Mediaboss Marketing

Venturing to the heart of Silicon Valley, Hillary Rodham Clinton gently scolded the high-tech industry Tuesday for its male-dominated culture and warned of the downside of its world-changing innovation.

While automation has made lives better, created new industries and increased productivity to the great benefit of the global economy it has also dislocated workers and contributed mightily to the economic anxiety that grips many Americans, she said.

The old jobs and careers are either gone or unrecognizable, Clinton said. The old rules just dont seem to apply, and, frankly, the new rules just arent that clear.

[If] we want to find our balance again, we have to figure out how to make this new economy work for everyone, she said.

Appearing as a keynote speaker at a daylong networking conference for women following weeks of relative reclusiveness Clinton shed no new light on her expected presidential bid. During a question-and-answer session, she passed on an invitation to launch her candidacy before the adoring audience, which cheered every coy reference to 2016.

All in good time, Clinton said. Theres a lot to think about, let me tell you.

That said, the Democrats remarks were a forthright appeal to a pair of vital constituencies she would need to win the White House: the high-achieving professional women thrilled at the prospect of shattering the countrys ultimate glass ceiling, and the less-skilled, low-wage workers who fear technology is rendering them obsolete.

Speaking at the Santa Clara Convention Center, in hailing distance from the headquarters of several tech giants, she lamented the industrys poor track record hiring and promoting women, seizing on Apples famous slogan to urge Silicon Valley leaders to think different.

The numbers are sobering, Clinton said, and she reeled off several: Just 11% of Silicon Valley executives and 20% of software developers are women. A man with a bachelors degree tends to make 60% more than his female counterpart. On the Forbes list of 100 leading tech investors, just four are women.

We can literally count on one hand the number of women who have actually been able to come here and turn their dreams into billion-dollar businesses, Clinton said. Were going backward in a field that is supposed to be all about moving forward.

See the rest here:
Hillary Clinton, in Silicon Valley, notes downsides of high-tech industry