I'm a woman. A lot of men find me attractive, though my youth is long gone and it took a lot of my beauty with it when it left.
Men mostly either coo at me or treat me like an idiot who desperately needs a heavy heap of Mansplaining.
I've been on HN nearly a decade. I appear to be the only openly female member to have ever spent time on the leader board.
I am endlessly mocked and belittled for pointing out how differently I get treated from the guys on the leader board. People go out of their way to make it clear that expecting this to be a professional networking opportunity that enhances my career and bottom line is point-and-laugh worthy, never mind the overwhelming evidence that participation here routinely enhances the careers and bank balances of countless men.
So that's the lens through which I view the Theranos debacle where the world imagined the company wasn't merely a billion dollar unicorn but, instead, valued it at ten billion and called it a dekacorn. Then, overnight, it's valuation dropped to zero.
I don't think the same scenario would have flown for so very long and gotten so crazy out of hand with a charismatic man as the front person.
I desperately want good constructive feedback and mostly can't get it. I'm quite confident that Holmes was largely starved of honest and factual feedback about life, the universe, the company and how business is done.
The most recent article I read indicated she shacked up with one of the investors. Her public narrative was that she was completely celibate out of single-minded devotion to the company.
I have never seen an article that really questioned that. The media has bent over backwards to be respectful of this known fraud.
I'm still waiting to hear that the real secret of her success was sleeping with multiple powerful men who then backed the company in exchange. I think the one other time I said that on HN, it was downvoted.
Sexual politics. Can't give the obvious answer about how a college drop out with no business experience managed to "fake it" so long without ever making good on any of those empty promises, even after it has come out that she moved in with some old guy who invested millions in her company.
Men mostly either coo at me or treat me like an idiot who desperately needs a heavy heap of Mansplaining.
I've been on HN nearly a decade. I appear to be the only openly female member to have ever spent time on the leader board.
I am endlessly mocked and belittled for pointing out how differently I get treated from the guys on the leader board. People go out of their way to make it clear that expecting this to be a professional networking opportunity that enhances my career and bottom line is point-and-laugh worthy, never mind the overwhelming evidence that participation here routinely enhances the careers and bank balances of countless men.
So that's the lens through which I view the Theranos debacle where the world imagined the company wasn't merely a billion dollar unicorn but, instead, valued it at ten billion and called it a dekacorn. Then, overnight, it's valuation dropped to zero.
I don't think the same scenario would have flown for so very long and gotten so crazy out of hand with a charismatic man as the front person.
I desperately want good constructive feedback and mostly can't get it. I'm quite confident that Holmes was largely starved of honest and factual feedback about life, the universe, the company and how business is done.
The most recent article I read indicated she shacked up with one of the investors. Her public narrative was that she was completely celibate out of single-minded devotion to the company.
I have never seen an article that really questioned that. The media has bent over backwards to be respectful of this known fraud.
I'm still waiting to hear that the real secret of her success was sleeping with multiple powerful men who then backed the company in exchange. I think the one other time I said that on HN, it was downvoted.
Sexual politics. Can't give the obvious answer about how a college drop out with no business experience managed to "fake it" so long without ever making good on any of those empty promises, even after it has come out that she moved in with some old guy who invested millions in her company.