If we want to go about changing the ratio of women, and let's add minorities, in tech, we have to be willing to encourage friends and talk to the kids.
After consuming his text, it must be said that Michael is just plain wrong - the reasons why, we'll get into later. Moreover, his post mentioned Rachel Sklar, who's a friend and who's work I respect a lot, as "a perennial TechCrunch critic," and quotes her in theWall Street Journal, as saying:
Part of changing the ratio is just changing awareness, so that the next time Techcrunch is planning a Techcrunch Disrupt, they won’t be able to not see the overwhelming maleness of it,” said Ms. Sklar, referring to the influential tech conference
It was disappointing to read that because in planning for the trip to New York for TechCrunch Disrupt, New York City, I informed Rachel of the conference via email and asked if she was going to attend. Rachel had made other plans.
It was too bad Rachel didn't go, because while TechCrunch Disrupt New York was mostly male, it wasn't overwhelmingly so - she would have been somewhat pleased. I'm certain, as she's a speaker, she will be happy with what she sees at TechCrunch Disrupt SF.
What the official gender count at TechCrunch Disrupt New York was is not known here, but by observation, the mix was better than expected. There were women entrepreneurs competing in the "VC speed dating" contest, like my friend Jennifer O'Neil's startup firm Tripping.com.
Jennifer O'Neil Started At StubHub.com
I first met Jennifer in 2003 when she was the affiliate manager at then-new StubHub.com. Sports Business Simulations, the firm I started that year, was became one of StubHub.com's most successful affiliates, and Jennifer and I became friends. Ms. O'Neil did everything for StubHub, from managing affiliates, to radio spots, and even the phone greetings. I said over and over again to Jen that she should be on the StubHub board and also to take what she's learning there and start her own company.
Well, at TechCrunch Disrupt New York City, Jen told me she remembered my constant badgering and that played a small role in the development of the confidence she had to start Tripping.com. The point is, women and minorities must be encouraged to start tech firms.
Encouraging Women and Minorities
Michael's really wrong: men should be blamed for the lack of women in tech. There's nothing at all wrong with having the idea that a person should be picked because they're women or minority or white male, as long as the end objective is diversity.
Moreover, in order to "change the ratio," we have to start by encouraging girls and boys who are minority to go into tech fields. Just saying "You should think about being a programmer" to a ten-year-older's a great start. Having the tech equivalent of Junior Achievement is another much needed effort.
In fact, that there's not such an organization active in the San Francisco Bay Area underscores the problem. Imagine if Google executives like CEO Eric Schmidt took one evening a week to work at advising an imaginary start-up at an East Palo Alto school? Planting the idea of starting a tech company in the minds of girls and minority youth will, over time, change the ratio.
But to do that, and to be frank, it's Silicon Valley's men both white and Asian, who have to lead the charge. The only way to change the culture, is to change the behavior of the people within it.
In fact, just because Arrington said the poor ratio of women in tech is not the fault of men, he should be the very person that starts the kind of Junior Achievement-style non-profit organization called for here. Michael must understand that you can't say there's a cultural problem but it's not the fault of the people who are part of the culture. Men are the problem, but men can be the solution, too.
The AngelGate controversy, borne of a faux PlanCast meeting at Bin 38 that was a joke and a play on the real issue of the struggle for control pitting angel investors against entrepreneurs who create the very platforms and devices at the center of the conflict, has caught the attention of The Wall Street Journal.
AngelGate, as it’s become known, just won’t go away. The brouhaha erupted after TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington uncovered a meeting of top angel investors in a San Francisco restaurant, Bin 38. Arrington blogged about it, alleging angel collusion. Now angel Ron Conway, who wasn’t at the meeting but whose SV Angel partner David Lee apparently was,...
With AngelGate, Michael Arrington has managed to shine the light on TechCrunch Disrupt SF. But for all of this, nothing that happens this week will match the fireworks that happened after Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz famously told Michael to fuck off:
Well, that's not going to happen this time. A man telling Michael what to do just doesn't have the same impact as a woman blasting him. Even though it wasn't the intent, it made for good video.
