當硅谷不再年輕 爲工作不能不顧家

Silicon Valley is beginning to admit it isn’t just for young people anymore.

硅谷開始承認，自己不再僅僅面向年輕人。

The valley’s un-family-friendly culture has long been almost a point of pride, with employers openly preferring younger, childless employees who were presumed to be more productive. “Young people just have simpler lives,” Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder and chief executive, said in 2007, when he was 23. “Simplicity in life allows you to focus on what’s important.”

長期以來，對家庭不友好的文化幾乎是硅谷的一種驕傲。僱主公開傾向於招募更年輕、沒有孩子的員工，認爲他們效率更高。“年輕人的生活更簡單，”Facebook的聯合創始人兼首席執行官馬克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)在2007年時說，當時他23歲。“生活簡單能讓人把注意力集中在重要的事情上。”

Recently, though, a growing number of tech executives have been speaking out about the struggle to balance work and family, particularly as Silicon Valley faces pressure to become more diverse.

但最近，越來越多的科技企業高管公開談及難以平衡工作和家庭，特別是在硅谷面臨多元化壓力時。

In an informal poll last month by CB Insights, a private company data firm, 63 percent of the 4,040 respondents — mostly start-up founders who are also parents — said they struggled with balancing their start-up and parental duties daily or all the time. Only 10 percent said they never did.

上月，私營企業數據公司CB Insights進行了一項非正式調查。4040名受訪者——大多是有孩子的初創公司創始人——中63%的人表示，他們經常或一直難以平衡自己的創業公司和爲人父母的責任。只有10%的人說自己從不擔心。

“I know people struggle with this — I certainly do as a parent and founder — but over 60 percent struggling with it every day or all the time even surprised me,” said Anand Sanwal, chief executive of CB Insights.

“我知道有人在這個問題上面臨困難，身爲父母和企業創始人，我肯定知道，但超過60%的人經常或一直難以做到平衡這個結果還是令我吃驚，”CB Insights首席執行官阿南德·桑瓦爾(Anand Sanwal)說。

There are signs the culture could be changing.

一些跡象表明，這種文化可能正在改變。

On Friday, for example, Mr. Zuckerberg sounded a different note when he said he would take two months of paternity leave after his daughter is born. (Facebook offers employees four months of paid parental leave.) On Thursday, Spotify, with headquarters in London and Stockholm and offices worldwide, said it would give full-time employees six months of paid parental leave and one month of transition in which they can work flexible or shorter hours.

比如，扎克伯格週五就發出了不同的聲音，稱他將在女兒出生後休兩週陪產假。（Facebook爲員工提供四個月的帶薪產假。）週四，總部設在倫敦和斯德哥爾摩，但辦公機構遍佈全球的Spotify表示，將爲全職員工提供六個月的帶薪產假和一個月的過渡期。在過渡期，員工可靈活安排或縮短工作時間。

Long hours in the office and the expectations of being connected at home are familiar to workers across industries, not just Silicon Valley. Fifty-six percent of parents in dual-income households across the wage spectrum say they find the work-family balance to be difficult and stressful. But tech takes the high-stress, high-stakes American work culture to the extreme.

不僅僅是硅谷，對各行各業的從業人員來說，長時間在辦公室工作和要求員工在家時也能聯繫到等情況都是常見的。不分薪水高低，56%的雙職工家庭家長表示，找到工作和家庭之間的平衡很難，壓力很大。但科技行業將這種高強度、高風險的美國工作文化發展到了極致。

“The tech industry’s love for scrappy, accessible founders adds to the pressure,” said Glenn Kelman, chief executive of Redfin, the online real estate company. “You’re expected to lead by example, to roll up your sleeves, to know everything going on.”

“科技業喜歡熱血的、隨叫隨到的創始人，這加大了壓力，”在線房地產公司Redfin的首席執行官格倫·凱爾曼(Glenn Kelman)說。“其他人希望你以身作則，捲起袖子親自上陣，一切都瞭然於心。”

Tech has been a difficult place for parents in part because there have been so few parents or women among the 20-something start-up founders and coders who form large parts of the tech industry.

爲人父母者在科技行業處境艱難在一定程度上是因爲，在20多歲的創業公司創始人和程序員中，有孩子的人和女性少之又少。而這類人是科技行業很大的一個組成部分。

Many parents who work at small start-ups report that they were the first person at the company to have a child, and often there was no existing parental leave policy. Even at big companies like Facebook and Amazon, people with children or other outside commitments struggle with things like weekend hackathons or holiday conference calls.

