Emily Chang

This isn't new information if you've been reading the news, but Chang puts it together well. She starts with how we've built the bro stereotype of coding--that it's innate, that boys are better at it, and that we've kept women out. And from there she examines how companies either recruit or fail to recruit women, the myth of meritocracy in Silicon Valley, and the toxic culture in tech and venture capital. There are a lot of interviews with women in Silicon Valley and she does highlight when show more there have been successes--Google's early efforts to recruit women, for example. Bonus fun: Peter Thiel comes off even worse than usual. Good read. show less

I remember sitting down in my first classroom at the University of Massachusetts Amherst on an August day almost a decade ago. I was in orientation for the Engineering Department. Something felt very wrong. Sure, the room was weird; the desks with chairs attached and the fluorescent lighting. But that wasn't it. And then I realized—I was surrounded by almost exclusively men. In my class of more than fifty students there were only two women! I'd never been in an environment like this show more before, and I found it extremely uncomfortable. I dropped out of UMass after my freshman year, and who knows if more women in my engineering program might have convinced me to stay longer.

As an adolescent in the Pioneer Valley, or the Happy Valley, as some call it locally, I was steeped in feminist values. I also have always had a perverse fascination with Silicon Valley, dipping my toes in now and again. So when I heard about an upcoming book called “Brotopia,” I got it on pre-order.

I’m not familiar with the author, Emily Chang, although apparently she’s famous, running a show on Bloomberg about the tech industry. A veteran journalist, this is her first book.

You may have heard about this book as the “sex parties” text. Although there is a chapter on events that might be described as such, it was well hidden in the second half, and was just part of a much more sweeping narrative on misogyny in the high-tech industry.

Chang begins by informing us that women in tech reached a pinnacle in 1984 at 40% (not far from half). It’s now down to 25%, although that ratio is even worse when you look at VC (7%) and founder funding (2%). She discussed the ways in which privilege play out in gender. One example she explores is the theory of meritocracy. The term was modernized as a piece of satire, to be ironically adopted by an oblivious Silicon Valley. Meritocratic systems rely on a “level-playing-field,” and women are on anything but these days. Obviously, people like Peter Thiel didn’t get to the top just because they’re better than all the women...

Regardless of Chang’s personal relationship with the subject, she has chosen to relentlessly pursue the rhetoric of financial efficiency and the profit motive to justify her stance. Maybe this is becoming somewhat of a trend in Silicon Valley, the capitalist enclave that it is, after Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In.” Whenever we’re left wondering, “but why would gender equality be preferable?” Chang comes back to her refrain: “because your company will be more profitable.” Chang may believe that there might be non-financial motives that might justify gender equality, but the closest you’ll find to them in this text are her explorations of meritocracy. It’s indicative of just how bad things have gotten in Silicon Valley, that humanistic values have lost their appeal.

The book discusses a lot of topics that aren’t inherently bad or hurtful—for example, romantic relationships between colleagues. What do Capitol Hill, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley all have in common? Inequality of wealth and power. Why is it inappropriate for a venture capitalist to have a relationship with one of his entrepreneurs; because of the power imbalance. Chang explores this subject, but doesn’t step back to critique our systems of capitalism and colonialism that make inequalities of wealth and power (and the abuses therein) inevitable.

We might continue to see horrific episodes in these environments until they become more egalitarian—not just across the gender spectrum, but also across the spectrum of wealth and power.

This book is a must-read for anyone in tech today, and anyone interested in the #metoo movement. show less

I enjoy Emily Chang's conversations and interviews on Bloomberg News. I also enjoyed her book. I'm not surprised by the harassment and sexual assaults on women by men who are CEOs, managers, entrepreneurs, investors etc. These men prey on vulnerable women who are looking for investment for their start-ups, contacts, promotions and career advice.

Chang provided a number of stories of sexual assault, discrimination and harassment. What angered me was the complete ineptitude of HR professionals show more and departments to investigate and resolve these assault issues. Women who make these charges are subject to ridicule and retribution. Many women do not report unwanted sexual behavior by men who are their superiors or even their equals.

Silicon Valley behavior towards women is no different than the slimy behavior and comments exhibited in many Hollywood casting couches, Wall Street boardrooms or in the White House Oval Office.

Read this and weep! show less

Though I was expecting a book about tech, this was really a book about business, a subject about which I already had the prejudice that it was the domain of rapacious men in the mold of Donald Trump. The only surprise from tech is that it is largely populated by leftists who still turn out to be entitled bros under their woke veneer. I'd like to think that this is because they're being selected in this book from the successes of capitalism which favors such types in a social Darwinian way. I show more also get the impression that Sheryl Sandberg is suggesting that women become more that way and that Emily Chang is arguing that, like those evolutionists who try to explain altruism by its survival value, women's stereotypical skills should be recognized as valuable tools of world domination. show less