[HN Gopher] Lore Harp McGovern built a microcomputer empire from...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Lore Harp McGovern built a microcomputer empire from her suburban
       home
        
       Author : adrianhon
       Score  : 327 points
       Date   : 2024-04-08 15:48 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (every.to)
 (TXT) w3m dump (every.to)
        
       | KingOfCoders wrote:
       | Also see "Steve" Shirley, she build a company of coders, women
       | only [0], from the '60s on with remote first :-)
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Shirley
       | 
       | [0] She hired all the female IBM coders who couldn't make a
       | career at IBM
        
         | buovjaga wrote:
         | Recent discussion on HN:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39585527
        
         | rsynnott wrote:
         | Wait, how did remote first work in the 60s? Did they post in
         | punchcards? TTYs weren't really much of a thing at that stage,
         | were they?
        
           | dws wrote:
           | Coding forms, accumulated until someone had access to a
           | keypunch.
           | 
           | Turnaround time could be days, which encouraged being very
           | scrupulous when coding.
        
             | EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
             | I remember our group of students would chip in on flowers
             | and chocolates for the girl who was punching the cards.
             | Every mistake meant manually cutting new holes and mask
             | taping the extra holes to arrive at the correct character.
        
           | 5555624 wrote:
           | Write the program down on paper, then type it in or punch
           | cards.
           | 
           | Since I'm old, I remember writing FORTRAN -- it was all caps
           | back then -- programs in my dorm room and then going down to
           | the computer "room" and accessing the Dartmouth Time Sharing
           | System to type it in and run it.
        
             | abraae wrote:
             | We had a single apple II at our school. It was responsible
             | for me failing most of my classes and getting into
             | programming.
             | 
             | Since there was only a single machine, mostly we had to
             | submit our code on cards. Not quite punch cards with chads
             | but an optical equivalent when you marked the hole with a
             | sharpie.
        
           | Stratoscope wrote:
           | I don't know what methodology Shirley's company used. But
           | yes, Teletype machines were very common in the mid-1960s.
           | 
           | For example, Tymshare, where I worked for several years, was
           | founded in 1964. Their customers used Teletype machines at
           | their own locations, dialing into a Tymshare mainframe and
           | paying by the hour.
           | 
           | There were a number of similar timesharing companies in that
           | era. Call Computer and Dial Data come to mind, along with
           | Transdata where I worked in Phoenix before moving to the Bay
           | Area.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-sharing
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymshare
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleprinter
           | 
           | I had an office at Tymshare's Cupertino headquarters, and a
           | Teletype at home to work remotely.
           | 
           | This proved handy one year when the company was doing some
           | final acceptance tests on the Xerox Data Systems (XDS) Sigma
           | 7. The problem was that all of us preferred the competing DEC
           | PDP-10. So the company really wanted those tests to fail.
           | 
           | My manager called me into his office one day and said, "This
           | conversation is strictly between you and me. You are our best
           | Sigma 7 expert [I'd worked on the similar Sigma 5 at
           | Transdata] and even you like the PDP-10 more. But at this
           | point the only way we can get out of the Xerox deal is if the
           | acceptance tests fail."
           | 
           | I took the hint, and the acceptance tests mysteriously
           | started going haywire!
           | 
           | Eventually I failed to cover my tracks well enough, and Xerox
           | spotted my username in a core dump.
           | 
           | Back to my manager's office. "Xerox figured out what you were
           | doing, and we had to tell them we would fire you. So, you're
           | fired. But you still have your Teletype at home? And you have
           | plenty of other work to do on the PDP-10, right? Can you work
           | from home unofficially and keep track of your hours? Just
           | stay away from the Sigma 7. After this all blows over, we
           | will re-hire you and pay you that back pay."
           | 
           | So I did, and they did!
        
             | xyst wrote:
             | Back when the word of your boss or manager actually meant
             | something.
             | 
             | Today, have to get that in writing otherwise risk getting
             | hung out to dry in court or worse.
        
