{"id":734,"date":"2013-11-18T13:53:00","date_gmt":"2013-11-18T13:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/11\/what-does-it-mean-to-be-in-the-tech-industry.html"},"modified":"2013-11-18T13:53:00","modified_gmt":"2013-11-18T13:53:00","slug":"what-does-it-mean-to-be-in-the-tech-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/11\/what-does-it-mean-to-be-in-the-tech-industry.html","title":{"rendered":"What does it mean to be “in the tech industry”?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Yesterday the Tribune featured, as it often does, an article from the Los Angeles Times, titled \u201cSexism a problem in Silicon Valley, critics say<\/a>,\u201d which describes instances of sexism\/misogyny in the tech industry in Silicon Valley and the crass so-called \u201cbrogrammer\u201d culture, and said that, Sheryl Sandberg\u2019s prominent position as Facebook COO and Marissa Mayer\u2019s position at Yahoo notwithstanding, women are held back by the sexism and sexual harassment.<\/p>\n

The Tribune then featured smaller articles with voices from the Chicago \u201ctech start up\u201d scene, one of which was by Sharon Schneider, founder and CEO of Moxie Jean, a web-based buyer and seller of upscale children\u2019s clothing.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the thing:<\/p>\n

Sharon Schneider doesn\u2019t have a tech background.\u00a0 She\u2019s an entrepreneur who hired tech contractors to build and maintain her website.\u00a0 Nothing in her biography (see this profile<\/a>) includes any programming background.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot to do in running such a business beyond computer programming \u2014 the mechanics of setting prices for buying and reselling the clothes, photographing them, processing the orders, marketing, etc. \u2014 and it\u00a0simply doesn\u2019t seem appropriate to call\u00a0her business\u00a0a \u201ctech start-up\u201d when the internet is just a platform, a tool no different than the computers and telephones we all use everyday.<\/p>\n

Now, based on their Wikipedia profiles, Meyer does genuinely come from a technical background, but, again, Sandberg comes from a management background \u2014 a Harvard MBA, then work at McKinsey, then, prior to joining Google, \u201cfrom 1996 to 2001, Sandberg served as Chief of Staff to then United States Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers<\/a> under President Bill Clinton<\/a> where she helped lead the Treasury\u2019s work on forgiving debt in the developing world during the Asian financial crisis.\u201d\u00a0 (from Wikipedia<\/a>).<\/p>\n

So three things strike me:\u00a0 <\/p>\n

First of all, Sandberg\u2019s ascendance has nothing to say to women who may or may not be budding computer programmers, except that tech companies are now mainstream enough to pull from the same executive pool who move from one industry to another.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Second, not every company which uses the internet as a tool is a \u201ctech company\u201d \u2014 let\u2019s keep that label only for those which rely solely on users using the internet for their business, rather than those selling a product or a service using the internet to reach customers and process orders.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Third, back when my dad was a GM employee, there was a certain culture clash between \u201ccar guys\u201d who had risen through the ranks from engineering, and those who had come from a management background.\u00a0 Or, at least, among the engineers, there was a suspicion\u00a0that if\u00a0the non-car guys had charge of the company and tried to run it in a way that was indifferent to, well, cars, except as a product line-up no different than shampoos or vacuums, the company would go to pot.\u00a0 I am curious (though not necessarily enough to dig into this) about the extent to which there is a present or future culture clash between programmers and management.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday the Tribune featured, as it often does, an article from the Los Angeles Times, titled \u201cSexism a problem in Silicon Valley, critics say,\u201d which describes instances of sexism\/misogyny in the tech industry in Silicon Valley and the crass so-called \u201cbrogrammer\u201d culture, and said that, Sheryl Sandberg\u2019s prominent position as Facebook COO and Marissa Mayer\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat does it mean to be "in the tech industry"?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yesterday the Tribune featured, as it often does, an article from the Los Angeles Times, titled "Sexism a problem in Silicon Valley, critics say," which\" \/>\n<meta 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