Episode transcript

Edit transcript

Ryan Burgess
Welcome to the 10th episode of the front end, happy hour. In this episode, we'll be discussing the topic women in tech. It's continually an area that the tech industry is trying to work on and improve on. To help talk about today's topic. We're joined by two special guests today, Mars, Julian from Netflix, and Lisa Burgess from Uber, Mars and Lisa, would you give us a brief introduction about yourselves, and who you are, what you do and what your favorite Happy Hour beverages?

Mars Jullian
Hi, I'm Mars Jullian. I'm a senior UI engineer at Netflix. And my favorite Happy Hour beverage is wine and anything red.

Lisa Burgess
And I'm Lisa Burgess, I lead the marketing analytics team at Uber. And my favorite Happy Hour beverage also has to be wine. But if I had to pick a favorite favorite wine, it would be Pinot Noir.

Ryan Burgess
Alright, let's quickly go around the table too and introduce the rest of the panelists. Brian, do you want to start it off?

Brian Holt
Sure. My name is Brian Holt. I'm a junior diversity engineer at Netflix.

Derrick Showers
My name is Derek showers UI engineer at LinkedIn.

Ryan Burgess
My name is Jem Young. I'm a senior software engineer at Netflix.

Augustus Yuan
My name is Augustus here and I'm a front end engineer at Evernote.

Ryan Burgess
Awesome. I'm Ryan Burgess. I'm a UI engineering manager at Netflix. So if you haven't listened to an episode of Front End, happy hour in the past, each episode, we like to choose a keyword. And if it's mentioned, we'll all take a drink. So for this episode, what did we decide today's keyword is?

All
Gender, gender.

Ryan Burgess
So if we hear the word gender, we will take a drink. Alright, let's start today's episode off with the first question. What do you think of the tech industry in terms of diversity? Specifically, diversity around women?

Brian Holt
Great.

Ryan Burgess
That's why we're talking about it.

Jem Young
me better, obviously. I mean, women make up 51% of the world and in tech, I don't know if the actual numbers are but it's extremely low. So yeah, it's bad. It's very bad.

Ryan Burgess
Why is even looking up a number for even like women in computer science courses. And it's actually only about 19% of the students are women. So that's fairly low, which I think is probably gotten better over the years. When I went to school. I remember out of the last people that graduated, I think there was eight or nine people and only two of them are women. So it's not very many people, the course started larger, but then only the ones actual graduating were one or two. So that's not very many.

Derrick Showers
Yeah, I wonder like, it's interesting that the like, computer science degrees versus some of the new boot camps and stuff to what the numbers are. I don't know what they are. But it's interesting, too, because I know a couple people that have gone to boot camps and I know that there's definitely more than VA should definitely but it seems like there's more than 19% that are in those those programs.

Lisa Burgess
I think it's definitely it's starting to get better in terms of like individual contributor roles. When you're looking at the makeup of men and women it's still not perfect. But I think as you go up the up the ranks and up the scales, you see fewer and fewer women even with all of these programs having more and more women in them, it's still not translating to women getting to the top

Ryan Burgess
what was it like a year ago or so that a lot of the tech companies like Google Apple, I know Netflix did it. I think LinkedIn me have well shared all their gender, which I just said the word gender cheers. But yeah, they they basically shared the diversity numbers in each of their companies. And I mean, looking at most of them, it was only like 20 or 30% of their employees were women. So fairly low and I'm sure gets even like you said Lisa lower in the leadership roles. That was kind of just the broad number that I was looking at.

Augustus Yuan
Yeah, like I even like in my experience, like seeing women I do see some like a lot of PMS or like designers, but then I think there's definitely feels like there's like some kind of ceiling. I just start like seeing less and less women in like the higher leadership roles for some reason.

Derrick Showers
So yeah, that's true. I think you reminded me of a funny story, a designer that I work with, she's she we all got jackets for something that we launched recently. And it was said LinkedIn engineering on the back. And I guess she was at like a theater or something. And this person behind her said, Oh, do you see your son work at LinkedIn?Fake so definitely that bias out there.

Mars Jullian
I think when it comes to the the leadership angle, when you start with even just a small gender bias, the very beginning of someone's career over time that will gender

All
Cheers.

Mars Jullian
When you start with a small gender bias, the beginning of like, say two people's careers at one company, one male, one female, or in the larger population, you know 50% of male 50% Female In an ideal world, and you take the gender bias, and you apply it to performance reviews and promotions and everything throughout the cycle, you eventually get to a leadership that's composed of mostly men and it with just, you know, very, very small bias at the beginning, which is interesting.

Lisa Burgess
Which, on that point there, there was this study that the Harvard Business Review had done on it was called, I think, like vague feedback is holding women back. So it was specifically around giving women feedback in the performance review cycle. And what was really interesting is they their hypothesis was that one of the primary things why women are not reaching these executive roles is because of poor feedback, both positive and negative in the review cycle, and they actually evaluated the written responses of I think it was three tech companies and a, like a consulting firm of men and women. And they found that that was, in fact true. So women consistently received less feedback tied to business outcomes and more vague feedback. And women also received like negative, vague, vague feedback in the terms of, you know, your communication style is not great. 76% of people are women were referred to as being too aggressive, whereas men were 24% likely to be referred as that. So it's really interesting, because when it comes back to like, performance review time, and you read a man's review, that's all the specific things that he did great. And then a women's performance review, that is really vague. Who are you going to promote? Right, you're going to promote the one that has specific business outcomes tied to it. And so that is that is a really good article. I think, Ryan, I'll link to it. And yeah, I'll put it in the show notes.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah. Yeah, no, that's actually kind of crazy. Like even just talking about feedback. I think that's something that maybe we're not aware of is that there's differences between how a man and women would receive feedback? I don't know, has anyone ever noticed that or had an experience where they've received seen that happen?

Lisa Burgess
I personally have definitely had that before, at a job not at where I'm at now, is that feedback that I had received was I was told that I needed to be nicer. And that was really curious to me, because what does that actually mean? What does being nicer actually mean? And so I worked with my manager to actually dive into examples, and they didn't have any they didn't really actually know what that meant. They just told me it was a perception issue that it was my issue to fix. Which is not something I'm maybe I'll ask you guys, like, have you ever received feedback like that?

