Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the
Speaker 1: tech are you. So there are a couple of related
Speaker 1: ideas that I wanted to talk about today that are
Speaker 1: important not just in tech, but obviously beyond. And those
Speaker 1: ideas are the concepts behind open source projects, as well
Speaker 1: as the importance of diversity and representation. Beyond that, I
Speaker 1: want to talk about a word I really don't like.
Speaker 1: The word is optics, not the study of light, but
Speaker 1: rather how people perceive something like when you are concerned
Speaker 1: with the optics of a situation. And it's an understandable thing,
Speaker 1: but I feel like it takes prominence in a way
Speaker 1: that is ultimately harmful in a lot of situations. Now,
Speaker 1: the reason I want to talk about all of this
Speaker 1: actually has to do with a really bonker story in
Speaker 1: tech right now. It's about a software developer conference that
Speaker 1: now has been canceled entirely at least for this year,
Speaker 1: due to what appears to be a misguided attempt to
Speaker 1: make the conference lineup seem more diverse. So before we
Speaker 1: get into the whole diversity issue. I want to talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the concept of open source. Christine
Speaker 1: Peterson gets the credit for coming up with the term
Speaker 1: open source on February third, nineteen ninety eight. The idea, however,
Speaker 1: is actually much older than that. In fact, before that
Speaker 1: it was called sort of free software, but that made
Speaker 1: people think of just software that was made so that
Speaker 1: anyone could get the software right, they wouldn't have to
Speaker 1: pay for it. Free software, though, was meant to be
Speaker 1: this concept about people freely being able to access everything
Speaker 1: about the software, not just the program itself, but it's
Speaker 1: source code anyway. The basic idea is that an open
Speaker 1: source project is one that is publicly viewable and modifiable.
Speaker 1: Open source projects don't have to exclusively be about software,
Speaker 1: but that's kind of where the concept grew out of. Also,
Speaker 1: with a true open source project, this isn't the case
Speaker 1: for every single one. There are different variations of these,
Speaker 1: but with one that's truly open source, anyone can distribute it.
Speaker 1: So you take the code and then you can distribute
Speaker 1: the code as a program. You can modify it and
Speaker 1: distribute your variation of that program. There are lots of
Speaker 1: different examples of this. Linux is a great example of
Speaker 1: this anyway. It's a sort of communal approach to software development,
Speaker 1: and the idea is that the community benefits because the
Speaker 1: community gets to participate in the actual process of creating
Speaker 1: the stuff. Now, if you contrast this with the way
Speaker 1: most companies work, then you have a much more closed system.
Speaker 1: That's where you lock development down behind the closed doors
Speaker 1: of your company. Apple is a great example of this
Speaker 1: because the company has famously tried to close off a
Speaker 1: lot of its ecosystems over the years. Not so much today,
Speaker 1: at least not as much as it used to, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it really forged its reputation on this approach. So here,
Speaker 1: you do all the development behind closed doors with your
Speaker 1: own staff, and then you release your finished application for
Speaker 1: purchase or whatever, and the IP of the software remains
Speaker 1: the property of the company. Right the public is not
Speaker 1: allowed to access the source code or modify it in
Speaker 1: any way. The only way the public gets access to
Speaker 1: anything is to purchase a copy of the program. So
Speaker 1: the open source approach has some interesting potential benefits. So
Speaker 1: one is that by opening up development to the general public,
Speaker 1: well that means everyone can contribute to it and you
Speaker 1: get lots of different branches off the same basic project,
Speaker 1: you can have a lot more folks looking over the
Speaker 1: code and looking for vulnerabilities and bugs. So people could
Speaker 1: be looking at it from all different angles, and it
Speaker 1: means that you can very rapidly develop patches for bugs
Speaker 1: and vulnerabilities to address issues before they become a real problem. So,
Speaker 1: in an ideal situation, an open source project will keep
Speaker 1: the features that work and then gradually ditch features that
Speaker 1: don't work, and it can be a very laborious process.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily super fast, but it also tends to
Speaker 1: be less expensive than relegating a project to a single author,
Speaker 1: whether that author is like literally one person or a
Speaker 1: company in charge of creating the software. Another way to
Speaker 1: look at this is to consider how in an open
Speaker 1: source project, the smartest and most talented developers can potentially
Speaker 1: take part, no matter where they are or who they
Speaker 1: work for, or perhaps if you want to be a
Speaker 1: little more egalitarian about all this, you could say developers
Speaker 1: who complement one another with their strengths, like one developer's
Speaker 1: strengths covers another one's weaknesses. With open source projects, you
Speaker 1: have this huge community of developers who do that and
Speaker 1: together they can build a really great product. But in
Speaker 1: a company that's using its own proprietary methods and its
Speaker 1: own closed off system, the company is limited by the
Speaker 1: talent contained within the organization. They might produce great software,
Speaker 1: but there's a cap on resources there. Right, they are
Speaker 1: only going to ever be as great as the strength
Speaker 1: of their team, and their team is limited by the
Speaker 1: people who work within that organization, whereas with open source,
Speaker 1: there is no limit on the team. It's literally anyone
Speaker 1: who wants to participate. That doesn't necessarily mean that open
Speaker 1: source is always going to be better than a closed project.
