WOMEN: Like men, only cheaper.

[CPR_dummy]

Haha this guy is either a genius or a retard.

There are times when you just should keep your mouth closed about certain things, even when you don’t mean any malice by it – which I don’t think was the intention of Evan Thornley, co-founder of LookSmart and speaker at today’s Startmate and Blackbird Sunrise conference.

Whether it was intended or not he pretty much, in the weirdest roundabout way, told the audience that saving money by hiring women into your startup was a great opportunity to save dollars, because, you know – the whole gender pay gap thing.
Here is what was said:

I think when we went public on the NASDAQ I was the only company in Silicon Valley that had a majority of women on the senior management team, at least for a period of time.

The Australian labour market and the world labour market just consistently and amazingly undervalues women in so many roles in particular in our industry, so [just] call me opportunistic, I just thought I could get better people, with less competition, because we were willing to understand the skills and capabilities that these women had, so there is a great arbitrage there, we would give them more responsibility and greater share of the rewards, than they were likely to get anywhere else and that was still somewhat cheaper to what we would have had to pay for someone less good for someone of a different gender.

I’m not advocating that, that inequality should stay – I’m just saying that there is an opportunity for forward thinking people.
​

Well at least he is not advocating it, right? Not to mention that slide! Cringeworthy much?
You would think someone that has dipped their toe in politics would have a bit more sense.

Needless to say, many women in the audience were pretty furious.
We will have a full review of The Sunrise along with our backstage podcasts on Monday and throughout next week.

Well shit, that was a dumb thing to do at a startup conference - Startup Daily

 

[JakeStratham]

It's hard to tell if Thornley is a genius or retard. It's likely that he's a smart entrepreneur, but terrible economist.

He isn't attributing the gap in wages between men and women to any particular reason. So there's no way to know whether he understands basic labor economics.

That said, Thornley mentions taking advantage of "labour market arbitrage" in the context of hiring women instead of men. In doing so, he's implying that he has found a way to squeeze more productivity out of the labor market through a nifty exploit.

In reality, he probably hasn't done any such thing.* The disparity in wages between men and women disappears when comparing men and women who have never been married. Once a woman marries, her productive value to an employer plummets. So she is paid less. The same thing happens when she has kids. She is more likely to leave the workforce - or refuse to take steps that might advance her career, such as pursuing advanced degrees, training, etc. - in order to take care of home and family.

From Time:

The fact that the average American working woman earns only about 8o% of what the average American working man earns has been something of a festering sore for at least half the population for several decades. And despite many programs and analyses and hand-wringing and badges and even some legislation, the figure hasn't budged much in the past five years.

But now there's evidence that the ship may finally be turning around: according to a new analysis of 2,000 communities by a market research company, in 147 out of 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys in their peer group.

...

Here's the slightly deflating caveat: this reverse gender gap, as it's known, applies only to unmarried, childless women under 30 who live in cities. The rest of working women — even those of the same age, but who are married or don't live in a major metropolitan area — are still on the less scenic side of the wage divide.

Check out page 9 of this BLS report (PDF) that breaks down 2008 labor data. Here's the punchline:

Married women earned 75.5% of the wages earned by married men.
Unmarried women earned 94.2% of the wages earned by unmarried men.

So, did Thornley find a labor market exploit that allows him to enjoy more productivity thanks solely to the gender wage disparity? Probably not.

It merely seems that way.

Interestingly, there is some evidence that a man's productive value to an employer actually rises when he marries. I suspect it's because employers consider men's wives as support for them, leaving the men to be more productive at work.





* I say "probably" because I'm ignorant of Australian labor laws.

 

[epidemic]

He's a retard.

 

[KennyPowers]

It's hard to tell if Thornley is a genius or retard. It's likely that he's a smart entrepreneur, but terrible economist.

...

Great post.
/end thread

 

[jryan21]

 

[1yerrot]

"The Australian labour market and the world labour market just consistently and amazingly undervalues women in so many roles in particular in our industry, so [just] call me opportunistic, I just thought I could get better people, with less competition, because we were willing to understand the skills and capabilities that these women had"

----

I don't see why any woman wouldn't hear what he actually said as a compliment. He basically said the he was getting a better, more skilled and capable worker. (I disagree by the way)

Now, the graphic he put up, THAT'S retarded. Way too easily taken in an offensive way.

He was screwed no matter what came out his mouth when women were sitting there staring at that graphic. I wonder if he actually saw that before hitting the stage.