Still "not enough women at the table" says Apple Chief Executive
Tim Cook says that tech needs a more diverse workforce, and shared details of Apple’s founders development programme for female founders in the UK
In an interview with the BBC Cook said "I think the essence of technology and its effect on humanity depends upon women being at the table."
"Technology's a great thing that will accomplish many things, but unless you have diverse views at the table that are working on it, you don't wind up with great solutions."
He should know.
Apple was criticised back in 2014 for launching an expansive heath app that measured all sorts of interesting metrics, but left out menstrual cycle tracking. Apple did remedy the problem after female customers complained, but it illustrates the importance of the diverse views at the table that Cook alludes to. The company has also been criticised for making phones that are too big for women to comfortably hold and operate, and more recently has been in the news for the Apple credit card and its algorithmically driven lending decisions, which appeared to be biased against women. Apple and the lender Goldman Sachs were cleared of fair lending violations, but the case raised the profile of the whole question of algorithm bias, and Apple suffered some reputational damage.
Cook said that while companies such as Apple had made progress on diversity, there were "no good excuses," for the tech sector not to employ more women. This is true, and echoes statements made by many tech employers that they "need to do better." It isn't difficult or controversial to announce that you'd like to employ more women. It seems to be considerably more difficult to actually promote women into the type of position where they can ensure companies make better decisions.
But pipeline
The excuse continually given by tech companies for the lack of women in leadership is that the problem is one of pipeline. There simply aren't enough women entering tech and if more girls choose maths, science and computing at school then the problem will fix itself. It's not an entirely false premise and huge efforts are, quite rightly, being expended by government and not for profit organisations like Code First Girls to persuade more girls to go down the STEM route. But the small number of women tech leaders is not just a product of pipeline, and it's been a convenient excuse for companies to pretend that it is.
Cook acknowledges that "but pipeline" shouldn't be used as an excuse. He comments:
"Businesses can't cop out and say 'there's not enough women taking computer science - therefore I can't hire enough.'"
But he then says, "we have to fundamentally change the number of people that are taking computer science and programming." The BBC reports that Cook's view is that everybody should be required to have a working knowledge of coding by the time they leave school. It's not an unreasonable point to make, but focusing on what educators should be doing to fix gender imbalance in the future, rather than on what Apple are doing to hire more women and promote more women now, seems like a missed opportunity to broadcast a more proactive message of change.
Female Founders
Apple has chosen to focus its inclusion energy on female founders, and in the interview, Cook talks about the newly launched founders development programme for female founders and app creators based in the UK. The interview is light on the detail of what the development programme actually involves. Mentoring female founders is helpful to a point, but the biggest barrier they face is finance. Female founders receive only 1% of VC funding in Europe. There is no shortage of female energy, talent and creativity. What's missing is the funding.
Hybrid discrimination
The interview with Tim Cook coincides with the release of research from the Chartered Management Institute indicating that hybrid and flexible working might be having a detrimental impact on womens leadership prospects. As Computing argued late in 2021, digital presenteeism is still presenteeism, and the outcome is likely to work against the interests of women, especially if they have children.
The research from CMI is likely to be the result of flexible and hybrid working fighting to co-exist alongside the cultural and leadership expectations that existed pre-pandemic. It was always going to be a challenge, but that doesn't mean that we should just give up and try to restore 2019 settings. Part of the answer lies with men. Until more men want to work flexibly and engage in hybrid working and take up options such as compressed hours, women will be quietly passed over for promotions - and nothing will change.
Tim Cook told the BBC that he is "not a great role model" for work-life balance.
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