This article is suggesting that higher than normal number of people who are on Autism spectrum explains the gender imbalance in tech industry. Further it is somehow attributing this to Damore's reasoning about his memo. There are a lot more normal people in the industry though - surely all the woes directed towards tech industry are not due to folks on the spectrum?

Having worked with normal devs and "brogrammers", I have a hard time accepting that the "brogrammer" that is constantly belittling others on the team, second guessing other's work output is on the Autism spectrum. Wouldn't someone on the Autism spectrum not want to draw everyone's attention towards themselves and just do their own work?

I had a friend in grade school who was on the Autism spectrum. From what I remember, he was awkward, self-aware, genius, not looking for attention - but he was never a jerk and if he knew he was making someone uncomfortable he would stop. To suggest that people on Autism spectrum are misunderstood as brogrammers is a stretch.

> This article is suggesting that higher than normal number of people who are on Autism spectrum explains the gender imbalance in tech industry.

I think this article is suggesting that autism is predominantly more prevalent in males, due to higher testosterone, and mild autism is beneficial for employment in tech.

That being said, if that were believed to be true, that would explain the prevalence of males in tech. And I've read Damore's reasoning for his memo - there's nothing explicitly objectionable about it except for the easily reasoned about backlash from most people. Which is sort of a sign of autism.

I don't know if this online version is close to something a psychologist would administer, but here's an ASQ test that the article mentions: https://psychology-tools.com/autism-spectrum-quotient/

High school me would have scored significantly different than I do today.

The article quotes research which suggests women do better working with people and men do better working with things.

AI and automation will take over the jobs involving things. A quick google search for jobs most likely to be automated https://www.google.com.au/search?q=jobs+most+likely+to+be+au... reveals that people focused jobs are safe.

If that's true, the gender pay gap could be about to reverse, with women being paid on average more than men, since most of the jobs men are good at would be automated. More men would have to stay at home and do housework/raise kids.

I have Asperger's (now known as high functioning autism) and also work as an engineer in a prestigious company. For me, the tech workplace is a pre made social environment that's easy for me to process. Everyone has their role and I can predict what people will do next. I don't do alot of socialising outside of work, but I am married.

I've noticed the higher up you go as a developer, the more developers you run into that have Autistic traits or seem to be Autistic.

I've spotted multiple people in the workplace who I'm sure also have Asperger's, but it would be to risky to bring something like that up with them in that kind of environment.

Im hypersensitive to noise, including office noise, so I use noise cancelling headphones all day. Playing music without words, because I find music with words to be too stimulating.

"That’s what we care about, ultimately, not how good you are at talking yourself up or what you look like."

Sadly not true. We've all seen the threads here in which some people proudly declare that they wouldn't hire someone who wore a suit to their interview. "Culture fit" it sometimes gets dressed up as.

How true is that in the NYC tech scene?

I'd be very interested to know, actually. I'd expect the suppliers of money there to have met enough smart, inventive people who are also sharp sartorially to know that dressing smart isn't necessarily a bad thing, but culture infects and when you try to copy (perception of?) SF, you can end up cargo-culting.

Maybe someone here can tell us.