Meena Boppana
Jul 10, 2017 · 6 min read

EDIT: Thanks for the retweet, Ashton :)

Dear Ashton Kutcher,

You are not the problem. I don’t know you, but from what I can tell, you care about women’s rights both in tech and around the world. I see you standing up against human trafficking, primarily against women and girls, through your nonprofit, Thorn. You haven’t committed any atrocities (as far as I know) like many of the sexual predators who are the epitome of the problem. And most recently, I saw you make a sincere effort to understand the problems that women in tech face, in the face of recent damning harassment claims against investors:

That being said, I understand why people are mad at you. When I first read your LinkedIn post, I was mad too. I am a part of the diversity and inclusion advocacy movement in tech, fighting for diversity and inclusion at my workplace in which I am one of a few female engineers. But when I read it again, I saw a genuine desire to understand why women are not founding and joining companies at anywhere near parity with men. And then, I saw the media pound you again, and again, and again for it.

I’d love to step through your questions one by one and analyze them.

  1. “What are the rules for dating in the workplace? Flirting? What are the clear red lines? Where does the line between work and social life stop and start?”

I feel that these are great questions, and here is why. I think that talking about the rules for dating in the workplace is extremely important for tech to discuss, not for the purpose of men getting dates, but for the purpose of women feeling comfortable in work settings. (I’m not entirely sure whether the intent of this question was geared towards the “men getting dates” problem or the “women feeling comfortable” problem, and if it is the first then I would question why this belongs in a conversation about gender equality.) One of my main frustrations as a woman in tech is that due to the informal nature of Silicon Valley, it is often difficult to understand when a setting is work-related or social, leading to countless instances of harassment. It also leads to men being wary of hanging out with women in any one-on-one capacity, which leads to women missing out on key networking and mentorship scenarios. It is a given that people flirt and date in workplaces. So these are key questions!

That being said, I (and many women who have already responded to you) take some issue with the framing of this question given the recent women who have come forward about sexual harassment and assault. Dave McClure was not, as his apology article suggests, towing a fine line “for [his] inappropriate behavior in a setting he thought was social.” The very brave Cheryl Sew Hoy later stated that Dave McClure refused to leave her apartment and pushed her into a corner, qualifying as assault and not one of confusing work vs. social scenarios.

2. “Given that in the short term we are clearly bound by the existing educated talent pool in STEM, other than promoting STEM parity going forward, how do we create a stop gap solution?”

This is one of the no-nos in talking about diversity and inclusion in tech traditionally, namely the “pipeline” problem. There are a few reasons why the “pipeline” problem gets a bad rap. One reason it is that it is a convenient excuse for any tech company or VC to bring up, because it is a problem out of their control. So it is a lazy answer for companies.

While I don’t object to the question itself, I do disagree with it. I agree with you that the talent pool in STEM is one area where we need to tackle the problem and is a driver for why I am working in educational technology. However, I do not think that we are bound by it. There is currently a gap between the percentage of women graduating from STEM programs (20 percent) and the percentage at the average tech company (Source: First Round Review). Additionally, we see women dropping out of tech at rates far higher than men.

To answer the actual question, I think that two places to start are recruiting and retention. Recruiting into Silicon Valley is heavily referral-based, to the point that most startups don’t even really look at the applications they get through their website. Students who graduate with a degree in STEM that is not a top 5 college (where companies have the resources to recruit) often have trouble getting their foot in the door at all.

When it comes to retention, I will let the stories of women being harassed in Silicon Valley startups speak for themselves. This is an obvious area to improve on, and not one to be overlooked.

3. “Should investors invest in ideas that they believe to have less merit so as to create equality across the portfolio?”

I believe that you are aware of this by now, but I feel that this question is problematic (and the one I find most problematic) because it suggests that the only way you can think of to fund more women and minorities is by “lowering the bar” (another no-no in diversity in tech conversations). And that logic makes sense, when you think of it as a fixed number of inputs and a fixed number of outputs. There are X people who might apply for funding every year, and of those Y get funded. Given that model, there is no way to raise the percentage of women getting funded without changing the bar.

However, I do not believe that the system works this way. As you may know better than me, investors have a fixed number of resources and only get to hear pitches from a fixed number of people, who are often pre-selected based on personal connections / referrals to the firm and other factors that skew white and male. There are lots of ways to diversify your inputs without changing the bar, which involves more due diligence on sourcing the companies that pitch you. All this is assuming that the hiring bar is fair towards women and minorities in the first place, which it isn’t due to implicit and explicit bias.

4. “How do we create channels to promote female entrepreneurship? What advice should we be giving to female entrepreneurs?”

Good question. I’ve gotten a lot of advice along these lines at the YC Female Founders Conference, which broadcast all of its talks online. One way that the conference promoted female entrepreneurship was by creating a community of female entrepreneurs, as well as showcasing amazing female founders. I think the most useful way to promote female entrepreneurship is to connect female founders to each other in this way. As Sheryl Sandberg says, “you cannot be what you cannot see.” And the most useful advice I’ve ever gotten has been encouragement to just go for it. I suspect that the threshold for a woman to decide to start a company is far higher than the threshold for a man, and so this advice is useful.

5. “Are there any aggregated or clear pieces of media or educational platforms to help men understand where their blind spots may be?”

Also a good question. I’ve found the Kapor Center for Social Impact and the Anita Borg Institute to have some great resources around diversity and inclusion, but I don’t actually know of any resources designed specifically for male allies as you suggest. (I suspect that such resources exist, and I don’t know about them.)

EDIT: I was pointed to a resource for male allies from NCWIT: www.ncwit.org/ma-toolkit.

6. “Are these the right questions?”

I love this question. It shows that you have an open mind around a highly politicized topic and genuinely want to learn.

So much yes to this point. I don’t know how else we (diversity advocates) are going to bring others onto our side without allowing people to say the wrong thing.

I would love to have a meaningful conversation with you in which both of us express our points of view on the topic :)

Meena Boppana

Written by

Head of University, interviewing.io

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