The one thing that caught my attention in this essay as I read over it a couple times, was PG's emphasis on the being a computer programmer, as opposed to computer hacker. My sense (and someone feel free to correct me), is that YCombinator does have a pretty significant (and, I believe, appropriate) bias towards hackers.
Someone can become a computer programmer in a fairly straightforward fashion - just take a dozen or so computing science classes - and, voila - if you pass them you are a computer programmer.
But becoming a hacker doesn't just require that skill, it also requires a desire, passion, and focus that goes beyond just understanding the mechanics and syntax of computer programming.
It's likely that having more female computer programmers will result in more hackers, but I thought it was strange that in an Essay of Female Founders in the context of YCombinator, that PG didn't mention the nuance between "Computer Programmer" and "Computer Hacker" even once. The closest he comes is, "avid programmers" - and I'm wondering if he was writing this essay for a broader audience, and explicitly avoiding the word, "hacker."
The point I was trying to make is that he never once mentioned the word "hacker" in his essay. Didn't try and dive into it's connotations, and implications. Didn't want to even take a paragraph to capture the essence of being a computer hacker.
I'm guessing that it might have been in an earlier draft, when he decided that it was distracting from the actual point he was trying to make, which was relatively straightforward.
Someone can become a computer programmer in a fairly straightforward fashion - just take a dozen or so computing science classes - and, voila - if you pass them you are a computer programmer.
But becoming a hacker doesn't just require that skill, it also requires a desire, passion, and focus that goes beyond just understanding the mechanics and syntax of computer programming.
It's likely that having more female computer programmers will result in more hackers, but I thought it was strange that in an Essay of Female Founders in the context of YCombinator, that PG didn't mention the nuance between "Computer Programmer" and "Computer Hacker" even once. The closest he comes is, "avid programmers" - and I'm wondering if he was writing this essay for a broader audience, and explicitly avoiding the word, "hacker."