There’s a stubborn little problem in the modern tech industry; it is that of equality. The bigger tech companies, such as Google, Apple and Facebook, have all attempted to tackled this issue. They have created more diversity by employing more female staff.
Josh Silverman, CEO of Etsy, a hand made products e-commerce site, is targeting the promotion of more women, but within their tech taskforce. When 87% of their 2million sellers are women, and most of their 36million buyers are also female, they need to act.
Etsy can now boast that 32% of their engineers are female. That’s not a bad target when they have around 744 employees (2017), of which 55% are women. This trend continues in the higher ranks too, with two-thirds of the management team being female.
Silverman strives for even more transparency. He hopes to attract young female engineers to join the company early on in their careers. This will naturally increase the organic diversity that Etsy maintain to have built.
Etsy does not worry too much about their competitors, Amazon and eBay, because they have a unique pitch. Silverman believes that Etsy is about keeping commerce human.
It’s not only about buying and selling of e-commerce commodities; but also about matching personalities with buyers and sellers alike. The nature of handmade goods is an expression of customer needs.
