hey tech late here and welcome back to
coffee time with their host the X Google
tech lead and I thought that this would
be a relevant topic because number one
we've been discussing women recently on
my channel and also recently there was
this memo that had gone viral within
Google about a pregnant woman and then
she felt discrimination retaliation not
getting enough support and her
performance ready began to drop and then
she thought like whoa she's just not
going to be able to go back but this
does not really come as a surprise to me
intact if you've been working in tact
for a while this sort of thing happens a
lot where women and sometimes men as
well they will be going full speed ahead
with their career and then they'll hit a
wall and drop off this happened over at
Facebook as well last year where there
was another woman Eliza keuner who was a
data scientist and she says sure that
she had started that Facebook she was
five months pregnant raising two boys so
she was gonna have three kids and she
knew that it would be very difficult for
her to continue working there and
eventually she also just dropped out of
the whole work force now every time news
like this makes it rounds people get all
surprised but it's actually how it is is
the way it's done in fact if you take a
look at what Sheryl Sandberg who is a
women's rights activist Oh for our
Facebook if we take a look at what she
says this is exactly to plan that
everyone who's been through this and I'm
here to tell you once you have a child
at home your job better be really good
to go back because it's hard to leave
that kid at home before you leave stay
in keep your foot on the gas pedal until
the very day you need to leave to take a
break for a child and then make your
decisions don't make decisions too far
in advance so there's not many good
solutions right the only solution at
this point is the - your career as fast
forward as you can and see if you can
get into a role that gives you enough
power flexibility or if that role is
just too good that you can't leave it
behind and then you end up having to
choose between your career or your
family or maybe simply you'll be able to
out earn your spouse and then force your
spouse to be the one who's going to be
staying at home whether that be a
stay-at-home mom or stay-at-home debt
but if you're not able to break that
barrier that threshold
then yeah you're going to hit a wall
you'll be going full force into it like
a tree and so that's what we're seeing
happen to allow these people so overall
the state of working parents in tech and
this applies to women I meant is that
you will be hitting a wall at full force
and there's not many people who are
planning other ways around this
now generally for men they may have just
been more socially conditioned to
understand that maybe they won't be the
one seeing their children all the time
for women if you plan to work then you
just need to understand that the roles
may need to be reversed here you're
going to be the one who is not going to
see your children so much but the
general idea is that you cannot have it
all all the time you've said there's no
such thing as work-life balance why why
is there no work-life balance you can
have it all I feel like I do but you
can't have it all at the same time
that's right we are connected all the
time we expect our workers our
colleagues at work to always be
available work has changed and made it
more intense and parenting has changed
and become more intense and maybe you
can do trade offs right you can watch
your kids sometimes you can do your
career sometimes I don't know if that's
optimal though now if you've ever played
a role-playing game then you'll know
that one of the most optimal formations
is when you have like a warrior and a
priest the warrior is out fighting
people and the priest is healing and
together they make a great team
sometimes though you'll be in the game
lobby where nobody wants to play the
priest and everybody wants to play the
warrior it's always so difficult to get
people to play the support to play the
healing classes and usually people would
just say we're not going to start the
game at that point
somebody has to play the priest because
that is just not going to be a winning
combination there
and I'm it's a good way to die
you could make a strong you could make
us go faster
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so in terms of optimization and
efficiency it may be most optimal to
think of yourself as half of a team now
of course some people can do a class and
you can also switch roles back and forth
but usually do a class thing like that
may not be as powerful as if you had
just like one warrior who is just really
strong and if you think about that you
can take a look at some hardworking guys
out there like Gary Vaynerchuk he is
totally obsessed about his work and he
doesn't spend too much time with his
family so for somebody like that who is
very successful if you're gonna be a
billionaire you need to realize that
most people don't do anything besides
work every single day of their 20s and
30s all of them it's the price you have
to pay if you want it at the level that
I wanted at and by the way I advise
nobody to want it at that level then
he's going to need a partner who is more
focused on family right and together
they make a grand team but for a
workaholic like him if you were to marry
also another workaholic and both people
are essentially warriors here then you
don't have enough people taking care of
the family and then at that point you
need to think about well what are your
values in life right do you value
financial success do you choose career
over family and you know some people do
right some people don't value family
much some people value drugs and you can
value whatever you really want to go for
here but for many people I would say
that they value family over anything
else right over career over financial
success you need to deploy serious
serious self-awareness and figure out
who you are so what is the best team
combination for a family well I think
that depends on the type of spouse
you're looking for for example let's say
there's a guy who is highly attracted to
very powerful financially successful
