SXSW: Not Much to Twitter About

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Many people thought SXSW may be heading in that same direction when it booked Zuckerberg and invited a business reporter to interview him.

SXSW is still largely focused on the tech side. Attendees wanted Zuckerberg to talk code, not business strategy—API, not IPO. Like it or not, Web dreamers need business savvy, too. Hell, some of them need to become businessmen and entrepreneurs themselves, following in the footsteps of a long line of successful visionaries, from Marc Andreessen to Mark Zuckerberg.

But for now, it's a good idea for SXSW programmers to stick to their roots. There are enough business conferences elsewhere. SXSW is beloved as a "spring break" where geeks can talk code and snark all they want about how much everyone else's Web site sucks. And organizers who invite speakers do well to make that clear.

4. Web 2.0 is a man's world, but it's not necessarily hostile to women. Midweek, I was sitting in the coffee bar of the Austin Hilton replying to e-mails. A young woman came up, apologizing for interrupting what she thought must have been a rare "peaceful moment" for me. I invited her to sit down, and she told me she was a business reporter in Austin. She was in her 20s, confident and sharp. She said that she'd been struck by how hard it was to be taken seriously. She said she had been in the front row during the keynote, and that she had been enjoying it when the chaos erupted. As she watched it unfold she thought two things: She was glad it wasn't her up there and she wondered if she should change careers. As a woman, it crushed me to hear this. But it also reminded me that I love what I do and that I won't be bullied easily, however sexist the public criticisms leveled against me.

There's no question that tech is dominated by men. The percentage of computing and mathematical jobs held by women actually declined to 26% in 2006 from 30% in 2000, according to the National Center for Women & Information Technology. I don't have comparable statistics for tech journalism, but I'd hazard a guess that women are underrepresented there, too.

Still, the tech industry in general and Silicon Valley in particular are not hostile to women as a rule. On a personal note, despite the gender-specific attacks leveled at me from anonymous fan boys and developers, no entrepreneur, venture capitalist, or company exec, to my knowledge, has ever denied me access because I am a woman. And more generally, I am encouraged by findings like this one, from a report released earlier by research firm Catalyst: While significant gaps remain, "technology companies have made progress for women in recent years," the report said. It goes on to note that "analyses of employee survey data revealed that both women and men were generally satisfied—with few differences—with their jobs and work environments."

I wasn't part of the study, but if I had been, I would have agreed. Many of the most successful Web executives I know aren't sexist, reinforcing my long-held belief that Silicon Valley is a meritocracy. The goal is breakthrough ideas and innovation whatever your race, creed, or gender.

Of the lessons I brought back from Austin, these are the most valuable.

Sarah Lacy has been a business reporter for 10 years, most recently covering technology for BusinessWeek. Her book, Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0, will be published by Gotham Books in May, 2008. She is also Silicon Valley host of Yahoo Finance's Tech Ticker.