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Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

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Re: Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

#111

Post by haploid »

frankdenbow wrote: post #37

I know how you feel. I was one of 2 black students in my graduating CS class at CMU. It has never been a source of pressure/anxiety for me, but I do understand how it may affect other black students to feel like you are on your own. As far as investors go, I doubt that they have any aversion to supporting entrepreneurs of any background. This is one industry that I would presume is more of a meritocracy than society…

"The greater question is not why there aren't more founders, but why there arent more minority/female students in academia"

http://www.prb.org/Articles/2007/CrossoverinFemaleMaleColleg...

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/2009/section1/indicator11.as...

To wit: Females have dominated academia for a couple decades now.

Also, it should be pointed out that many founders are college dropouts or even high school dropouts, so I'd be interested in some sort of citation of evidence that one can assume most founders will be a subset of academia.

Re: Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

#112

Post by naithemilkman »

prime0196 wrote: post #40
naithemilkman wrote: post #11

I really don't think YC cares about ethnicity. I also don't quite get the point of this post.

The point of the post? Being able to smile from ear to ear when I found out about Michael Seibel.

I see your point. But apologies if this sounds insensitive as I am not American and I am not privy to the social complexities that exists. What I think is that as budding entrepreneurs all trying to figure out some method from this madness, I think we ought to celebrate the success of everyone and anyone who has made it. Black, white, blue, green whatever. Singling out someone because of skin colour I feel almost contravenes the spirit of YC and hacker news. We are all here because of ideals and passion, beliefs and doggedness. I think I speak for most people when I say the community at HN is by and large colour blind.

What makes Michael Seibel special is not because he is Black but because he has succeeded at least on some level where many have tried and failed. So your last sentence "...was just wondering if anyone that looks like ME has EVER made it." is really coming from a wrong angle IMO.

Re: Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

#113

Post by malux85 »

nickbp wrote: post #96
malux85 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree .. it doesn't matter what color your skin is, or whatever minority group you are from, what matters are your choices, specifically how you spend your precious, precious time. I'm gay, and am bootstrapping my own startup. I have never wondered how many other startup founders are gay .. because that's not what it's about! Focus man

Nitpick: You can hide that fact when its inconvenient. I've found it rarely even comes up, unless you're talking about family with coworkers or something, and by that point you're probably already hired/funded/'in' and will have already overcome any potential stereotypes that someone might otherwise have had about you.

Yes, you're right ... I did think that after I posted :)

Re: Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

#114

Post by krschultz »

haploid wrote: post #111
frankdenbow wrote: post #37

I know how you feel. I was one of 2 black students in my graduating CS class at CMU. It has never been a source of pressure/anxiety for me, but I do understand how it may affect other black students to feel like you are on your own. As far as investors go, I doubt that they have any aversion to supporting entrepreneurs of any background. This is one industry that I would presume is more of a meritocracy than society…

"The greater question is not why there aren't more founders, but why there arent more minority/female students in academia" http://www.prb.org/Articles/2007/CrossoverinFemaleMaleColleg... http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/2009/section1/indicator11.as... To wit: Females have dominated academia for a couple decades now. Also, it should be pointed out that many founders are college dropouts or even high school dropouts, s…

None of your data is broken out by major. That doesn't really help us, and you probably should refrain from going ad hominen immediately (troll, misinformed, are you serious etc) when your "facts" are far from conclusive.

I know in my college, in my two majors (mechanical engineer & computer science, 2007-2010) it was about 80/20 male/female in ME and 70/30 male/female in CS. The girls average was likely higher than the guys. I don't see how they are "dominating". You're numbers show there are more guys than girls in college - which was also true of my college which overall was 60/40 female/male. That doesn't mean there are more girls in majors related to startups like the ones we are talking about here (which I would highly doubt you can find numbers to say that).

Re: Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

#115

Post by dasil003 »

haploid wrote: post #111
frankdenbow wrote: post #37

I know how you feel. I was one of 2 black students in my graduating CS class at CMU. It has never been a source of pressure/anxiety for me, but I do understand how it may affect other black students to feel like you are on your own. As far as investors go, I doubt that they have any aversion to supporting entrepreneurs of any background. This is one industry that I would presume is more of a meritocracy than society…

"The greater question is not why there aren't more founders, but why there arent more minority/female students in academia" http://www.prb.org/Articles/2007/CrossoverinFemaleMaleColleg... http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/2009/section1/indicator11.as... To wit: Females have dominated academia for a couple decades now. Also, it should be pointed out that many founders are college dropouts or even high school dropouts, s…

I think he was referring to the software and electrical engineering majors which should smooth out your flabbergastation a bit.

Re: Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

#116

Post by yummyfajitas »

AlexC04 wrote: post #57
prime0196 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really doesn't matter to me. I just wish more blacks would realize the power of programming and the opportunities it could potentially provide.

Maybe there's an economic barrier to that realization? Adults who realize the power of programming were likely children with access to a computer growing up. In Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" he tells the story of Bill Gates and Bill Joy - two prolific programmers. The key similarity between them was their unfettered access to a computer growing up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United... Indic…

There might have been economic barriers, but they seem to be falling.

"Ethnically, 67 percent of whites reported home broadband; English-speaking Hispanics reported 66 percent; and blacks reported 56 percent."

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2367687,00.asp

African Americans use the mobile internet more than whites.

http://www.blackweb20.com/2010/09/23/pew-report-african-amer...

So it looks like to resolve this issue, all we need to do is let current trends continue.

Re: Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

#117

Post by sn »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #21
prime0196 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asians and those from the Middle East have an even smaller percentage but appear to be well represented in startups.

I'm sure there's a lack of women or blind people or people who can't speak or write English. The thing overly-PC types don't want to address is that certain fields attract certain types. Geeky males in tech, women and gay men in fashion, etc. The lack of population matching demographics isn't proof of racism. That said, I'd argue that unless you grew up with computers and were interested in programming them early in…

>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.

"That said, I'd argue that unless you grew up with money and were interested in trading early in life you probably aren't the wall-street type."

"That said, I'd argue that unless you grew up with movies and were interested in acting early in life you probably aren't the hollywood type."

Can we put aside this drivel? People can learn after they're 10 years old.

Re: Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

#118

Post by webwright »

wcchandler wrote: post #7

Black people only make up 13% of the population. [1] Most people forget this fact when judging race in a population. 1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Stat...

25% of black people live in poverty and about half have a household income of less than $50k.

I would say, in general, very few tech founders come out of poverty. I'd also say that relatively few come out of Of course, I also read that the majority of funded startups are founded by people born outside of the states.

Re: Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

#120

Post by nraynaud »

Here in France, we have many African people from our former colonies studying here, and many staying too, so I guess we are used to it. Speaking about skin color, there are more "brown" people than "black" people, because Magreb is more represented than sub-saharian countries.
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