Amazon Employees Launch Matchmaking Startup For Coworkers (geekwire.com)

reifman writes: As posted earlier, Amazon's growth and predominantly male hiring has made dating in Seattle incredibly difficult for everyone. Two Amazon employees, Becca Goldman and Mahvish Gazipura, recently launched DateADev to help coworkers optimize their dating profiles: 'at Amazon [we're] surrounded by software developers and project managers all the time, we just noticed their need. We talk to them all the time about their frustrations with dating.' Goldman's gone on more than 500 dates in the past three years. 'Her experience ... helps her quickly assess an online profile of a potential partner.' Rather than drive its employees into moonlighting, Amazon could just start hiring more women.

Comments

Women don't like dating engineers, in America.

[Anonymous Coward]

If women *did* like dating engineers (in America), this problem would resolve itself.

Of course, there are reasons why women don't like dating engineers:

1) Social myths and stigmas about engineers.
2) The realities behind the social myths and stigmas about engineers.
3) Engineers tend to be introverts and beta-males, and as such they don't exude the sense of power that makes men attractive to women (despite their wealth).

These are social problems. They need to be fixed by social means. Another online dating service won't accomplish that.

"Could Just" - treating women as commodities

[SuperKendall]

Amazon "Could Just" hire more women.

Ok, from where?

The bad thing about hiring quotas by any determinate like race or gender or any pool with a smaller population, is that ALLOF THE COMPANIES are trying to generally do the same thing.

So lets say Amazon does succeed in doubling the hiring rate of women - doesn't that mean there are a LOT of companies now short their "share" of women? In fact is it any wonder that small companies are so devoid of women when so many large companies are trying so desperately to hire women? Centralizing technical women in a small number of companies in fact seems like a terribly bad idea to me and is probably exacerbating all of the technical culture issues people have noticed (which must be said are rooted in Silicon Valley and not nearly so bad outside that echo chamber).

The whole thing makes me sick honestly, and to me seems to objectify women vastly more than, say, porn...

Amazon, home of the brogrammer!

[TiggertheMad]

As a male dev who has interviewed and knows people at Amazon, the problem isn't lack of an app. After I went out to talk with them for a day, I came away with the impression that there are a large number of really arrogant and pushy people working there. Undoubtedly, my personal experience isn't statistical representation of the whole company, but I wasn't very impressed with them as people. They seemed stressed, hurried, egotistical, and self-centered. I didn't want to work there for money, so I could imagine that few women would want to date people like that for free.

Anecdote: If you go on a date and the date goes poorly, the person may have been a jerk. If you go on 10 dates and they all go poorly, chances are you are actually the jerk. If nobody at Amazon can land a date, what does that tell you? A lack of girls in Seattle? For being so smart, you seem pretty slow...