The workforce. At facebook, 32 of the employees are female. At google, 30 are women. Most Software Engineers are men and so are most of the executives. We asked some women what its like to work in that maledominated world. Im a solution engineer. My name is ema. Im a Software Engineer. My name is zoe and im a Software Engineer. I am coding and language, a web framework called rails. You might hear the term ruby on rails. I learned python recently and even dab belled with a very old, low level language. And the services i can provide range from consulting and advising around how to use technology to build solutions all the way down to actually building out your first prototype. I did a few Computer Science classes in college but the experience is alienating. The courses were 90 male. I looked around at me and the people who already new programming and they were so far advanced i didnt think i could catch up. I hated it, actually, which is insane because i actually like to program. Its just the way the system was set up. I got into technology because my mom made me. [ laughter ] my mom is just really very smart, wonderful incredible woman. Very ambitious. She raised eight kids on her own and she could see she was very forward thinking and could see that technology was going to run the world. And she gave me a software book, a programming book, she said youre going to do this every day until you figure it out. The first person who asked me if i wanted to be a Software Engineer was a woman at an event and she is like, do you want to be a Software Engineer, are you thinking about it . Im like yeah. And i very begrudgingly admitted it and shes like, yes women are half the population of the world and we need to make sure that they have their part in creating the technology that is going to make the world better for everyone, including women. But the joke is that in tech, at least 5 to 10 of your time, if youre a woman, is being a woman. And its because you have to figure out how to view women in a maledominated environment. Now, in hindsight, i definitely realize there were lots of obstacles. There were lots of incidents that i just chose to ignore. I had to work much harder to get noticed for my work. I have to work harder to figure out how to interrupt people but be really polite about it. Im always keenly observing when i say, im actually a Software Engineer and you can see them for a second and then youre like, oh, thats cool. Its always like a positive reaction but theres a moment of surprise. Women are more than men and if you bring tuit up, its something that nobody has noticed before and its a weird conversation to have. There are other diversity issues that might be even more, you know, problematic, like where are all of the old people go. The secret in hiring more women is keeping the ones that you have. A lot of women want to work with other Software Engineers. Nobody wants to be the first engineer out of 20 who is a woman. All right. I want to ask our panel now about what they just heard. Joining me are rupert, founder of codechicks. Org, a nonprofit dedicated to increasing the number of women engineers, sophie lee, a Ride Sharing Program for women and children and an associate venture partnersf partners. Welcome to you all. We heard about retention, we heard about trying to figure out how to be a woman in a maledominated world. Did any of those messages resonate with you . Lupa . Absolutely. All of them resonated. One of the things that im trying to do with code chick is address the retention problem. According to statics, as of 2013, theres a 56 percent drop from injuries and lately theres a lot of focus on the pipeline issue as in getting more women to come into the industry. But not as much focus on the women that are already in there and that are leaving and the reasons for their leaving. So this is a very, very important topic, as you just saw. And sophie, youre head of the engineering at shuttle. What part of that video resonated with you and how do you retain women . I mean, the part of the video that resonated with me most was that there was even a video. I feel like three of us are sitting there and we saw three awesome women talking about their experiences. For me it shows that were at this really exciting turning point where women are getting recognized and are starting to enter the engineering field. And im not sure how to retain women. I mean, i think its really about how do you retain people. Women are people just like everyone else. I think if youre able to create a Team Environment where everybody is recognized and giving a chance to listened to, youre going to be able to keep the women. Cecilia, did you feel familiarity there . Yes. It was probably 20 to 30 founders and week that we met with and i hate to say a small number of those people are usually women. Sometimes they will go all week and not see a female founder at all. Part of that is that frequently founders are technical and there are less women in engineering. Its a problem that we need to solve. So how do you solve that in when youre considering investing in a company, how important is diversity to you . Do you ask them, are there women on your Leadership Team . Its something frequently not asked but there will be a slide that says, heres our team and when i see a team thats only male executives, especially only white male executives, i will make a mental note and say, wow, this team is not thinking about diversity in the same way. I know that theres a pipeline problem and i know that is also not an excuse but something we factor in. So, then, how do you address that because if you see a slide and its all males. Yeah. Do you say to em ththem, you to have a female executives or have you interviewed any females for this job . We will not put them on a spot in a pitch meeting but its a relationship thats going to exist for at least three years, probably closer to seven or ten. So as you spend time with them, you have dinners and then you kind of address diversity issues and talk about, what are you looking to build in a team . What are your priorities in your culture . And then you understand the culture pillars that make up a company and say this is a place where all people are going to be welcome or this team feels very closed and might suffer as a result. Sophie, women make up half of your Engineering Team at shuttle, which is pretty astounding because most hightech Companies Help around 70 30, right . 