptions, all destroying their global competition.
Could they really be "better" by having female CEOs? Is that really true? Should we really continue to entertain this fantasy in order to avoid being screamed at online?
If the answer is "yes," then the conclusion is that there is a massive global conspiracy to prevent women from succeeding. This conclusion leads directly to the massive undercurrent of resentment and social persecution that is now the norm in tech. Tech has been made much worse by this...to the point where I no longer even want to participate in the community.
If the answer is "no," you get reality: Men simply tend to out perform at engineering and mathematical extremes and this results in more male CEOs. Men are also genetically predisposed to having to win economically in order to find a mate...is it any surprise they tend to be more competitive?
None of these male CEOs had their success handed to them, they had to annihilate a huge field of competitors to win and that effort and brilliance deserves respect. With "diversity think," suddenly, all these brilliant CEOs no longer deserve credit for their accomplishments - After all, they had it handed to them by the system!
That seems deeply wrong to me, it also seems inconsistent with values that made America the leader in the world: Great people rise to the top, no matter what.
I know many highly successful engineering and technical women. The more successful they are, the less they are concerned with diversity-related issues. The most successful technical women I know in engineering and venture capital do not whine and complain and blame other people for their failures - They bulldoze their competitors and they win by being truly better.
My problem is not that there aren't advantages to diversity in some situations, my problem is the cultishness of the opinions being expressed here and the refusal to question many of the relatively superficial data points which are brought forth to "prove" these statements.
The fact that these opinions are so viciously defended and people asking questions so viciously persecuted makes me certain that they can and should be questioned more frequently and treated with less reverence.
I have noticed over the last five years, the diversity-related content in many Meetups and Conferences has grown to the point where it is now 30% of content by weight. Fail to include a woman in your speaking line up, get excoriated online. Make someone uncomfortable by making an off-color comment, get banned from an event like Doug Crockford did without explanation.
What started as a positive desire to promote inclusiveness became a dogmatic and viciously enforced standard: YOU MUST BE DIVERSE OR WE WILL FUCK YOU UP AND GET YOU FIRED, RUIN YOUR CAREER!
I used to organize three large meetups. Once I began seeing how organizers are treated for not paying this "diversity tax," my desire to ever organize a conference or event ever again shrank down to nothing.
Quite frankly: There aren't a whole lot of women in tech because they may not generally want to take some of the jobs available here. Engineering sucks. It is not glamorous work, it is right below plumbing as a job in how it is treated at many large tech companies. I was an engineer and I saw many women try it out and then move on to other roles with more human interaction, operational and social components such as design or product management. I do not blame them.
Am I literally the only person who feels this way? Who is with me?
If you actually want to leave your bubble, read both sides on every issue. If you want to remain in your bubble, read the screaming twitter comments and media only. Choice is yours.
Even the "pro" arguers have serious reservations in this case.
However, there are reports that the ban is being applied even to green-card holders. This is madness. The plain language of the order doesn’t apply to legal permanent residents of the U.S., and green-card holders have been through round after round of vetting and security checks. The administration should intervene, immediately, to stop misapplication. If, however, the Trump administration continues to apply the order to legal permanent residents, it should indeed be condemned.
And another:
First, the order temporarily halts refugee admissions for 120 days to improve the vetting process, then caps refugee admissions at 50,000 per year. Outrageous, right? Not so fast. Before 2016, when Obama dramatically ramped up refugee admissions, Trump’s 50,000 stands roughly in between a typical year of refugee admissions in George W. Bush’s two terms and a typical year in Obama’s two terms.
The question isn't: "What is the next bubble?" The question is: "Which of the existing bubbles will collapse first and cause the rest of them to implode?" Furthermore, the even bigger question is: "Is there creeping contagion forming behind the scenes in derivatives and shadow banking similar to 2007, out of sight of governments and regulators yet again?"
The central banks of the world have gone on a ridiculous 8 year binge to prop up global growth, this binge will have consequences. Probably for Donald Trump, who may buy another two years of bubble activity with his planned economic actions.