Speaker 1: That's not the case. It doesn't always mean that the
Speaker 1: software that emerges from an open source project is going
Speaker 1: to be useful. Right, Sometimes it's not, But open source
Speaker 1: projects do enjoy benefits that closed projects simply do not
Speaker 1: have access to. Now, this again relates to the concept
Speaker 1: of diversity. So one way to look at diversity and
Speaker 1: representation within any industry, but we're specifically focusing on tech,
Speaker 1: is to say, I wish to address the inherent disparity
Speaker 1: that's in this organization by fixing the problem of underrepresentation.
Speaker 1: Like in a lot of tech companies, it's no secret
Speaker 1: especially here in the United States, and a lot of
Speaker 1: tech companies here in the US, the vast majority of employees,
Speaker 1: but really of like management and executive levels, tends to
Speaker 1: be white dudes. And it really kind of is an issue, right,
Speaker 1: It's not just kind of an issue, It is an issue.
Speaker 1: And this point perspective on diversity. It underlines the unfairness
Speaker 1: present in a lot of organizations where the demographics of
Speaker 1: the company might be well out of alignment with the
Speaker 1: overall population demographics. And there are countless examples of systemic
Speaker 1: issues that have contributed to this situation. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that companies have consciously pursued this and have tried to
Speaker 1: make these organizations be dominated by white men. That's not
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. There are a lot of elements that
Speaker 1: have contributed to this being sort of a status quo,
Speaker 1: and some of those our big social problems like racism
Speaker 1: or sexism or some other ingrained social barrier that then
Speaker 1: plays out all the way through the process of the
Speaker 1: creation of these companies. And again, it's not a conscious
Speaker 1: choice necessarily, it's something that's the product of a lot
Speaker 1: of other elements. But the result is we have organizations
Speaker 1: that effectively discriminate against people in certain categories. And I
Speaker 1: think a lot of folks would say that having rules
Speaker 1: that are even you know, perhaps un spoken or unwritten,
Speaker 1: that deny someone an opportunity based solely on who they
Speaker 1: are just isn't right. But there's also another way that
Speaker 1: we can look at diversity. It's a very different perspective,
Speaker 1: but it's just as important, which is diversity creates the
Speaker 1: opportunity for organizations to benefit from multiple perspectives. So if
Speaker 1: you staff an entire company with like minded folks and
Speaker 1: they all share similar backgrounds and similar ideologies, you'll probably
Speaker 1: be pretty effective in producing whatever it is you make.
Speaker 1: You'll be good at that, but you're not nearly as
Speaker 1: likely to be super innovative and transformative because you're not
Speaker 1: bringing new ideas to the table. When you do bring
Speaker 1: together different perspectives that have been shaped by very different
Speaker 1: life experiences, that can really inspire creativity. It can also
Speaker 1: head off massive problems. Case in point, We've talked about
Speaker 1: this a lot on the show, but like facial recognition software,
Speaker 1: we have shown over many cases it is disproportionately inaccurate
Speaker 1: for people of color and for women compared to how
Speaker 1: accurate it is for say, white men. And because you
Speaker 1: have agencies like law enforcement agencies depending upon these technologies,
Speaker 1: their dependence on those technologies is causing disproportionate harm in
Speaker 1: these communities of people of color. And that's a real problem.
