Silicon¹ Valley is beginning to admit it isn’t just for young people anymore.

硅谷开始承认，自己不再仅仅面向年轻人。

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-founder² and chief executive, said in 2007, when he was 23. “Simplicity³ in life allows you to focus on what’s important.”

长期以来，对家庭不友好的文化几乎是硅谷的一种骄傲。雇主公开倾向于招募更年轻、没有孩子的员工，认为他们效率更高。“年轻人的生活更简单，”Facebook的联合创始人兼首席执行官马克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)在2007年时说，当时他23岁。“生活简单能让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，越来越多的科技企业高管公开谈及难以平衡工作和家庭，特别是在硅谷面临多元化压力时。

In an informal poll last month by CB Insights, a private company data firm, 63 percent of the 4,040 respondents — mostly start-up founders⁴ who are also parents — said they struggled with balancing their start-up and parental⁵ duties daily or all the time. Only 10 percent said they never did.

上月，私营企业数据公司CB Insights进行了一项非正式调查。4040名受访者——大多是有孩子的初创公司创始人——中63%的人表示，他们经常或一直难以平衡自己的创业公司和为人父母的责任。只有10%的人说自己从不担心。

“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.

“我知道有人在这个问题上面临困难，身为父母和企业创始人，我肯定知道，但超过60%的人经常或一直难以做到平衡这个结果还是令我吃惊，”CB Insights首席执行官阿南德·桑瓦尔(Anand Sanwal)说。

There are signs the culture could be changing.

一些迹象表明，这种文化可能正在改变。

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-time⁶ employees six months of paid parental leave and one month of transition in which they can work flexible or shorter hours.

比如，扎克伯格周五就发出了不同的声音，称他将在女儿出生后休两周陪产假。（Facebook为员工提供四个月的带薪产假。）周四，总部设在伦敦和斯德哥尔摩，但办公机构遍布全球的Spotify表示，将为全职员工提供六个月的带薪产假和一个月的过渡期。在过渡期，员工可灵活安排或缩短工作时间。

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 spectrum⁸ 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.

不仅仅是硅谷，对各行各业的从业人员来说，长时间在办公室工作和要求员工在家时也能联系到等情况都是常见的。不分薪水高低，56%的双职工家庭家长表示，找到工作和家庭之间的平衡很难，压力很大。但科技行业将这种高强度、高风险的美国工作文化发展到了极致。

“The tech industry’s love for scrappy, accessible founders adds to the pressure,” said Glenn Kelman, chief executive of Redfin, the online real estate⁹ company. “You’re expected to lead by example, to roll up your sleeves, to know everything going on.”

“科技业喜欢热血的、随叫随到的创始人，这加大了压力，”在线房地产公司Redfin的首席执行官格伦·凯尔曼(Glenn Kelman)说。“其他人希望你以身作则，卷起袖子亲自上阵，一切都了然于心。”

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.

为人父母者在科技行业处境艰难在一定程度上是因为，在20多岁的创业公司创始人和程序员中，有孩子的人和女性少之又少。而这类人是科技行业很大的一个组成部分。

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.

很多在小型创业公司工作的家长反映，他们是公司第一个有孩子的员工，并且公司通常都还没有产假政策。甚至在Facebook、亚马逊(Amazon)等大公司，有孩子或其他需要处理工作以外的事情的员工，都在艰难应对周末黑客马拉松或假日电话会议等事情。

“Being a tech founder is all-consuming; you can never really turn off,” said Clara Shih, founder and chief executive of Hearsay¹⁰ 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 skimp¹¹ on your family, and you can’t skimp on your start-up, so you end up skimping¹² on yourself.”

“科技公司创始人的工作极为繁重；你永远都无法真正停止工作，”传闻社交(Hearsay Social)创始人、首席执行官史宗玮(Clara Shih)说。“你不能敷衍家人，也不能敷衍你的初创公司，结果只能委屈自己。”史宗玮和丈夫——科技公司光晕神经科学(Halo Neuroscience)创始人兼首席执行官丹尼尔·赵(Daniel Chao)最近迎来了他们的第一个孩子。

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.

这在最近成为一个问题，部分是因为硅谷不断老龄化。当然，很多知名公司有一些年长的员工，但很多在互联网时代热门公司工作的人也成为父母。初创公司需要等待更长时间才能上市，意味着这些公司的员工需要工作更长时间才能获得经济回报。

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 flex⁷ time.

科技公司也雇佣了少量女性员工——很多公司的女性员工比例为三分之一，而在科技公司，这个比例通常不到五分之一。总的来说，养育子女给女性事业带来的影响比男性大很多，而且要求推行带薪休假或弹性工作时间等有利于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.

史宗玮表示，“人们认为很多女性在有了孩子后，对待工作和事业就没那么认真了，所以我有时候感觉自己需要加倍努力，代表科技行业的女性改变这种看法。”

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.

凯尔曼表示，一些科技公司最近开始提供更多产假，这部分是为了招聘女性员工。但对带薪休假等正式政策的关注还不够。更重要的是员工休假归来后会发生什么。

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，如果员工们被鼓励与老板谈论他们的家庭生活，做好时间安排，以便他们可以处理工作内外的事情，那这些员工是比较幸运的。但在一些公司，员工们不敢这么做，因为担心这会显得他们对工作不投入。

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.

那些似乎将工作置于家庭之上的高管会遭受批评，无论公平与否，这是科技领域文化改变的一个象征。雅虎(Yahoo)首席执行官玛丽莎·梅耶尔(Marissa Mayer)宣布她在生下双胞胎后只会做短暂休息，因此遭到批评。

“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，员工们会被你的拼搏精神所激励，”凯尔曼说。“现在，一些员工会抱怨你做出了错误的示范。”