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Fighting Tech

Wednesday, February 19th, 2020

Maybe it takes tech to beat tech.

Or founders who plan to walk their talk even after them become successful, unlike the “don’t be evil” guys.

More entrepreneurs are pursuing social or environmental goals, said Greg Brown, a professor of finance at the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina.

Companies like Toms, Warby Parker and Uncommon Goods have pushed this concept into the mainstream by creating successful business models built around helping others. This trend has led to the rise of B Corporations, a certification for companies that meet high standards of social responsibility. The program started in 2007, and now more than 2,500 companies have been certified in more than 50 countries.

Including Afghanistan.

Not all these startups make it and many are choosing to do it sans investors who often start pushing for growth and revenue, social mission be dammed.

And they are slowly succeeding.

Companies like Moka are a reflection of how consumers think as well, Professor Brown said. As people’s wealth increases, they think more about quality and less about quantity. They also consider the social context of what they’re buying.

Others are developing tech to defend against tech.

The “bracelet of silence” is not the first device invented by researchers to stuff up digital assistants’ ears. In 2018, two designers created Project Alias, an appendage that can be placed over a smart speaker to deafen it. But Ms. Zheng argues that a jammer should be portable to protect people as they move through different environments, given that you don’t always know where a microphone is lurking.

These may not be the solution, assuming there is one, but this definitely isn’t.

Rather than building individual defenses, Mr. Hartzog believes, we need policymakers to pass laws that more effectively guard our privacy and give us control over our data.

You have on to consider tech’s actions in Europe to know that laws don’t stop tech.

There’s another potential positive brewing in tech — actually a disruption of sorts.

That’s the long-time coming move away from current ageist thinking.

As brilliant as young coders are, though, the industry can’t survive on technical chops alone. Last year, Harvard Business Review shared that the average age of a successful startup founder isn’t 25 or 30—it’s 45 years old.

Call it a miracle, but investors, the majority over 40, are starting to value the experience that comes with age.

Hopefully, in the long-run, the potential for success will outweigh the hang-up on age.

As a whole, entrepreneurial communities also need to do more to bring diverse groups to meet-ups, panels and speaking engagements. The importance of having more voices at the table can’t be diminished.

Let’s just hope it isn’t too long.

Image credit: Ron Mader

Your Boss’ Values

Tuesday, January 28th, 2020

https://www.flickr.com/photos/41666097@N07/48628989688/

Decades ago, when I was a recruiter in Silicon Valley, I preferred working directly with managers, avoiding HR, so I worked primarily with startups and smaller companies as opposed to large corporations — unicorns didn’t exist back then.

Aside from disliking HR’s bureaucratic read tape, I found I could provide better matches by understanding the culture of the hiring manager, whether founder or not.

Yes, there is an overarching company culture, but the manager-specific cultures that exist in every company rarely duplicate it and may not even bare any similarity.

Culture is the direct result of values.

Culture is only ageist, misogynist, bigoted when that manager’s values are ageist, misogynist, bigoted.

To thrive in a culture, you don’t need to duplicate your boss’ values, but they must, at the least, be synergistic.

Accepting an offer from a boss whose values are incompatible, let alone diametrically opposed, to yours can mean setting yourself up for disappointment or worse.

Image credit: pmillerd

Ageist Gender Parity

Tuesday, January 21st, 2020

https://www.flickr.com/photos/numberstumper/142474172/

Hey guys, are you doing your all to optimize your existence?

Success, money and disrupting an industry just doesn’t cut it anymore.

“Optimizing” is the male version of the same techniques women have been forced to use for decades to avoid being labeled old, AKA, unhireable.

Of course, old is relative.

The stretch number used to be 30 for women and no top for men.

While aging out for women hasn’t changed much, men’s has dropped like a stone, especially in the rarified atmosphere of Silicon Valley and other tech environs.

So what’s a guy to do?

The same thing women have been doing for decades.

These men are turning to procedures like Botox, fillers, laser treatments, and radio frequency microneedling, a technique that stimulates collagen and rejuvenates the skin. In some cases, they’re going under the knife for eye and neck lifts, according to the Post.

Who would have thought that any form of gender parity in tech would be driven by rampant ageism?

Image credit: paul stumpr

Golden Oldies: Entrepreneurs: A Lesson From IDEO

Monday, December 16th, 2019

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jm3/519148031

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Our population is aging, so more and more products are being developed for that market. The problem is that they are being developed by 20 and 30-somethings based on their idea of what’s needed — but in most cases they don’t have a clue.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

How would you respond to the following if you a large segment of your target market was older?