Speaker 1: And one way to approach this problem is to have
Speaker 1: more diversity in the actual process of developing the technologies
Speaker 1: so that those unintentional biases that get built into these
Speaker 1: systems are addressed before it gets to deployment. But that
Speaker 1: doesn't just magically happen. You need to have these different
Speaker 1: perspectives in order to actually get momentum on these things. Now,
Speaker 1: I really do believe that diversity isn't just important to
Speaker 1: address historic imbalances. I do. I think that is important.
Speaker 1: I think we do need to address historic imbalances in
Speaker 1: the various areas of society and culture that we experience
Speaker 1: on a daily basis. But it also gives organizations the
Speaker 1: chance to make better products and reach new customers. It
Speaker 1: gives the opportunity for new ideas to take hold in
Speaker 1: an organization, and that can fuel all sorts of innovation.
Speaker 1: Often wonder how many amazing ideas have we never had
Speaker 1: the chance to benefit from simply because there were systemic
Speaker 1: barriers that kept the people who had those ideas from
Speaker 1: being able to contribute. Right, Just imagine that. Imagine how
Speaker 1: further along we would be if everyone who had great
Speaker 1: ideas had had a chance to make those ideas into something.
Speaker 1: But because we have these systemic issues in place, they
Speaker 1: were prevented from doing so. I think that is a
Speaker 1: huge tragedy. It's to the detriment of everyone. It's just
Speaker 1: the person who had the idea, but everyone who could
Speaker 1: have benefited from that idea. All right, we're going to
Speaker 1: take a quick break. When we come back, i'll talk
Speaker 1: more about diversity representation and this crazy story about the
Speaker 1: tech conference. But first, let's thank our sponsors. Okay, we
Speaker 1: are now up to that terrible word I hate optics.
Speaker 1: So again I'm talking about how people perceive things. Sometimes
Speaker 1: organizations will pursue diversity and representation projects not to actually
Speaker 1: address unfairness or to encourage new ideas, but rather so
Speaker 1: that they appear to the outside world to be concerned
Speaker 1: about that kind of thing. So, in other words, they'll
Speaker 1: do the base level, not even the base level of
Speaker 1: effort for face value, just to get the benefit of
Speaker 1: the public seeing the organization as being fair and evolved
Speaker 1: while not actually doing much to support these concepts internally.
Speaker 1: So here's an example. A company might designate someone to
Speaker 1: be head diversity officer, but then that person might have
Speaker 1: few if any resources to actually do anything meaningful within
Speaker 1: the organization. So on paper, the company says, of course,
Speaker 1: we're concerned about diversity and representation, because we even have
Speaker 1: a manager with that job title. Here's the person right here. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the corporate status inside the organization remains largely unchanged. That
Speaker 1: optics thing is a real doozy, and it obviously affects
Speaker 1: organizations across all contexts and industries. In tech, we can
Speaker 1: see it affecting lots of different people. Often we see
Speaker 1: it centering on women. Now, it's no secret that women
Speaker 1: are underrepresented in the tech industry. The World Bank estimates
Speaker 1: that forty nine point seven percent of the world's population
Speaker 1: is female. Here in the United States, actually make up
Speaker 1: fifty point five percent of the population, and yet if
Speaker 1: we look at the tech industry, we see that women
Speaker 1: hold only around twenty eight percent of the jobs in
Speaker 1: mathematical and computational fields here in the US. Now, that's
Speaker 1: still way ahead of the EU where women make up
Speaker 1: nineteen point one percent of the workforce, and information and
Speaker 1: communication technologies, and part of that disparity might come down
Speaker 1: to some bigger picture stuff rather than just inherent unfairness
Speaker 1: in the industry. I don't want to say that's the
Speaker 1: end all bel issue. These are big, big challenges and
Speaker 1: they have lots of factors that affect them. So for example,
Speaker 1: according to the Women Tech Network, only forty seven percent
Speaker 1: of the world's population of women are actually in the
Speaker 1: global workforce to begin with, so more than half of
Speaker 1: all women are not in the global workforce. To get
Speaker 1: into why that is would take a lot of digressions,
Speaker 1: and obviously it involves lots of different factors in different
Speaker 1: countries all around the world, so it gets very complicated.
