Gender: Gobsmacked by the Younger Generation

How the internet works in 3 steps.

Step 1
Someone makes a post that points out a problem. In this case the general problem is the lack of female entrepreneurs forming high tech startup companies. Specifically the lack of women participating in the Y Combinator program that invests in and helps startups. Tereza Nemessanyi wrote an article called XX Combinator in which she proposes a female centered version of the Y Combinator.

Well... not quite just a female centric version of it. She proposes something slightly different.

The XX Combinator program would provide women who know their target market extremely well, based on personal and professional experience. They’d have a huge innovative idea in a huge market and a clever idea about how to crack it. The program would help define their Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to get to market. Benevolent hackers would work side-by-side with them to build it, for equity and possibly paid salaries by sponsors and can convert into CTO positions.

It would be scheduled and located so that women with families could actively do it. No “3-months in Silicon Valley”.

The post is informative, offers a possible solution, lays out some of the issues, and is a call to arms for people to create what she's proposed.

Step 2
Someone in the field makes a valid counter post. Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist, wrote a reply also called XX Combinator. He doesn't make light of the underlying problem. He doesn't suggest it isn't a problem. He does however point out some problems with the proposed XX Combinator solution.

XX Combinator is a cute name and makes the point well. But I suspect a different model is required if this were to work. First, it is not so easy for 40 something women to move to silicon valley for three months. Second, if you have a team of hackers in-house, then you are an incubator more than an accelerator program.

Fred doesn't suggest the problem isn't real and he thinks her idea might work. But not quite the way she originally thought. And... he's not against the idea. He closes by saying:

If there are entrepreneurs out there with the idea, the plan, and the passion to do this, please contact me. I'd be happy to help get something like this rolling.

His reply understands the original issue, discusses and adjusts the proposed solution a little, and continues the call to arms to help solve the problem.

Step 3
Somebody misses the point spectacularly, misuses outdated ideas from a historical figure, tries to apply 'science' to the result, and proves what their thinking on the subject really is - all while adding nothing of value to the discussion.

In this case it's Beatrice Pang's post called Freud explains why there aren't more women entrepreneurs. In which she doesn't seem to think there is actually a problem because there are good reasons why women aren't entrepreneurs. The reason? Time to drag out the historical figure.

The answer is very obvious. Freud is right, sex is the ultimate driver to explain most human behaviors. It's primordial but often the most powerful driver explaining human behaviors. Why do you do all these things to look good? To attract potential sex partners, consciously or subconsciously.

Okay... let's leave Freud and move to evolution as a reason for women not being driven to be entrepreneurs. After all... there are reasons women wouldn't want to work hard such as:

For women, the price to be an entrepreneur is much higher and the return is not as attractive. First, the cost of maintenance is much higher for women - clothes, skin care, hair, shoes, etc. Second, working long hours in stressful conditions age a woman. Given beauty is often a more important criterion than success, women are less willing to make such a bet. Finally, women often need a partner before they reach the end of their safe childbearing ages, and that's typically before they reach 40. 

If you think this is an isolated opinion think again. I quote:

For girls at GSB [Stanford Graduate School of Business], taking an entrepreneurial path right after the expensive school means financial uncertainty while your well-earning classmates lavish on travel, food, fashion, beauty or simply socializing leisure time. Few can stand such tradeoffs in personal lifestyles, especially when you are at the optimal age to find a partner.

Don't worry... there's more to come if you read her piece. Let's throw in an unproven claim that would be considered offensive if a man said it. Beatrice extends her argument in a simple fashion by saying:

Beyond entrepreneurship, if you look at any career (except for fashion modeling or nursing), it's difficult to pick one where there are more successful women than men historically. Men often spend more energy on becoming successful in career.

The result? Well... we don't need to change things, improve things, or hope for equal treatment since:

How can we make more women successful? Without fundamental changes in how men and women perceive attractiveness, it will be difficult to change the status quo.

Let's hear it for being held back by biological determinism. It bothers me that bad science, overextended analogies, and almost backwards views of equality and progress can be considered the norm. And all by a young woman who's the beneficiary of the hard work and struggle of so many women before her.

