I don't see where the author's reasoning is weak. A female tech lead / founder tried the standard way to get better representation of women at Google: try to hire more women, and found out there weren't enough highly qualified candidates to significantly move the numbers in the desired direction. Then as a founder herself, she tried to hire a higher percentage of women, and found there weren't enough candidates. She compared two approaches to fixing that: lowering standards (with negative effects she outlined), and generating more candidates from colleges. She recommends the later approach. The argument isn't novel, but it's also not made in a vacuum or from an ivory tower as she tried the "try harder" approach down in the trenches more than once, and so suggests "try different" instead.
The are great advantages to individuals and society to paying less than the value of goods and services. If my daughter is ill, and a simple shot of antibiotics will cure her, should I pay $20 for that, or should I pay what saving her life is actually worth to me? I've enjoyed ever faster internet connection speed at my home (coming in two weeks -- gigabit!) I assure you I'm not paying the full value of what that speed is worth to me. The same for food, clothes, transportation, everything. If I really did have to pay the full value to me for each of those I would, by definition, be indifferent to buying any of them.
Market economics has some serious downsides, but it has vastly increased the welfare of humanity. More people have been coming out of poverty in China in the past few decades that ever before in human history.
If you feel it is unfair that as a developer you can create millions of dollars in value that you aren't being compensated for, then I recommend you consider ways that you could be compensated for this value. Perhaps instead of being an employee, maybe get involved in a start-up with equity (or found a company.) Having done so, I can assure you it's more nerve wracking than ever I would have expected, and harder to unleash the millions in value than one might expect, but it's still fun, challenging, rewarding, and worth giving a go! :-)
Reading the article raised tangential questions for me: How comfortable is it for someone who's not a programmer by temperament or interest to get a computer science degree in college? Or, alternately, what percentage of computer science grads simply aren't programmers? I've never really thought about this but now I'm wondering!
Amazon.com's business has always been marvelous to use as a consumer, but more puzzling as an investor. Their deferring of making money from operations has been the opposite of Apple's approach. I wonder: will Amazon some day turn on the spigot and decide to start making real money, and, if so, how will their company culture and outlook change if they ever do?
I'm curious whether if the fire is again battery related whether Elon Musk will reiterate his offer to help with the battery technology. Tony Stark (who in the movie version is partly based on Elon) surely would...
I worked alone from a home office for 20 years in my consulting practice until, in the last year, as my company has grown, I've moved to commercial office space for the first time. I found working at home a delight, and enjoyed many years of jokes about my short commute (18 feet.) However, in the end, I found the repeated advice of friends to be correct: I'm more productive with an outside office. The extra focus more than offsets the cost of rent. Being in commercial office space has also made it easier to meet with clients. It's also more social as there are other people at the office that I can talk to (or ignore) as needed.
My commute is still short (I often do it on a Segway), and our company is still virtual (with both staff and contractors working from their own spaces -- which we don't plan to change), but don't underestimate the value of a separate, outside, workspace.