Speaker 1: But it is a contributing factor that when you look
Speaker 1: at the full population of women, less than half of
Speaker 1: them are in the global workforce. But another issue is
Speaker 1: that traditionally, especially here in the United States, women have
Speaker 1: been discouraged from pursuing an education in or a career
Speaker 1: in fields like mathematics, computer science, engineering, etc. In concert
Speaker 1: with this is a social tendency that we think of
Speaker 1: these kinds of jobs as being male oriented, and so
Speaker 1: there's this social tendency to discourage women from considering opportunities
Speaker 1: in what are traditionally referenced as STEM subjects. Now, of course,
Speaker 1: there's still plenty of women who study and excel at
Speaker 1: subjects like math and engineering. There are still lots of
Speaker 1: women who go on to forge amazing careers undeterred by
Speaker 1: any social hurdles that are in the way. But the
Speaker 1: point I'm making is that there are these social hurdles
Speaker 1: where there aren'traditionally for men, and that is one of
Speaker 1: the many factors that then contributes to this lower percentage
Speaker 1: of women within the industry, which in turn ends up
Speaker 1: contributing to lots of other issues like sexism in the workplace,
Speaker 1: which you know, we've talked a lot about that on
Speaker 1: this show too, because there are a lot of tech
Speaker 1: companies that have had some high profile scandals revolving around,
Speaker 1: you know, sexism in the workforce. Now, breaking down these
Speaker 1: barriers is a really challenging and ongoing process. There is
Speaker 1: no easy solution to it. And I'm not here to
Speaker 1: tell you that companies just need to flip a switch
Speaker 1: and everything will be fine. That's not true. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of work to be done, and it goes beyond
Speaker 1: any one organization. We're talking about massive changes that are
Speaker 1: going to take years to really take hold and start
Speaker 1: to affect things like social concepts that have been deeply
Speaker 1: ingrained in various cultures. But part of that means that
Speaker 1: you're also ensure diversity in industry events. So if you
Speaker 1: go to a big tech conference and you see that
Speaker 1: all the listed speakers are white dudes, you're probably going
Speaker 1: to walk away thinking this conference has really reinforced the
Speaker 1: idea that white men are somehow the natural dominant group
Speaker 1: in tech, Like there's some sort of just inclination in
Speaker 1: white men to be really good at tech, and that's
Speaker 1: why it's the way it is. It's not that there's
Speaker 1: an inherent unfairness in the system. White guys are just
Speaker 1: good at technology. That is not really true. I mean,
Speaker 1: let me just remind you that the first person to
Speaker 1: suggest that numbers and mathematical operations could represent things like
Speaker 1: music and images was Ada Lovelace, a nineteenth century mathematician
Speaker 1: who also happened to be a woman. She was amazing.
Speaker 1: So the people who are having these phenomenal ideas are
Speaker 1: not just white men. Sure, there are white men who
Speaker 1: do have phenomenal ideas, but there are people of color
Speaker 1: who have phenomenal ideas. There are women who have phenomenal ideas.
Speaker 1: They're all sorts whose voices aren't necessarily being heard. So again,
Speaker 1: if you go to a conference and all the speakers
Speaker 1: are white dudes, that's reinforcing the stereotype that tech is
Speaker 1: a place for white men, or just if you want
Speaker 1: to be slightly less reductive men in general. Anyway, with
Speaker 1: the growing awareness of the disparities in tech, there has
Speaker 1: been a push for conferences to include speakers who represent
Speaker 1: groups other than white dudes. So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: pressure on conferences and the companies that throw these conferences
Speaker 1: to make sure that there's greater representation in their lineup
Speaker 1: of keynote speakers. Now, I'm sure that for most conferences
Speaker 1: there's actual a mix of sincere desire to represent different
Speaker 1: perspectives as well as a concern for optics. I'm not
Speaker 1: here to tell you every conference out there is just
Speaker 1: scram to get some token representation on their list so
Speaker 1: that the pressure is off. I mean, I'm sure that's
Speaker 1: part of it, and I'm sure for some conferences it
Speaker 1: might even be the majority part of it. But I
Speaker 1: also bet there are plenty of people who are genuinely
Speaker 1: working to get a diverse lineup, not because it's going
Speaker 1: to look good for the conference, but because it's going
Speaker 1: to deliver the best message that ends up being the
Speaker 1: really valuable experience that people walk away from that in
Speaker 1: turn ends up benefiting not just the speaker, not just
Speaker 1: the audience, but the conference itself. So again, it's the
Speaker 1: bet to go on because it's the one that pays
Speaker 1: off the best for everybody involved. So I hope that
Speaker 1: most conferences aren't consumed with the concept of making good optics.
