A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

Since Spring the media has been sharing stories and statistics about the rampant sexism, ageism and general bigotry in tech, its self-proclaimed “meritocracy” and the amazing male hyperopia (farsightedness) that seems almost incapable of recognizing bigotry in themselves or those close to them.

Y Combinator President Sam Altman and founder Paul Graham are a good example.

Last month Altman posted the importance of eliminating the gender bias in tech and Silicon Valley in particular, and that people need to stop pretending.

“One of the most insidious things happening in the debate is people claiming versions of ‘other industries may have problems with sexism, but our industry doesn’t.'”

He cited Y Combinator’s track record of accepting women founders into the incubator as proof that it isn’t sexist.

He did not, however, explain Graham’s statements in May that he doesn’t fund founders with strong accents or women who have/want kids.

Altman thinks HR can be a solution.

“Our sense is that many will benefit by doing it [human resources infrastructure] earlier. Traditionally, startups have thought of HR as a drag on moving fast and openness, but a well-running team is one of the best assets a company can ever have.”

However, the dozens of women who work for established companies with plenty of human resource infrastructure and have shared horrific stories on platforms from Whisper to Fortune are proof that rules don’t work.

The real solution in any company, from startup to Fortune 50 is a founder/CEO who backs a culture that is blind to gender, age and color and, most importantly, walks the talk, both professionally and personally.

This puts you, as a founder, in a position to truly change the working world.

Image credit: HikingArtist

Whether you like it or not, agree or not or just consider it unfair, what you say/write/tweet and pin is who you are to the world.

Based on what comes out of his mouth, Mel Gibson is a not only a bigot/raciest/anti-Semite, but a thoroughly rotten human being.  

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo claimed there are no qualified women for his Board, but it didn’t take much for outside experts to identify 25 women who are more than qualified. Of course, Costolo has a lot of company in that mindset.

In a blog post, AdRants Steve Hall self-proclaimed that for “salaciously selfish, purely prurient, Neanderthal-ish reasons” he wanted to work at ad firm Young & Laramore, because of the hot staffers; he also identified several other women he considered hot, then informed everyone via Twitter that he didn’t mean to be insulting and was, in fact, a “nice guy.”

Celery founder Peter Shih of wrote a post citing everything he thinks is wrong with San Francisco that was a cornucopia of “misogyny, homophobia and a general disregard for socioeconomic inequality” that, in the subsequent storm, he tried to pass it off as “humorous satire.”

The thing that all these have in common is that the protagonists were all innocent.

None of them meant anything bad, and some, like Gibson, even denied that they actually believed what they ranted.

They blamed booze, misguided humor, lack of context, ignorance, third-party misunderstanding and a myriad of other reasons why their words shouldn’t define them.

But your words reflect your thoughts and, thanks to the Internet, they will be around forever.

Flickr image credit: Steven Cateris

Companies that allow silos risk seeing divisions and departments that fight each other instead of focusing how each can best contribute to the company’s success—think Microsoft.

Globally, politics has become dominated by ideological silos and the wealthy believers who funnel rivers of money to their pet ideologues—think US Congress.

Several years ago a couple of startups gave the college-bound a way to curate their roommates, so they could be sure not to be exposed to ideas, attitudes or upbringing not in sync with their current thinking.

Mangers have been doing this for decades by thoughtlessly hiring people like themselves, so they can stay within their personal comfort zones.

Every article I read tells me to “sign in and see what your friends are reading” or buying/thinking/doing/voting.

Dozens of new apps offer to filter your information/experience/travel plans/etc. based on what “people like you” think/did/own/bought.

The result of all this curation by like-minded people is a constant narrowing of experiences, therefore attitudes and thoughts.

That narrowing leads to an inability to understand those not like us, which, in turn, kills compassion, i.e., the ability to walk in the other person’s shoes.

The end result is a rise in all forms of bigotry, not just people, but food, places, cultures, religions, politics—the list is endless.

I’m not saying there isn’t value in curation, especially considering the tsunami of information that engulfs everything in its path.

Just be sure a large chunk of the recommendations come from people NOT like you.

