At her Phi Beta Kappa induction, there were separate ceremonies for men and women. At hers, a woman gave a speech called “Feeling Like a Fraud.” During the talk, Sandberg looked around the room and saw people nodding. “I thought it was the best speech I’d ever heard,” she recalls. “I felt like that my whole life.” At every stage of her time in school, Sandberg thought, I really fooled them. There was “zero chance,” she concluded, that the men in the other room felt the same.
Also, I don't understand this part:
Sandberg asked Goler to oversee human resources at Facebook. Goler wavered, saying that she didn’t think she was qualified. “No man would ever turn down more responsibility,” Sandberg admonished her. Goler then said yes.
There are a ton of engineers who don't want to be in management, and have turned down offers of "more responsibility". How could Sandberg not know that, having worked at Google and Facebook?
Regarding "No man would ever turn down more responsibility": The conversations reported in stories like this lack the full content and context of the situation. Just because you read sentence A and can think of counter-examples, doesn't mean that the person that reportedly said A doesn't know about the counter-examples.
Since Goler apparently was concerned more about qualification than about "being in management", it makes sense in the context of reports that women underrate themselves to suggest being more assertive.
Also, I've rarely found good engineers who would turn down "more responsibility". They just want it in the areas they want it in (say, a particular area of the code base, standards, product direction), not in areas that others want them to ("management").
Yeah it seems a little distanced from reality but in a way if that is motivating her to be better than I guess it's not a bad way to go about it. I mean as long as it doesn't make her action discriminatory why not act like the world is against you and you need to kick back.
I see a similar feeling in how most people here view their competitors.
This is actually very common among successful people. It's called "Impostor Syndrome" and I don't think it affects women more than men. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Impostor_Synd... (The opposite is the Dunning-Kruger effect, https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dunning%E2%80... )
Sandberg says she eventually realized that women, unlike men, encountered tradeoffs between success and likability.
I'm not sure if it's exactly the same, but a study posted to HN just yesterday proves that this affects men as well. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2724212
Also, I don't understand this part: Sandberg asked Goler to oversee human resources at Facebook. Goler wavered, saying that she didn’t think she was qualified. “No man would ever turn down more responsibility,” Sandberg admonished her. Goler then said yes.
There are a ton of engineers who don't want to be in management, and have turned down offers of "more responsibility". How could Sandberg not know that, having worked at Google and Facebook?