Derrick Showers
I was just thinking when you said that it'll I mean, who knows? But I feel like that's not something that normally would be good.

Ryan Burgess
No, I feel like we would get praised for being direct.

Derrick Showers
Good job. Opposite, like, you need to be a little bit meaner.

Brian Holt
I've gotten that before. You need to be meaner to people.

Ryan Burgess
Really? Yeah.

Augustus Yuan
It's funny, because like, even if I got like that, oh, you need to be nicer. It's like, what? What can I do? What exactly am I being mean about or like, I just feel like it's not very good.

Ryan Burgess
Very subject you need examples, like in order for feedback to be good feedback is there should be concrete examples. And you can just say, be nicer. What the fuck does that mean? Like, really? Like, that's terrible feedback. And like, how am I supposed to work on that? Do I have to go like, hang out with people more at work? Go social drinks with them? Or is it? Is it just in like, the way I talk to them in meetings and emails, I think there's a lot of things that you could just really take that as a broad statement, and doesn't really help you with the feedback.

Lisa Burgess
Maybe he wanted me to bake cookies.

Ryan Burgess
Baked goods with the rest of your team.

Jem Young
I think a lot of it is societal problem than necessarily tech in that an aggressive woman or like if, if a woman says like, Well, I disagree with that, because this isn't this are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, bro. But if like, Augustine says, like, Well, I think we should do this is seen as like, powerful and decisive. And that's, I've seen I like this a lot. He's very powerful. Oh, yeah, I'm so powerful. But I've seen that often in in. I've read similar studies to the one you pull up, once you guys mentioned are that women in meeting 10 not speak up as less because they don't want to, like stand out and be like, oh, whoa, she's very aggressive about what she's saying. And she's, like, lean back a lot. Like what the men talk and like, that's the implied thing, when you're saying like, someone's too aggressive is like, let the men talk, you know, just what we're saying go bake cookies or something. And it's, a lot of it's like, I don't know if it's on purpose or not. But we have a lot of unconscious bias, which is probably the biggest thing, even I struggle with today. Like, I mean, I was at some tech companies like two or three years ago, but I met this woman and I like I naturally assumed she was in marketing or like PR or something rather than like, she was an engineer a really good one at that. But that was on me because like, that's something I run into. And like, I didn't think of that, like, deliberate like, I think women are poor. It's just, it's like, oh, yeah, she's like, you know, marketing. Not anything. No, she would be like a really quality engineers effect is Yeah. Unconscious bias. Sorry, this sort of rambling.

Brian Holt
No, I actually didn't get hired at a job because of that, actually at a company that someone to my right who you can't see, but I can when now currently works for that company, maybe soon

Ryan Burgess
Microsoft

Brian Holt
I went in for a job interview at this company. This was when I was pretty Junior. I was taught my like, first real web development job. I came out here to San Francisco interviewed with this company actually not necessarily directly with them, but one of their other companies that they acquired. Rest in peace LinkedIn. Yeah, I went in my second round of interviews was with a woman and I went in and I, I like, I'm not even sure if I want to, like, admit this on a recording. But I assumed that she was not an engineer, I assumed that she was like, in there for like a quote unquote, culture fit interview or something to that effect. And she started asking me technical questions, and I started like, explaining to her the basics of JavaScript. And at that point, she like, like, yeah, I fucking know that. At that point, like, I didn't even recognize at this point that I had just made like a massive fuckup until I like got it. Feedback, saying that, like you're not gonna be a good culture fit him like, Why the hell would I not be a good culture fit? I'm awesome. Until years later, like, Oh, holy shit, it's because I treated her like she wasn't an engineer. Obviously. That's a terrible terrible thing.

Ryan Burgess
I guess it by the sounds that they didn't actually give you that feedback of why I mean, it's and that's tough, like in an interview to say, Hey, you're not a good culture fit because you were like, because you're sexist. Yeah. And as much as it's not easy to call someone on that it actually would be very, very useful. I know there's been times where I've been bias on something and not even realizing and so sometimes been told that that's a good thing, but it can be uncomfortable conversation to definitely

Derrick Showers
Sarah one of our powers is not here right now. She was sharing with us similar experience when she was an interview. She was the interviewee and she was with a guy and and the interviewee right was was talking that both of them but continue to look at the male in the room and not at not at her and like directed all of his his questions and just like feedback, and whatever, towards towards the dining room was just like he didn't even acknowledge that Sarah was there, which is kind of more etiquette. Like, obviously, that's a big no, no one, like, we're probably not gonna hire you. That's a red and scary thing is I think it's definitely I don't think it's something that he walked in interview thinking, Oh, I'm gonna make sure that I'm constantly ignoring the female in the room. If he did do that, then that was probably poor judgment on his part, but there's deeper problems. So I'm assuming that a lot of that was subconscious. But that's, that's kind of the scary part.

Jem Young
So unconscious bias. It's the hardest thing to fight because you're not even aware if you have to have someone else pointed out to you.

Derrick Showers
And I guess like in Brian's situation, it's not even.

Brian Holt
Yeah, it was in retrospect, that I, that I caught on to it.

Lisa Burgess
I think that the unconscious bias thing is really interesting as well, because a lot of people don't want to talk about it, because they're worried that people say, Oh, it's not a big deal. Like, why are you worrying about that? And I've definitely heard that from other people as well. Like, why would I point that out? I'm just gonna get told or have been told in the past, like, Oh, you're over, you're overlooking it and overreacting to it. And so it makes it even harder to actually point those types of situations out to people for fear of, you know, being yelled at and we shouldn't be scared of that. But I think that that's part of the problem

Derrick Showers
or like embarrassed right? Yeah. Yeah, maybe I maybe I am pointing something out. That's irrelevant. That's not important. You know, and like,

Jem Young
We're being very friendly here. We're not rude. Like I can sir. friendly, open minded people. But make no mistake are there are people out there that are definitely bias against women? Like we're just excluding them for the conversation. We're like, we're hoping we're all good people. But yeah, those people out automatics. I don't think you can fire them like anything that really thinks it should fire. Yeah, it should be like hands down. Yeah. Like no. Well, slap on the wrist. He didn't have like, 2016 This isn't like 1950s where it's like, Oh, it's okay. Good job, sweetie. Like, No, it's 2016 we're I hope we're all evolved now. So there should be like, hands out this fire.

