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Antoinette Maria
Antoinette Maria

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Can you name a female equivalent to Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates?

This question came up while I was doing some reading for a presentation I had to give at work about the gender gap in tech. I was hard pressed to answer this question off of the top of my head and I'm sure if I employ a little bit of Google-foo I could dig up a few. For example, one of the cofounders of Cisco was a woman (I can't say how technical she was). So, can you name a woman who would be in the same league as tech founders like Mark, Steve, or Bill?

Note: Sheryl Sandberg doesn't count. The Yahoo CEO doesn't count. Let it be known that I am aware that Steve Wozniak was actually the technical mind behind Apple, but I say Steve Jobs because of the social relevance of his name in this particular instance.

Here is my entry. The founder of LMG Security is a woman named Sherri Davidoff. Author of a couple of technical books. Over a decade of experience in information security. Highly technical.

Top comments (8)

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newtorob profile image
Robert Newton

Barbara Liskov... She is one hell of a Computer scientist and a programmer. Professor Liskov also teaches Computer science at MIT.

She has been awarded an ACM Fellowship, A Von Neumann medal and a Turing Award for he long list of achievements and contributions to the field.

from quora . quora.com/Who-are-some-of-the-best...

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antoinette0x53 profile image
Antoinette Maria

I can name several women who are amazing computer scientists. I meant specifically in the realm of tech business.

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern • Edited

There, sadly, aren't a lot of women who fit this general mold. A few current tech founders that come to mind as women who could grow into this class:

  • Meredith Perry, founder of UBeam
  • Shivani Siroya, founder of Tala
  • Anne Wojcicki, founder of 23andMe
  • Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos (but that ship might have sailed 🙃)
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david_j_eddy profile image
David J Eddy

Ada Lovelace - first 'programmer'
Grace Hopper - Mother of COBOL
Sister Mary Kenneth Keller - PH.D. in Computer Science
Elizabeth Feinler - her team created TLDs (.com, .net, .gov) for the early web
Mary Lou Jepsen - Founder of OLPC

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Casey Reed

The first name that comes to mind for me is Grace Hopper. She wasn't necessarily an entrepreneur on the level of the men you listed, but I'd count her as a "founder" of some sort.

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Antoinette Maria

I would put her up there with Alan Turing as a pioneer/trailblazer in the field, less so of a tech business leader.

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derk-wola

Ada Lovelace and it's over.

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Antoinette Maria

She isn't exactly...an equivalent...