70 male and 30 female. Tell us maybe. Maybe, yes. Usually well below 20 . Okay. Well, tell us about your hiring process. And how did you get it to 50 . I think to to reach the diversity that we were able to have at shuttle, the thing about diversity is when you see it as a benchmark that hit, thats not going to do it. I think the important thing to see diversity, to understand why its so important, right, if you have a room full of people that everybody is the same, everybody is a white male, youre going to end up with a very onedimensional product in a very onedimensional company. Starting out with the why and understanding why its important was the first important thing without hiring a strategy at shuttle. The second thing is its typical to hire people that youre friends with. You want to work with people just like you. But like thats not going to work because the world isnt full of people who are just like you. So taking it from that perspective, you know, its about being uncomfortable and trying to meet people, go to events, find new circles of people who just not like you. I think getting uncomfortable was the second step. Thats very interesting. Cecelia alluded to this earlier, the pipeline problem. We keep on hearing about that. We need more women and girls, for example. But how much of the gender gap is actually a pipeline problem and how much of it is more of a problem with a Workplace Culture that is perhaps not friendly to women . There are actually two separate issues. The pipeline problem is more the girls in middle school, high school, college, Graduation Rates and also graduation within the stem areas. So thats one issue that is a problem. It is being dealt with on at a federal level with a lot of federal funding towards those initiatives. Theres a completely separate problem for Workplace Culture and why talented women, who have been in the industry for many years, are leaving the industry. And some of those issues are related to advancement, promotions, the type of work that they do usually you will hear things like, oh, you know, women need extra balance because of families, et cetera, that has not actually been the key point for women leaving. Its there was a study on this and they came up with almost 70 of women leave because they say they are not getting promoted, they are not getting good projects to do the good work, to show case themselves and get ahead in their careers. That itself is one of the issues. So were trying to address the skill problem. When somebody is in an industry and working full time, youre very focused on whatever it is youre working on. Youre developing skills just in that. In the meantime, outside, the industry is going up like at break neck speed with new technology and tools coming out. To keep up with that is extremely difficult. Especially for women who have families they have to take care of, fulltime job, you know, just not enough hours in the day to do that. That gets to the skill each. What about the greater Workplace Culture issue that you talked about . How do you go about fixing that . Cecila . I think its doable. I dont think cultures are set in stone. They are made up of people. We create a culture when we sit in this room together. Its something that i think sophie pointed out really well, addressing the why at first and then addressing getting uncomfortable and talking about it as a company. One of our investments in pintrest, theyve done a ton on improving diversity. They are doing training so their manager is unheard of it. They are taking the managers and saying, okay, take a test. Now, lets see that you have biases against these kinds of people. So when youre interviewing them, be aware of that. Watch out that you interrupt them too early, watch out that youre not sort of seeing them through and are positioning yourself against them even though they might be just as qualitied as someone else that is more similar to you. Speaking of pintrest. This released their diversity goals this week and they discussed the nfl already does this, where you interview at least one person from an underrepresented group or one female. Uhhuh. For a leadership position. Is that something that you think should be happening at all Tech Companies . It would be amazing if it did. I think its a great rule to have. Whats hard is and we do this. You want to find a female board member for a company. There are people who say that that is a bad way to approach the problem. Go find the people who are the most qualified and get them in the room and hire the best ones. Trying to sort of hire four a specific demographic doesnt make sense. But i think its a great thing to do, personally. What do you guys think . I think its going to be really, really hard to find, you kn know, a female representative for whatever x, y, z position youre trying to fill because there just arent that many. Especially there are a lot of qualified women. I would totally disagree. The reason theres a perception theres not that many female engineers is that were actually our social circles tend to stay kind of static. We look at our social circles and say, out of the 200 people i regularly interact with, this many are