               | zer00eyz wrote:
               | No, you just need a boss you can trust. You need to not
               | be a clock puncher of an employee. You need to be present
               | (in an office) for these conversations to happen.
               | 
               | This sort of thing still goes on all the time. If your
               | not part of it your either in "Giant Corp" or the wrong
               | company, or you have the wrong boss, or you are the wrong
               | person.
        
               | tmpz22 wrote:
               | Im calling BS. Plenty of managers are in over their head.
               | Plenty of managers are focused on their next career move.
               | Plenty of managers will only play lip service to
               | "culture" or worse "family" and after one slack DM from
               | management completely fold over.
               | 
               | Many managers see a slightly more difficult hiring
               | environment (for themselves) and completely fold to
               | secure their own position.
               | 
               | EDIT: I've met many great managers, or at least
               | individuals who seem great from the outside when the
               | chips aren't on the table. But from the trenches I feel a
               | real lack of leadership in Tech management in the current
               | era.
        
               | flkiwi wrote:
               | I've had (and honored) plenty of those types of
               | conversations with subordinates I've never met in person
               | in any of a number of global offices. Physical presence
               | isn't a prerequisite for being a good boss or worker.
        
             | xenospn wrote:
             | What a great story! Hats off to your manager.
        
             | tim333 wrote:
             | I just looked up Wikipedia on teleprinters and had no idea
             | they went back as far as 1887. My school had an ASR 33
             | Teletype linked to a PDP-10 in the 1970s which seemed kind
             | of antique even then, although it worked ok.
             | 
             | There's a youtube interview with Shirley showing someone
             | remote working with some sort of computer like device. A
             | terminal maybe? https://youtu.be/d5nzJ1rQBew?t=228
        
           | sriram_sun wrote:
           | I guess everything was "remote". My dad had to mail his code
           | (punch cards) from (IIT) Madras to (IISc) Bangalore. He did
           | say it was a pain though.
           | 
           | * IISc - Indian Institute of Science
           | 
           | * Madras, now Chennai was probably an overnight drive in the
           | late 60s.
        
           | xyst wrote:
           | I tried finding a source on the work environment at the time.
           | But nothing describing the work setup.
           | 
           | Might be hidden in some biography though.
           | 
           | Speculation: maybe they mailed in their punch cards to main
           | office.
           | 
           | Or called it in over the phone.
        
             | KingOfCoders wrote:
             | I found something in German which has a little bit in it,
             | but sadly interviewers where not tech managers and didn't
             | ask the right questions in several interviews I've read.
             | 
             | https://www.manager-magazin.de/hbm/eine-firma-ohne-
             | bueros-a-...
        
         | blacklion wrote:
         | Until Act which (supposedly) was approved to help fight sexism
         | stops this "women only".
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Related:
         | 
         |  _A woman named "Steve" - IT pioneer, entrepreneur,
         | philanthropist (2019)_ -
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39585527 - March 2024 (123
         | comments)
         | 
         |  _All-female distributed-team software startup goes big in
         | 1962_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6861666 - Dec 2013
         | (0 comments, but worth reading the article)
         | 
         |  _A Woman 's Place_ -
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5692271 - May 2013 (1
         | comment)
        
         | garius wrote:
         | Rest assured Steve is very much on my long-list!
         | 
         | If Every commission 'season two' of this series, then I'll
         | likely focus on figures from the software side of Silicon
         | Valley. Steve makes that list in a heartbeat.
        
       | gary_0 wrote:
       | This story of Carole Ely and Lore Harp reminded me a little of
       | the (fictional) women in _Halt and Catch Fire_. Fantastic show. I
       | wonder if Vector Graphic was an inspiration for the writers.
        
         | josephd79 wrote:
         | It's a great show.
        
         | flockonus wrote:
         | I was trying to remember this exact show to comment on...
         | fantastic show, exciting and fairly accurate (to fiction terms)
         | depiction of rise of PC & internet.
        
         | delichon wrote:
         | This is further afield, but it reminded me of the novel _A Town
         | Like Alice_ by Nevil Shute. The protagonist is an Englishwoman
         | who inherits a legacy and uses it to open businesses that
         | employ the women of an Australian outpost.
        
