I don't want to get into a hot tub and pitch investors my business while
holding a beer what woman wants to do that while wearing a bikini and these
things are really happening I'm here with Emily Chang an anchor and executive
producer at Bloomberg TV who has been covering the tech industry for nearly a
decade she has a new book out called brew topia all about sexism in Silicon
Valley it caused quite a splash when you published an excerpt before it even came
out in Vanity Fair all about the sex parties in Silicon Valley that is one
element of the book but it's really about so much more helpers your main
goal in writing this book as you said I've been covering Silicon Valley it has
always had a big gender gap you've got women in 25% of computing jobs they make
up 7% of investors women led companies get 2% of funding off camera people
would always talk about it women especially it would be really frustrated
but when you tried to talk to them about it on the record nobody would say what
they really have to say because it's scary to speak up about these things as
I started to do more digging and look back into how and why we got here I
realized it wasn't always this way but that means it doesn't have to be this
way and I think that the same people who've changed the world can change this
too there's kind of this blurring between professional and personal lives
in Silicon Valley and you're right they've changed the world in so many
ways but they've also amassed so much money and how does that play into these
meetings that are happening outside of the office so much business in Silicon
Valley gets done outside the office so we are talking about the party the bar
the hotel lobby the conference maybe it's the hot tub in a lot of situations
women are being put in uncomfortable positions where they're not able to be
their best selves and I've spoken to so many women who said I don't want to get
into a hot tub and pitch investors my business while holding a beer what woman
wants to do that while wearing a bikini a lot of the times it's their male
managers that aren't that are inviting them out and they're faced with this
sort of catch-22 do I go and be part of the team of course they're gonna talk
about work or do I stay and be that uncool kid and you know not get that
opportunity you spoke to a lot of women who had this experience but then there
has been some backlash especially from big names like Elon Musk came out and
said this was salacious and you should be ashamed for misleading the public how
do you respond to that kind of so I understand this is new territory to
cover and to connect with this issue but no good change comes without some people
feeling a little uncomfortable and I've spoken to over three dozen people who
either they've been to these parties or they felt shut out by these parties both
men and women and in a lot of ways they're a lot less about sex and a lot
more about power and the power dynamic is completely lopsided are there
companies that are getting it right what are the companies to follow I talked
about slack which is the focus of the last chapter of my book Stewart
Butterfield the CEO has said this is important to me he's put a stake in the
ground and it's showing in the numbers I also think that just having women in
leadership position and it organically creates diversity I talked about
Eventbrite where Julia Hart's is co-founder and now the CEO and they're
50/50 and she said it just happened same with Rent the Runway in fact Rent the
Runway is actually 70% women and minorities Dick Costolo the former CEO
of Twitter told me that he wouldn't hire another man until 8 hired a woman Jack
Dorsey is doing something really interesting at square when they bring a
new woman on the engineering team they put her on a team with other women which
means that there are some teams that remain all-male but it allows that woman
to bond with other women and network and then once she has that support system
they move them around to different parts of the organization it's an experiment
but the discrimination in Silicon Valley is systemic and it has seeped into the
culture this is an industry that is controlling what we see what we read how
we shop it's making the video games that our children are playing and the social
media that everyone is using these companies are making products that are
used by billions and billions of people and we don't think about who's actually
behind the scenes but in fact it's probably the most powerful industry in
the world and it's changing the way we live men can't be making all the
decisions in Silicon Valley by themselves the last few pages of the
book I speak with teenage girls who've learned to code and they're so excited
about coming into technology so I think the industry needs to think about the
message that they are sending implicitly to the younger generation but if those
girls are still here in ten I think that'll be some sign of success