Derrick Showers
I think like the the part that we can influence is the subconscious stereotype. You know, and like the extremist, if you will, or whatever that you just yeah, there's just nothing you can do with that. Luckily, I think that's a low percentage. I think a lot I think the bigger percentage would be wrong hopefully the bigger percentage is the subconscious bias. But no, I think that the those people that are to the extreme in anything you're you're not going to be able to have fire.

Ryan Burgess
What mistakes have you seen companies or people make around diversity in the past?

Augustus Yuan
There are some meetups that like even like small things like when they do catering towards like men rather than women, like I believe, like someone mentioned. Oh, yeah, Mars had to actually tell your story. A good story about that.

Mars Jullian
Yeah, um, I went to a meetup at a company here in the Bay Area, I won't say which San Francisco will start. Francisco can narrow down, right, it was on the corner of No, just kidding. I went to this meetup. And mind you, I didn't go alone, I went with a friend of mine who's guy. And when I got there, I was really surprised to notice that everyone was sort of of the same age. And that off the bat didn't make me feel uncomfortable. I was just, you know, I thought it was oh, you know, it's another tech meetup in the city, all, you know, very young, similar demographic. But when I went to go get something to drink or eat, I noticed that all they were serving was beer and burritos. And all of a sudden, I got very uncomfortable. Not every woman hates beer, but I really don't like beer. I'm more of a cider and wine kind of girl. And so when I realized the limited set of options that I had in front of me, I began to feel really uncomfortable. That combined with the fact that everyone there was similar age range. And all guys, I could probably count the number of women there. On one hand, it was probably about four or five. And I tried to stick it out. I was waiting for Ryan and Derek to show up, actually. And I was like, you know, there's people coming, and I want to bail on them, but about five minutes, and I was like, I'm really sorry, I have to leave when I left. I haven't felt that uncomfortable at a meet up in a while. And I don't know, I guess it was just some combination of all of like, little things that kind of added up to what seemed to be an uncomfortable situation for a woman who doesn't really fit in with that group. So yeah,

Ryan Burgess
I remember you texted me and you're like, Yeah, I'm gonna leave. It's just kind of like, Bro II feeling here. And I'm like, oh, crazy. And Derek and I showed up, I started counting the number of people. There was like, I roughly around 80 people, I would think about that. I think that's what I counted, and only eight of them were women. And we didn't even get burritos there were like, there was a, I counted the room multiple times. And I think there was eight. And actually, all the speakers were male too. So I don't even know if I yeah, I don't know if I included them on my account. But all the speakers are male. It was so bad that Mars felt like okay, I don't feel comfortable here and leave. And I get it. Like I completely got it. Burritos. And beer just actually, to me is like hilarious, too. Like, it kind of just like sums that all up right there.

Derrick Showers
And I think this goes back to the subconscious thing because this company's not the it's not just like a 15 person startup in the city. No, we're not trying to say what the company is. But it's definitely a company that's has done things to promote their diversity within our organization. And you could say they're open about us. It's probably just a matter of, it's just, you know, not having the right people in the room when they were planning this this thing and you know, not being diverse in that. Like, it all starts from someplace. And that's probably where it started from. It's probably some guy that loves beer and burritos and he's like, Man, I know what's gonna get everyone here. Everyone likes beer and brewery is

Ryan Burgess
and I don't think they like consciously did that on purpose. It wasn't like they were Yeah, they weren't trying to alienate honestly, just a mistake. And it's those little things that I think we're talking about the unconscious bias that happens and there's, you know, it's just trying to be aware of it is like thinking through that scenario of like, hey, if I just have beer and burritos? Is that going to alienate someone, one if it was just meat, I mean, they're you've just alienated a lot of people who are maybe vegetarian. I don't even know if that was the situation. But it could have been like where it was just like a meat burrito. And beer. Well, that doesn't really help a lot of people out. I think they did up off of bottles of water. I think that was one thing that they did have they had that. And that's not to say that every

Mars Jullian
meetup in the city is perfect in terms of diversity. But I think it leads to kind of a bigger problem like the the committee that put together this meetup didn't think about, you know, the other side of the coin, basically, not all meetups in the city have more than a women it's not necessarily a bad thing. But that combined with some of the other stuff that was done there, kind of makes some of us feel uncomfortable.

Ryan Burgess
It was more geared at at a male audience. And so that kind of alienated women who may have gone there. Maybe you weren't the only one who left to like that, that could very well be it. There was another conference I went to and it was in San Francisco as well. And it was a one day conference and the conference had some companies that they allowed them to have like almost like goose outside of the like theater and everything one of the companies was a motorcycle brand and they had motorcycle or car girls basically still yeah booth babes. That's that's a perfect way to describe it. And I felt like such like this is the wrong wrong people to be having that. Like I felt actually in the feedback they send you after this conference. I specifically called that out because I was like that's that's so weird. Like, why do you have these girls in these short skirts, cleavage hanging out? It's just feels wrong for a tech conference. I do like to consider that we're trying to do better. And like when you have that it's such a, like a poor feeling. I walked away being like, This is so weird that this is in a conference.

Brian Holt
Well, at that conference is implicitly endorsing that, no matter what they do, by allowing them to be there, it's an endorsement.

Derrick Showers
The good thing with that is at least we're cognizant, at least some of us are, have that going on, you know, like, that'd be a beer conference, for instance, or something like that would just be completely okay. No one would question it. And so I think, I guess, you know, it's good that we're having these conversations, I think there's more than just us here in this room talking about this. I think that, you know, there's there's definitely conversation, which hopefully, will, will improve things. As we go on,

Ryan Burgess
I think education is an important thing. I think another area that even companies could do, or just be more aware of is interviewing. Interviewing is a major thing, like when you're hiring people is like, how can you be my more diverse? Obviously, you're going to hire for the right fit for the role, like on talent and everything like that. But it's like, how do you start to attract a more diverse culture, it's, it's kind of reaching outside your network, it's not going to the people that are like minded, like you and that you're just going to hire the exact same people, you almost have to just be aware of that. And like, find ways to reach out to someone who is a female, or who has a completely different ethnic background than you and just think, like, hey, like, how will this help our company and be more diverse?

