Women Reportedly Photoshopped Into All-Male 'Tech Titans' Photo, and Twitter Has a Lot to Say About It

One photo of "tech titans" is getting a lot of attention. It's not because of time travel or potential hovercrafts, but because of a lack of representation.

Silicon Valley giants, including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Dropbox co-founder and CEO Drew Houston, and former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, were all present in Brunello Cucinelli's Italian hillside home. Originally reported by GQ, the group of entrepreneurs wasn't there to talk clothes but the "symposium on the soul and economy."

"In many ways, Brunello is an entrepreneur right out of Silicon Valley," says Nextdoor's co-founder and former CEO Nirav Tolia to GQ. "There [were] people in the group who do not wear Cucinelli, they don't care about the clothes ... but they can absolutely appreciate Brunello's track record as an entrepreneur."

While it looks like the meeting–coined the "Solomeo Summit" by Tolia–had good intentions, one photo from the event has sparked a bit of controversy. As pointed out by Buzzfeed News' tech reporter Ryan Mac, the photo that was initially given to GQ by Cucinelli's representative looks to have been photoshopped to include two women in the crowd of male tech giants.

Mac put emphasis on one woman, supposedly identified as SunRun CEO Lynn Jurich, who had "weird stuff" going on in the photo.

"Look at the woman, supposedly SunRun CEO Lynn Jurich, in the background," Mac tweeted. "Some weird stuff is going on with her leg, which isn't aligned with the rest of her body."

"The result of years of badgering for gender diversity is that all-male events are still happening unless they stick a couple of women in to avoid criticism," Twitter user @Giulia_B wrote. "In this case, they literally stuck the women in. My country never fails to entertain."

"We only get 79% of the res men get for the same work...uh...photo," @dsloandownes added.

While many Twitter users claimed it was an "all-male event" Jurich's press team confirmed she was, indeed, in attendance.

"Ms. Jurich was delighted to participate in Mr. Cucinelli's symposium on the soul and economy," SunRun said in a statement to Newsweek. "As a leading energy sector, Ms. Jurich discussed the urgent need to decarbonize and the role of technology to accelerate decarbonization."

The other woman in the photo is identified as Peek.com CEO Ruzwana Bashir. Her team confirmed with Newsweek that she was in attendance at the Solomeo Summit.

Cucinelli's team provided Newsweek with this statement regarding the photo: "The gathering was an informal affair between friends where we captured some group photos. When we realized we didn't have a shot where all attendees were represented, we added in photos of two female CEOs taken during the weekend."

"The photos were shared and approved with all the participants including the two women, Lynn Jurich and Ruzwana Bashir, before posting them on Instagram and they also shared the group photo on their own Instagram handles," the statement continued. "We meant no harm or had any malicious intent in doing this and we are sorry."