Twitter, a company of around 2,000 employees, doesn't have a single woman on its board, and very, very few female executives of any kind. After the New York Times ran a pointed article to this effect, the company's CEO Dick Costolo went on the (Twitter) defensive.

The portion of Claire Cain Miller's article is a quote from academic and author Vivek Wadhwa:

“This is the elite arrogance of the Silicon Valley mafia, the Twitter mafia. It’s the same male chauvinistic thinking. The fact that they went to the I.P.O. without a single woman on the board, how dare they?”

This tweet from the man in charge surfaced quickly after the article made the rounds:

Not exactly a thoughtful or measured reply! If you want to look like you're taking something seriously, making a joke about a comedian isn't the straightest route. You might even say it was dismissive—plenty of concerned tweeters thought so:

Realizing, maybe, that a Carrot Top joke wasn't the best response to a very legitimate criticism of his about-to-go-public tech giant, Costolo started to give real replies:

Twitter will surely snap up a woman for its board as soon as possible, in order to deflect this kind of criticism. Which I guess, is better than nothing. But in the meantime, it doesn't help that the company's chief will only talk about problem with other dudes on Twitter.

Photo: Getty