Jem Young
So Derrick, Lutheran, sort of Mars earlier? And the question like, someone out there is probably asking, like, why do we care? Like, not just the quality, like everybody should have an equal shot? But like, why should I care as an engineer, and the fact is, the agenda when our product managers, she was saying, the more diverse team, the better the ideas that come out of it, like it's been proven time and time again, if you have a group full of people, that all exactly the same, you have one good idea, and it might be awesome, but it won't work for everybody. But if you have a room full of people that aren't like you think really different from you, you're gonna come up with like some really amazing products, where if you don't, this one isn't necessarily about gender. But I don't know if you guys

Brian Holt
it's been a while.

Jem Young
I don't know if you guys remember the Google Plus photo tagging controversy, where you were tagged, I won't say what it is, but they were tagged. People have darker skin as some sort of animal. And like, right there, everybody's like, this just shows, no matter what Google saying. They don't have people of color on their finger like this never would have happened like such an easy, easy problem. And that's why we're addressing gender diversity.

Ryan Burgess
Even to another point is Apple's mistake on the Apple Watch is that it didn't recognize people with tattoos. And like, to me that's like, how do you not have someone with tattoos? Do putting your watch on to test that? And that could be that. I mean, it's not exactly a darker skin, darker skin. That was another thing. But like, I think specifically was tattoos. In this case, I

Brian Holt
don't know if it was it, it was Oh shit. Like, especially

Derrick Showers
since they prided themselves with testing so many people. And like, they talked about how they had like people in for hours on end in like, rooms on treadmills like testing. And so

Ryan Burgess
they were trying to, like they were

Brian Holt
like, you might do this burrito.

Jem Young
Every restaurant I'd go there

Ryan Burgess
would be there to be paired. You wouldn't expect too many females there, Jem. But there would be, there'd be a lot of big male presence there. We've talked a lot about some of these issues. How do you communicate this to like the community or to your team? Or the rest of the company? How do we communicate and try and make this better?

Lisa Burgess
I think it's providing feedback when instances happen. And when you notice things that are happening, just feel comfortable to speak up and approach it as from the fact that the person didn't try and do that, and that you're just bringing it to their attention. And if they're a jerk about it, then I mean, that sucks. And that could happen. But I think that we all sort of have an obligation to do that. And that'll, that'll help convert the people that have this unconscious bias to being aware of this bias to hopefully catch it in themselves going forward. I think that's the best thing we could do.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, I think it's just more like awareness and making sure that people are aware of like those issues on when they come up.

Mars Jullian
I think also cultivating a really open environment is important because these issues are really, they're touchy, they're sensitive to some people. And you need to feel comfortable bringing up something sensitive and touchy even to like you know, another colleague, and hope that it won't be held against you in the future for you know, some unknown bias or personal reason. And I think just having a company as a whole that is just really open to candidness really helps just, you know, first step is someone has to speak up and make it sort of a healthy, safe place where you can start talking about this.

Derrick Showers
And I don't think it has always be the female that speaks up right like or The person that's in hurt whatever, it doesn't have to be like, the gender thing. The offended person doesn't have to be the kind of person it has. It's it's like I think, if you see it happening, whether or not you're sitting comfortable in your, from your point of view, I think it's your, I mean, the only way you're going to make this change and help make these changes is to say something.

Lisa Burgess
I was in a training course, actually. And we had this exercise where they're pairing up people, and people with the short hair were supposed the shortest hair of the parent was supposed to be the manager, and the people with the longest hair was supposed to be the employee. And so naturally, I mean, all the women ended up being the employee and all the men ended up being the managers. And so we did the exercise. And then after someone, a man actually raised his hand and said to the facilitator, you know, I have some feedback to you. And he provided it to the entire room, which I thought was really interesting and really great. And he said, I think that your example has unconscious bias in it, this is going to skew towards men getting the opportunity to participate in this exercise as a manager, and women have to be the employee. And the the facilitator took a great, he said, Thank you so much for calling that out, we're gonna change it the next time. And they did. And for me, I thought that was really great, because he was a man, he didn't actually have to say that at all. He maybe didn't even recognize, like, historically would have not recognized that. But he did. So I think that that was a great example, that stuck out in my mind that just because it doesn't directly impact you, you should still care,

Derrick Showers
especially if you do care, you do care. Definitely speak up, you know, like, and there's nothing I think, clearly all of us here, and definitely a lot more people do care, they just don't speak up.

Brian Holt
So I think something that people worry about, I worry about is I don't want to be the white knight right, the person that rides in on their horse and says like, gender equality for all and fuck all of everyone else. Gender. Like I worry about the, the perception is gonna come off. And I'm white knighting. And like the I don't know if you've heard the term white night before, but it's the idea that I don't know how to explain it, like, I'm writing into my, my steed and that I'm saving the helpless woman from the oppression from the man. Like that kind of thing. Right.

Ryan Burgess
I think that's a perfect way to describe it. Okay.

Brian Holt
So how do I not read in my steed? Because I'm still I still have not answered that question.

Derrick Showers
I think, you know, I think like, So Lisa's story about the guy that spoke up in front of the whole class or whatever is one example of doing it. But I think you can do it anonymously, anonymously and privately to you know, like, I don't think like the event that we went to, Brian, I probably could have sent them like some sort of shirt.

Ryan Burgess
Even the one I said about the motorcycle company, I got the chance a day or two later, they sent me like a questionnaire. And I put in there like this felt very wrong. And like, this is why and explained it. And so that was more, you know, like, maybe not open, but I actually don't think there's anything wrong with making, like asking that question and a wide audience. No, I

Derrick Showers
don't think so. either. I think it just depends on your on your like personality. Some people I think are sure a with that. And then some people would just rather make a difference, but not like, the so whatever,

Brian Holt
the white knight one, I

Ryan Burgess
wouldn't, I wouldn't call that guy White Knight, he just saw something and called it out.

Brian Holt
I don't think it is. Right. You didn't think it was? Did you Lisa? So I don't know. So it's just like, something I was worried about that, like, I see something, it's like, I don't I don't want to be an ass about it. Like I want to be, I don't know.

