Speaker 1: Hey, Brian, Hi Katie, Well, I think it's safe to
Speaker 1: say that we've never seen a year like the one
Speaker 1: we've witnessed over the last what six to nine months
Speaker 1: in terms of women's empowerment in this country. I've been
Speaker 1: working for a long time, and I remember so many
Speaker 1: instances when we declared it the Year of the Woman,
Speaker 1: or when we thought everything was going to change, and
Speaker 1: of course nothing really did. And now there's some serious
Speaker 1: soul searching going on about Hollywood, about Silicon Valley, and
Speaker 1: about every business in between. And Katie, you know what
Speaker 1: really staggered me to watch your hour on nat Gio.
Speaker 1: Do you think we've promoted your hour on nat Gio enough? Anyway?
Speaker 1: The effect of sexism in Silicon Valley and Hollywood isn't
Speaker 1: just in those industries. It's on all of us who
Speaker 1: are consumers of those industry. For example, there's research that
Speaker 1: you brought out that the more hours of TV a
Speaker 1: girl watches, the fewer options she believes she has, and
Speaker 1: the more hours of TV a boy watches, the more
Speaker 1: sexist he actually becomes. And so this is a contagion.
Speaker 1: It's not just a problem relegated to these industries. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: we asked folks to share their experiences with gender bias
Speaker 1: and discrimination at work. People like Dr mommy Kay that's
Speaker 1: her display name on Twitter wrote in medicine, it is
Speaker 1: very common to be seen as a nurse if a
Speaker 1: female physician doesn't put on her white coat, and even
Speaker 1: then it's not presumed. But most men in scrubs are doctors.
Speaker 1: So many inequities in medicine. Hashtag too much to tweet That,
Speaker 1: of course is true. You know, there's that old riddle
Speaker 1: that I used to hear as a kid, and it
Speaker 1: goes along these lines of father and his son are
Speaker 1: in a car accident. The doctor comes in and exclaim animes,
Speaker 1: I can't operate on this child. Why not, the nurse asked,
Speaker 1: because he's my son. The doctor responds, how is this possible?
Speaker 1: And of course, still in two thousand eighteen, people are
Speaker 1: left scratching their heads. Okay, everyone, how is it possible?
Speaker 1: The doctor is the mother? Hello, everybody, the doctor is
Speaker 1: a woman. But it just shows how deeply ingrained these
Speaker 1: gender biases are in US even today. Yeah, I have
Speaker 1: to admit it took me a few seconds to get that, so,
Speaker 1: you know, shame on me. Katie. Also on Twitter, someone
Speaker 1: named Kristin Malloy wrote, I was the only female in
Speaker 1: management in twenty two local locations of a restaurant was
Speaker 1: told I wasn't bubbly enough to be GM. Pretty sure
Speaker 1: bubbly was not a qualification for all the males, and
Speaker 1: that's true. I've never been criticized for my lack of bubblinus,
Speaker 1: and I don't think I'm particularly bubbly, and I'm nothing.
Speaker 1: Men are ever called perky either, Brian, Just to pick
Speaker 1: a random example, Yeah, exactly. We also got a male
Speaker 1: perspective from Joe and Can Dada, who works in healthcare.
Speaker 1: He emailed us saying he feels he's held to a
Speaker 1: different standard of behavior than his female colleagues. He writes,
Speaker 1: I cannot and would not make comments about a particularly
Speaker 1: attractive nurse or visitor, But when, for instance, the firefighters
Speaker 1: have to come in the building, the women go wild
Speaker 1: and make all sorts of sexual comments. I hear the
Speaker 1: same comments from them about attractive doctors. I feel like
Speaker 1: if I said half of what came out of their
Speaker 1: amounts at a nurse's desk, at best, I would be
Speaker 1: looked at like a pervert. At worst, I would lose
Speaker 1: my career. I mean, I think that's actually a very
Speaker 1: interesting and somewhat valid point. There is a bit of
Speaker 1: a double standard that I think women need to be
Speaker 1: aware of when they're hyper sexualizing men in the office
Speaker 1: or making sort of loot or sexual comments. Um, what's
Speaker 1: good for the goose should be good for the gander.
Speaker 1: What are your views on this, Brian, Um, I agree
Speaker 1: with that. That said, the overwhelming problem here is a
Speaker 1: lack of opportunity for women in the workplace and a
Speaker 1: lack of flexibility for women who are still the primary parents. Um.
Speaker 1: And so you know, I think this is true, but
Speaker 1: to me, this doesn't seem like the brunt of the problem. Now,
Speaker 1: I agree, but it's something just to be cognizant of,
Speaker 1: I think. But all I have to say is go
Speaker 1: Rustle and Karen Goldsmith. You have officially raised a feminist here.
Speaker 1: But it's true. I think we're talking about opportunities. Obviously
Speaker 1: a lot of it is about behavior in the tone set,
Speaker 1: but how do these translate into doors closing or opening
Speaker 1: for everyone, not just for women, but for more diversity.
Speaker 1: And I think I hope that things are changing. In
Speaker 1: today's show, we're delving into gender inequality and bias, specifically
Speaker 1: in the tech industry. Of course, Silicon Valleys generated headlines
Speaker 1: about sexual harassment and pay in equity for some time.
Speaker 1: Our guest today is journalist Emily Chang. She's one of
Speaker 1: the most respected interviewers in the tech industry, and she's
Speaker 1: out with a new book called ro Topia, which is
Speaker 1: all about the boys club culture of Silicon Valley. We
Speaker 1: talked with Emily about the dam stats when it comes
Speaker 1: to diversity and inclusion in tech, the Czech glitterati she
Speaker 1: interviewed for her book, and the shocking sex parties attended
Speaker 1: by Silicon Valley big wigs, which really, honestly sound like
Speaker 1: such a throwback to Mad Men days. I mean, I
Speaker 1: just wanted to grab a bottle up Purel while she
Speaker 1: was even talking about these things. Yeah, I felt pretty gross.
Speaker 1: And folks, if you don't tune in about wild Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley sex parties, don't you what we can do? Anyway.
Speaker 1: Today's conversation is actually an extension of an episode of
Speaker 1: Katie's nat GEO doc series called The Revolt, where she
Speaker 1: looked into gender inequality, or as some might call it,
Speaker 1: the hostile male culture in both Hollywood and Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: So you kick things off, Katie by asking, are we
Speaker 1: paying too much attention to these two arenas tech and entertainment. Certainly,
Speaker 1: sexism and sexual harassment exists everywhere, It's in every industry,
Speaker 1: but you know, these are the industries where women have
Speaker 1: been the loudest, and Hollywood much more so than Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: But I sort of like to think of the me
Speaker 1: too movements starting in Silicon Valley with Ellen Powe, you know,
Speaker 1: five six years ago when she sued her venture capital firm,
Speaker 1: Kleiner perkins Um, and she lost in court, but over time,
Speaker 1: she's sort of won in the court of public opinion.