Flickr image credit: SalFalko

August 23^rd was an interesting reading day for me.

First I read about the ingredients that nine different entrepreneurs utilized to create great cultures and are applicable to any company of any size.

Then I read what some would consider a rant about how culture was used to enable legal discrimination.

The ingredients described in the first article made me smile and shout ‘yes!’, because they are the same things I’ve been preaching for years.

However, the twisted use of culture to legitimatize bigotry and discrimination enraged me—as it always has.

I have long recommended using culture as a hiring filter and still believe it is one of the best around, since attitude is far more important than skills when it comes to who you hire.

People who believe manipulation is the correct tool for getting ahead do not belong in a company that promotes strictly on merit and accomplishment; in fact; they can easily destroy it.

However, a talent for manipulating people has nothing to do with age, gender, race, creed, color, alumni status or the myriad of other differences that may take you out of your comfort zone.

Flickr image credit: Paul Dixon

Anyone reading the news—local, national or global—knows that hate and intolerance are increasing at an alarming rate everywhere.

Also, because there have been/will be so many elections around the world this year ‘leadership’ is in the news even more so than usual.

What responsibility do leaders—business, political, religious, community—bear in fostering hate and intolerance?

A lot.

Not just the age old race and gender intolerance, but the I’m/we’re-RIGHT-so-you-should-do/think-our-way-or-else.

The ‘we’re right/you’re wrong’ attitude is as old as humanity and probably won’t ever change, but it’s the ‘do-it-our-way-or-else’ that shows the intolerance for what it really is.

And leaders aren’t helping; in fact, they are making it worse.

During my adult life (I missed being a Boomer by a hair) I’ve watched as hate and intolerance spread across the country masked by religion, a façade of political correctness or a mea culpa that is supposed to make everything OK, but doesn’t.

Various business, political, religious and community leaders give passionate, fiery talks to their followers and then express surprise and dismay when some of those same followers steal trade secrets, plant bombs, and kill individuals—whose only error was following their own beliefs.

We are no longer entitled to the pursuit of happiness if our happiness offends someone next door, the other end of the country, or the far side of the globe.

I remember Ann Rand saying in an interview that she believed that she had the right to be totally selfish, where upon the interviewer said that would give her freedom to kill.

Rand said absolutely not, in fact the reverse was true, since her selfishness couldn’t impinge anyone else’s right to be selfish.

Leaders aren’t responsible; we are because we go along with it—as did the Germans when Hitler led them down the hate and intolerance path.

That about sums up my attitude

What’s yours?

Image credit: Street Sign Generator

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

Bosses hiring for startups (or existing companies) wax lyrical on the benefits of hiring “stars” and are willing to jump through almost any hoop to get one.

Those of you who crave stars would do well to read the story of Jeremy Lin, who plays for the NY Knicks in the NBA.

Nobody considered Lin a star or even a potential star.

He was cut in December by the Golden State Warriors, his hometown team, after one season in which he rarely left the bench. The Warriors were intrigued enough to sign him but not enough to keep him. The Houston Rockets gave Lin a quick look and cut him.

Of course, his coaches didn’t play him, so they never learned what he could do.

The Knicks almost made the same mistake.

Lin started with two strikes against him; he is Chinese-American and graduated from Harvard—he doesn’t fit “the profile.”

In spite of superb high school playing he received no scholarship offers.

Similar scenarios play out every day in hiring decisions across industries and around the country.

In doing so managers walk by some of the best talent available.

How many Jeremy Lins have you missed?

How many of them now work for your competition?

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Flickr image credit: HikingArtist

Sometimes good things arrive in my inbox amidst the silly videos and spam.

And so it was yesterday; I was thinking about what to write when this arrived and it seemed the perfect answer—assuming, that is, that you are as tired as I am of the rising tide of hit pieces so prevalent this election.