         | nashashmi wrote:
         | I thought Lore looked like the actress in the show
        
       | flockonus wrote:
       | Hoping for an upcoming movie in the vein of BlackBerry (2023)
        
         | lotsofpulp wrote:
         | In case you didn't know, that movie was a lot of fiction.
         | 
         | https://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/blackberry/
         | 
         | I assume all "documentary" or "based on real events" type media
         | is completely fiction, unless specific events in the media are
         | otherwise noted to be true.
        
       | benjedwards wrote:
       | If you enjoyed this, back in 2015 I wrote a feature about Lore
       | Harp McGovern and her business partners for Fast Company that
       | goes into the creation of Vector Graphic in detail:
       | https://www.fastcompany.com/3047428/how-two-bored-1970s-hous...
        
         | HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
         | I knew this was familiar but I couldn't remember where I had
         | read it before :-)
        
         | garius wrote:
         | Reading that back in the day was one of the reasons she was on
         | my list for this series to write about. Was the first time I'd
         | heard of her!
         | 
         | (Love your ongoing blog and output)
        
       | zitterbewegung wrote:
       | Interestingly enough the empire fell when the Vector 4 suffered
       | the same fate of Commodore (albeit later) when the Vector 4 specs
       | were leaked. Although, there were a few blunders on the wikipedia
       | page but this was also indicative of the era during the IBM PC /
       | DOS dominance.
       | 
       | [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_Graphic
        
         | garius wrote:
         | Yeah - one thing that didn't make the edit unfortunately was a
         | few paragraphs on this. They'll make the book chapter though,
         | when I write that.
         | 
         | It was one reason I wanted to tackle Osborne first in the
         | series - because Vector did, quite legitimately, Osborne Effect
         | themselves with the 4. Which absolutely didn't help.
        
       | Atreiden wrote:
       | I think this paragraph says it all, really:
       | 
       | > Although the IPO would represent a major achievement for both
       | Harp and Ely, running Vector was taking a toll on their
       | marriages. Ely's husband had tolerated her role at Vector as an
       | outlet for her boredom, but as she continued to invest more of
       | her time in the company, their relationship began to deteriorate.
       | For the Harps, cracks were also appearing. Bob had also initially
       | seen Vector as a side project for Lore Harp, and his direct
       | involvement created further problems when the two began to hold
       | different opinions on how the company should be run. He was
       | resentful of the level of attention she received in the press,
       | feeling it diminished his own role at Vector.
       | 
       | Their own husbands were resentful of their success. Despite being
       | direct beneficiaries of it. Their egos literally could not take
       | their wives overshadowing their own accomplishments. One can
       | easily imagine how other men in power felt about their presence
       | in the industry.
       | 
       | When it comes to Steve Jobs, people sing his praises as a
       | visionary and leader - someone who entirely changed the game,
       | even though he was non-technical. His wikipedia page is 23,000
       | words, and is available in 161 languages.
       | 
       | But a woman comes along in the same time period, building a
       | company from nothing at the frontier of the very same industry,
       | while offering unheard-of benefits and compensation for her
       | employees, and she is cast as a villain ("Ice Queen") and
       | relegated to a footnote in history. Her wikipedia page is a
       | single paragraph that mostly mentions her relationship to her
       | second husband. Her company, and it's legacy, ultimately
       | destroyed by the men who overrode her decisions and opted to take
       | the 'safer' route.
       | 
       | A portrait of the insidious nature of sexism.
        
         | masswerk wrote:
         | To be fair, the fame of Steve Jobs is some of a different
         | story: after his departure from Apple, he had been kind of a
         | _persona non grata_ , and later, with the demise of NeXT (BTW
         | also known for its flat hierarchy and salary structure), not
         | much talked about, either. It was really with the resurgence of
         | Apple and Jobs' 3rd or 4th comeback that he became idolized,
         | especially after the iPhone. This is quite a biography, and it
         | took 30 years and rebuilding the then most valuable company
         | from what seemed to be its sure ruin to achieve this
         | popularity.
        