Speaker 1: And I wonder if she had filed her suit today,
Speaker 1: would the outcome have been different? And I actually I
Speaker 1: asked her this question, and she said, you know, there's
Speaker 1: no way to answer that question. But I almost think
Speaker 1: we wouldn't be here if I hadn't done it when
Speaker 1: I did, and she helped open the doors for so
Speaker 1: many others. I did her first interview. I was just
Speaker 1: over and it was fascinating to me because so much
Speaker 1: of it was sort of intangible things that Ellen experienced
Speaker 1: when she was working at Kleiner Perkins for example, really
Speaker 1: being excluded being marge a lies, not being part of
Speaker 1: the quote unquote boys club, not getting to go on
Speaker 1: ski weekends or golf outings, and things like that. You
Speaker 1: also talked to her boss for your book. What was
Speaker 1: his take, because I did not get the opportunity to
Speaker 1: do that, right. I spoke with John Doer, who hired
Speaker 1: her and was in his view her champion um and
Speaker 1: really gave her an opportunity when some of the other
Speaker 1: partners didn't want her to have that opportunity. And you
Speaker 1: know what's interesting is Kleiner Perkins was actually kind of
Speaker 1: at the forefront in venture capital when it came to
Speaker 1: hiring women. There are so many firms who still don't
Speaker 1: have any women, and he made a concerted effort to
Speaker 1: bring women into the fold. What they did wrong is
Speaker 1: they didn't make the environment inclusive enough for them, and
Speaker 1: they didn't create a place where women could really thrive
Speaker 1: and and really succeed. And so it was kind of
Speaker 1: a case of where good intentions aren't enough, you know,
Speaker 1: and good intentions aren't enough, and Ellen experienced so many
Speaker 1: of those things that are just so much more difficult
Speaker 1: to pinpoint and call out, you know, it's a lot
Speaker 1: easier to talk about these egregious forms of sexual harassment,
Speaker 1: and I agree that that is a huge problem. But
Speaker 1: I actually think the bigger problem is, you know, the
Speaker 1: systemic forces that are really working against all women that
Speaker 1: are so hard to describe and also hard to fix,
Speaker 1: which is why you know it was worth writing a
Speaker 1: three page book about Emily. You wrote that Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: has become increasingly toxic for women. Do you think the
Speaker 1: problem is actually getting worse and not better? M um?
Speaker 1: You know, in some ways I think it is getting worse,
Speaker 1: and in some ways I think it's getting better. Um.
Speaker 1: And by getting worse, I mean the fact that we
Speaker 1: just haven't seen movement for so so long has led
Speaker 1: so many people to believe, you know, this is just
Speaker 1: how it is, or it's not my problem. This is
Speaker 1: a pipeline problem. This has to do with how many
Speaker 1: women are studying computer science or how many resumes I
Speaker 1: get in my inbox. And you know what, that's an excuse.
Speaker 1: You know, I argue in my book that the tech
Speaker 1: industry created the pipeline problem by having such a narrow
Speaker 1: idea of who could do this job. And you know,
Speaker 1: they were doing these personality tests and these aptitude tests
Speaker 1: in the sixties and seventies to find good engineers, and
Speaker 1: they decided that good engineers quote don't like people. Well, um,
Speaker 1: there's no evidence to support this idea that people who
Speaker 1: don't like people are better at this job than people
Speaker 1: people do. People who don't like people have a little
Speaker 1: bit of a tradition, Emily of Katie singing in every episode.
Speaker 1: You know, so I don't really want to get into
Speaker 1: we can have like a sing off Emily. Anyway, this
Speaker 1: is a stereotic. This is a stereotype that shuts out
Speaker 1: more than half the population. And you know, there's a
Speaker 1: great argument to be made that we need people who
Speaker 1: do like people and care about people who understand the
Speaker 1: users whose problems they are trying to solve to be
Speaker 1: doing this job. And so, in my i view, the
Speaker 1: tech industry created the pipeline problem, but also is reinforcing
Speaker 1: that problem today by you know, it's not just about hiring,
Speaker 1: it's about retention, it's about progression. It's about making sure
Speaker 1: the women that are already working in this industry want
Speaker 1: to stay, because women do leave tech at twice the
Speaker 1: rate as men. And it's not because what we would
Speaker 1: think maybe issues with work life balance. It's actually because
Speaker 1: of toxic cultures. And why is the culture so toxic?
Speaker 1: I mean, you hit on some of it in the book.
Speaker 1: Some of these crazy parties that people have. Is it
Speaker 1: because it feels so uncharted in a way innovative, and
Speaker 1: so they feel they have to be risk takers, not
Speaker 1: only in business but in every aspect of their lives.
Speaker 1: So there's this idea that Silicon Valley and everyone there
Speaker 1: is changing the world and making the world a better place,
Speaker 1: and so much wealth and power has been amassed in
Speaker 1: such a short span of time that it has unfortunately
Speaker 1: led to a sense of entitlement and quite frankly arrogance
Speaker 1: and this sort of unwillingness to admit that they're part
Speaker 1: of the problem. Um and I think that that has
Speaker 1: honestly gone on too long. And you do have a
Speaker 1: lot of people who are very young. We've made a
Speaker 1: lot of money very fast, and it comes without the
Speaker 1: same sort of socialization that would happen over a longer career,
Speaker 1: and not a lot of emotional intelligence. If they're hiring
Speaker 1: people based on sort of the fact that their nerds,
Speaker 1: they don't like people, they're super analytical, it would only
Speaker 1: make sense that those people are not necessarily really great
Speaker 1: at interpersonal skills or emotional intelligence, reading a room, understanding
Speaker 1: how their behavior affects others. Right, And if you were
Speaker 1: stuffed in your locker as a kid, it can be
Speaker 1: hard to admit that you're discriminating against someone today. And
Speaker 1: it's not just about having one kind of intelligence or
Speaker 1: having people who don't like people who want to be
Speaker 1: alone coding in a room. You need all kinds of people. Well,
Speaker 1: you do need that emotional intelligence because billions and billions
Speaker 1: of people are using these products. And by the way,
Speaker 1: half of them are women. And so you know, this
Speaker 1: isn't just Silicon Valley's problem. This isn't just a problem
Speaker 1: for people who want to work in tech. This is
Speaker 1: everybody's problem. This is my problem, your problem, this is
Speaker 1: our children's problem. I mean, these are products that are
Speaker 1: changing our lives every day. This is an industry that
Speaker 1: is inventing the future. In fact, let's talk about artificial intelligence.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the things that Kara Swisher said,
Speaker 1: and she was featured in my hour on this is
Speaker 1: that the people who are programming the content for the
Speaker 1: future and what's going to be on our screens, Like
Speaker 1: nine of the people in artificial intelligence are men. Can
Speaker 1: you explain in Layman's terms how that influences how that
Speaker 1: gender bias plays into content creation online and really in
Speaker 1: product creation as well. So AI and machine learning, these
Speaker 1: things aren't biased. Algorithms are the products of the people
Speaker 1: who created them and the people who use them and
Speaker 1: the people who use that. Right, because isn't often it
Speaker 1: it's called from a set of information that is pulled
Speaker 1: from how frequently people use information. Does that make in
Speaker 1: a way it's crowdsourced, right, But if it's better for
Speaker 1: certain people, then it is for others. That's also crowdsourced.
Speaker 1: And so I think about face i D facial recognition technology,
Speaker 1: which is the way that you get into your iPhone. Well,
Speaker 1: facial recognition technology is already sexist and racist and doesn't
Speaker 1: recognize women and people of color as easily as it
Speaker 1: does white men, in part because you have mostly men
Speaker 1: who are designing these who are not aware of their biases.