female engineers. There are 7 billion people in the world. To make it a little more concrete, i just went to a conference earlier in the year which is an even more finallygrained segment of women in tech. We filled the entire theater. There were 3,000 of us. You look around and you realize, there are totally women in tech. Im just not looking at the right places. That was a wakeup call for me. I want to ask you this question about startups. Many say survival is an absolute yeah. And not so much diversity. Just trying to fight to save their companies. What do you say to them . Depends on what stage. And if you are a threeperson startup, diversity is great but when youre adding a fourth, theres only so much that you can do. Youre trying to hire desperately. Your problem is not who do i choose. Your problem is, who can i please get to join me . Who is going to be good enough to build this company with us . If youre really early stage, it depends on the network. I think generalizing that there are women in tech that are great, its a lot of who you know. A lot of the engineers i know are male. I have a couple female engineers and if im intentional of building my network with women, it will be so even more. It has to do with survival at the early part. I hope you have someone talking about it who cares. I think the first step is really the empathy and understanding that this is a real problem on our hands, that we need to solve to make our company better. So the thing about culture is important there. Giving it a thought is one thing. How optimistic are you that real change will happen . Companies have been promising for years that they will diversify their workforce. The numbers havent really moved. Hp has been releasing its numbers for more than a decade. 30 of its workforce were women. Ten years later it was 32 . The needle didnt move much. Do you think that real change will indeed come this time . Im optimistic. Me, too. And let me tell you why, please. Like i said, the fact that this conversation is happening makes me so excited. And its making me realize that if we want that change to happen, its going to be up to each of the three of us on a panel right now. To extend the conversation beyond this interview, to talk to the people that were able to talk to because of the positions we are in. In that sense, if its in our power, i think these women are incredible and im optimistic for the future. Are you optimistic . Im cautiously optimistic, i would say. There is something there is different pieces, like i was talking about the girls and women in college, the expectations that they are given regarding the industry may not be as accurate as they should be, in my opinion. There is a certain degree of what i call Background Radiation that exists in particularly engineering. All across. What do you mean by that . Advancement issues, these are all you just deal with it when youre coming into the industry and usually when youre in college youre not told about these things. Nobody is going to tell you this. But you come into the industry and learn, wait, all of this goes on which i never learned about. And you just some of it everybody has to deal with it, whether youre female or male, you have to deal with it. And i think just understanding that and being able to cope with it and to really focus on the good things and how technology can really help advance your career, make you financially stable and just, you know, you can build really cool things that you cant do in most other fields. Come on, right . So i am certainly cautiously optimistic about it. Yeah. We will leave it there on that cautiously optimistic note. Thank you all. Pleasure to have you all. Thank you. Thanks. Our uber drivers employees or independent contractors . That question is currently before a federal court. A small group of former drivers have sued uber saying they should have been classified as employees. Next week, the court will hear arguments on whether the suit can be expanded to include many if not all of the 160,000 u. S. Drivers. The case could have a big impact on the socalled sharing economy. Our colleague spoke to a professor of management science at new york university. How do these companies define themselves matters certainly in the court of law and also in the court of public opinion. Are these platforms . Are they Delivery Companies . Are they companies with employees . Are they just enabling freelancers . Somewhere in the middle of sort of like the market and hierarchy, so to speak. And Digital Technology has defined new institution and organizational forms. We just need to recognize that this is a new form of organizing Economic Activity that has some of the characteristics of a handsoff market and of a corporation. So is uber a car service or tech company . Its somewhere in between, right . Its certainly a tech company but to say that its purely a matching platform seems to sort of be a little disconnected from reality. On the other hand, to say that its a 50 billion cost service also seems disconnected from the reality and the fact that it is at its core a platform that matches independent drivers with people sort of doing it with a lot of layers that traditionally is associated with a corporate [ inaudible ]. And joining me now to discuss the uber case is wall street Journal Technology reporter douglas mcmillan. Doug, welcome back. Thanks for having me. You broke some news today regarding uber. It is now valued at nearly 51 billion. How significant is that . Its a very big number. Its only one of two venturebacked private Tech Companies to ever achieve that valuation. The other, of course, being facebook. The other interesting thing that uber has done here is it got to that valuation faster than facebook. Facebook did it in just under seven years. Uber is now five