Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

That said, I'd argue that unless you grew up with computers and were interested in programming them early in life you probably aren't the startup type. Your income level affects this, obviously if you can't get your hands on a computer then you're not going to be able to do much. As a geek I never had any "role models" or other things that set me on my path. Nor did my parents encourage tech. Nor did my friends. I was, and in many ways, still am something of a lone geek amongst non-geeks. I believe "role models" to be a meaningless cop-out.

It's probably my European naiveté talking here, but I seriously wonder if and why that matters to you. Most of us belong to some kind of "minority" in some fashion, sometimes it's visible from the outside, sometimes not. Are things in the USA really so bad that it matters what color your skin is? Isn't tech a business of ideas anyway?

I have worked with fewer than 10 black men and women in a technical role in my entire career; spanning hundreds of teams and nearly a hundred customers and employers.

It matters because opportunity and outcomes aren't equal. The problem isn't purely the IT scene, but one of the greatest challenges the United States faces.

Anything that good hackers would find interesting. [...] anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

I was at PyCon as well, and observed the exact same anecdote that the OP describes. At my company's booth, the only minorities I can think of who talked to us were more than likely visiting from Europe, Asia, or South America. Therefore, I'm curious, and I'm interested to see the response; not from accusing Y Combinator of racism, as some seem to suggest, but merely to get some data on minority penetration into our field.

There is no "standard" for the front page. We're all smart people, and we can be trusted to make judgments.