Speaker 1: That's part of the problems. So they're not actually it's not,
Speaker 1: they're not. They're not compensating for the implicit bias that
Speaker 1: they might have in creating this equipment. For example, Siri
Speaker 1: doesn't recognize women's voices as much as men, and that's
Speaker 1: not accidental. It's a perfect example. Maybe it is talking
Speaker 1: about Well, that's the thing is. I don't think it
Speaker 1: is malicious, but at a certain point, ignorance can only
Speaker 1: be willful. And we know that diverse teams create better products.
Speaker 1: We know that, you know, having a women on your
Speaker 1: team when you're building voice assistance and facial recognition technology
Speaker 1: makes a lot of good sense. So at a certain point,
Speaker 1: if you're not doing that, if you're not building teams
Speaker 1: that have people from a variety of backgrounds, then maybe
Speaker 1: it does become intentional and you can't say this is
Speaker 1: not my problem. I didn't create this problem. You have
Speaker 1: a responsibility if you're creating these products that are used
Speaker 1: by billions and billions of people, to make sure that
Speaker 1: they can actually serve billions and billions of people. You know,
Speaker 1: Amazon is you know equally as male dominated as Apple,
Speaker 1: and women drive sevent of consumer purchases. Don't they want
Speaker 1: to reflect their customer base? Um, you know this is
Speaker 1: about not just equality, and I think equality is important.
Speaker 1: It's about com it's about commerce, it's the smart thing
Speaker 1: to do and not just the right thing to do.
Speaker 1: And by the way, they're not reflecting that customer base
Speaker 1: at all. Today. Here's some of the stats from Katie's
Speaker 1: show to really back that up. Of board seats at
Speaker 1: the Unicorn companies, the companies valued at more than a
Speaker 1: billion dollars are men. Sixty percent of Unicorns have no
Speaker 1: women board members at all, and of course goes without
Speaker 1: saying most of the executive leadership positions are held by men.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't necessarily know this because the media focuses on,
Speaker 1: you know, two or three very prominent women in the valley,
Speaker 1: but the vast majority are men and white men. And
Speaker 1: Katie had struck me when Karas Swisher said to you
Speaker 1: in Your Hour, the tech companies think they're meritocracies, but
Speaker 1: they're more like mirror autocracies. They reflect the people who
Speaker 1: are making hires are the people who have already been
Speaker 1: successful in the valley, and so Emily, how do you
Speaker 1: think that can change? Well, first of all, I think
Speaker 1: we need to acknowledge that a true meritocracy is impossible
Speaker 1: to achieve. And I love Kara's term mirror autocracy because
Speaker 1: it's so perfectly encapsulates this idea that we are people
Speaker 1: who look like us. Um. You know, the reality is
Speaker 1: that we all come to the plate with different kinds
Speaker 1: of privileges and access, and the escalator of life is
Speaker 1: moving far faster for some than it is for others.
Speaker 1: And in fact, when you believe that you are operating
Speaker 1: in a meritocracy, you can actually be more anti meritocratic.
Speaker 1: And s already use that kind of jargon, but that's
Speaker 1: sort of the best way to put it. Well, actually,
Speaker 1: there's a study that shows people who believe they work
Speaker 1: in a meritocracy or the least meritocratic of all because
Speaker 1: they're not. They don't acknowledge their biases. And everybody, what
Speaker 1: is the avenue queue. Everyone's a little bit racist. I mean,
Speaker 1: everybody has these biases and if you're not cognizant of them,
Speaker 1: then you can't compensate for them. And by the way,
Speaker 1: a fun fact about meritocracy, um it actually originated in
Speaker 1: the Han dynasty, but the actual word meritocracy was coined
Speaker 1: by a British sociologist named Michael Young in the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties to warn about a future in which people use
Speaker 1: their success to justify their success essentially, and so um,
Speaker 1: the success in the education of the winners comes becomes
Speaker 1: the sort of reason to dismiss the forces that are
Speaker 1: working against everyone else. And fifty years later he actually
Speaker 1: wrote an op ed in The Guardian and said, I've
Speaker 1: been very disturbed by this use of the word meritocracy.
Speaker 1: Um that I meant as a warning, when in fact
Speaker 1: it's been It's been used to propagate the very problems
Speaker 1: that I was so very worried about. So how do
Speaker 1: you improve the numbers? Is it a leadership issue? Is
Speaker 1: that the problem? I mean, I can't believe that sixty
Speaker 1: eight percent of unicorns have zero women on their boards.
Speaker 1: That is outrageous, including air B and B and we
Speaker 1: work it is it is outrageous. We should be protesting
Speaker 1: in the streets about this, to be honest, or not
Speaker 1: using their products. Um. Look, you know, I do think
Speaker 1: leadership is incredibly important. And I like to point to
Speaker 1: the example of Slack, where you've got a white male
Speaker 1: CEO who's had sort of every door opened for him
Speaker 1: that you could possibly imagine, and he recognizes that. You know,
Speaker 1: he doesn't use words like meritocracy, but he has made
Speaker 1: hiring and promoting women and underrepresented minorities a top priority.
Speaker 1: And it's not just you know, something he said at
Speaker 1: the beginning, it's something he talks about all the time,
Speaker 1: lip service. It's not like we have a diversity task
Speaker 1: force and everybody knows this is something he cares about.
Speaker 1: So they have diversified their recruiting teams, they're sourcing from
Speaker 1: underrepresented schools, they're going to new regions. They've you know,
Speaker 1: standardized their interview questions, they standardized their feedback and review systems.
Speaker 1: And by the way, they're beating the pipeline. So they
Speaker 1: just came out with new numbers. Forty four percent of
Speaker 1: workers at Slack are women and they started with a
Speaker 1: company of like fifty men, and so they were starting
Speaker 1: at at a disadvantage. Um forty eight percent of managers
Speaker 1: are women, thirty some percent. Uh, women count for thirty
Speaker 1: percent of technical worlds, and so you know, they have
Speaker 1: proven that you can do this if you commit to it.
Speaker 1: And I think it's really that commitment that is so important.
Speaker 1: And so many of these companies, you know, and it's
Speaker 1: you know, not only they're not only mostly many of
Speaker 1: them young founders, but it's just it's not a priority,
Speaker 1: it's about growth. It's about raising that next round, it's
Speaker 1: about getting that next product launch. It's rushing to fill
Speaker 1: the seats that are empty. And you know, one of
Speaker 1: the things that I like to preach is having a
Speaker 1: little patients and taking a little bit more time to
Speaker 1: find someone who believes in your mission but doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: look like you, because it's about diversity of thought and
Speaker 1: diversity of experience, and we all bring different experiences to
Speaker 1: the table, and sometimes that is a result of what
Speaker 1: we look like and how we have um lived in
Speaker 1: this world. And if you don't have a diverse team
Speaker 1: from the beginning, it gets so much harder as you
Speaker 1: get bigger. But you will have blind spots, you will
Speaker 1: make mistakes, you will miss things. And if you take
Speaker 1: the time to be more thoughtful about how you're building
Speaker 1: the team in the beginning, you will be able to
Speaker 1: move so much faster a few years from then when
Speaker 1: you have that diverse team in place, it's time to
Speaker 1: take a quick break. We're going to be right back
Speaker 1: with Emily Chang, and now back to our conversation with
Speaker 1: journalist Emily Chang, author of pro Topia. So, Emily, you've
Speaker 1: got a lot of attention when the first excerpt for
Speaker 1: bro Topia was released in Vanity Fair. You wrote about
Speaker 1: wild monthly sex parties attended by the tech elite. The
Speaker 1: subhead of the piece was the guys got laid, but
Speaker 1: the women get screwed, which I thought was clever and
Speaker 1: also a bit depressing. And can you explain these parties?