years old and its pretty astounding feat for this company that wasnt around five years ago. It is extraordinary. So in the case that we just talked about, should the drivers be contractors or employees, is this company, uber, now valued at nearly 51 billion, arguing that it cant afford to classify its contractors, its drivers as employees . I think what has happened is that this is one of Many Companies in this kind of sharing economy that is employing these contractors that these questions are around. But uber is the most mature company. They have over 200,000 drivers and they have the most at stake in this battle. If uber were forced to reclassify all of these drivers who are now contractors to become employees, that would add huge costs for this company. The estimates range anywhere from 20 to 40 of their costs would increase. Would uber have to then pass that cost onto customers, take that out of the pockets of drivers . Something fundamental would have to change with the Business Model and there are now, as i said, so valuable and so far along that that would, you know, be a major obstacle for growth for this company. So they are not explicitly arguing that but thats kind of what faces this company. You have reported on otherdemand companies have reclassified their contracts with employees. We have the carparking service and insta car shift. Why did they decide to make that move . Companies unlike uber are very early in their Business Models and there is still time to rejigger things and reframe their Business Models around an employee model and, two, what these companies are getting out of this, i talked to the ceo of lux and they can now do more things with employees that they could not would contractors for the ondemand valet parkers. They can set their schedules, give them more handson training and give them more specific direction that they could not do with their contractor workforce. And they are small and nimble enough to do at this stage. Yes. Its worth doing it at this stage because you dont want to be forced to do this change. Are you hearing any discussion among executives at these type of Ondemand Service companies perhaps about finding a new way to extend employee benefits, between contract and employee status, perhaps . Yeah. Were hearing that from the investors and company itself and hearing it from regulators and in a national conversation, senator out of virginia has been a National Politician to discuss this idea of, you know, technology and the Online Marketplaces have created a new type of worker. And technology has moved faster than regulation in this area. Should we come up with a new classification, a new type of worker, some people have called it the dependent contractor where, you know, essentially youre acknowledging that these people are not going to stick with one company, they are not going to work a certain shift but that they should have some fundamental benefits, like, you know, workers comp, unemployment benefits, that perhaps could be paid out of a pool. So, yes, there is definitely, you know, a new behavior, a new class of worker. Whether or not governments and regulations should step forward and recognize that is still a matter of debate. Uber is also facing another legal battle in california, the state Public Utility Commission wants to fine the company more than 7 million and suspend the service if the company doesnt turn over data on riders. Whats specific data regarding ridership does the state want to see . So several different things. They are looking for point a to point b, which customers are taking trips, when and where. They are also looking for kind of data about accessible vehicles and to what extent uber is getting can requests and fielding requests for accessible vehicles. And there are some other things that the state of california is looking for and basically they are saying that, you know, we made a deal with you, uber, that we would create regulation to protect you and your specific kinds of vehicle as regulation. Youre not upholding your end of the bargain by giving us enough data. I think this is going to be a growing story with uber as it begins to become a legalized entity and adds uber becomes protected under a lot of laws in many of the jurisdictions where it operates. Its going to have a challenge of compliance and how do you make sure, you know, the regulators in 50 different states are all happy with the data that you are giving them and the deal that you struck with them . I think california is at the forefront of this and were going to see this headache expend to other places with uber. Its spending a lot of money on lobbying in california. Top three of companies in the amount of money it spent. Real quickly, are there top myths in the ridesharing economy or in the economy in general . I think one myth is that its all kind of mom and pop and its all the guy next door driving you or renting you a place. These Online Marketplaces move towards formality and move towards the industry. Youre going to see more and more businesses emerge around these marketplaces. And they do really quickly. Thank you, doug. Thank you for having me. And thank you for joining all of us. For all of the news coverage, go to kqed. Org. Im thuy vu. Have a great night. Captioning sponsored by wnet sreenivasan on this edition for sunday, august 2 president obama pushes for deeper cuts in planetwarming Greenhouse Gas emissions. But industries vow to sue to block new regulations. In our signature segment, sowing seeds of diversity in the tech industry, by training black and hispanic teens to code. I can now build something and bring it to the table and show this is what ive done. Sreenivasan and, taking on muslim stereotypes. Through standup comedy. Next on pbs newshour weekend. Pbs newshour weekend is made possible by