Most people are used to the 1999 bubble and the 2007 bubble. Those are just the ones that got really out of control Over the last decade, numerous smaller bubbles have come and gone, mostly deflated by government (foreign or otherwise) intervention and we are generally none the wiser. China has had bubbles in their real estate and stock market come and go (or be suppressed, for now) several times in the last couple years.
If you have seen what China is willing to do to their skies in terms of pollution, imagine what they are willing to do behind closed doors in their financial and real estate sectors. One can only imagine the toxic, over-leveraged stew that is likely lurking behind the scenes. People have been expecting China to implode for years, it hasn't happened.
In the United States there are multiple bubbles now. Students loans are clearly in a bubble. It was announced this week that the government admitted to falsifying data (they call it a "technical glitch," It is not a glitch, it was likely deliberate) around what % of sub-prime students were not repaying their debts.
The private tech stock bubble of worthless, unprofitable Silicon Valley unicorns who can never go public is alarming but seems contained for now and not of a large enough size to tank the stock market.
Sub-Prime Automotive is also a bubble, but so far the numbers are far lower than anything near what was experienced in 2007.
Real estate in the United States in some segments, notably high-end real estate in Miami and Manhattan were both in bubbles as well and seem to have deflated. There was also a significant housing bubble in Vancouver which seems to be deflating due to government action.
So there are numerous bubbles that we know about. But this isn't the real problem. The real problem is that credit, derivatives and shadow banking going on behind the scenes. While many regulations have been passed to ensure that the United States banking sector is more "solid," the financiers of the world always find a way to introduce more leverage.
My conclusion after digging into the various bubbles and their sizes is as follows:
Sub-Prime Automotive is a bubble but the size of it isn't so bad. The biggest problem is repercussions of such a bubble collapsing and becoming contagious.
Real Estate seems ok, nowhere near what happened in 2007 in terms of scale and corruption.
Student loans are a rather large bubble. Still nowhere near the size of the sub-prime mortgage nightmare.
Tech bubble, shouldn't be a big problem if it implodes by itself in the United States
China: I can't even speculate. Everyone has been screaming wolf about China for years and nothing has collapsed yet. China is rated #1 by the Economist as a risk of collapse which would take down the global economy.
I am going with: China or EuroZone banking melt-down that spreads and pops all the United States bubbles.
1. Cortisol and adrenaline are your new arch-enemies. Burn out is caused by loss of control at work and other factors that skyrocket your cortisol and adrenaline and keep them high all day long. You must reduce your cortisol throughout the day or you will keep feeling burned out. To end burn out you must replenish your hormones with deeply restful sleep and eliminate the loss of control and health practices that are causing these elevated levels. Cortisol is literally poison, get rid of it.
2. Cut coffee / diet coke and replace with green, herbal or black tea. Coffee / diet coke contain an insane amount of caffeine and it can damage your ability to get truly restful sleep and linger in your system for many hours. If you aren't feeling rested it may be because your caffeine intake is damaging your ability to achieve REM sleep (a known side effect of too much coffee). Tea contains less caffeine and also contains mood-soothing chemicals that take the edge off the buzz and promote calm and focus. Caffeine elevates your cortisol and adrenaline and puts you into a constant state of fight or flight. If you are chugging diet coke and coffee, cut that shit out immediately.
3. Renegotiate your job description. Burn out is caused by feeling like a puppet at work and having too many people with a remote control to tell you what to do. Independence and autonomy and individual decision making are a requirement to be happy. Programmers tend to get treated as factory workers where other people get to dump work on them / drag and drop tasks and they have to do the work. Your manager is supposed to be providing cover for you. You need to get a new deal.
Those are the main points that helped me recover recently from burn out.
Diet Coke has, like, 30 mg of caffeine, half of what a cup of black tea has. If you are worried about the stress levels, take L-Theanine supplements instead (same active ingredient as tea).
While reducing your overall levels of caffeine consumption is probably good, the important thing is to keep your levels consistent.
We have defined a "Builder Type" CEO who is not charismatic yet is defined by being able to build and ship things. Like Mark Zuckerberg minus his team of PR people.