Speaker 1: How important are they and what the effect is for
Speaker 1: women in tech? So, for of all, one of the
Speaker 1: interesting things about Silicon Valley that may set it apart
Speaker 1: from some other industries is that work bleeds into life.
Speaker 1: In fact, life is work and that's just the way
Speaker 1: things go. Um. And so you know, if you're working
Speaker 1: at one of these companies, you're going out for drinks
Speaker 1: after work, maybe for drinks in the middle of the day. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's this implicit pressure to be one
Speaker 1: of the cool kids. And you know, there is a
Speaker 1: subset of people in Silicon Valley who believes they're not
Speaker 1: just changing the world when it comes to the products
Speaker 1: that they're building. They're challenging social morais and challenging traditional morality,
Speaker 1: challenging monogamy and that's all great. The Bay Area has
Speaker 1: been um, you know, this this this hotbed of sexual
Speaker 1: exploration and liberation for so so long. But if you
Speaker 1: look at actually how some of this socializing happens, and
Speaker 1: you know, I am quite descriptive about some of these
Speaker 1: parties where you have powerful men inviting women two to
Speaker 1: one so that the odds are in their favor. It's
Speaker 1: not challenging traditional morals at all. In fact, it's a
Speaker 1: tale as old as time. You know, these women who
Speaker 1: participate are discredited and disrespected, when for the men it's
Speaker 1: like a networking opportunity, even though they're not trying to
Speaker 1: do business. Business gets done. And so women sort of
Speaker 1: feel like they're damned if they do and damned if
Speaker 1: they don't. And for some people, this lifestyle was ever
Speaker 1: present and they felt like they could not escape it.
Speaker 1: And especially um some women entrepreneurs that I spoke with,
Speaker 1: you know, they had to leave Slicon Valley moved to
Speaker 1: New York to get away from Not to all, not
Speaker 1: to be too purient, but tell us about these parties
Speaker 1: and and who are these women? Would they hire prostitutes?
Speaker 1: Would they bring in women from the office? I mean,
Speaker 1: set the scene for us if you could. It sounds
Speaker 1: like Plato's retreat or something. It's a range of of women.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes they are women who work in the
Speaker 1: industry and entrepreneurs, and sometimes they'll bring in UM women
Speaker 1: for from l A or or women who they've met
Speaker 1: via adjacent industries UM in San Francisco, UM. And the
Speaker 1: idea is that these are women who can hang and
Speaker 1: want to party UM, and you know, some of them
Speaker 1: are also just exploring their sexuality. UM. The problem is
Speaker 1: that you know, they're not sort of afforded the same
Speaker 1: freedom to explore that sexuality as the men are. And
Speaker 1: for men it's cool, and for women, you know, it
Speaker 1: sort of doesn't get them anywhere. In fact, they end
Speaker 1: up moving backwards. And so I spoke to one woman,
Speaker 1: for example, who was part of a co founding team
Speaker 1: with with another woman, and and one of the women
Speaker 1: got very involved in these parties and the other just
Speaker 1: didn't want a part of it, but wanted to try
Speaker 1: to get access to some of the men who were
Speaker 1: part of the scene, and they essentially got shut out.
Speaker 1: Whereas all of these men we're obviously doing business together,
Speaker 1: any names that we would recognize that part took in
Speaker 1: these kind of activities. So, you know, the chapter is
Speaker 1: very largely anonymous sources for obvious reasons. You know, I
Speaker 1: do talk about one party that was hosted at the
Speaker 1: home of Steve Jervidson, who's a very prominent venture capitalist,
Speaker 1: and it was actually the official after party of the
Speaker 1: d f J Big Think Conference, so the official after
Speaker 1: party for his VC firm. Um, and I never said
Speaker 1: this was a sex party. But later in the evening
Speaker 1: there was some behavior that made people uncomfortable. Um. There
Speaker 1: was cuddle puddling, and there were drugs, and there was um,
Speaker 1: well it's sort of like do you know, Brian lying
Speaker 1: together in a pretty boring life. It's sort of you know,
Speaker 1: lying together, uh, in a group on the floor, on
Speaker 1: the couch or overlapping from the couch onto the floor.
Speaker 1: And um, there's some heavy petting involved, and it can
Speaker 1: be a very as I understand it, you know, an
Speaker 1: emotional and connective experience. Um, but it's not necessarily something
Speaker 1: you want to do at a company party. And the
Speaker 1: point is this was aut of a company party, and DFJ,
Speaker 1: the venture capital firm, apologized right away and said we
Speaker 1: are so sorry if anyone was made to feel uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: This is not behavior that we support. But the fact
Speaker 1: is I met they didn't support getting caught, but it
Speaker 1: was clearly behavior they supported because they were doing it.
Speaker 1: You know, Um, when people apologize, I do like to
Speaker 1: think that there is some meaning there and and and
Speaker 1: you know, maybe they didn't expect the party would take
Speaker 1: that term. Maybe some people at the firm didn't expect
Speaker 1: the party to take that that turn, but it did.
Speaker 1: And you know, this venture capitalist and question no longer
Speaker 1: works at the firm. So um on there. You know,
Speaker 1: I have been told that there has been a bit
Speaker 1: of a pause in some circles, that people are asking
Speaker 1: about this in board rooms. Is this happening at our company?
Speaker 1: Do you know? Um? Do we need to discuss this?
Speaker 1: And so? Um what my hope is that is that
Speaker 1: if this behavior is could you need to happen, that
Speaker 1: it happens more thoughtfully, um, and that work boundaries and
Speaker 1: professional boundaries aren't getting crossed. Let's talk about this lunch
Speaker 1: spot sometimes called Conference Room G. Can you describe that place?
Speaker 1: Conference Room G is a nickname that was given by
Speaker 1: Yelp employees to the local strip club, which is actually
Speaker 1: called the Gold Club in Soma, the tech heavy part
Speaker 1: of San Francisco where a lot of the startups are
Speaker 1: right next to the Moscony Center where you've got all
Speaker 1: the big tech conferences. And I went in with one
Speaker 1: of my female colleagues am on a Friday, and there
Speaker 1: was a line out the door for lunch in the
Speaker 1: middle of the day. And you walk in and you
Speaker 1: knows your typical strip club, except you know, the clientele
Speaker 1: are you know, the vast majority of these people are
Speaker 1: clearly tech workers. And you know, they've got their oodies
Speaker 1: or their T shirts. And there's an all you canet buffet.
