Google, Tech, and Dinner

Last week I attended the It's Never Too Late: Careers in Computer Science gabfest at Google's main campus organized by the newly renamed Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (aka Systers). Google was in high-paranoia mode, given their pending IPO, but I wasn't there to hear about the rightness of Dutch auctions or the Securities Act of 1933. I was there to hear about women in technology and sample their famous conference snacks - not in that order.

"According to the U.S. Department of Labor Women's Bureau" stated the introduction to the event, "high-paying occupations for computer workers and IT specialists are projected to have some of the steepest gains over the next several years." This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone - tech always needs to innovate. However, they go on to say that "Despite the doom and gloom headlines about outsourcing, prospects for meaningful jobs in these fields is bright."

"Doom and gloom" is right - it sure doesn't look good for tech people right now. Karl Schoenberger wrote about a steep decline in CS majors several months back in the Merc, and I wrote a lead business page article last year for the San Francisco Chronicle while attending Anita Borg's memorial service, Paving the Way for ‘Systers’, which explored the declining numbers of women in technology, especially at the managerial level. "The numbers from Berkeley of the 1980s indicate that our technology workforce should have a considerable number of women in management and CTO positions by now" I wrote in September of 2003. "Where have all the women in technology gone?"

The impact of the dot-com bubble burst, coupled with the difficulty mid-level technical women face raising children and handling family issues, maintaining a technology edge, writing and producing new works such as patents, and breaking into established male networks, simply pushed many women over the edge. Ironically, at a time when women in technology should be in their career "prime of life", many are opting out.

How does this impact the next generation of women in technology? Simple - the key to mentoring and sustaining growth in technology for women are those women who have risen in the ranks in technology to hold management positions today. But "the vital middle, necessary to mentoring these young women proteges, is painfully absent. As the older activist women move on to retirement and other activities, who will take up the mantle and mission?". Certainly not new young CS majors - they're in decline. But why is this the case?

The article I wrote got a slew of mail from parents of college-age kids saying they didn't want their kids majoring in technology (computer science, engineering, even hard science) because "there are no jobs". Many of the writers were men with top engineering credentials from major universities like Berkeley, Stanford, and CalTech, who hadn't worked in 2-3 years, and were struggling to pay for college for their kids.

Well, 2-3 years unemployed does make an impact on even the most thick-headed engineer. Parents are saying "No". No to engineering. No to computer science. No to science. It's just too hard, and they won't pay for it. The major of choice is - amazingly - business!

If the chairmen of any computer science or engineering department had any sense at all, they'd stop blaming the parents and students who are only acting in their own best interests and start putting the blame squarely on the business school wormtongues who are extolling outsourcing (and poaching their students) using the "jobs increase when we outsource" theory that doesn't hold water.

Why doesn't it hold water? Simple. If everyone from the biggest to the smallest wants to act like a multinational corporation, a simple tax code change to make them bear the burden for the true costs of international business would make them flee so fast it would make your head spin.

Currently the true costs of international business are subsidized by the ordinary taxpayer. This is simply a case of creating "unenlightened self-interest" on the part of the taxpayer, brought to you courtesy of the business school spinners. As one businessman I know well said sagely "We shouldn't restrict trade - but we needn't subsidize it either."

It is good to see the Systers take up the challenge. Panel discussions at least bring out the issue into the light. I hope Google not only sponsors these events but also remembers that hiring cheap young people is part of the solution, but they also need a vital middle committed to mentorship as well, and that means family-friendly policies for women as well as men.