51–60 of 122 posts
So where is the list of male founders who kicked it in 2016?
I would be less bothered by such lists without the undertone of "we need such lists because of sexism".
I support these kinds of lists. Like #BlackLivesMatter, the focus on a purportedly disenfranchised group doesn't mean that the "main" group doesn't matter -- but it's an acknowledgement that we see plenty of representation of the main group -- in this case, men -- by default. Unless you believe that there really are no barriers specific to women (and it doesn't necessarily have to be sexism) and that women just are t…
May be more necessary than usual – I got the feeling that women were overrepresented in the "Founder-does-something-terrible" articles, at least on HN. Some was certainly deserved, although I'm not sure about the proportionality of the 20th "No, seriously, Elizabeth Holmes is a terrible terrible person!" - article. Some was offensive, misogynistic, backwards bullshit that I can only hope is highly correlated with the…
That's not to condone the backlash, of course.
But perhaps we ought to stop focusing on identity politics - and start treating women as people, not tokens in our social engineering project.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We don't. We recognize that there is a significant gender imbalance in technology professions, markedly larger than that of any other cognitive non-routine profession, and are happy to acknowledge anything that might suggest a countervailing trend.
Do you have any evidence to suggest women are encouraged into our industry by this kind of tokenisation? And not discouraged by it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Partially. But I suspect it's more a case of attending one of those expensive institutions signals "Having the freedom to fail." If you attended one of those institutions, you have backup if things blow up. People whose parents struggled to send them to college aren't starting startups. They're probably paying off loans and attempting to bank money for 5-10 years. At which point, they probably start a family and stil…
Where do you get these assumptions from? My parents absolutely could not have afforded to pay for college without extremely generous financial aid. Thankfully, that's exactly what elite universities provide. I know plenty of other people who are interested in tech and startups who come from similar circumstances. Also, for the record, if people's parents are genuinely poor then they will not have any loans from an el…
We already have an accurate system of measuring privilege in form of parent wealth.
1. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/10/immorality-...
I support these kinds of lists. Like #BlackLivesMatter, the focus on a purportedly disenfranchised group doesn't mean that the "main" group doesn't matter -- but it's an acknowledgement that we see plenty of representation of the main group -- in this case, men -- by default. Unless you believe that there really are no barriers specific to women (and it doesn't necessarily have to be sexism) and that women just are t…
May be more necessary than usual – I got the feeling that women were overrepresented in the "Founder-does-something-terrible" articles, at least on HN. Some was certainly deserved, although I'm not sure about the proportionality of the 20th "No, seriously, Elizabeth Holmes is a terrible terrible person!" - article. Some was offensive, misogynistic, backwards bullshit that I can only hope is highly correlated with the…
Unfortunately, very few efforts seem to focus on immediately applicable solutions like this that solve the problem (if there is one) fundamentally.
None of the Big Tech companies for example (Google / Facebook / Apple / Microsoft come to mind) currently do application blinding where possible, as far as I know. All of them however are very eager to promote movements like Girls Who Code because it's generally good PR and (I think) because it increases the available labor pool for them.
I support these kinds of lists. Like #BlackLivesMatter, the focus on a purportedly disenfranchised group doesn't mean that the "main" group doesn't matter -- but it's an acknowledgement that we see plenty of representation of the main group -- in this case, men -- by default. Unless you believe that there really are no barriers specific to women (and it doesn't necessarily have to be sexism) and that women just are t…
May be more necessary than usual – I got the feeling that women were overrepresented in the "Founder-does-something-terrible" articles, at least on HN. Some was certainly deserved, although I'm not sure about the proportionality of the 20th "No, seriously, Elizabeth Holmes is a terrible terrible person!" - article. Some was offensive, misogynistic, backwards bullshit that I can only hope is highly correlated with the…
Out of interest I googled the hits on HN for Holmes and 2016's other medical industry bête noir, Martin Shkreli. Holmes wins by 325 to 141, although I'd personally be hard pressed to say which of them was more terrible.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think any of us feel "threatened" by these identity politics articles. Just a little sad that we still patronise women and minorities in this way. Why do we see women and minorities as fair game to be tokens for our social engineering and clickbait? Have we stopped to ask any of these women if they want to be on our special-interest gendered side-shows, or whether they'd prefer to be part of the "main" compet…
We don't. We recognize that there is a significant gender imbalance in technology professions, markedly larger than that of any other cognitive non-routine profession, and are happy to acknowledge anything that might suggest a countervailing trend.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where do you get these assumptions from? My parents absolutely could not have afforded to pay for college without extremely generous financial aid. Thankfully, that's exactly what elite universities provide. I know plenty of other people who are interested in tech and startups who come from similar circumstances. Also, for the record, if people's parents are genuinely poor then they will not have any loans from an el…
'Only 3.8 percent of American families make more than $200,000 per year. But at Harvard University, 45.6 percent of incoming freshman come from families making $200,000 or more. A mere 4 percent of Harvard students come from a family in the bottom quintile of US incomes, and only 17.8 percent come from the bottom three quintiles'[1]. We already have an accurate system of measuring privilege in form of parent wealth.…
I support these kinds of lists. Like #BlackLivesMatter, the focus on a purportedly disenfranchised group doesn't mean that the "main" group doesn't matter -- but it's an acknowledgement that we see plenty of representation of the main group -- in this case, men -- by default. Unless you believe that there really are no barriers specific to women (and it doesn't necessarily have to be sexism) and that women just are t…
I don't think any of us feel "threatened" by these identity politics articles. Just a little sad that we still patronise women and minorities in this way. Why do we see women and minorities as fair game to be tokens for our social engineering and clickbait? Have we stopped to ask any of these women if they want to be on our special-interest gendered side-shows, or whether they'd prefer to be part of the "main" compet…
Another issue is the promulgation and veneration of taboo, protected groups as being automatically special proportional to an university-proscribed, identity/attribute(s) neoliberal caste system. Bollocks.
I think such lists come from a positive intention for there to be less arbitrary discrimination and to motive likely-targeted/underrepresented individuals to succeed. I'm not sure how a special list helps motivate people with fundamental confidence, but instead may temporarily confer false confidence based on non-skill attribute(s) except by an inkling of almost getting on a generic list.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
May be more necessary than usual – I got the feeling that women were overrepresented in the "Founder-does-something-terrible" articles, at least on HN. Some was certainly deserved, although I'm not sure about the proportionality of the 20th "No, seriously, Elizabeth Holmes is a terrible terrible person!" - article. Some was offensive, misogynistic, backwards bullshit that I can only hope is highly correlated with the…
> I'm not sure about the proportionality of the 20th "No, seriously, Elizabeth Holmes is a terrible terrible person!" - article. Out of interest I googled the hits on HN for Holmes and 2016's other medical industry bête noir, Martin Shkreli. Holmes wins by 325 to 141, although I'd personally be hard pressed to say which of them was more terrible.