Speaker 1: It's actually the cheapest lunch in San Francisco. Mean, it's
Speaker 1: five dollars for so much food. UM. So I'm sure
Speaker 1: that is some part of the attraction. I'm sure they
Speaker 1: could go to a Bob's Big Boy if they wanted,
Speaker 1: and all you could eat the fat. But you know,
Speaker 1: really it's the you know, it's it's the topless entertainment
Speaker 1: and um, and women go there and men go there.
Speaker 1: I saw very few women. I saw very few women. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, right away, we you know, we started talking
Speaker 1: to one of the women who worked there, and you know,
Speaker 1: I confessed right away, like I'm a reporter, um, doing
Speaker 1: some research. Can you tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: this place, and she was really helpful, Um, and she
Speaker 1: talked a lot about how she sees, you know, groups
Speaker 1: of men coming in with their bosses. They're talking about
Speaker 1: deals or you know, some exact walks in the door
Speaker 1: and everybody's flocking around him. Maybe they go up to
Speaker 1: a private room together, and this is set lunch, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: But again this brings me back to my question about
Speaker 1: sort of the tone the leadership at the top sets.
Speaker 1: And I think that without being too pure botanical and
Speaker 1: like no fun at all, is it because they're super young,
Speaker 1: these guys who are running these places. It just so young.
Speaker 1: But and so I do think part of the problem
Speaker 1: is that the behavior has been normalized and it becomes acceptable.
Speaker 1: You know, I had women at uper who told me
Speaker 1: they were invited to go to the Gold Club in
Speaker 1: the middle of the day by their male bosses and
Speaker 1: it was no big if they didn't come back until
Speaker 1: three three am, as long as they got their work done.
Speaker 1: And so you know, they're putting this. First of all,
Speaker 1: people are going to strip clubs in the middle of
Speaker 1: the day, which I still don't get. But you know,
Speaker 1: for women especially, you're put in this super awkward position
Speaker 1: where you know, are you the woman who goes along
Speaker 1: and sort of um, you know, put yourself in this
Speaker 1: really uncomfortable territory or do you not go and then
Speaker 1: you miss out on work talk and maybe someone gets
Speaker 1: an assignment or they decide this new feature to work on. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's this impossible catch twenty two, you know, similar
Speaker 1: to the parties that we were talking about earlier. And
Speaker 1: this is an organization if you look at Uber in particular,
Speaker 1: just one example where you saw the CEO going to
Speaker 1: an escort bar in South Korea. And so if this
Speaker 1: kind of thing is happening at all the way to
Speaker 1: the very top, just think about the fires that this
Speaker 1: hr organization is trying to put out, and the things
Speaker 1: like Susan Fowler's experience of being hit on over the
Speaker 1: chat by her male manager becomes, you know, far less
Speaker 1: of an emergency than the fact that your CEO is
Speaker 1: at an escort bar in South Korea with his colleagues.
Speaker 1: The number of women getting computer science degrees has steadily
Speaker 1: declined since the mid eighties. And I'm wondering about the
Speaker 1: pipeline problem because yes, you do need different skills, but
Speaker 1: you also do need some people who have those basic
Speaker 1: engineering skills to work at some of these technology companies.
Speaker 1: So is there you know, I talked to some women
Speaker 1: from Silicon Valley in my the hour that I did
Speaker 1: for Nacio, and they said, there are many men who
Speaker 1: don't have computer science degrees who get hired. So is
Speaker 1: there a double standard when it comes to the quote
Speaker 1: unquote you know CS degree? There absolutely is a double standard.
Speaker 1: And one example is if you look at the Forbes
Speaker 1: Midas list of the top venture capitalists, UM, the vast
Speaker 1: majority of women have STEM backgrounds and a significant percentage
Speaker 1: of men do not, which shows that the standards are
Speaker 1: different for men and women. UM. And you'll see a
Speaker 1: lot more men on that list like Peter Thiel and
Speaker 1: Peter Fenton who have philosophy backgrounds, or Mike Morritts of Sequoia,
Speaker 1: who was a journalist. And yet Mike morrets is the
Speaker 1: very person who told me, and this is when Sequoia
Speaker 1: had no women in their US investing business, that not
Speaker 1: enough women were studying STEM and that they were not
Speaker 1: prepared to lower their standards. And so, yes, the standards
Speaker 1: are different. That said, there is a pipeline problem. And
Speaker 1: you know, as I mentioned earlier, My argument is the
Speaker 1: tech industry created the pipeline problem. But there is a
Speaker 1: lot of hard work and had done and how the
Speaker 1: tech industry, because it's such a toxic culture, people don't
Speaker 1: gravitate towards that. So, going back to the forties and fifties,
Speaker 1: women actually were there. They were programming computers. Men were
Speaker 1: predominantly the hardware makers, but women were actually well represented
Speaker 1: among software programmers right, which we saw hidden figures hidden
Speaker 1: figures is real. This was industry wide. They were programming
Speaker 1: computer for the military, programming computers for NASA, and then
Speaker 1: as the industry was starting to explode in the sixties
Speaker 1: and seventies, the tech industry was so desperate for new
Speaker 1: talent that they were doing these personality tests and aptitude
Speaker 1: tests to find good programmers. Hence the tests where they
Speaker 1: decided that good programmers don't like people. Well, the research
Speaker 1: tells us that people who quote unquote don't like people.
Speaker 1: If you're looking for those kinds of people, you'll hire
Speaker 1: far more men than women. And again, there's no research
Speaker 1: to support the idea that men are better at this
Speaker 1: job than women, but it's a stereotype that's been held
Speaker 1: for decades. I mean, we're talking about companies as big
Speaker 1: as IBM that using these tests, and fast forward fifty years,
Speaker 1: you've got people like James Demore, that Google engineer who's
Speaker 1: repeating the very same toxic assumptions. He is the guy
Speaker 1: who wrote a memo who said that men are biologically
Speaker 1: more suited to this. I interviewed him. I interviewed him,
Speaker 1: and then I interviewed a neuroscientists who analyze his research
Speaker 1: from Bernard to refute his claims. But he said, not
Speaker 1: that women have less capacity to perform these jobs, but
Speaker 1: they're less interested in these jobs because of prenatal testosterone,
Speaker 1: which was totally refuted and is considered really junk science, right.
Speaker 1: I interviewed James to Moore as well, and he says
Speaker 1: his paper has all these citations, but even the people
Speaker 1: he's citing disagree with how he uses the data. And
Speaker 1: you know what is unfortunate is I think he's repeating
Speaker 1: an assumption that many people have and is more widely
Speaker 1: held than we would like to believe. And that's the
Speaker 1: kind of stereotype that we need to break down if
Speaker 1: we're going to fix the type blind problem. And the
Speaker 1: tech industry has a responsibility there well, if he blames
Speaker 1: it on prenatal testosterone, then there's no onus on the
Speaker 1: industry to change things because it can't be fixed ostensibly.
Speaker 1: And that's but and so it's a cop out in
Speaker 1: terms of taking any proactive measures as well. And in fact,
Speaker 1: there's new research. There was just a great Harvard Business
Speaker 1: Review article about this that shows that men and women
Speaker 1: are far more alike than they're just as ambitious. Justice
Speaker 1: driven Emily that said, do you think the more should
Speaker 1: have been fired? Yes? And I think Google also could
Speaker 1: have done some things better in that situation as well.