很多在小型創業公司工作的家長反映，他們是公司第一個有孩子的員工，並且公司通常都還沒有產假政策。甚至在Facebook、亞馬遜(Amazon)等大公司，有孩子或其他需要處理工作以外的事情的員工，都在艱難應對週末黑客馬拉松或假日電話會議等事情。

“Being a tech founder is all-consuming; you can never really turn off,” said Clara Shih, founder and chief executive of Hearsay Social, who recently had her first child with her husband, Daniel Chao, also a tech founder and chief executive, of Halo Neuroscience. “You can’t skimp on your family, and you can’t skimp on your start-up, so you end up skimping on yourself.”

“科技公司創始人的工作極爲繁重；你永遠都無法真正停止工作，”傳聞社交(Hearsay Social)創始人、首席執行官史宗瑋(Clara Shih)說。“你不能敷衍家人，也不能敷衍你的初創公司，結果只能委屈自己。”史宗瑋和丈夫——科技公司光暈神經科學(Halo Neuroscience)創始人兼首席執行官丹尼爾·趙(Daniel Chao)最近迎來了他們的第一個孩子。

One reason this has recently become an issue could be that Silicon Valley is aging. There are, of course, many established companies with older employees, but many people who work at the hot companies of the web era are now also becoming parents. And start-ups stay private for longer periods now, meaning employees work at them longer before cashing out.

這在最近成爲一個問題，部分是因爲硅谷不斷老齡化。當然，很多知名公司有一些年長的員工，但很多在互聯網時代熱門公司工作的人也成爲父母。初創公司需要等待更長時間才能上市，意味着這些公司的員工需要工作更長時間才能獲得經濟回報。

Tech companies also employ a disproportionately small number of women — one-third of employees at many companies, and often less than one-fifth of technical employees. Over all, parenthood affects women’s careers more substantially than men’s, and women tend to be the ones who ask for family-friendly policies at work like paid leave or flex time.

科技公司也僱傭了少量女性員工——很多公司的女性員工比例爲三分之一，而在科技公司，這個比例通常不到五分之一。總的來說，養育子女給女性事業帶來的影響比男性大很多，而且要求推行帶薪休假或彈性工作時間等有利於家庭的工作政策的往往是女性。

“Many women are written off as not as serious about work and their careers once they have children, so at times I feel like I have to work extra hard to change this perception on behalf of all women in tech,” Ms. Shih said.

史宗瑋表示，“人們認爲很多女性在有了孩子後，對待工作和事業就沒那麼認真了，所以我有時候感覺自己需要加倍努力，代表科技行業的女性改變這種看法。”

Recruiting women is one reason that some tech companies have recently begun offering more generous parental leave. But the focus on formal policies like paid leave is not enough, Mr. Kelman said. Even more important is what happens after a worker returns from leave.

凱爾曼表示，一些科技公司最近開始提供更多產假，這部分是爲了招聘女性員工。但對帶薪休假等正式政策的關注還不夠。更重要的是員工休假歸來後會發生什麼。

Employees are better off, he said, if they are encouraged to talk with their bosses about their family lives and create schedules that enable them to accomplish what they need to inside and outside work. Yet at some companies, they are fearful to do so because they worry they will appear uncommitted to work.

他表示，如果員工們被鼓勵與老闆談論他們的家庭生活，做好時間安排，以便他們可以處理工作內外的事情，那這些員工是比較幸運的。但在一些公司，員工們不敢這麼做，因爲擔心這會顯得他們對工作不投入。

One symbol of the cultural change in tech, fair or not, is the criticism of executives who seem to prioritize work over family. That happened to Marissa Mayer, chief executive of Yahoo, when she announced she would take only a very short leave after having twins.

那些似乎將工作置於家庭之上的高管會遭受批評，無論公平與否，這是科技領域文化改變的一個象徵。雅虎(Yahoo)首席執行官瑪麗莎·梅耶爾(Marissa Mayer)宣佈她在生下雙胞胎後只會做短暫休息，因此遭到批評。

“Five years ago, employees would be inspired by how hard you work,” Mr. Kelman said. “Now some complain that you’re setting the wrong example.”

“五年前，員工們會被你的拼搏精神所激勵，”凱爾曼說。“現在，一些員工會抱怨你做出了錯誤的示範。”