Sexist assholes exist in technology but are rare. I don't think I'm one, and I've only worked at one company where they were common, and that was a VC-funded company with MBA culture, and that's why there was so much sexism (among management). Plenty of these tech companies have the old, sexist MBA culture where women exist to make powerful men feel important, young, manly, etc.; but plenty more don't have that culture.
There's very little explicit classism. However, there is much indirect classism as a result of the severe ageism. If you age-grade peoples' careers harshly and discount accomplishments after 35, you're favoring people who had a head start (rich kids) while downgrading the people who worked hard for decades. That's a real problem but it doesn't exist because people explicitly favor the privileged. They don't. They're just prone to the same biases as everyone else, and thus are influenced by precociousness and pedigree. This is amplified by the groupthink in the VC community, and would be substantially less of a problem if there were more independent thought.
Why are many VCs ageist? (That's where the general "bro" culture comes from; it trickles down.) Because MBA culture (which is different from tech, the latter being far more evolved) is sexist and ageist, and also because a lot of these gatekeepers are middle-aged private-equity guys who did their 20s completely wrong (90-hour weeks) and are trying to live vicariously through young sociopaths whose careers they can make, in exchange for juicy tidbits about what their proteges did on the weekend ("chickenhawking"; see Michael Scott and Ryan Howard in The Office). Most VCs aren't that pathetic, but the groupthink favors the chickenhawk compliant (privileged, young, somewhat sociopathic, party-friendly) at the expense of the true technologists.
The real problem is the lack of fighters in tech, which leads to conformity and groupthink among the crowd that matters (VCs, top founders). Groupthink magnifies the biases of the defective few.
The real problem is that true technologists have done a poor job of protecting the culture; the real technology culture is far more meritocratic than the bastardized version the MBAs and private equity guys came up with. If we want fairness and a return to a maker-centric culture in the Valley and in the software industry in general, we can have it; but we have to get better at fighting for our own interests.
The Isms in tech.
Sexist assholes exist in technology but are rare. I don't think I'm one, and I've only worked at one company where they were common, and that was a VC-funded company with MBA culture, and that's why there was so much sexism (among management). Plenty of these tech companies have the old, sexist MBA culture where women exist to make powerful men feel important, young, manly, etc.; but plenty more don't have that culture.
There's very little explicit classism. However, there is much indirect classism as a result of the severe ageism. If you age-grade peoples' careers harshly and discount accomplishments after 35, you're favoring people who had a head start (rich kids) while downgrading the people who worked hard for decades. That's a real problem but it doesn't exist because people explicitly favor the privileged. They don't. They're just prone to the same biases as everyone else, and thus are influenced by precociousness and pedigree. This is amplified by the groupthink in the VC community, and would be substantially less of a problem if there were more independent thought.
Why are many VCs ageist? (That's where the general "bro" culture comes from; it trickles down.) Because MBA culture (which is different from tech, the latter being far more evolved) is sexist and ageist, and also because a lot of these gatekeepers are middle-aged private-equity guys who did their 20s completely wrong (90-hour weeks) and are trying to live vicariously through young sociopaths whose careers they can make, in exchange for juicy tidbits about what their proteges did on the weekend ("chickenhawking"; see Michael Scott and Ryan Howard in The Office). Most VCs aren't that pathetic, but the groupthink favors the chickenhawk compliant (privileged, young, somewhat sociopathic, party-friendly) at the expense of the true technologists.
The real problem is the lack of fighters in tech, which leads to conformity and groupthink among the crowd that matters (VCs, top founders). Groupthink magnifies the biases of the defective few.
The real problem is that true technologists have done a poor job of protecting the culture; the real technology culture is far more meritocratic than the bastardized version the MBAs and private equity guys came up with. If we want fairness and a return to a maker-centric culture in the Valley and in the software industry in general, we can have it; but we have to get better at fighting for our own interests.
End Rant.