Regardless of how their biology limited their ability to change and improve society. After all they didn't make any fundamental changes in how men and women perceive attractiveness now did they?

Games: The Story of an Early 3D Game

In the late 80's I played a game called The Colony. Long before Wolfenstein 3D or Doom a lone developer named David Alan Smith created a game in which you help the survivors of a remote space colony.

For a look at what one of the first 3d action games looked like just watch David A. Smith demo the game on youtube (part 1) (part 2). I have many memories of moving slowly down hallways and wondering where the next alien might be. There were many immersive worlds and environments to come but The Colony was my first taste of what games would be like.

If you're interested in the story behind The Colony, and some of the technical details that made it very advanced for its time, David A Smith has written My Colony Memoir. It's hard to imagine a single person working on a computer that didn't even have complete development tools building a complete game from scratch. Especially since we live in the era of huge budget games created by huge teams of specialists. Sometimes it's good to remember what can be done on a small machine by one person.

Language: The Language of Science Humour

We all know how science progresses. We read about it every day. In fact... we're so familiar with the language and the forms of progress that we instantly know when they're being spoofed spectacularly. It's nice to realize that even science has its own special and recognizable language.

Step one... after the research is done... the scientific paper must be written. The best illustration of this is the aptly named Chicken Chicken Chicken: Chicken Chicken (pdf) by Doug Zongker. If you've never read a scientific paper before I suggest you start here. If you have read a scientific paper before I insist you read this one as well.

Step two... the findings must be presented to a conference of fellow scientists. It's a short presentation. I do suggest you stick around for the questions. Not only is the source of funding challenged but an important question is raised which demands a follow up by the Doug Zongker.

Step three... a scientific paper is read by a journalist who shares the findings in a newspaper article. The article will be formulaic and predictable but it will be all most people will ever read.

There. Now you know how to write your own scientific paper, how to present it, and how to have it written up. Just do a search and replace for some key words and you too can write your way to scientific superstardom.

Math: Mathematics Humour - Alice and Bob

In 1978 Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Len Adlemen (known as RSA) published a paper entitled A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-Key Cryptosystems (pdf). All modern public key cryptography descends from the work in this paper. If you use PGP or GPG then you are using math that was pioneered by Rivest, Shamir, and Adlemen.

The paper describes how the system works by working through scenarios where A and B are trying to communicate securely. Ron Rivest has said that he came up with the names Alice and Bob so he could use A and B in mathematical notation. Having one male and one female also meant that "he" and "she" could be used in the scenarios and people would know which "person" the authors were talking about. The introduction of the most famous couple in cryptography is as follows:

For our scenarios we suppose that A and B (also known as Alice and Bob) are two users of a public-key cryptosystem. We will distinguish their encryption and decryption procedures with subscripts: EA,DA,EB,DB.

Now Alice and Bob were soon joined by others. Eve is an eavesdropper on the conversations between Alice and Bob. Mallory is a malicious attacker. The list goes on and on.

Only 6 years after the original RSA cryptography paper John Gordon was able to give an after dinner speech where, tongue firmly in cheek, he gave more details and insights into Alice and Bob. John Gordon's The Alice and Bob After Dinner Speech covers Alice and Bob, how mathematicians share jokes, how to represent the alphabet with words, and even why you should be nice to your calculator.

The New Industrial Giants Make Small Products

The term industrial giant brings to mind steel foundries on a vast scale, ship building, production lines of cars, and vast quantities of raw materials being turned into the infrastructure, appliances, and technology of modern life. If you ponder the history of these industries you think of Victorian era factories and workers moving to the cities from the countryside slowly changing into factories learning to deal with new unions and workers groups and slowly changing to the arrangements we have now. It seems like a process that has taken place and is ended.

What about the people and companies who build computers and phones and other technologies? What's happening around the world were our high-tech gizmos are being made?

The Man Who Makes Your iPhone in Business Week looks at one company and one person but along the way takes a look at the changes that are happening in Chinese factories. It's remarkably similar but on a different time scale. Terry Gou won't be the last industrial tycoon. More industries and more tycoons will appear. But his story and the issues his companies are facing is an insite into the current situation for millions of workers around the world.