Fable of the Porcupine
It was the coldest winter ever and many animals were dying because of the cold.
The porcupines, realizing the situation, decided to group together.
This way they covered and protected themselves; but the quills of each one wounded their closest companions, even though they gave heat to each other.
After awhile they decided to distance themselves one from the other and they began to die, alone and frozen.
So they had to make a choice: either accept the quills of their companions or disappear from the Earth.
Wisely, they decided to go back to being together.
This way they learned to live with the little wounds that were caused by the close relationships with their companions, but the most important part of it was the heat that came from the others.
In this way they were able to survive.
Moral of the story:
The best relationship is not the one that brings together perfect people.

The best relationship is when each individual learns to live with the imperfections of others as opposed to dying alone in the cold.

What do you think? Will humans live up to the example of porcupines or die alone in the cold?

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nostri-imago/2854029427/

The Fourth of July; a day we celebrate our freedom that should include freedom from fear, hate and intolerance.

That thought reminded me of something I wrote in 2007 and it seemed apropos to share it with you today.

What responsibility does leadership—business, political, religious, community—bear in fostering hate and intolerance?

I’m not talking about race or gender issues, but prevalent the attitude that I’m/we’re-RIGHT-so-you-should-do/think-our-way-or-else.

It’s not the ‘we’re right/you’re wrong’ that bothers me, but the ‘do-it-our-way-or-else’ that shows the intolerance for what it really is.

During my adult life (I missed being a Boomer by a hair) I’ve watched as hate and intolerance spread across the country masked by religion, a facade of political correctness or a mea culpa that is supposed to make everything OK—but doesn’t.

Various business, political, religious and community leaders give passionate, fiery talks to their followers and then express surprise and dismay when some of those same followers, in the name what their leader preaches, steal trade secrets, plant bombs, and kill individuals whose only error was following their own beliefs.

No longer are we all entitled to the pursuit of happiness if our happiness offends the person next door or someone living at the other end of the country.

It is the worst kind of selfishness.

I remember Ann Rand saying in an interview that she believed that she had the right to be totally selfish, where upon the interviewer said that would give her freedom to kill.

Rand replied absolutely not, in fact the reverse was true; since her selfishness couldn’t take away anyone else’s right to be selfish.

That about sums up my attitude

I just wish there were fewer people following all the Ellsworth Toohey types in today’s world.

Have a wonderful, safe and tolerant holiday.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wonderferret/2920749911/

“The philosophy of the classroom in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next.” –Cynthia Dunbar, another Christian activist on the Texas board of education.

I have nothing against Christians or Texans; as the saying goes, some of my best friends are Christian and a few are Texans.

But I have a lot against the idea that tomorrow’s K-12 textbooks will be written to conform with the desires of the Texas educational system and the 7 Christian activists who have decided that the time is right to try to reshape the history that children in public schools study—in their version Robert Kennedy is not a “significant American,” but Newt Gingrich is.

The state’s $22 billion education fund is among the largest educational endowments in the country. Texas uses some of that money to buy or distribute a staggering 48 million textbooks annually — which rather strongly inclines educational publishers to tailor their products to fit the standards dictated by the Lone Star State.

This could go a long way to homogenizing thought and reducing international respect still further, not to mention encouraging hate, bigotry and ignorance.

But what else should I expect from a place where Republican Rep. Betty Brown suggested in testimony that “Asian-descent voters should adopt names that are “easier for Americans to deal with,”” and Brown’s spokesman insisted that the comment had nothing to do with race.

Nuff said; rant over; thanks for listening.

March 18: I couldn’t resist adding a link to this great Mike Luckovich cartoon that sums my rant up so nicely.

Image credit: haldean on flickr

Phil Gerbyshack quotes Anthony Robbins,  “There is no greatness without a passion to be great..” and asks, “Does your passion burn brightly enough others can see it, can feel it?”

Passion is a recurring theme today, whether leading, motivating or innovating; it’s important to entrepreneurs as well as those in all sizes of mature companies; to parents, politicians, non-profits and causes.

But did you ever stop to think that passion unchecked yields freely to fanaticism?

In business, fanaticism leads directly to ‘not invented here’ syndrome.

In life, fanaticism paves the road to a closed mind, one that is evidenced by fear, hate and bigotry.

Passion may drive greatness, but unbridled passion is the hallmark of the ideologue.

Image credit: ba1969