           | yardie wrote:
           | I was just a teen when Jobs becaome iCEO at Apple. It felt
           | like a big deal and the only thing that could have made it
           | bigger was if Woz stepped on stage as well. It really did
           | have the air of the band getting back together. At least that
           | was the case for the Apple faithful.
        
             | masswerk wrote:
             | On the other hand, Jean-Louis Gassee was well remembered
             | and there had been high expectations regarding an
             | integration of BeOS, and even rumours of Sun maybe
             | acquiring Apple. Compared to this, Jobs' return felt much
             | like a "small (village) solution" with vague prospects to
             | some. (Notably, this notion of "small" is somewhat
             | ironical, given that Apple had been once one of the most
             | successful startups in US corporate history, second only to
             | Xerox.)
        
         | blashyrk wrote:
         | > Her company, and it's legacy, ultimately destroyed by men
         | 
         | > A portrait of the insidious nature of sexism.
         | 
         | A tad ironic to make these two statements in succession don't
         | you think?
         | 
         | I'm not saying that sexism doesn't or didn't exist (especially
         | in that time period), but trying to dismiss the discrepancy on
         | Wikipedia as sexism, when Jobs helped build a literal worldwide
         | business empire that is Apple of today, doesn't help your case
         | at all. In fact it's the opposite, it sounds like you're
         | fighting windmills.
        
           | Atreiden wrote:
           | >A tad ironic to make these two statements in succession
           | don't you think?
           | 
           | Where's the irony? You'll have to point it out to me.
           | 
           | > As a result, Harp McGovern had the opportunity to see,
           | sooner than most other companies, what Microsoft was adding
           | to its own operating system in an effort to capture the
           | market.
           | 
           | > It was a switch that Harp McGovern herself was inclined to
           | make, so she contacted Gates and negotiated a provisional
           | contract for Vector to pivot to using DOS instead of CP/M on
           | far sweeter terms--and at a much faster pace--than were being
           | offered to other manufacturers. "We had an amazing
           | relationship with Microsoft. I'd signed a contract where
           | every update and every new system in perpetuity we would get
           | at no increased royalty," she explained.
           | 
           | > The deal was taken to the board, but the collective
           | decision was made that it was better to stick with the known
           | quantity that was CP/M for the in-development Vector 4.
           | 
           | She negotiated a sweetheart deal with Microsoft before their
           | big break. She had a personal relationship with Bill Gates.
           | This decision killed the company.
           | 
           | > but trying to dismiss the discrepancy on Wikipedia as
           | sexism, when Jobs helped build a literal worldwide business
           | empire that is Apple of today, doesn't help your case at all.
           | In fact it's the opposite,
           | 
           | The final line was a summary of the article as a whole, not
           | specifically the difference between Jobs' legacy and hers. I
           | recognize the difference.
        
             | blashyrk wrote:
             | > Where's the irony? You'll have to point it out to me.
             | 
             | > The deal was taken to the board, but the collective
             | decision was made that it was better to stick with the
             | known quantity that was CP/M for the in-development Vector
             | 4.
             | 
             | Because, if you find it relevant what the sex of the board
             | members that made that mistake was, how is that any better
             | than the alleged sexism that McGovern had endured? If you
             | think that, you must also think that a board consisting
             | mainly (or fully) of women that makes some mistake has to
             | do with them being women, right?
        
               | Atreiden wrote:
               | > Because, if you find it relevant what the sex of the
               | board members that made that mistake was, how is that any
               | better than the alleged sexism that McGovern had endured?
               | 
               | You've done some subtle editorializing here to try and
               | make your point stronger, allow me to correct it:
               | 
               | > ultimately destroyed by men
               | 
               | is not what I wrote, what I wrote is
               | 
               | > ultimately destroyed by the men who overrode her
               | decisions and opted to take the 'safer' route.
               | 
               | They convey two very different ideas. The strawman that
               | you wrote implies that I believe men, by virtue of their
               | sex, are responsible for the companies failure. This is
               | not the case.
               | 
               | What I wrote implies that the board rejected her proposal
               | because they thought they know better. Is it conceivable
               | to you that this belief might have had something to do
               | with the fact that she was a female CEO, formerly a
               | housewife, in an exclusively male industry?
               | 
               | Surely you can concede that identifying sexist behavior
               | and committing sexist behavior are not equivalent.
        
