I, too, have friends who've taken those massive hits. What's particularly alarming to me is that much of the bias is taking more subtle forms now that the law bars outright discrimination. It seems, in some ways, to have gone underground.

Anna Weiner's book Uncanny Valley makes a particularly strong case for this. She says she saw men in Silicon Valley getting rapidly she and other women kept getting told to be patient and "trust karma." Can you imagine? Why aren't we beyond this now?