[gukjoon]

Why is it un-PC to acknowledge that there are fundamental differences between men and women in terms of both innate talents and, more importantly, motivations? Differences that would lead to huge demographic disparities in incredibly niche fields like software engineering and starting technology companies?

Mike Arrington says flat out that the reason why there aren't enough women in tech is because "not enough women want to become entrepreneurs." It's a question of motivation. This statement is easily falsifiable and I don't think any of the responses make even a meager attempt to do that.

Is there a disproportionately higher number of women-lead start-ups applying for venture funding and then not getting it? Since this is a question of motivation, even showing that a significantly higher percentage of women-lead start-ups fail would suggest that Mike Arrington is wrong.

[earl]

Except I keep meeting female engineers (including several coworkers) who are all foreign -- chinese, indian, british, E European. So it's not unreasonable to infer that culture - specifically American domestic culture - is a big piece of the puzzle.

[patio11]

I know more Japanese female engineers at one office in Nagoya than I have met in my life in the US. Some of that might be cultural: Japanese girls, to all appearances, don't dislike math. A lot of it is related to other options: tech is seen as a "progressive" industry to work in, where the Old Guard isn't going to squash your face in. (Relatedly, translation/interpretation is almost female only.)

Punting on the cultural issue for a minute, is tech really the best option available to an academically prepared American lady? Compared to, say, management consulting, or law, or medicine, or... ? We have good lives as programmers, don't get me wrong, but for startup hours you could work for McKinsey and make six figures from day one with no uncertainty about exits required.

[ahoyhere]

There are LOTS of women entrepreneurs in the US. Arrington is full of you-know-what, as usual. However, there aren't a lot of women in the "slave for a couple years, hope to grow big and get bought" arena... which, imo, isn't unreasonable.