         | nashashmi wrote:
         | You can go into a tirade of how women when achieving the same
         | role as men are treated differently. But then you would be
         | ignoring the underlying roles both were MEANT to play.
         | 
         | The man is meant to play the role of breadwinner. If he can't
         | do that, he is not seen as worthy. The women is meant to play
         | the role of housemaker. If she can't do that, she is seen as
         | incompetent.
         | 
         | But if the other outshines the one at their meaningful role, it
         | creates tension. It creates lack of confidence. It creates
         | environments where the person feels small.
         | 
         | "I need to take care of the kids and therefore can't go to
         | conference" for men is equivalent to "I need to go to the
         | conference and therefore can't stay home" for women. Both are
         | negatives based on the role they play.
         | 
         | If you want to create a new world where the roles are switched,
         | or where both put equal time in doing both domestic and
         | professional tasks, you would be ignoring their biological,
         | physical, and mental strengths.
         | 
         | The last bit that makes the whole issue worrisome, male social
         | circles are competitive on achievements rather than
         | perceptions, While female social circles are vice versa.
         | 
         | There is a world where women can be successful and pioneering.
         | It exists. But it doesn't exist if there needs to be a tectonic
         | shift. Like in the case here. And in the case of most normative
         | systems where men and women play designated roles.
        
           | nashashmi wrote:
           | You can go into a tirade of how women when achieving the same
           | role as men are treated differently. But then you would be
           | ignoring the underlying roles both were MEANT to play.
           | 
           | The man is meant to play the role of breadwinner. If he can't
           | do that, he is not seen as worthy. The women is meant to play
           | the role of housemaker. If she can't do that, she is seen as
           | incompetent. But if the other outshines the one at their
           | meaningful role, it creates tension. It creates lack of
           | confidence. It creates environments where the person feels
           | small. "I need to take care of the kids and therefore can't
           | go to conference" for men is equivalent to "I need to go to
           | the conference and therefore can't stay home" for women. Both
           | are negatives based on the role they play.
           | 
           | If you want to create a new world where the roles are
           | switched, or where both put equal time in doing both domestic
           | and professional tasks, you would be ignoring their
           | biological, physical, and mental strengths.
           | 
           | The last bit that makes the whole issue worrisome, male
           | social circles are competitive on achievements rather than
           | perceptions, While female social circles are vice versa.
           | 
           | There is a world where women can be successful and
           | pioneering. It exists. But it doesn't exist if there needs to
           | be a tectonic shift. Like in the case here. And in the case
           | of most normative systems where men and women play designated
           | roles.
        
             | flkiwi wrote:
             | What?
        
         | devsda wrote:
         | > she is cast as a villain ("Ice Queen") and relegated to a
         | footnote in history.
         | 
         | The company failed for multiple reasons and some of those were
         | a result of sexism. So, I wouldn't say it was the sole cause
         | for their decline.
         | 
         | > She told Harp that one man had complained to her about "the
         | awful bitch who was running the company."
         | 
         | While Jobs and to some extent Gates were called eccentric
         | geniuses for all their misdeeds in their early years, I have no
         | doubts on what Harp & Ely would be called if they attempted to
         | do even half of the bad things Jobs and Gates did.
        
         | jbellis wrote:
         | I couldn't tell you the names of the founders of contemporary
         | PC builders like North Star or Cromemco, either. But that's
         | just because none of them lasted more than a decade or so.
         | 
         | Even the founders of Commodore, which was 10x more successful,
         | are not household names.
        