Speaker 1: But that brings us up to the weird story that
Speaker 1: happened this week or that unfolded this week. So there's
Speaker 1: a developer conference called Devternity, and it was scheduled to
Speaker 1: take place online next week. Actually, the conference originates out
Speaker 1: of Latvia and typically includes several keynote sessions followed by workshops.
Speaker 1: From what I understand, the conference has attracted several hundreds
Speaker 1: of guests or or rather attendees in the past, but
Speaker 1: then an investigation by four h four Media kind of
Speaker 1: set off a series of events that prompted the company
Speaker 1: behind this event to cancel it. And it all has
Speaker 1: to do with diversity and representation. I rambled on a
Speaker 1: little long. We're going to take another quick break. When
Speaker 1: we come back, I'll explain more. Okay, so let's go
Speaker 1: back and talk about dev Ternity. The founder of that
Speaker 1: conference is a man named Edwards Zobs and I am
Speaker 1: going to butcher names. Terrible at pronunciation in general, even
Speaker 1: of English words, and Eastern European is just going to
Speaker 1: make it even more comically inept. But that's my fault anyway.
Speaker 1: As conferences go, Defternity really is kind of a modest size.
Speaker 1: I mean, a few hundred attendees. That's no slouch, but
Speaker 1: it's very small compared to the big events that happen
Speaker 1: in other parts of the world. But Sizov's appears to
Speaker 1: have been very good at securing at least some prominent
Speaker 1: male speakers for the conference, but it seems he was
Speaker 1: less effective at convincing prominent women in the field to
Speaker 1: follow suit. Now, one explanation he gives, or if you prefer,
Speaker 1: an excuse that he gives, is that there are fewer
Speaker 1: notable women in the tech space already. Right, we already
Speaker 1: talked about the aforementioned issues with diversity and representation in
Speaker 1: the industry. There is no denying there are fewer women
Speaker 1: in the industry than there are men. Further, he says,
Speaker 1: these notable women are in high demand. That you have
Speaker 1: hundreds or thousands of tech conferences, all of which are
Speaker 1: trying to put forth the effort of being more diverse.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, you have a relatively small pool of notable
Speaker 1: women speakers who could attend your conference. So you have
Speaker 1: this issue where maybe you can't secure a significant number
Speaker 1: of women to appear at your conference. So if that,
Speaker 1: in fact is the case that led to this, it
Speaker 1: meant there was a real problem for devternity, right. They
Speaker 1: just couldn't schedule enough prominent women developers to create a
Speaker 1: diverse lineup of speakers. So what do you do if
Speaker 1: you can't find qualified speakers to headline your event? Well,
Speaker 1: how about you invent some people. So allegedly that's what
Speaker 1: Sizov's chose to do. On twenty four, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: an engineer named gregly aroz And again apologize for the pronunciation,
Speaker 1: posted to x that is the platform formerly known as Twitter,
Speaker 1: and said quote, imagine a tech conference having no CFP
Speaker 1: as they reach out to speakers directly. They successfully attract
Speaker 1: some of the most heavy hitter men speakers in tech
Speaker 1: and three women speakers. Now, imagine my surprise that two
Speaker 1: of those women are fake profiles. They do not exist,
Speaker 1: nada end quote. Yikes. So his accusation was a really
Speaker 1: serious one. I mean, a conference posting even a single
Speaker 1: fake profile for a keynote speaker would be a huge
Speaker 1: gamble because it's really just a matter of time before
Speaker 1: someone does even a little bit of digging and then
Speaker 1: finds out that the keynote speaker who is listed on
Speaker 1: a website doesn't appear to you know, actually exist. And
Speaker 1: apparently Devternity had done it twice. But wait, it gets weirder.