Augustus Yuan
And one thing that I like, that companies are doing are like these woman events that are trying to like rally and trying to get like more on like, activity going on. And like inspiring women to like, get, like, be more in the scene for tech. Like I hope like one day like eventually, like at some point where like, doesn't have to be just women events. And it's just like, women and men and like, it's just like, starts rattling and like becomes like this sort of, sort of like status quo, where like everyone is like,

Derrick Showers
what's happening right now is, it's cool to be a guide tech, right? Like, sometimes that's for, like, not a good thing. Because people just want to, you know, be in tech for all the wrong reasons, but

Brian Holt
for being burritos

Derrick Showers
for free. It's not necessarily the same for women in tech. Right? Like, it's like, like, I feel like you know, you're probably doing it because you really want to do it versus there's probably a lot of people in tech that are just doing it because it's a cool thing to do right now. And it's where all the money is or whatever, whatever, you know,

Augustus Yuan
well, yeah, that and like I have a lot like a lot of respect for women in tech because like when I was in school, like my TAs were women and like they were like really good at teaching. Actually, I personally thought that teaching sometimes but not not be gender bias.

Derrick Showers
But gender.

Brian Holt
Generally speaking to that, I was a TA in college, and I asked one of my one of my students out on a date.

Ryan Burgess
That's a wrong thing to do. Right.

Brian Holt
She went God bless her soul and she's like, I don't know. Have you any more as like, okay? That more speak to me like I'm really bad at dating. Thank you, Nikki for marrying me. That's the end of the story.

Jem Young
Well, like whenever we mentioned diversity, it's an important, even if like, even if you could care less even with your like some sort of the world's biggest misogynist, like you hate women doesn't matter. Like, imagine yourself in the other person position because it could be you. It could be just flipped around. And like, that's why we need better diversity. It's like, it's so simple, but people are like, well, I don't really care. I make a lot of money. I'm a dude, I'll be good rest of my life. That's like, it could be you. I feel like full position. And that's why we should care. Because I know there's someone out there right now saying, oh, you know, I want you to really care. You know, it doesn't affect me. But I

Ryan Burgess
think even to your other point, too, is that it helps foster like a better diverse company in diverse thinking. And I think that's a big thing, too, is like, if you're all men, thinking about like, you've come up with this hot new startup. And you're like, Yes, I'm gonna be great. It's gonna launch and we're gonna make like millions and millions of dollars because this product is great. It's yeah,

Brian Holt
it's a beer and burrito AB

Ryan Burgess
Viren burrito. We appeal to this one audience. So we've talked a little briefly about interviews, how could we actually help improve interviews for diversity? I'm interested to know like, some ways that we could think about it or improve the interview process for diversity in general.

Mars Jullian
I have an interesting story from a company that I used to work for. And they were examining, I don't know exactly if it was the diversity or the language that they were using in their job racks and exactly what the point was the analysis, but they ran their job Rex through, and I'm sorry, I don't remember the name of the tool. They ran it through a tool that basically analyze the language of each job rack or some sort of

Ryan Burgess
tasks you because I wouldn't Yeah, yeah, it's very cool. Like you like input the text, and it like tells you that you're like, gearing work towards men or like middle the road or female? Yeah, yeah. So they ran

Mars Jullian
their job, Rex through that. And they realized that they were all sort of, you know, bias towards male engineers as, as well as some other diversity that they were missing out on. And it was really interesting that they ran this. And then they started to iterate on their job checks to make sure that they were being more inclusive. And I don't no longer work there. But actually, I would have suggested, you know, what, have you a be tested your job, Rex, why not have multiple versions of the same job rack up on your site cost nothing to the company. And ideally, you would start sort of at the beginning of your pipeline, even before the interview to get a more diverse set of candidates in the door from the very beginning.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, I think that's, I mean, that's important. I think that even goes trying to reach out to other networks that aren't just same as you like, you're like, Oh, I'm friends that this person or like, I go to this conference, and they're all like me, and you end up hiring, same person as you and that's not good. And it kind of goes to Jem's point, too, is then your product becomes not the best product, because there's everyone has the same idea. And that doesn't really challenge it at all.

Brian Holt
Yeah, I think you need to, like really select for diversity, like that needs to be an active part of your recruitment. And like, I recognize the insane that like, that means please select against me, right? The white dude, right? That loves beer and burrito? I'm gonna keep bringing that up. Yeah, no, it needs to be like an act of thought and part of your diversity, or part of your gender, please let straight needs to be an active part of your recruitment that like you actually actively select for diversity?

Lisa Burgess
Do you think it's a good or bad thing? Like, let's say my team is all men, and I'm selecting an interview panel and I, you know, want to encourage more diversity? Is it a good or bad thing to include women that are not on my team, but include women in the interview panel? Like, is that okay? Is that not okay? Does it speak to a larger issue? I think that

Mars Jullian
really depends on the situation, because I've had, I had this happen to me once where I was put onto a panel as the token woman. I'm a front end engineer. And this was an interview for someone who would be more of a back end engineer, you know, specifically focusing on Python. And I went into it being like, well, what am I gonna ask this guy? I don't want to go in there just to be the token woman because he happened to be someone interested in diversity. I don't think it necessarily needs to be someone on your team. But if the skill sets are similar, then yeah, I think that makes sense. If you have someone who can ask relevant questions, who happens to be a woman, then go for it? But in my situation, I actually took serious offense to being pulled in as the as a woman on the panel just because I was a woman. I had nothing else to offer besides my gender, and that interview.

Lisa Burgess
I think that makes a lot of sense. And the way that I've looked at it when I've been actually asked before is that I shouldn't be included just when there's someone that cares about diversity being interviewed, you should include me when there is a man being interviewed, because you should actually just care about a diverse opinion. And that your team at the time may not be overly diverse in that you're trying to work towards that, that that's sort of how I see it. But I was curious to others,

Ryan Burgess
you're encouraging another opinion, like someone else has a different opinion than yours.