Then we have a "Charismatic Type" CEO who people like but who can't get anything done.
By this definition, Obama would be the useless yet charismatic CEO. Hillary, who has never built anything (that I can identify), would be a "Builder" type (apparently?). And Donald Trump...who indisputably has built things despite being both charismatic and hated would blend both of these together?
I don't agree with this analysis. It isn't that easy to slice this one.
> By this definition, Obama would be the useless yet charismatic CEO.
Useless, no, charismatic, yes. PG isn't saying that you can't be both powerful and charismatic - he's saying if you are to become powerful, you'd better be charismatic as well. His comment about them being the best person for the job is over the "schmoozers", who are charismatic but aren't building things.
> Hillary, who has never built anything (that I can identify)
I agree here. I don't think a clean dichotomy is being discussed. I think PG is just lamenting that charisma is necessary to hold power over other people.
>Hillary, who has never built anything (that I can identify), would be a "Builder" type (apparently?).
Well what do you define as building? She was a successful legislator and built up a charity and public speaking business for herself out of almost nothing.
I don't believe the Clinton Foundation or public speaking business (which Bill also pursued) was built up out of nothing. What greater head-start could you get to begin building a public speaking business or foundation than to be either the former President or married to the world famous former President of the only superpower? The connections, the access to money and favors, the uber rich people (eg Wall Street) that want to buy your ear, it's beyond immense.
Could they really be "better" by having female CEOs? Is that really true? Should we really continue to entertain this fantasy in order to avoid being screamed at online?
If the answer is "yes," then the conclusion is that there is a massive global conspiracy to prevent women from succeeding. This conclusion leads directly to the massive undercurrent of resentment and social persecution that is now the norm in tech. Tech has been made much worse by this...to the point where I no longer even want to participate in the community.
If the answer is "no," you get reality: Men simply tend to out perform at engineering and mathematical extremes and this results in more male CEOs. Men are also genetically predisposed to having to win economically in order to find a mate...is it any surprise they tend to be more competitive?
None of these male CEOs had their success handed to them, they had to annihilate a huge field of competitors to win and that effort and brilliance deserves respect. With "diversity think," suddenly, all these brilliant CEOs no longer deserve credit for their accomplishments - After all, they had it handed to them by the system!
That seems deeply wrong to me, it also seems inconsistent with values that made America the leader in the world: Great people rise to the top, no matter what.
I know many highly successful engineering and technical women. The more successful they are, the less they are concerned with diversity-related issues. The most successful technical women I know in engineering and venture capital do not whine and complain and blame other people for their failures - They bulldoze their competitors and they win by being truly better.
My problem is not that there aren't advantages to diversity in some situations, my problem is the cultishness of the opinions being expressed here and the refusal to question many of the relatively superficial data points which are brought forth to "prove" these statements.
The fact that these opinions are so viciously defended and people asking questions so viciously persecuted makes me certain that they can and should be questioned more frequently and treated with less reverence.
I have noticed over the last five years, the diversity-related content in many Meetups and Conferences has grown to the point where it is now 30% of content by weight. Fail to include a woman in your speaking line up, get excoriated online. Make someone uncomfortable by making an off-color comment, get banned from an event like Doug Crockford did without explanation.
What started as a positive desire to promote inclusiveness became a dogmatic and viciously enforced standard: YOU MUST BE DIVERSE OR WE WILL FUCK YOU UP AND GET YOU FIRED, RUIN YOUR CAREER!
I used to organize three large meetups. Once I began seeing how organizers are treated for not paying this "diversity tax," my desire to ever organize a conference or event ever again shrank down to nothing.
Quite frankly: There aren't a whole lot of women in tech because they may not generally want to take some of the jobs available here. Engineering sucks. It is not glamorous work, it is right below plumbing as a job in how it is treated at many large tech companies. I was an engineer and I saw many women try it out and then move on to other roles with more human interaction, operational and social components such as design or product management. I do not blame them.
Am I literally the only person who feels this way? Who is with me?