Speaker 1: First of all, that memo was out and about hanging
Speaker 1: around and you know Google, Google Or's email boxes for
Speaker 1: like a month before anyone said anything, and it was
Speaker 1: not until it leaked to the press that it became
Speaker 1: a company emergency. But you know, companies do have a
Speaker 1: right to decide what values they have, and you cannot
Speaker 1: write a memo like that that makes fifty of people,
Speaker 1: well actually thirty some percent because it's Google and women
Speaker 1: are underrepresented. But that makes all of your female colleagues
Speaker 1: feel like they don't belong or don't deserve to be there,
Speaker 1: or are constantly questioning when they speak up in a room.
Speaker 1: You know how they're being constantly being questioned? Right, you
Speaker 1: cannot you know, freedom of speech is one thing, but
Speaker 1: it can't come at the expense of the freedom of
Speaker 1: speech of others. And so to play Devil's advocate for
Speaker 1: a second. Um, does everybody working at Google, the thousands
Speaker 1: of people working at Google, do they all have to
Speaker 1: share Google's ideology and views on every issue? Um? I
Speaker 1: understand if somebody is, you know, outright racist. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe you would argue that Demoor is outright sexist.
Speaker 1: But where do you draw the line between unpopular views
Speaker 1: and views so awful that we have to get rid
Speaker 1: of this person. I do think we need to create
Speaker 1: safe spaces for people to talk about this and if
Speaker 1: we want people to listen, if I want people to
Speaker 1: listen to me, I have to be willing to listen
Speaker 1: to them. Um. But I don't think at necessarily sharing
Speaker 1: those kinds of views in a company wide memo is
Speaker 1: the best approach, Emily. In your book, you tell one
Speaker 1: other instructive story about Google that in its early years, Uh,
Speaker 1: Sergey and Larry, the founders, hired lots of women for
Speaker 1: leadership positions. Marissa Meyer, Cheryl Sandberg, Susan Wichitski. But now
Speaker 1: women make up only about of the key tech positions there.
Speaker 1: So what happened, well, they lost focus. But the really
Speaker 1: important lesson that I wanted to tell, or that I
Speaker 1: wanted to share, is that they in the early days
Speaker 1: put this emphasis on hiring women and got these incredible
Speaker 1: women who you know. Susan conceived the ad business, Cheryl
Speaker 1: scaled the ad business, Marissa Meyer designed the minimalist you
Speaker 1: know user interface that we all use when we interact
Speaker 1: with Google to this day. And they were critical to
Speaker 1: making Google a success. We sort of think Google was
Speaker 1: destined to succeed because it was the first to future,
Speaker 1: but in fact, there were like a dozen or more
Speaker 1: other search engines at the time line that we're competing
Speaker 1: to be that one, and Google broke away from the
Speaker 1: pack in part because of the diversity that they had
Speaker 1: at the table. But that's not the story that is told,
Speaker 1: And so what is unfortunate about it is that Larry
Speaker 1: and Sergey didn't continue to make it a priority year
Speaker 1: after a year after a year and communicate that same
Speaker 1: commitment that they felt to other managers in the organization.
Speaker 1: And as Google was exploding in size. After the I
Speaker 1: p O. It became much more about filling the seats
Speaker 1: as fast as possible. It also became very elitist. Um.
Speaker 1: And then you know, after the financial crisis, which actually
Speaker 1: Google did feel the brunt of like everybody else, because
Speaker 1: their customers are advertisers, they sort of picked their heads
Speaker 1: back up and said, oh my gosh, where are all
Speaker 1: the women? Like what happened? And so it's another example
Speaker 1: of good intentions just not being enough. Did you talk
Speaker 1: to people like Marissa Meyer, Cheryl Samberg and Susan Wojitsky
Speaker 1: of YouTube and what did they have to say? I
Speaker 1: talked to all of them, and it's really interesting because
Speaker 1: they all have completely different views about these subjects. But
Speaker 1: I think that is so great because not all women
Speaker 1: are the same. In fact, we need more female role
Speaker 1: models so we can see that women can and do
Speaker 1: lead differently and give you know, our young women more
Speaker 1: more examples. UM. You know, they all think it's a problem. Um.
Speaker 1: They all think it's a systemic issue. And UM, it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to just do with with women leading in Um.
Speaker 1: One of the really interesting things about Marissa and I
Speaker 1: know that you know you've worked with Merissa closely is
Speaker 1: she doesn't like to talk about this. She doesn't like
Speaker 1: to be the woman's CEO. She wants to be the CEO,
Speaker 1: and I completely understand that. But I do think that
Speaker 1: I got her to open up about this particular topic,
Speaker 1: um more than I've seen her her do in the past.
Speaker 1: And one of the lessons that I really want people
Speaker 1: to take away from the Cheryl and Marissa stories that
Speaker 1: these are women who are incredibly successful yet faced outsized
Speaker 1: criticis si ism for things that, in my view, we're
Speaker 1: only because they were women, and we're not fair game.
Speaker 1: You know, people debating the length of Marissa myers maternity leave,
Speaker 1: or that she had a nursery in her office, or
Speaker 1: that she ended work from home. I mean, if she
Speaker 1: were a man who was about to have a child,
Speaker 1: no one would have even known. If she were a
Speaker 1: man who ended the work from home policy, no one
Speaker 1: would have blinked any And so you know, there was
Speaker 1: this one headline our Cheryl Sandberg and Marissa Meyer setting
Speaker 1: back the cause of working moms, and I was like, what,
Speaker 1: you know, this is just it's it is just so unfair.
Speaker 1: We should be critical of them. They are business leaders,
Speaker 1: they are running, you know, businesses worth you know, millions
Speaker 1: or billions and billions of dollars. But let's be fair
Speaker 1: about how we critique our leaders and the stories we
Speaker 1: tell about them. You know, I look at someone like
Speaker 1: Susan Wijitski, who built Google's ad business. Uh, she led
Speaker 1: the acquisitions of double click and YouTube. She has five children,
Speaker 1: and yet so many people don't even know her name,
Speaker 1: and she is a visionary and a genius, just like
Speaker 1: you know. We use these words to describe men over
Speaker 1: and over again. We don't use them to describe women.
Speaker 1: But she just doesn't fit that sort of picture perfect
Speaker 1: idea of the young male entrepreneur in a hoodie. And
Speaker 1: that's a tragedy. We need to change the way we're
Speaker 1: telling the stories about these women, because they are equally
Speaker 1: important to building our future. I understand the complaint of
Speaker 1: women getting a separate kind of scrutiny, certainly, I've experienced
Speaker 1: that in my professional life as well. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: if it is such a huge problem and there's such
Speaker 1: an epidemic of this broke culture, you can understand how
Speaker 1: people would look to the female leaders for setting a
Speaker 1: tone that would open the doors of opportunity to other women.
Speaker 1: So it is kind of a double edged sword, don't
Speaker 1: you think. Well, I mean, I understand Marissa and and
Speaker 1: you know, she's like, look, I plan to take a
Speaker 1: six months maternity leave at Google. It would have been glorious.