         | 1234letshaveatw wrote:
         | It's kind of gross and sophomoric to try and portray eg the
         | Harp's relationship in terms of good and evil. I can't imagine
         | that you would characterize their relationship in the same way
         | if the roles were reversed, and what does direct beneficiary
         | even mean in this context? Money was rolling in so suck it up?
        
         | chasd00 wrote:
         | being married to a person and your job is one marriage too
         | many. Divorce and unhappy relationships are very common when
         | one person becomes obsessed with work and the other is left in
         | the cold.
        
       | valley_guy_12 wrote:
       | I remember seeing a Vector Graphics computer at a computer store
       | around 1978, when I was shopping for my first computer. I was
       | excited by the name Vector Graphics, only to be disappointed to
       | learn that it was a meaningless name, and their computers had
       | nothing to do with vectors or graphics. I vaguely remember that
       | it was a generic business machine (maybe with a 16 bit version?)
       | with nothing to recommend it to a hobbyist over the competition.
       | 
       | In that era Apple had an enormous lead in graphics, software, and
       | peripheral cards.
        
       | thimkerbell wrote:
       | Where is Lore Harp McGovern on Twitter?
        
         | pxeger1 wrote:
         | She's 80, so probably nowhere.
        
       | ugur2nd wrote:
       | It's a fascinating story. I feel that most things are possible
       | when I see stories like this.
        
       | laurex wrote:
       | It's not just that she overcame odds as a woman in the tech
       | business that amazes, but that she was so clearly someone who
       | cared about people, and chose to risk her business and reputation
       | more than once to stay true to her values. That's perhaps even
       | more rare in this industry than being a successful female CEO.
        
         | garius wrote:
         | Something I didn't have space to mention in the piece was that
         | during the recession of the early eighties, Vector went out of
         | their way to support their dealer network.
         | 
         | They offered loans and let dealers delay payments on deliveries
         | to get them through the tough times.
         | 
         | It arguably cost them ground against IBM because it squeezed
         | them further financially. But it was also another reason the
         | Dealer network remained fiercely loyal to Vector - especially
         | under Harp.
        
           | TMWNN wrote:
           | Thanks for the article. Benji Edwards's earlier article was
           | the first time I really became aware of Vector's existence.
           | There are noticeably fewer mentions of the company in
           | Freiberger and Swaine's _Fire in the Valley_ (1984) than,
           | say, Cromemco, and far fewer than IMSAI.
        
         | ThomPete wrote:
         | there are no odds as a woman in the tech business. The tech
         | industry is on of the most inclusive industries because it
         | measures talent and value creation not features no one can do
         | anything about
        
           | worik wrote:
           | > tech industry is on of the most inclusive industries
           | because it...
           | 
           | Where have you been?
           | 
           | That ignoring history
        
             | DontchaKnowit wrote:
             | Ur an absolute clown if you dont think that tech is
             | extremely inclusive.
             | 
             | Every tech company on the planet is tripping over
             | themselves to hire/promote more minorities because of all
             | the societal pressure to implement DEI programs.
        
           | barrenko wrote:
           | No industry is inclusive, nor will ever be, that is almost by
           | definition.
        
         | toolz wrote:
         | I do believe there are unique challenges to being a woman in
         | tech, but the odds seem in favor of women doing well both back
         | in the 70's and today with todays stats having roughly 20% of
         | CS grads being female while some 23% of SWEs are female. That
         | suggests there are more women in software jobs than women who
         | have been pursing that career academically. What stats do you
         | see that suggest the odds are against women in tech? I
         | frequently recommend tech as a good field for young girls, but
         | I'll probably not do that anymore if the odds are truly against
         | them.
        
           | leononame wrote:
           | How ist 20%/23% good? Am I reading the numbers wrong? 40%,
           | that I could agree on. But 23% is very low.
           | 
           | Another thing is culture. The in the company's where I've
           | worked at, how the men talked about women was pretty off-
           | putting to be honest. They didn't do it in front of women
           | (obviously), but even your nerdy developers would drop
           | comments that had me wondering whether I was really in the
           | ckrrect field. I'm sure the women in those places notice that
           | even if it's behind their backs.
        