Speaker 1: So a supposed pair of women who worked for Coinbase
Speaker 1: named Anna Boyko and Natalie Stradler were listed among the
Speaker 1: speakers for this Devternity conference, but according to Oroz, they
Speaker 1: don't actually exist. Further, Roz said that a woman named
Speaker 1: Elena Procada, a Prokoda supposedly a senior engineer for wasapp,
Speaker 1: was also most likely fictional. He said he couldn't prove it,
Speaker 1: but that he pointed out this person who's supposedly the
Speaker 1: senior engineer or a senior engineer for WhatsApp had no
Speaker 1: online profiles except for one. There's only one online profile
Speaker 1: for this woman, and that was her profile as a
Speaker 1: speaker for another conference called JD. Cohn jdkon. And it's
Speaker 1: the same company that puts on JD Cohn that puts
Speaker 1: on Devternity. The two conferences are run by the same organization.
Speaker 1: So could it be that this underlying organization was just
Speaker 1: manufacturing women to make it seem like their lineup was
Speaker 1: more diverse. But it gets weirder. So then Sizov's responds
Speaker 1: to Oroz's accusation and admits that at least one of
Speaker 1: the profiles that had been listed for Devternity was a
Speaker 1: fake profile. But Sizov said there was a good reason
Speaker 1: for this. They originally created the fake profile for the
Speaker 1: purposes of testing the website early on. That this was
Speaker 1: just to make sure the formatting and everything was attractive,
Speaker 1: that it looked the way and behave the way they
Speaker 1: wanted it to. So they built a fake profile for
Speaker 1: that purposes and then they just plane darn forgot to
Speaker 1: delete the fake profile, and that when and he found
Speaker 1: this out back in October that this fake profile was
Speaker 1: still up on the site while the conference was approaching.
Speaker 1: He decided to keep it up there because he was
Speaker 1: trying to get an actual, real human woman developer to
Speaker 1: fill a spot on the speaker list, and then presumably
Speaker 1: he would have swapped out the fake profile for the
Speaker 1: real profile of the person who had agreed to be
Speaker 1: a speaker at Devternity, except he couldn't get a real
Speaker 1: life woman to agree to that. He also mentioned that
Speaker 1: one person who had dropped out of the event ahead
Speaker 1: of time was a tech influencer named Julia Kirsina who
Speaker 1: uses the handle coding Unicorn on Instagram. So on Instagram
Speaker 1: she had more than one hundred and fifteen thousand followers,
Speaker 1: although when I tried to check that today I couldn't
Speaker 1: access it at all. It was giving me an error message. Now,
Speaker 1: to be fair, I don't I'm not on Instagram anymore.
Speaker 1: So I was just using the web based portal to
Speaker 1: look at this, and it could be that that was
Speaker 1: where the problem was. So y'all, if you want to
Speaker 1: check and see if Coding Unicorn is still on Instagram,
Speaker 1: feel free anyway. The profile shows an attractive young woman
Speaker 1: who often is posing with computers and stuff. Some of
Speaker 1: the posts show her being rather flirty or sexy, and
Speaker 1: apparently she had previously agreed to appear at Defternity but
Speaker 1: had to drop out. Actually, she had been listed to
Speaker 1: appear at previous conferences, but as far as investigators or
Speaker 1: rather journalists could find, she never actually gave any speeches.
Speaker 1: So this was someone who had been listed to appear
Speaker 1: at conferences in the past and then apparently just never
Speaker 1: showed up. And further investigation suggested that the reason for
Speaker 1: this is that there is no Julia Kirsina. One journalist
Speaker 1: reached out to her supposed alma mater to verify that
Speaker 1: she had in fact attended that particular university and achieved
Speaker 1: a degree in the subject that was listed in her profile,
Speaker 1: and was told that there was no record of such
Speaker 1: a student. So that's a big red flag. And other
Speaker 1: investigations suggested that the account coding unicorn isn't run by
Speaker 1: a woman at all, but rather by and I bet
Speaker 1: some of you have guessed this already, Sizov's the guy
Speaker 1: who organized the Defternity conference in the first place. Now,
Speaker 1: to be clear, as I record this, he hasn't said
Speaker 1: that he was behind that account. But several folks appointed
Speaker 1: to signs that indicate he's very much involved in that.
