Austin Startups

> and your evidence for this is ....?
If we look at other professions (business, law, medicine), we'd find more discrimination but also more women. So discrimination is unlikely as a sole cause.

> Only when the job became prestigious were they pushed out by men.
I clearly recall the days when programming was thought as the domain of the pimple-faced nerds with the thick glasses, way before the brogrammers and other "cool" nerd types came along. Law and medicine are all more prestigious and by your reasoning would have pushed out women even more. So there's something you're missing, and actively missing it even when reality waves its hand to you.

Just one google query gives something more nuanced, such as this: https://austinstartups.com/the-tech-gender-gap-a-2016-progress-report-on-women-coders-c704a2d6039c
which rightly points out that the percentage of women was rising in CS as much as in medical and law until around 1985. And if you look at the graphic here https://blogs.sas.com/content/sascp/2018/12/05/booming-enrollments-and-gender-diversity-in-computer-science/ you notice that it's not women leaving the field, it's more men coming to CS while the number of women stays the same until they leave in troves at the following bust cycle.

You keep using evidence from the 50s (i.e., 70 years back) as explanation of today's state of affairs, but the evidence points that the 50s don't tell us anything about why we don't have more women programmers. Instead, ask why women got…

Another recent update, with a lot of common features: https://austinstartups.com/an-updated-joel-test-for-2017-31560b109bcb

His list (with its diff):

-1. Do you use source control?
+1. Is your source control effective for the disconnected programmer?
2. Can you make a build in one step?
-3. Do you make daily builds?
+3. Do you build, test, and deploy (somewhere) on every commit?
4. Do you have a bug database?
5. Do you fix bugs before writing new code?
-6. Do you have an up-to-date schedule?
+6. Does your source have a stable trunk from which releases can be cut at any time?
-7. Do you have a spec?
+7. Can all of a product's features be verified in one step?
-8. Do programmers have quiet working conditions?
+8. Do programmers have access to a door that can be closed for uninterrupted work?
-9. Do you use the best tools money can buy?
+9. Do programmers have the freedom to choose the best tools for the job?
-10. Do you have testers?
+10. Is testing the team's responsibility?
11. Do new candidates write code during their interview?
12. Do you do hallway usability testing?

Honestly I haven't done any analysis of this, just going off a gut feel. When I look at this data my claim seems to not be true:

http://ssti.org/blog/useful-stats-share-us-venture-capital-activity-and-capita-investment-state-2010-2016

But there are programs like Google Demo Day and Rise of the Rest that are reaching beyond SV for value. Several accelerators trying to copy the YC model have emerged across the US - in Atlanta, Chicago, Austin, Detroit, Raleigh-Durham, Boulder, etc.

https://events.withgoogle.com/demoday/siliconvalley/

https://www.riseofrest.com/

The other day Capital Factory in Austin announced they are kicking off a program pulling Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio under one big startup umbrella:

https://austinstartups.com/the-texas-startup-manifesto-42f06f2a7075

Without digging more I don't have much else to say on this :)

Their branding and existing install base is a huge advantage.

Uber and Lyft returned to Austin last week after the Texas state legislature passed a law that overturns Austin's regulations. The local competitors have lost huge numbers of customers. Fare is shutting down, Fasten had to lower their rates, and Ride Austin saw their trip volume decrease by 55% in the first week [0]. I'd say it's pretty unlikely they will survive to the end of this year.

[0]: https://austinstartups.com/what-we-learned-from-the-first-week-of-uber-lyft-returning-to-austin-5451a34889e7