Brian Holt
So let me ask this question then. Because I'm Captain White, do the loves burritos and beer. So I have a team that's a bunch of white dudes and like, I'm trying to be less white dude, burrito. And we're interviewing more white dudes that like burritos, right? So obviously, we have a problem, we already have a problem. And we're continuing to build a problem. But we want to at least build a team that's not going to have all white dudes and burritos all the time, I can I can put myself in the position of the person that's forming that that committee that says, let's put in Mars is put in Lisa, these people that at least have a diverse opinion from us, even if the skill set doesn't match up directly is like, I recognize immediately that this is a token, women's token black as as a token, something else right. Like I, I feel like it's a step in the right direction. But at least I don't know. But you're right, like it is a token person on the committee,

Mars Jullian
I think you just have to be really careful about your motivations for putting that person on the panel. Because when they're not professionally motivated, it becomes very obvious to the person who was pulled in on the interview process. In my case, it was you know, I obviously have nothing to offer. I can't even ask this guy, any technical questions. And I think it's okay to pull someone in definitely to make to have a well rounded panel in all regards. But if your motivations are somewhat, they're, they're not professionally minded, then it's, it's really going to become apparent, I think, to the person being pulled in on the panel, and also the person who's being interviewed as well. And that reflects badly on you as a company, to your employees, as well as to your prospective employees. I think,

Ryan Burgess
Mars if you were interviewing a company, and you literally just had all men interview you and they were all front end engineers, would you kind of question that company a bit like for being not being diverse at all? I think that's a really

Mars Jullian
hard question only because I recognize that Tech has a diversity problem. And it's more often than not that I'm going to, you know, join a company, it's going to be predominantly male. When I see a full panel, that's all male. I don't immediately question the diversity issue only because it's an sadly, it's pretty common. It's kind of the norm. But if I see someone on a panel who doesn't, why it doesn't make sense why they're there, I start to question sort of how the panel was put together, if that makes any sense. If you deviate from the norm in a way that's really obvious, for reasons that don't make sense for that. Interviewee, I think that that reflects badly on the company. But otherwise, I mean, it's, yeah, sadly, it is the norm and I don't normally question it.

Jem Young
I'll say this. Conference panels. So you know, panel, five, six people at any conference. That's an easy win. But you don't need five white dudes on the stage. Like, you can just pull in a few. Because if you're from just different backgrounds, like there's no need to have a bunch of like the same people on stage at any conference. Like that's, that's so easy. Like, if I see all times like, blah, blah, blah. They're all famous. Yeah, but how about some other opinion?

Brian Holt
Yeah, no, I've been on a bunch of those. hashtags. Sorry, really? Sorry. Have

Ryan Burgess
you ever evaluated like, if Jem, if you were asked to like to be on a panel? And or Brian, like, is it like you look at the rest of the panel when you accept? Or is that just something that you noticed after the fact,

Jem Young
I look at an apple, I like having been in tech a few years now. And being a minority? Like, I look and see, am I the token black guy on this panel? And like, sometimes I'll say no, like, I'm not gonna be your token. Like, we weren't friends before. We didn't have a dialogue, they'll just like, hey, we're trying to be more diverse and like, get a good photo off for like, there's a black guy in the background, you can see like, I'm not gonna be that person. And same thing like to me like, oh, yeah, let's, let's get Mars and Lisa, on this panel of like, 20 people, let's pull these people and we've never really talked to them. But you know, we'll pull them in because like, we need a good photo. And I see so many companies doing right now. It's just like, diversity matters. Yeah, let's like, Let's spend $5,000 marching in pride. And then you go to like their offices. And it's like a bunch of little white programmers. It's like you're saying something what you're doing something else. And I see so much that

Ryan Burgess
they need the photo for their jobs like page or why exact Yeah, front page. It's a stock photo where they're like, they typed in in like a stock photo of like, diversity, you can still see the watermark. So to kind of like wrap up some of the questions. I'm interested to know, how can we help foster and improve women diversity in tech, like what are some takeaways? We've talked a lot about the problems and things that we can improve on. But as a good takeaway for our listeners, what's something that they could just really You right now in there to improve women in tech.

Brian Holt
So this is gonna, it's kind of a weird point, but whatever I'm gonna make it, I've had enough whiskey that homecare hashtag mu whiskey. So I've been working a lot, or at least some of my personal time with neural networks. And they're supposed to reflect like how the human brain works, right? That basically you have one neuron that connects to another neuron. And the more that these neurons tend to connect to each other, based on past experiences, that that strength connection, the strength of the connection grows, right. And then if it doesn't connect to other ones, as frequently that the strength of that connection will weaken. So if you have a bunch of white guys on a team, they're gonna have the same sort of connections in their brain, right? So basically, if you said, I have this product, right, they're going to kind of follow the same sort of connections to get to that product, right? They're gonna have the same sort of ideas going forward. Whereas if you have people have very, very different life experiences, right? Like someone that grew up in inner city, Chicago versus, you know, Bangalore, India, right, they're going to have very, very different connections of how they arrive to different ideas, right? Basically, what I'm trying to demonstrate here is that if you enforced diversity, if you seek diversity, if you actively select diversity, you're going to end up with a bunch of people with a bunch of different kinds of ideas and different connections in their brains. And so I want to correct I want to create a AI chat bot, because why the fuck would you want to do that, but you want to do it 2016 The hashtag Clippy you're gonna end up with different ideas for your products, right, that you would otherwise not get right, you're going to end up with people looking at products from different ways that you wouldn't expect. And so you're gonna not only avoid catastrophes, like Google arrived upon, but you're actually going to get better ideas for your product that you didn't, you weren't exactly seeking, right. And it's because you're gonna have a diversity of ideas, a diversity of paths, to get to your idea to to your to your product. And so, beyond just being the right thing to do, if you're just like the worst sociopath asshole that just wants to make money, it's actually going to make you more money to So diversity is actually going to make your company a better company, in addition to being a more moral company, which should be the reason that you choose to do that. But, you know, whatever, fuck you if you don't, but here's also a business reason to do it to

Ryan Burgess
know it's gonna make the product better.