career oriented women then naturally the
guy and if he values family he's going
to want to be more of a nurturing role
right if he too is very highly powered
and successful and focused on business
and he's a workaholic
that combination is just not going to be
that great for a family you're going to
want a babysitter or grandparents to be
around to help out
that and that's okay right you just need
to be prepared for that like and a
better analogy here may be to imagine
working in tech as being like an
astronaut right should both working
parents be astronauts and then the
children are left behind because where
they in tech is kind of like that you
need massive amounts of time you don't
have much time to spend at home and
you're essentially gone most of the day
and there's not many good solutions here
you pick one person either the man or
the woman to be the astronaut and you
have the other person be the family
person at home and both roles are to be
highly respected here either that or you
know you can have people alternate and
switch off or something like that but
that could come at the cost of becoming
the greatest astronaut on the planet or
the universe and you can see by the way
sheryl sandberg phrases it this is hard
I feel guilty sometimes I know no women
whether they're at home or whether
they're in the workforce that don't feel
that sometimes so I'm not saying that
staying in the workforce is the right
thing for everyone
you need to make some choice and
choosing family over career may be the
choice for many people in fact but the
idea is that if you choose career over
family then there should not be
discrimination which is absolutely true
you know having a world in which the
gender roles are reversed maybe have a
stay-at-home father and then the mother
is working that should be entirely
acceptable now unfortunately in the tech
industry there's not that many good
solutions I think the best we've got
here is like three or four months
parental leave which is not enough by
any means like having raised the kid
myself I've seen how much work it is
it's a ton of work it's like a second
full-time job so I think you need to
understand that it may be best in your
interest to kind of budget for that and
allocate in your mind that yeah you're
going to have to pick up a second
full-time job the other thing is that
four months is just not enough it's like
by that time the kid is still very small
and still needs a whole ton of support
from their parents many kids will be
nursing it until the age of two and many
doctors will recommend that you don't
pump your milk if you don't have to
right just give it directly that's going
to be the best and the most natural way
so one consideration is part-time work
which is funny like I went to the
dentist the other
and my dentist was pregnant and still
she's able to come in half the week and
I just realized at that point that being
a dentist is a great career for people
who are family-oriented because they're
able to set flexible schedules and just
come in every other day right they can
have that flexibility
intact there's no part-time work
generally speaking right you're either
on the project or you're out you know
there's also the idea of remote work
which unfortunately ironically in tech
many companies do not offer that fan
companies Facebook Google Amazon Netflix
they don't offer remote work while
remote work can help with some
flexibility the biggest constraint here
is time a child just requires massive
amounts of time and remote work won't
buy you that it just means you'll be
working at home with a screaming baby
you won't be able to concentrate so much
if we take a look at some other
countries like Japan or European
countries I know that some of them will
offer like up to a year and leave paid
actually you know I think the problem is
that people really need like two to
three years of leave ideally in my mind
that would be sufficient which is why
it's interesting to me that if you're
highly successful and you're highly
family-oriented then you're going to
want to come up with some sort of plan
where one that the parents will be
staying at home at all times and you
need to pick the proper spouse or
partner for this right if you pick
somebody who is highly ambitious and
career oriented and who does not want to
stay at home then you need to find
someone else where you need to change
yourself or just come up with a prepared
to plan for that it's funny that if you
take a look at some countries like Japan
many of the women there they're fine
with the idea of being stay-at-home
mothers and when you go walk around the
streets on the weekdays you just see
women all over the place shopping with
their kids and then the men go off and
work and that's actually one way to go
about it
right I'm not saying this right it could
be completely backwards and then another
solution which I think would be
absolutely great as a return to work
plan where someone can say they're gonna
go on maternity or paternity leave leave
for as much as two to three years and
then if there's some guaranteed way to
be able to come back and pick up where
you left off that would allow people to
go off
what they need to do manage their family
take care of that and then come back
when their kids are sufficiently raised
overall the point of this video though
is that I think it would be great for
both women and men to be working happily
in tech some of the best engineers I've
worked with have been women and I think
that the gender ratios you know there's
just not 50/50 women and men it would be
great to see that happen but it's going
to be tough especially for women who may
have been socially conditioned to dream
about when they've been there raising
their own children hanging out with them
teaching them to read doing activities
with them that maybe an expectation set
by society that the current tech
industry is not able to fulfill so
they'll do for me it's a topic that I
wanted to raise a little bit more
awareness about I will be linking to
both of the women's memos who worked at
Google and Facebook who had to just
suddenly quit at the height of their
careers if you liked the video give the
video a like and subscribe really
appreciate that and I'll see you next
time thanks bye