The Stanford Cardinal Football Team is as dominant as their commercials would imply. It's not just that they're 4 and 0, and for the first time since 1986, but how they got there, by destroying their opponents. The latest victim: The Fighting Irish of Notre Dame.
Stanford spanked Notre Dame 37 to 16, causing the Irish to lose their third straight game under new coach Brian Kelly and causing Irish fans to worry.
Over at Irish Envy forum, ND die-hards picked Stanford as a team the Irish could beat. It didn't happen. Later, the same Irish Envy Forum followers said Stanford was "for real" while licking their wounds over the butt kicking their team took.
Indeed, it's the same one Wake Forest, UCLA, and Sacrament State got.
Stanford has an average of 51.7 points per game scored, versus 13.7 points given up. Moreover, they've done it through the air and on the ground, and not in spectacular fashion ranking 47th and 15th in passing and rushing respectively. It's the Stanford Defense that's the difference.
Before the Notre Dame game, Stanford ranked third in the Pac-10 in total defense and second in pass defense. The difference is new Defensive Coordinator Vic Fangio. His version of the 3-4 is less "pure" in its format than the standard 34 defensive alignment, and gets more pressure on the offensive line both against runs and passes.
Can Stanford Go Undefeated?
The question on the minds of college football fans now is can Stanford go undefeated? As long as there's Cal and the Big Game, the answer is no.
GroupMe.com is the home of a very cool platform that allows you to form a mobile text group. While that may not seem like much at first, when you consider the vast number of service and retail organization that can make use of it, then its vast potential becomes apparent. (Yep, this blogger uses it.)
GroupMe was born at the 2010 TechCrunch Disrupt NY HackDay, and immediately caught fire. The New York based company that grew around the platform scored an $850,000 angel round of funding in August. It's really a super simple application.
You just got to the website GroupMe.com and punch in your mobile number. The system sets up a group phone number and asks for your name for the group. It will then send a confirmation text. All you have to do is add the people you want to be in your group.
Once done, you can set up an instant conference call, such that the GroupMe system calls everyone in your group.
Or, if you're, say, an airline like United Airlines, you can send a group text to everyone in the UAL group that gives important travel information.
It's a very interesting and exciting platform. Just wonder if Michael Arrington gets a cut of the angel money?
ESPN's "guest picker" Picabo Street got it right after all. Number one ranked Alabama rallied to beat 10th ranked Arkansas 24 to 20. And this blogger, along with over 76,000 people at Razorbacks Stadium, thought the game was over, even when Alabama scored to make it 20 to 14 in the 3rd quarter.
Just shows you that it's never a good idea to walk away from the television set with a game like that.
According to ESPN.com, Alabama rallied to win on the power and speed of Running Back Mark Ingram and an interception thrown by Arkansas QB Ryan Mallett.
ESPN.com Still Fails On Picabo Street
While Picabo Street was right after all for ESPN television, the ESPN.com website still failed to do anything to capture the Internet buzz started by ESPN itself!
As much as ESPN may want to dominate the Internet for sports, this proves it has no idea what it's doing.
TechCrunch Disrupt SF is this week, and while this blogger will be out of the San Francisco Bay Area for personal reasons, what happens there will not escape Zennie62.com. So far the talk of Pre-TechCrunch Disrupt SF news isn't that Barry Diller's coming, or that MC Hammer's the entertainment, but that news item called AngelGate.
AngelGate is a meeting between Angel Investors that took place in an alternative universe, at a popular San Francisco Marina District restaurant called Bin 38, and that this blogger was on the PlanCast list to attend as per invitation. No, I'm not an angel investor at all, for now. My objective was food, wine, and friends.
OK, really it was, at first, a joke on TechCrunch Founder and Editor Michael Arrington (pictured above giving one of his favorite gestures) - a fake plan. But ever the brilliant showman, Arrington turned AngelGate into something real. Now, the story's of AngelGate's making it's way around the Internet, and some publications are treating it as if it's real.
Moreover, Michael doesn't want anyone to talk about AngelGate, thereby assuring that it will be the talk of TechCrunch Disrupt SF.
The idea is that Angel Investors were meeting to collude and work against entrepreneurs, who have been asking for more money and more control over the companies that are formed around their creations. While AngelGate itself is an alternative universe creation, the tug-and-pull between entrepreneurs and investors is very real.