    • Would you hire a woman?
    • Would you hire an old woman?
    • A really old woman?
    • Could such a woman contribute significantly to a project?
    • What could she teach your hot, young engineers?

While most founders would answer ‘no’ or ‘nothing’, IDEO thinks differently.

The company recently hired Barbara Beskind and both she and IDEO consider her 90 years a major advantage.

She applied after seeing an interview with IDEO founder David Kelley, who talked about the importance of a truly diverse design team and hires accordingly.

The aging Boomer market has companies salivating and hundreds are developing products for them.

The problem, of course, is that younger designers have no idea what difficulties older people face; not the obvious ones, but those that are more subtle.

Beskind does.

For example, IDEO is working with a Japanese company on glasses to replace bifocals. With a simple hand gesture, the glasses will turn from the farsighted prescription to the nearsighted one. Initially, the designers wanted to put small changeable batteries in the new glasses. Beskind pointed out to them that old fingers are not that nimble.

It really caused the design team to reflect.” They realized they could design the glasses in a way that avoided the battery problem.

It’s the little things that make or break products and the knowledge of the little things comes mostly from having been there/done that.

That kind of insight is priceless.

Now how would you answer those questions?

Image credit: jm3 on Flickr

Privilege

Wednesday, December 11th, 2019

https://www.flickr.com/photos/stephendann/3769037680

Three years ago Jason Ford, an entrepreneur and investor in Austin, TX, wrote a post on Medium titled The real reason my startup was successful: privilege.

It is far more honest and accurate than the typical stuff from founders talking (bragging) about how they did it on their own.

This is especially true of younger founders.

Like Rick yesterday, they have no recognition of the privilege that eased their lives and underlies their success.

The post was thoughtful, intelligent, calmly stated, no insulting, or trolling.

But a lot of people scanned it, their focus caught on a couple of words, so the misinterpreted what Ford had written, in many cases angrily.

A couple of months later he followed up with White privilege is real to respond to comments from the first post.

Ford says it better, but privilege, whether White or based on gender, zip code, alumni, or any of a myriad of other things is very real.

Ford says it much better than I do; read his posts and spread the word.

No problem, large or small, was ever solved by ignoring it.

Image credit: Stephen Dann

Golden Oldies: Ducks in a Row: Are You Privileged?

Monday, December 9th, 2019

https://www.flickr.com/photos/fireflythegreat/6132347883

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

It’s been nearly five years since I wrote about “Rick” and in spite of everything that’s happened in those years, including inheriting his grandmother’s large estate, Rick still doesn’t consider himself privileged. Not surprising, considering the American belief that anybody can bootstrap their way to success all on their own. That includes people like Kylie Jenner, who brags about being self-made, since she bootstrapped her company using her own money — all by herself. No question, bootstrapping is far easier when you are privileged.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

If you’re an outsider, or even an insider prone to objectivity, Silicon Valley’s culture is a mess.

When I said as much to “Rick” his response caught me off guard — although it shouldn’t have.

“I wish they would just give it a rest. I am sick and tired of all the crap about wealth inequality, lack of diversity and privacy rights. That stuff is not my responsibility. I’ve worked hard and deserve my success; nobody went out of their way to help me. I’m sure not privileged and I figure if I can do it so can they.”

I’ve heard this before, but it still leaves me speechless.

Rick is tall, white, nice looking, middle class family, raised around Palo Alto, and graduated from UC Berkeley; his dad worked for Intel.

Yet he doesn’t see himself as privileged.

Over the years I’ve known thousands of Ricks.

And therein lies the true problem.

Because it’s hard to change that which doesn’t exist.

Image credit: Dagny Mol

Golden Oldies: Entrepreneurs: Are Investors Watering Down Innovation?

Monday, August 19th, 2019

https://www.flickr.com/photos/hikingartist/5726811997/

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

There’s not a lot on TV that I like, but I used to really enjoy Shark Tank. Past tense; haven’t watched in several years. Why? Two words: lifestyle products. With very few exceptions that’s what was being presented, whether an app, a product or a service. I understand that entrepreneurs create stuff that will get funded, and while I’m not saying they are bad investments or that the entrepreneurs don’t mean well, I am saying that I don’t care about them. They won’t change the world or even improve it. Uber and Lyft are good examples; they haven’t decreased traffic, as they claimed they would, in fact, they’ve increased it. Most in the “life style” category are focused on “personal care.” (Have you noticed that sometime in the recent past “personal growth” morphed into “personal care”?) More packaging in the landfills, more time on the screen, more focus on self — so not my mindset.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Innovation isn’t nearly as mind-boggling today when compared to what startups were doing in the late Seventies/early Eighties when I started working with them.

That’s not surprising when you consider who gets funded these days.