Speaker 1: But when I got to Yahoo, like, I couldn't. I
Speaker 1: couldn't take that much time. I don't even mean about
Speaker 1: her personal thing, and and and some of it, of course,
Speaker 1: is all about how it's communicated. But changing the work
Speaker 1: from home policy, which I apparently you know, I read
Speaker 1: a lot about that a lot of people weren't being
Speaker 1: productive at home. It wasn't really an effective thing. But
Speaker 1: I think that some of it is on in the
Speaker 1: telling of a policy change. And I think you have
Speaker 1: to be out front on some of these issues because
Speaker 1: you're under greater scrutiny and you're expected to set a
Speaker 1: more positive tone for other working women, right, And maybe
Speaker 1: they didn't communicate that well to be honest, Um, and
Speaker 1: I'm not saying certainly, you know, Yahoo wasn't perfect, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, some people don't think the result was so great,
Speaker 1: and some people don't think she did did a good job.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's necessarily because they ended the work
Speaker 1: from home right when she took a short maternity leave.
Speaker 1: But those are the things that people remember about her tenure.
Speaker 1: And you know, she's starting a new uh incubator UM
Speaker 1: and there was just a story about it in the
Speaker 1: New York Times, and people are calling her a loser,
Speaker 1: and I just I just think it's so unfair. I
Speaker 1: just think it's the kind of outsized, overly negative criticism
Speaker 1: that just I don't know. I don't know if she
Speaker 1: was a man, I don't even maybe people wouldn't pay attention,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's another another problem. But you know, people
Speaker 1: want to know what she's what she's doing. But let's
Speaker 1: give her a chance. Emily. This may take us a
Speaker 1: little further afield from what we're discussing, but I can't
Speaker 1: have this conversation with you without asking about the relationship
Speaker 1: between Silicon Valley and Donald Trump. UM. We talked to
Speaker 1: Tristan Harris, who said definitively that Trump and his view
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been elected without Facebook. How is Silicon Valley,
Speaker 1: both the women and the men, how are they reacting
Speaker 1: to the election of Donald Trump, the presidency of Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: and their role in all of that. Well, obviously Trump's
Speaker 1: election surprised a lot of people, include the President himself, UM,
Speaker 1: and many people in Silicon Valley, and I think most
Speaker 1: of Silicon Valley was not happy to see Trump elected, which, um,
Speaker 1: you know is unfortunate because Silicon Valley and the White
Speaker 1: House had made a lot of progress. And we need
Speaker 1: the government and the tech industry to be talking to
Speaker 1: each other because the tech industry really is inventing the
Speaker 1: future and hugely influential. And as we've seen with Facebook,
Speaker 1: things can go wrong, and so I hope that there
Speaker 1: is some sort of dialogue. I mean, I know that
Speaker 1: there have been some meetings and some attempts to communicate,
Speaker 1: but in general, and this is not just about President Trump,
Speaker 1: but I do think our lawmakers need to better understand
Speaker 1: what these companies are doing. You know, if we saw,
Speaker 1: if any of one saw Mark Zuckerberg's testimony on Capitol Hill,
Speaker 1: and I was in that room, you know, some of
Speaker 1: the questions from the senators were really disappointing. They just
Speaker 1: don't know how Facebook works, UM, and we need our
Speaker 1: government to understand or these things aren't going to get fixed.
Speaker 1: And you know, we talk a lot about regulation, but
Speaker 1: I think the tech industry has proven that it can't
Speaker 1: necessarily regulate itself. But we need the right regulation. We
Speaker 1: don't want another election to be swayed. We don't want
Speaker 1: our information stolen by you know, foreign governments. We all
Speaker 1: want our privacy, you know. I think that Facebook has
Speaker 1: responded as they should in a way, it's it's too little,
Speaker 1: too late, But I am glad that there they are
Speaker 1: reacting to it, and I I hope they get it right.
Speaker 1: How do you think that Silicon Valley differs from what's
Speaker 1: going on in Hollywood? Hollywood, of course, has its own problems,
Speaker 1: not only with sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, but also just
Speaker 1: playing opportunity. And of movie directors or men, eight three
Speaker 1: of TV directors or men eight percent of entertainment executives
Speaker 1: are mail. So which is worse, Silicon Valley or Hollywood?
Speaker 1: And by the way, aren't you guys surprised that Wall
Speaker 1: Street has gone gotten away relatively scott free in this
Speaker 1: whole conversation totally, I cannot get over that. Um I
Speaker 1: keep asking what's happening on Wall Street? But okay, so
Speaker 1: before we talk about Hollywood, actually, on Wall Street, if
Speaker 1: you look at the top banks, they're about fifty fifty. Um,
Speaker 1: they have a lot of work to do when it
Speaker 1: comes to women in leadership positions, but in a way,
Speaker 1: they did a lot of the hard work in the
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties, and you know, they've gotten to a
Speaker 1: better place, which is certainly an example that Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: and Hollywood can do it too. I mentioned at the
Speaker 1: beginning that I think some of the courage from the
Speaker 1: Me Too movement started with Allan pow And in Silicon Valley,
Speaker 1: And in fact, we saw Susan Fowler and women entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: coming forward in Silicon Valley months before the Harvey Weinstein
Speaker 1: story broke. But Hollywood really like picked up the ball
Speaker 1: and ran with it. And you know, I've been so
Speaker 1: inspired by all of these women in Hollywood telling their stories,
Speaker 1: and I've been a little bit disappointed that I feel
Speaker 1: like the momentum there's been a loss of some of
Speaker 1: that momentum in Silicon Valley. Um. You know, I do
Speaker 1: think the reality is when you can have Reese Witherspoon
Speaker 1: talking about it at the Golden Globes, that has a
Speaker 1: lot of impact and a lot of people see it
Speaker 1: and it raises awareness, and you know, these women in
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley are often working at companies where they've signed
Speaker 1: an n DA. They can't talk about it. They're scared
Speaker 1: for their jobs. And so, you know, I really hope
Speaker 1: that we will see some of the more shaking up
Speaker 1: that's been happening in Hollywood happen in Silicon Valley, even
Speaker 1: without you know, potentially the role models like Reese Witherspoon, Um.
Speaker 1: But I've been, you know, I've been down in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: There's there's some folks there that are really interested in
Speaker 1: the book, and I've I've spoken to um, the people
Speaker 1: involved in the Times Up movement, and I'm really really
Speaker 1: inspired by what they're doing. But obviously the need is there,
Speaker 1: and it's not just in Hollywood. It's it's farmers, it's
Speaker 1: flight attendants, it's you know, all different kinds of women
Speaker 1: and all all different walks of life they need help. Well,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the hath Forward. One woman in the
Speaker 1: hour I did on this subject, Emily talked about the
Speaker 1: Rooney Rule, which was started by Dan Rooney, who owned
Speaker 1: the Pittsburgh Steelers, and they wanted to have more diversity,
Speaker 1: more racial diversity among coaches and management positions. So the
Speaker 1: Rooney Rule requires that you interview one minority candidate, and
Speaker 1: I think they increased to seventy minority positions as a
Speaker 1: result of implementing the Rooney rules. So A, do you
Speaker 1: think that's a good idea? And B they also suggested
Speaker 1: many of the people on the show blind resumes, which,
Speaker 1: of course, as have been very successful in integrating national
Speaker 1: symphonies all over the country. So what other measures can
Speaker 1: be taken to fix this? I think the Rooney rule
Speaker 1: is great, And you know, I've heard some companies that
Speaker 1: won't even start an interview process until they have at
Speaker 1: least two qualified female candidates and two candidates of color,
Speaker 1: and they have to be qualified candidates, like Real Canada.
