 Xeni Jardin is angry with the NY Times for leading their piece about the Kleiner-Perkins sexual harassment lawsuit with: "Men invented the Internet. And not just any men. Men with pocket protectors. Men who idolized Mr. Spock and cried when Steve Jobs died. Nerds. Geeks. Give them their due. Without men, we would never know what our friends were doing five minutes ago."  What they're really saying though is that the men at Kleiner Perkins invented and continue to invent the Internet. So the problem is much bigger than saying men did it. The problem with the Times is they think the money did it. At dinner the other night, one of my friends, a real entrepreneur who creates real products, and really stirs things up -- a man, btw -- pointed to the next table where a VC sat. A VC that blew him off. Having been blown off many times by VCs who had no clue what I was talking about when I was speaking plain English about the future of the Internet (with the benefit of hindsight that's not a speculative statement) the problem is we have some pretty dumb gatekeepers in Silicon Valley, and reporters who carry their water. |