             | toolz wrote:
             | well I'm not making a value judgement, but we're talking
             | about odds, not "good" or "bad"...if 20% of women go after
             | a software job and the field is made up of an even higher
             | %, that suggests the odds are amazing for women. Odds don't
             | tell the whole story, but the odds seem in women's favor at
             | the moment.
        
               | leononame wrote:
               | If you define odds being good as "the odds are good for
               | the ones that choose to study CS", sure. But if you
               | define the odds as "women overall", 20% is a relatively
               | poor number in my opinion. Yes, we're getting better and
               | yes, it takes time. But I don't think we can pat
               | ourselves on the back here. That the women who decide to
               | work on tech do well is (in my very unscientific and
               | unproven) opinion just an indicator that the women who do
               | join tech are on average more skilled than the men who
               | decide to join tech.
               | 
               | That's for a myriad of reasons, but the main one being
               | that men gravitate to tech more, so even if they're not a
               | huge talent they still might choose a career in tech,
               | whereas women might prefer a different career unless they
               | have a very strong calling.
        
             | rootusrootus wrote:
             | Would be nice if it were higher, for sure. And it will
             | become that way, because more women go to college now than
             | men. Will we care about young men being under represented
             | in college before they get down to 20%? I'd like to think
             | so, but I won't take that bet.
        
             | ekms wrote:
             | 23% > 20% which means if someone goes into the field of
             | computer programming they're more likely to remain in the
             | field if they are a woman than if they are a man. "remain
             | in the field" is used as a proxy for success.
             | 
             | You could argue about whether or not it's a good proxy for
             | success, but your response sounds like you think women
             | would be more likely to drop out of the field alltogether
             | than men, which doesnt appear to be true
        
               | leononame wrote:
               | Does it really say that or are women just slightly more
               | probable to enter the field without a degree?
               | 
               | And I'd argue it's a pretty bad proxy. Because the field
               | might be growing (or shrinking) and percentages don't
               | mean anything. 23% of 10k is less than 20% of 5k, for
               | example. The percentage numbers don't really indicate
               | whether someone will stay in the field, it's just a
               | number that's highly dependent on a lot of variables and
               | a very bad indicator for "people are staying in the
               | field". I'm happy to be corrected, it's just how I read
               | this.
               | 
               | Additionally, if your assumption is that 23%>20%, that
               | would kind of mean that it's capped at 23%, right? Once
               | more the CS degree quota is higher than 23%, following
               | your logic, that would be an indicator that women are
               | more likely to leave the field because it naturally
               | gravitates towards 23%. But that's not based on anything,
               | you could argue just as well that it's an indicator that
               | more women are starting to take interest in CS as a
               | career.
        
               | bobthepanda wrote:
               | consider that a lot of the culture in tech is also there
               | for the first four years of undergrad, and so 23% often
               | represents the people who basically made it through four
               | years. are people who have experienced it for four years
               | likelier to put up with more of the same?
        
           | laurex wrote:
           | Perhaps rather than simply looking at numbers for SWEs, we
           | might also look at numbers for CEOs of successful companies?
        
           | dosinga wrote:
           | That's one explanation. The other is women just have to be
           | better to survive the CS education so if they do, they are
           | going to be better than average. Certainly true for a bunch
           | of female SWEs I have worked with
        
       | caycep wrote:
       | Carol Ely eventually took over the CEO job at Sun from Scott
       | McNally, I think?
        
       | nimfan wrote:
       | "Vector was late in moving from machines with 8K processing to
       | 16K, which had become the new industry standard." I was
       | interested in S100 bus machines, but couldn't afford one! If I'd
       | only known, I'd have borrowed to buy a Vector Graphic S100 back
       | then, just for the novelty of having an 8192-bit CPU! ;-)
        
       | shortformblog wrote:
       | I just wanted to say that the framing of this intro is really,
       | really good. Kudos to the author, who is knocking this series out
       | of the park--hell of a writer.
        
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