The idea was an Angel Investor wanted the majority of your company. But the problem is and has been that many investors don't get what the entrepreneurs is trying to do or what the intent of the creation was. Logical, because they didn't create the product.
Still, hungry for investment, many entrepreneurs knuckled under to the terms presented to them, and then eventually got stuck in a bad situation with little control. Enter Facebook.
Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg now has control of three seats on his five-member board of directors after Sean Parker left the board due to a drug-related arrest. That means he can't be fired by his board and they can't successfully conspire against him.
Now, you may say "that's Facebook," but it's an objective many entrepreneurs now seek, more than ever. Full corporate control.
Can Angel Investors actually conspire against entrepreneurs and regain control? Effectively, no, because if you look at it, almost anyone can be an investor. AngelGate is a Silicon Valley story; as we saw at TechCrunch Disrupt New York, the idea of Silicon Valley, along with the culture tech entrepreneurs and investors, has effectively spread out of the Bay Area.
In recent days damning information has surfaced about the role a pioneering Civil Rights photographer namedErnest C.Withers played in the murder of Dr Martin Luther King. Withers who died in 2007 had long been rumored to be an informant for J. Edgar Hooverand the FBI even though he was very popular figure in Civil Rights circles.
It’s been reported that under his guise as a photographer he was reporting on King’s movement up to the moment of his assassination and in the days that followed.
Like so many organizations that were fighting for Freedom including the Black Panthers, SNCC,The Nation of Islam then known as Black Muslims, SCLC to name a few were all under constant surveillance with orders from Hoover to disrupt and discredit their operations. Hoover considered many of them to be hate groups, terrorists and communist sympathizers.
Sometimes the surveillance came from FBI agents planting listening devices, recording phone conversations and following Civil Rights leaders in cars. Other times it came from sending Black agents into key organizations where they would earn positions of high rank and trust and later report back critical information. This was all done in addition to the FBI sending letters to various leaders where they would attempt to black mail, play one-off the other, make threats or play mind games like encouraging distressed individuals to commit suicide.
Martin Luther King
The murder of Dr King is especially troubling, because it demonstrated the lengths the FBI would go to stop a movement…. I think people should pause for a second before reading on and really think about this. Again the FBI operates from the money we pay to them via our taxes. They are here to serve and protect the people.
The second point is when you’re talking about an individual like Martin Luther King, you’re talking about a man who was calling for racially harmony and non-violence. He was challenging systems of Jim Crow and overt racial discrimination that I would imagine very few would support in 2010.
On the day of his death he was working feverishly on a Poor People’s Campaign for economic justice. How much more benign could one get? Sadly our government which to this day has buildings named after Hoover, the architect of these surveillance policies called Cointel-Pro stopped at nothing to get him. from the looks of things they got Withers to go along with the plan and several others.
Dick Gregory spoke about sinister forces at work that eventually killed Martin Luther King
Long time activist Dick Gregory spoke on the murder of Dr King and how there were all sorts of folks involved including the Black preachers in his entourage. I want folks to peep this video and pay close attention to the video he plays during his presentation. You can later on watch the rest of the lecture which is 3 or 4 parts. After you watch pt1, I want folks to read this excellent article from Margret Kimberly of Freedom Rider/ Black Agenda Report to get better insight into Withers and the damaging role he played.
Also as an added piece I am including the conversation Malcolm X had with the FBI when they tried to get him to turn on the Nation of Islam. I want folks to have richer context in which to understand the depth the FBI went in trying to compromise and intimidate our leaders.
The long and infamous history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its attacks upon black Americans in their struggles for human and civil rights are by now well-known. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover actively worked to destroy any and all black activists beginning in 1919 when he pursued the political and personal destruction of Marcus Garvey. That subversion of legal rights and the democratic process continued for decades but operated at its fullest extent in the 1950s and 1960s.
