Follow Tom’s Hardware on Google News , or add us as a preferred source , to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.
Shane Downing Social Links Navigation Contributing Writer Shane Downing is a Contributing Writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering consumer storage, PC hardware, and AI.
bit_user Gah, my first thought upon seeing the headline was that it was some sort of Nvidia event! I never liked their idea to use people's first names for their CPUs. And, as I predicted, they eventually had configurations paring a Grace CPU with a Blackwell GPU. Who is Grace Blackwell? Nobody of note. Dumb. Reply
usertests “Contributions and grants” fell from $11.2 million in 2023 to just $724,350 in 2024. Attendance also was in decline — from 29,000 in 2023 to 17,000 in 2024 — counting in-person and virtual attendees. The 2024 filing put GHC’s own expenses at $26.9 million against $22.4 million in revenue. The conference's 2024 gap suggests a pattern that may have worsened. Something big must have happened in 2023 to cause contributions to plummet by 93% and attendance by over 40%. 'You could feel the cutthroatness': Droves of men took over this women's tech fair An event meant to be a career-builder for women and nonbinary tech workers turned into yet another symbol of the industry's gender imbalance after self-identifying men showed up in droves. Several conference-goers told NPR there was a 40/60 ratio of men to women, especially at the career expo. "From what I'd heard, I was expecting maybe half a percent to 1% of the attendees would male," said Morgan Young, a computer science student at the University of Nevada, Reno who also creates content for early-career tech workers on social media. "I heard it was like the Coachella of tech for women. It's supposed to be fun and collaborative," she told NPR in an interview this week. "But the vibe was so different. You could feel the cutthroatness in the air." Some of the attendees had lied about their gender identity on their conference registrations, said Cullen White, the chief impact officer with AnitaB.org, the nonprofit that organizes the conference. In one of those lines, she said she heard a group of men casually using misogynistic slurs in her native language, Hindi. In another, she watched a group of men splinter off to make a new line, effectively cutting the other people who'd been waiting patiently. Yeah, that'll do it. Murdered by various "trends". 3 years later and now you don't get to have a coding career anymore. RIP. The AI industry is booming. Women are getting left behind Reply
bill001g A huge part of the problem is the whole concept of convention is outdated. They were already extremely expensive and hard to justify and then covid killed them off completely for 2 yrs. The only people who make money are the hotels and these massive convention centers…everyone else both the exhibitors and the attendees pay and pay. Almost everything is virtual now days. Many young people have been so isolated that even the thought of going into a room with thousands of other people to compete for job scares them away. I did find it amusing that this organization was complaining about all the men who "identified" as women that came and they blame that reason for the dropping attendance. It is much more likely it is all the cost cutting by companies we have seen in the last year. There was nothing about this non profit cutting their staff or lowering salaries. Non profit does not mean you do not have a bunch of high paid employees living off donations. Reply
thrus If an org pays $5000 (made up number) to take part with 700 orga and a ticket costs $100 (again made up number) for a guest ticket. 14,600,000 would be. All 700 orga plus 111,000 guests. Sounds like they way overspent, or I am vastly underestimating vendor cost and ticket price. Reply
bit_user bill001g said: It is much more likely it is all the cost cutting by companies we have seen in the last year. Probably. We're seeing some layoffs and not much hiring. This seems to be hardest on recent college grads. It seems plausible that companies sponsor such events as a way to market themselves to job seekers. But, if they aren't hiring, then what's the point? Also, I'd bet a lot of corporations have scaled back their DEI programs, over the past couple years, which might also have been a source of funding. Reply
usertests bill001g said: I did find it amusing that this organization was complaining about all the men who "identified" as women that came and they blame that reason for the dropping attendance. It is much more likely it is all the cost cutting by companies we have seen in the last year. The numbers show that the problem happened in between the September 2023 and October 2024 conferences with a 93% reduction in "contributions and grants" and 41% drop in all attendance, IRL and virtual. So it's not something that can be readily blamed on COVID, Trump getting re-elected (that was November 2024), or cost cutting that occurred in 2025-2026. Going viral after men swarmed the conference is what put it into terminal decline. Reply
Arkitekt78 Sorry, cant help it. 🤣🤣🤣 Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/grace-hopper-celebration-for-women-in-computing-canceled-two-weeks-out-anitab-org-says-registrations-and-sponsorships-fell-short-of-covering-costs#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com/membership
- Store-bought hardware crypto wallets had secret chips installed that enabled stealing crypto recovery phrases
- Modder injects leaked DLSS 5 4x Multipass on 1996 Quake
- NVIDIA Announces New Investments in the UK Startup Ecosystem
- Into the Omniverse: How Developers Turn Ideas Into Simulations With Frontier AI Agents
- 32GB of DDR5 6000 RAM now costs $450
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.