Lisa Burgess
So think of you're not in a position to like hire people, or do that kind of stuff. There's still things that everyone can do. And it kind of starts with just questioning yourself and your own beliefs and trying to spot instances where, you know, like, was that biased? Or is that not biased? And like, constantly just evaluating it? Because I know I've done it? I mean, I'm sure we all have. But I think that's really important. And that's one thing that everyone can do, as well as just questioning things, right? If you see something that seems strange, if you see a panel of all white men, then just, you know, just question like, why did that happen? Like, why did you only select this? Like, that's very curious, like, I would love to learn more. And just approaching it from that standpoint, instead of accusatory and can can lead to like, a discussion on on like, what's actually going on?

Derrick Showers
Yeah, I mean, to, to build on what Lisa and Brian both said, I think it's just about pushing yourself as an individual to not take the easy route. Like, I think it's easy to connect with people that are similar to you, whether doesn't matter if it's gender, or countless other things that make you different from another person. I think it's just about, you know, pushing yourself, like, when we're in our day to day, environment, we don't always take the easy route. In fact, I think as engineers, we always pride ourselves in taking the route. That's not easy, right. And so like, I think we need to do that with people too. And I just think like, speaking up, whether you're the person that's impacted or not, like we talked about earlier, I think that's super important. And definitely something I could do better. I mean, you know, what we talked about earlier? As far as going to that meetup. I think, you know, I probably should have just given them some anonymous feedback. I'm not the type of person that's going to speak up in the room and say, Hey, you guys suck. You have burritos and beer?

Ryan Burgess
Well, I think don't be too aggressive on it either.

Derrick Showers
Like, that's a good thing. But, you know, definitely something that I could have probably done more it made more of an impact by by speaking up and by, you know, and even in interviews, too, is like, yeah, okay, I get along really well with this person, because they're just like me, but that's not necessarily a good thing. Because of all the things we just talked about. I mean, you're not going to create a great product when everyone thinks the same way.

Ryan Burgess
I think another thing that I'm so guilty for and I struggle with in a trial To say it is saying that that phrase, you guys, and because it's like completely bias, you're totally talking to men. You're saying, you guys, that is one thing that's really difficult to not say it's such a scene, but it's like trying to not say that in, maybe say you all and I know that. Yeah, I'm okay with that. It's better than you guys.

Brian Holt
I decided on friends. Well, instead of saying guys say friends, I like that.

Jem Young
I think a good thing to do. And I try to constantly do it at conferences when I'm speaking with people is, and this is like always happens historically, is that a bunch of people approached me usually men, and then later, like, often side, like a woman, like, hey, you know, I really like your thing, like kind of like a bit more Meek a bit more standoffish. And I try to like be extra encouraging to them, because I know it's hard much harder for woman's like, enters the industry. And like, all these smart people and like these dudes, I got an interview with all them after I'd be like, no, no, come up, like, come on in. Like, I'll help you if I can give out my email. And like, I think that's something we can all do is just be more encouraging to people that historically have not had the same opportunities we have. And that one's easy to that's an easy one.

Augustus Yuan
Yeah, I guess I'll just say, I'm not sure how many like, of our viewers are women, but like, I definitely encourage you all to like, try to get into the tech if you're really interested in like, there are people who are like, really welcoming, like, I'm like definitely welcoming, like, feel free to tweet me like if you if I can do anything. And then yeah, also kind of building on what Gemin Morris was kind of saying, like, I hope like we can try to shy away from this kind of deceptive like, Oh, hey, like, we're all about diversity, let's include gem like for the photo, or let's include Mars into the interview how adults to tokenize women or something like I feel like these are like, actually maybe what you were saying, Derrick? Like these are like cheap, fast, easy routes of like, trying to be perceived as diverse, but it doesn't fix the inherent issue doesn't fix like the deep issue. Like we just need to like, focus on like, creating the status quo that like hey, like it makes sense, then, like women are really fantastic at Tech like I've like, like I said, like I've had a lot of my teachers, who are women in a life taught me pretty well.

Ryan Burgess
So as we wrap up today's episode, each episode, we like to share pics that whether it be like favorite technologies or things that we're interested in, let's go around the table and share today's pics, Mars. And Lisa, do you want to start off? What do you have for us today for pics that you're enjoying,

Lisa Burgess
I have two picks, one serious and then one that is more fun. So my first pick is for shiny for any of you that are in the analytics sort of industry and have to work to build your own dashboards. Shiny is an open source framework that allows you to build dashboards through AR and it's it's really awesome. It just kind of frees you up to be able to build things without software and be able to be a lot more effective and create a lot of closed loop reporting that you normally would have needed software or approval in order to do which is cool. The fun one is for sift dessert bar. And this is a bakery that is in San Francisco. It's actually amazing. They have these things called Wookie Cookies, which I found out after are a play on will be pi which I don't even really know what

Brian Holt
that is. But they're delicious.

Lisa Burgess
Yeah, so it is it's so good. So if you're ever in San Francisco and you want to try that you should definitely do. Lisa, how do you get it delivered? I get it delivered through Uber Eats. Obviously, a little plug for Uber. Uber naturally,

Ryan Burgess
Mars, what do you have for us for your Pyxis episode?

Mars Jullian
So I have two I've recently become obsessed with podcasts. So the first one

Ryan Burgess
obviously friend and happier, right? Yeah, friend happy hours,

Brian Holt
can we pick ourselves

Mars Jullian
the first podcast I'm gonna plug is 99% invisible by Roman Mars. Well, he shares a name with me. So I love that. But also he talks about the invisible forces and design that shape our lives. And also the TED Radio Hour by NPR, which I just find to be a great medium for actually, quote unquote listening to TED Talks. I have a really short term attention span when it comes to watching videos. So they put together three TED talks around the subject and they take sort of the most salient points from each one and they bring the speakers in on the podcast, which I find really interesting. So yeah, you should listen to that.

Jem Young
I got a question for you on 99% visible great podcast um, have you heard in visibility I say seem very similar ideas have very similar title. I haven't listened to both of them but they do.

Mars Jullian
I like her 99% Invisible is a little bit more focused. They they're the shorter podcast is 25 minutes on average versus like a 15 minute podcast.

Brian Holt
Oh, that'd be turtles into an hour long.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, an hour long podcast like front end happier.

Mars Jullian
It depends on what you're doing like once for the treadmill once for the shelter. I think they're both really fascinating. And actually, I would plug into the villa because it's run by three women, and they do make some great points and have some really great stories. And it's very well,

Brian Holt
Augustus. Yeah.