The purpose of the FBI Counter Intelligence Program, COINTELPRO was, in Hoover‘s words, to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” what Hoover called “hate groups” but which were in fact organizations fighting for full citizenship rights. The most infamous COINTELPRO action was the murder of the Black Panther Party Chicago chief Fred Hampton. An informant, William O’Neal, joined the Black Panther Party under FBI direction, served as Hampton’s bodyguard, and was then instrumental in planning his killing.
Commercial Appeal, Withers was an FBI informant who gave extensive information on King and other activists in Memphis, their movements, and their conversations. Withers reported to the FBI on the day of King’s assassination and in the days following.
Unfortunately, Withers died in 2007 without ever being confronted with the longstanding rumors of his activities. His colleagues are left to their own devices in trying to understand why he acted as he did. They are also left trying to decide how and, in some cases, whether to judge Withers for his betrayals.
“He actively sabotaged the work of others and endangered their lives, livelihoods and a movement which was bigger than any one person.”
The human response of wanting to defend someone thought to be a friend may be understandable on a personal level, but should never be acceptable politically. The charges against Withers are well documented and in all likelihood he was an informer and was paid by the FBI. This means he actively sabotaged the work of others and endangered their lives, livelihoods and a movement which was bigger than any one person, even those who may still feel a personal connection to Withers.
Whatever the justification for their activities, informants like Withers should never be forgiven and their acts should not be justified. Sadly, many of the people personally victimized by Withers are defending and rationalizing his actions. He had a large family to support, he may have been threatened, the information he gave probably did little harm, etc. Andrew Young’s comments about Withers are the worst of all. “I don’t think Dr. King would have minded him making a little money on the side.”
Andrew Young has been the king of the cringe-worthy comment for some time now, but this remark is appalling even for him. As one of King’s closest confidantes, Young should know better than anyone the damage caused by FBI’s actions against King. They tapped his phones, recorded his conversations and encouraged him to commit suicide. Because there was no timely investigation into the King assassination, we will never know if the FBI was directly involved. The fact that Withers was located in Memphis and reported on King’s activities and movements up until the very moment of his death is in and of itself suspicious. The revelation of Withers’ activity should be a reminder of the extent to which the state dedicated itself to destroying any organized effort at black empowerment.
The muted response to the Withers revelation is sad proof of the lack of study of the movement, its fall and its aftermath. If this world-changing phenomenon were considered in the light that it ought to be, there would be unified revulsion expressed about Withers and a meaningful discussion of how the movement ended. The killing of Martin Luther King meant the effective end of one of the most successful mass movements in the history of the world. It is difficult to imagine that the information Withers provided to the FBI was not in some way connected with King’s death. For that reason alone, the outrage surrounding this revelation should have been loud and clear.
“It is difficult to imagine that the information Withers provided to the FBI was not in some way connected with King’s death.”
The Withers case should not be seen through the window of the past. It is a warning to us in the present and a reminder that the police state apparatus is ever present.
J Edgar Hoover may be dead but his legacy and damning Cointel-Pro policies live on today
The Withers case should not be seen through the window of the past. It is a warning to us in the present and a reminder that the police state apparatus is ever present. Should the civil rights movement be reactivated and organizing for change become the norm once again, there will be another COINTELPRO, under a different name no doubt, but the activities will be revived and some “friends” will turn out to be wolves in sheep’s clothing.
We now have a government which gives itself the right to order the assassination of American citizens and which claims the right to order anyone arrested and incarcerated without charge or trial. Black Americans have been entrapped in dubious, false flag terror cases created out of whole cloth by the government and its informants. The past is prologue and Ernest C. Withers will not be the last person used to sabotage his own people.
An energized, well organized movement for political change is what this nation needs most. That movement should learn the history of past movements, including the errors, and the betrayals that brought so many people and organizations to premature death. Individuals brave enough to speak truth to the powerful should be able to do so without repeating past mistakes or falling prey to the snares which brought down so many in the past. Ernest Withers should be remembered as a traitor. Yes his photos are iconic but they are now tainted and cannot be rehabilitated for the sake of sentimentality. The revelations about Withers are indeed frightening and rightly cause paranoia and anger. Those feelings cannot be submerged. They should be discussed openly. If they are not, then there are more Ernest Withers’ in our future and more destroyed movements.
Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains an edifying and frequently updated blog athttp://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.com.