Speaker 1: Everything from IP address logs that suggest he was the
Speaker 1: one controlling Coding Unicorn to the fact that posts that
Speaker 1: he made on his own social profiles ended up being
Speaker 1: repurposed as posts in the Coding Unicorn account. That's a
Speaker 1: suggestion that, you know, it's one person who's just doing
Speaker 1: all this. So it's led more than a few people
Speaker 1: to accuse him of catfishing, of creating this account to
Speaker 1: try and create credibility where there is non. Now, in
Speaker 1: the wake of these discoveries, a bunch of speakers withdrew
Speaker 1: from Defternity, and now the event appears to be shut
Speaker 1: down this year. If you go to the website, it
Speaker 1: says the event will not go on as planned as
Speaker 1: for jd Con twenty twenty four, which is the next
Speaker 1: event for that particular conference. I'm not sure if that
Speaker 1: event is going to move forward or not. When I
Speaker 1: try to check the website while I was working on
Speaker 1: this episode, it was just giving me an error message
Speaker 1: that there was no site there. So right now I imagine
Speaker 1: they're kind of in damage control. At the very least.
Speaker 1: One thing that makes the Defternity story even worse is
Speaker 1: that the conference has what calls a Hollywood policy, as
Speaker 1: in don't call up, We'll call you, which means they
Speaker 1: don't accept submissions from potential speakers. Instead, Defternity says it
Speaker 1: reaches out to people to ask them to be part
Speaker 1: of the conference, they don't accept submissions. This is what
Speaker 1: Gregly was referencing earlier when he said there was no CFP.
Speaker 1: There's no way to submit yourself to be considered as speaker,
Speaker 1: and I imagine that severely limits the number of people
Speaker 1: Devternity could consider for the conference. It probably means that
Speaker 1: the organization only targets a small pool of potential speakers
Speaker 1: every year. It's impossible to be aware of everyone who's
Speaker 1: doing great workout there. So this issue is one that
Speaker 1: I think largely could have been avoided if they had
Speaker 1: just used a submissions policy and accepted submissions and started
Speaker 1: to look through which ones are qualified and interesting. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I want to conclude this episode by once again stressing
Speaker 1: that diversity is a good thing for everybody if if
Speaker 1: it's handled properly. If you're just doing it for the optics,
Speaker 1: chances are you're not really making things better for anyone,
Speaker 1: and in fact, you could just be setting yourself up
Speaker 1: for a big pr nightmare at the very least. But
Speaker 1: if you do it right, if you do it with
Speaker 1: intention and sincerity, and you're willing to learn from mistakes
Speaker 1: and correct those mistakes, and you really push for it,
Speaker 1: you can bring in and boost points of view that
Speaker 1: will benefit the organization as a whole, and all boats
Speaker 1: get lifted as a result. And even if you are
Speaker 1: obsessed with optics, well, it sure does look good when
Speaker 1: a company handles diversity and representation in a sincere and
Speaker 1: dedicated way. So you still achieve that goal. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a lot of work, and it's ongoing work. It's not, again,
Speaker 1: something that's just easily done. It requires tons of revision
Speaker 1: and correction and real dedication. But the benefits are huge
Speaker 1: for all concerned. So again, interesting tech story. I think
Speaker 1: it brings up something important that all organizations really need
Speaker 1: to consider, and hopefully was at least interesting because golly,
Speaker 1: when I read about devternity and this apparently fake Instagram
Speaker 1: influencer and all of these things, it just made my
Speaker 1: head spin. It's been quite a couple of weeks for
Speaker 1: weird tech news. Y'all. I guess people are really deciding
Speaker 1: to let it out for the end of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: so tomorrow we should have another news episode of tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I just want to let y'all know, if you hadn't
Speaker 1: heard already, I am going on vacation next week. So
Speaker 1: next week we are going to have some classic episodes
Speaker 1: and maybe some other surprises in there. But just wanted
Speaker 1: to make you aware of that and that I will
Speaker 1: be back the following week and then we'll be heading
Speaker 1: into the holiday season, so we'll see how that goes.
Speaker 1: I hope you are all well, and I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.