Augustus Yuan
Yeah, I have to. One is this article about blameless post mortems. I think it's like a really good kind of culture to say, and kind of fitting for this podcast, the

Brian Holt
one from Etsy,

Augustus Yuan
I believe it's actually just from this guy from Ken called Ken norton.com. And he just has like an article, and I think you were talking about how Reddit like, has like this kind of culture, which we adopted from Etsy, okay, for sure. But yeah, like, yeah, I just, I just was reading the article. And it just like, makes so much sense. And it would be great. If companies started adapting this kind of whole, like, a after a project, let's just talk about it. And it's not anyone's fault. Problems have, let's just talk about it. The second one, is this thing called commit logs from last night, which I think is just a giant list that greps like the word shit. And there's like hilarious commits, there's like strings and shit meet your match update v2. Why won't this piece of shit work? And like one of my favorites was the I think they have a Twitter account, but one of my favorites was like, not sure what I did. But this shit runs a lot faster. Check it out.

Brian Holt
That's awesome.

Ryan Burgess
Jam. What do you have for us?

Jem Young
First one is Eva. It is a test runner. But with an eyes towards Yes, six. Yes. 2016. And mostly concurrency, which is fantastic. Because you think I'm running all these unit tests? Why do they need to run synchronously? It doesn't make any sense. So that's what they try to do. And it's pretty good. I haven't used it in my personal project because, well, I'll write unit tests. My personal projects. I'm lazy.

Brian Holt
It's it's pretty kick ass. Yeah, it's

Jem Young
pretty good. I met one of the founders are the creators of it. Core contributor and like, super smart person. So next pick is music for probing programming. dotnet Sure, if I pick that already, cuz it's so fantastic that I like I always refer to it. But if I needed like, I'd have a task. And I know, I already know what I need to get done. I seem to like space everybody out and get it done. I always go there. It's fantastic. And my third pick is really pick but it's just a shout out to women in tech for the past 50 years, like holy crap, like talk about people that they work so hard, they got no credit, and they came to like, probably very chauvinist atmosphere. And they like wrote Apollo 11 code, and we're talking about like old school, like hardcore programmers that they put up with so much crap, and they're just brilliant. But yeah, shouted out, man, holy crap. They're like, I look at some of the code. Lynn Clark. Her mom wrote some I think Apollo 1111. Yeah, fun. That's badass. But uh, yeah, that code is like, that's when they kept it in binders and like 10 feet tall. Oh, yeah.

Ryan Burgess
All right. Cheers. Cheers to women.

Brian Holt
Also shout out to to Lynn Clark. She's done. Yeah.

Ryan Burgess
Derek, what do you have picks this week?

Derrick Showers
Oh, my first pick is this whiskey that bought the high West silver, which I've actually really never been one for silver whiskies. But it's really good.

Brian Holt
There's two of them. There's the Western Oat, which is what we were drinking. And there's also OMG, which are both really good, but the Western is better.

Derrick Showers
I think it definitely is a different taste than normal whiskey. So I think it's probably like you said that. If you like it, you like it. If you don't, you don't, but it's really good. More seriously, maybe this happened probably about a month ago now. But the WWDC announcements for iOS 10 And watch OS three and all that stuff was really excited to see all the new stuff coming to iOS and and like, especially their attention to building extensions and all that stuff to like, integrate things into all their different into different stock apps into their iOS and stuff. So really excited to try that stuff out. I downloaded the beta to my phone. It sucks, but that's okay. It's just a beta. My third pick is I'm late to the game but just was offered last week and needed to binge watch something and chose Mr. Robot as a as a as a show to watch. It was really awesome. Like I hadn't even really heard about it and just read an article about things to to binge watch on Netflix and others. And this was and the others

Ryan Burgess
Brian, what do you what do you have for your picks this week?

Brian Holt
My serious pick is definitely a project include, which is from my former boss, Ellen Pao, as well as people like Tracy Chow and other fantastic women that I can't remember their name of because I've been drinking too much. But it's just basically to help clueless startups be inclusive. And just kind of helping them guide guide them through that process because it's hard as a startup to try and you know, try to be inclusive especially when you don't, you're not diverse already. So check them out for sure they have articles, they have consulting, every bit of thing that they put out is definitely worth it. My second pick is much more self serving I released an open source project this past week called elk. Which basically is something like Bitly, where you can do URL shortening using now, which is from Zite. So definitely check it out. It's on my GitHub BT hold slash elk dash CLI. You should remember that because it's very easy to remember. We'll put it in the show notes as well. Okay. But basically, you can shorten URLs from the CLI. I think it's super useful, because it is, so go ahead and use it.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, no, I've looked at it looks pretty it is.

Brian Holt
The code is awful. But it works. It does work. I shipped it. Alright, so

Ryan Burgess
I love that Derek picked a high West whiskey because I've actually have a another high West whiskey chosen, which Brian actually is the one who go to Utah. Yeah. Brian, Brian pushed me onto this whiskey. It's great tie West rendezvous ride, which is actually becoming one of my favorite rides now. It's delicious. My next pick is a music pick, which is snack, the Ripper, his new album called from the dirt. So it's another album worth checking out. I will actually add that to the front end Happy Hour playlist as well. Alright, I want to thank Mars and Lisa for joining us on today's episode and in the discussion. Where can people follow you on get in touch with you, Lisa?

Lisa Burgess
People can follow me on Twitter. It is underscore Lisa Burgess.

Ryan Burgess
Mars. What about you?

Mars Jullian
I'm also on Twitter. My handle is Mars Josephine

Ryan Burgess
for the rest of panels. Let's go around and how can each how can people get in touch with you on Twitter? Augustus Yeah, mine

Augustus Yuan
is at OG Berto like burrito? That's getting at OG burrito H UGV. Are to

Jem Young
mine is at Jem Young.

Derrick Showers
Mine is at Derek showers. And if you tweet me cuter dog pictures then you tweet. I'll give you stickers

Brian Holt
mine's a at Holt Beatty,

Ryan Burgess
and I'm at Burgess D. Ryan. Thank you all for listening to today's episode, make sure to subscribe to us on your favorite podcasting app. And follow us on Twitter at front end eight H H Thank you all