Speaker 1: It's um. It goes back to this idea that if
Speaker 1: we just focus on unconscious biased training or raising awareness
Speaker 1: about our bias, that won't necessarily have a lot of impact.
Speaker 1: You know, it's really hard to tell someone just change
Speaker 1: the way you think about women. I mean, these are
Speaker 1: so deeply rooted. These are biases that, as you said,
Speaker 1: we all have. But if you give people the tools
Speaker 1: to combat their bias, that can have a lot of impacts. So,
Speaker 1: you know, part of the problem is there's not enough research,
Speaker 1: there's not enough people who have tried blind resumes um
Speaker 1: to prove like, oh, this works, but it's certainly worth
Speaker 1: a try. Another woman in the hours suggested for dealing
Speaker 1: with the pay and equity problem is more transparent, Like
Speaker 1: the earliest thing to solve more transparency, but no negotiations.
Speaker 1: Once suggested that you have a job, you get paid
Speaker 1: what you get paid for that job, almost like, I
Speaker 1: guess if you're in the civil service, right, I've heard
Speaker 1: no negotiation. I've heard, well, if you're going to do negotiation,
Speaker 1: make sure that women are negotiating or encouraging them to negotiate,
Speaker 1: and that every one is negotiating. I mean, look, either way,
Speaker 1: you might lose some people, you might gain some people. Um.
Speaker 1: But I also think just being aware of it is important.
Speaker 1: And for these companies, they all see the data even
Speaker 1: though it it these companies that love data, but yet
Speaker 1: they ignore it um when it doesn't work in their favor.
Speaker 1: You know, you see what people get paid, and to me,
Speaker 1: that's the easiest thing to solve, especially when you're making
Speaker 1: a lot of money. You know, pay people fairly, pay
Speaker 1: people what they're worth, and you know, I'm sure you
Speaker 1: know Mark Benny Off, the CEO of Salesforce, who's they
Speaker 1: did a two year comprehensive pay review and it took
Speaker 1: a lot of work, because you know, by that point
Speaker 1: Salesforce was a big organization. But now they can probably
Speaker 1: say we don't have a pay gap, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: that's attracting a lot of potential candidates. I guess. Bottom line, Emily,
Speaker 1: are you optimistic about the future. I am, and I
Speaker 1: don't think I could be doing this whole book tour
Speaker 1: thing if I wasn't. Um. I believe that the people
Speaker 1: who are changing the world and taking us to Mars
Speaker 1: and building self driving cars and have given us rides
Speaker 1: at the push of a button and connected the world,
Speaker 1: they can hire more people, hire more women, pay them fairly,
Speaker 1: fund their ideas. Like this is not too hard of
Speaker 1: a problem from Silicon Valley to solve. A lot of
Speaker 1: it is setting a tone, isn't it. You have to
Speaker 1: make it a priority. It can't be sort of like yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: lip service. Oh yeah, we have this group of people
Speaker 1: and they're responsible. Oh yeah, and they're mostly women and okay, whatever, yeah,
Speaker 1: pat them on the head, go about and do your
Speaker 1: altruistic work. Absolutely, it is about CEO is making this
Speaker 1: a priority. Explicitly, it's about investors making this a priority
Speaker 1: when it comes to funding and then the port Some
Speaker 1: companies are demanding it um Upfront Ventures, which is a
Speaker 1: venture capital firm based in l A, when they give
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur term sheet. On that term sheet, they are
Speaker 1: committing to building a diverse team. And I've talked to
Speaker 1: some of the entrepreneurs who say, look, we're small, but
Speaker 1: it's working. We're six people, two women, to people of color.
Speaker 1: Like this matters. And the earlier you do it, the
Speaker 1: easier it will be, and the better your company will
Speaker 1: be for it, the better we all will be for it.
Speaker 1: If we solve this problem, that will have the biggest
Speaker 1: impact of any So is your next book going to
Speaker 1: be Systopia? I've been thinking a lot about what does
Speaker 1: utopia look like? Where is it working um and across industries,
Speaker 1: and you know, some of the bright spots can be
Speaker 1: hard to find because you know, not a lot of
Speaker 1: people have gotten this right. But I do think we
Speaker 1: have a lot to learn from the people who are
Speaker 1: doing good things. And these are the workplaces of the future,
Speaker 1: and everyone's looking for a competitive edge. We all want
Speaker 1: to build the best businesses and be as productive as possible.
Speaker 1: And that's about building a workforce that can do all
Speaker 1: of those things, and a workforce that we can also
Speaker 1: be proud of. The millennials and Gen zs are demanding it,
Speaker 1: aren't they right. People care about this. Young people care
Speaker 1: about this. Old people care about this. We all care
Speaker 1: about this, So let's do something about it. Emily Shang,
Speaker 1: author of bro Topia, breaking Up the Boys Club of
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley. So great to have you. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: And also you're the host of Bloomberg Technology, which is
Speaker 1: every day on Bloomberg Television at two am two pm.
Speaker 1: I mean not two am, that would really be the
Speaker 1: grave two pm Pacific, five pm Eastern streaming live. We're
Speaker 1: on YouTube. You can get us a lot of different ways. Emily,
Speaker 1: so great to have you here and so nice to
Speaker 1: meet you. Thank you. It's an honor, honestly for me
Speaker 1: as a journalist, you are always one of my role models.
Speaker 1: So um, thank you for having me. Thank you, and
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry to hear that. That does it for
Speaker 1: today's episode. Everyone. Next up on the podcast will be
Speaker 1: diving into the age of Outrage. I'm talking political correctness, microaggressions,
Speaker 1: trigger warning, safe spaces, cultural appropriation. As usual, we really
Speaker 1: want to hear from you. What do you think. Are
Speaker 1: we in the midst of a long overdue course direction
Speaker 1: or have we simply become too sensitive? So you tell us.
Speaker 1: Call and leave us a message as always at nine
Speaker 1: to nine to two four for six three seven, or
Speaker 1: shoot us an email at comments at currect podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: As usual. Our thanks to the team that puts this
Speaker 1: podcast together, Gianna Palmer, Jared O'Connell, Nora Richie over at Stitcher,
Speaker 1: and Alison Bresnick, Bethams and Emily Beana my posse over
Speaker 1: at Katie correct Media. Thanks also today to the invisible
Speaker 1: studios here in West Hollywood who helped with today's recording.
Speaker 1: Mark Phillips wrote Artneme Music, and Katie and I are
Speaker 1: the show's executive producers. For better or for worse, find
Speaker 1: me on social media under Katie Currict. You know by
Speaker 1: now that I'm addicted to Instagram, so follow me there
Speaker 1: and give me your comments and criticisms, but mostly your comments.
Speaker 1: Brian tweets from the handle Goldsmith b. Please subscribe to
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Speaker 1: thanks so much for listening as always, and you'll be
Speaker 1: hearing from us next week.