A recent Reuters report found that the majority of Silicon Valley startup founders that receive Series A funding come from the same pedigreed cohort: either they previously worked at a large, well-known tech firm, a well-connected smaller tech company, they previously created a successful startup, or they come from one of three universities—Stanford, Harvard, or MIT.

Not surprising when you consider the attitude of Valley stalwarts like Paul Graham of Y Combinator, who publicly stated that he would be unlikely to fund someone with a strong accent or a woman.

It’s been 15 years since I first wrote about the proclivity of managers to hire people like themselves and more over the years showing it leads to homophily and the negative impact that has on a company.

It seems it’s no different for investors.

They are funding people like themselves who were raised, educated and worked along paths similar to their own who they either know or are introduced to them by a friend.

“Like a lot of the investments [Instacart] that have come our way, a friend of a friend talked to us about it, and told us about it, and encouraged the founder and the CEO to come and chat with us. One thing led to another.” –Sequoia partner Mike Moritz

When you fund from a homogenous group, no matter where they are, creativity and innovation are watered down, because those groups tend to be insular and badly interbred talking mostly to each other.

If you’re fishing from a pond of rich white guys, you’re mostly going to get ideas that address the needs of rich white guys.

AKA, people like themselves.

Image credit: Frits Ahlefeldt

A Song From Then for Now

Wednesday, July 24th, 2019

The Superman panel KG sent yesterday reminded me of something I always wanted to see happen.

There is a song written in 1949 by Rodgers and Hammerstein for the musical South Pacific.

The song is You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught.

I’d love to see it done as rap, preferably by someone like LL Cool J, who has such a positive, good guy, persona.

And another version by Willie Nelson.

How ‘bout versions by Kacey Musgraves and Taylor Swift.

I could keep going, but you get the idea.

It’s a song that needs to go viral all over social media to all audiences.

A song to help fight the hate and bigotry that’s invading all spaces and nobody is safe from.

It’s this song.

Image credit: Critical Past

A 1950s Solution for the 21st Century

Tuesday, July 23rd, 2019

KG sent this to me.

What follows is our thread.

Me: Haha. This needs to go viral on social media! But did you notice the kids are all Caucasian?

KG: Yes — because is it the Caucasians that are causing the problems…

Me: Yeah, I realized that after I emailed you. But not all the problems. My sister dated a Black guy in college and his family threw fits. Taught me bigotry is universal, but white bigotry is more powerful/damaging.

KG: I understand. Humans are the problem, regardless of creed or color. However, white people expect that 400 years of slavery and oppression can just be wiped over and that suspicion of motives, etc. should just disappear. The reality is that we create problems for ourselves and for every other living thing on earth.

The consequences of slavery and oppression will be there for a long time.

Obviously. More than half a century and the things that have changed are the clothes, hairstyles and lack of phones.

Golden Oldies: How Well Do You Hear Past What You See?

Monday, July 8th, 2019

Poking through  13+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

We all have visual prejudices that have nothing to do with race, ethnicity, gender anything obvious. It’s important to know your own or you can’t hear past them. I worked hard to be aware of mine. I had no choice, because, back when I was a recruiter, I occasionally met my candidates. I vividly remember two of them, because if I had met them before I presented them and set up interviews I wouldn’t have, which would have cost me dearly, since both were hired (different companies). Why not? Because they both hit my visual prejudices.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Discrimination comes in many forms.

All of them are grounded in stupidity, but it’s age and appearance that I want to focus on today.

Layoffs are always a time when age is in the limelight, but this time it’s working in reverse.

“The share of older Americans who have jobs has risen during the recession, while the share of younger Americans with jobs has plunged.”

It seems that at least parts of corporate America have learned to see past the obvious.

“…employees whom companies have invested in most and who have “demonstrated track records…tend to be more experienced and are often older.””

So some companies have discovered that years of experience have substantial value when it comes to the success of the company.

But what about appearance? How much is hearing influenced by how someone looks at first take?

What better venue in which to consider this than the original British version of American Idol where the contestants are mostly young, generally good-looking and always bust their tails to make an impression.

How well do you think a slightly frumpy-looking 47 year old woman would fare under the scathing tongue of Simon Fuller?

How much do you think talent would offset the obvious visual assumptions made by both the judges and the audience?

Watch the judges and audience reaction carefully before Susan Boyle performs and how quickly it changes when she starts singing (embedding is disabled on this video); check out some of the more than 50 thousand comments.

Think about what happens when a “Susan” comes to interview; how well do you hear past her (or his) appearance?

Then come back and share your thoughts with us.

PS For a fascinating look at Susan read this article in the NY Times.

Image credit: cwsillero on sxc.hu

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