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Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

news.ycombinator.com

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

#121

Post by raleec »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #67
prime0196 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just looking for some inspiration. It's that simple. I don't think 'THE MAN' is trying to hold me down. If I had that mentality I would have never made it this far.

I must be an idiot, because I still don't understand it. So I'm an old fat ugly-looking guy. According to you, I should be looking for other folks like me who made it? This will somehow be inspirational? And what good, exactly, does finding another person who _looks_ like me going to accomplish? What the hell difference does it make? Have you ever visited or not visited a web site because of the way the person who cr…

>So I'm an old fat ugly-looking guy. According to you, I should be looking for other folks like me who made it? This will somehow be inspirational?

Is this question really rhetorical?

I would say look at all of the discussions here and elsewhere about older Entrepreneurs being under represented and the myriad reasons why. I think that if the only successful role models were under 25, many others would find that quite discouraging.... whether they would let that dissuade them is another question.

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

#122

Post by dasil003 »

Lukeas14 wrote: post #103

As a black programmer with about 5 years of professional experience, I've always asked myself the same question. Throughout all the job interviews, conferences and meetups I've been to I've met no more than 3 other black programmers. One is my dad while the other is a friend and his dad. I still haven't come up with an answer but I do have two theories: Role Models: There is no black Bill Gates. Not everyone is a tra…

What about peer pressure? I'm not black, but I went to a public high school, fairly diverse, let's say 15%/20%/10%/55% black/asian/latino/white. My experience with black classmates was that in individual classes they were pretty typical in the mix of other students, reasonably friendly and participatory in class, etc. But then out in the hallways it was a whole different story. It just was not cool to be studious in any way. I saw black kids get made fun of by their peers just for carrying books. Kids who I was very friendly with in class would not even look at me in the commons, I'm presuming because associating with a white nerd would be social suicide.

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

#123

Post by hank53 »

prime0196 wrote: post #17
citricsquid wrote: post #6

As a black person why do you think this is?

Not many black programming role models. Sad to say but many black youth still see sports and entertainment and the only way to achieve a high level of success in America. My primary goal in life is to try to change that perception by becoming a successful programmer.

Totally agree, although I see some black programmers popping up here and there some big ones are (Curtiss Pope, Wayne Sutton, Kalimah Priforce,Clarence Wooten)

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

#124

Post by krakensden »

ig1 wrote: post #12
nocko wrote: post #5

Good Question. It would be interesting to hear about the experiences minority programmers have had in the startup scene (in our out of YC).

As a British Asian (that means Indian-subcontinent Asian for you Americans :) - I'd say race is a total non-issue in the startup community in the UK. (Off the top of my head of the YC companies I believe Heyzap, Auctomatic, SnapTalent, and Rapportive all had British-Asian co-founders)

American society has a very different relationship with Indian-subcontinent-Asians and African-Americans.

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

#125

Post by ig1 »

krakensden wrote: post #124
ig1 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a British Asian (that means Indian-subcontinent Asian for you Americans :) - I'd say race is a total non-issue in the startup community in the UK. (Off the top of my head of the YC companies I believe Heyzap, Auctomatic, SnapTalent, and Rapportive all had British-Asian co-founders)

American society has a very different relationship with Indian-subcontinent-Asians and African-Americans.

oh definitely, but I think nocko was broadening the question to ask about other ethnic groups as well.

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

#126

Post by bricestacey »

true_religion wrote: post #77
bricestacey wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many programmers may be self-described geeks, but they must have been exposed to computers and programming at some point in their life. I think his point is that such an opportunity doesn't exist for most black youth.

Yes, but the discussion right now is do blacks need black programming models in order to become interested in programming? If merely access to computers and exposure to programming is necessary, then its obvious why we don't have too many black programmers today . In the 80s and previously, computers were expensive and it was unlikely that someone from a lower socioeconomic bracket would have easy access to them.

Yes, considering the disproportionate number of existing role models that are working unskilled jobs, jobless, in jail, or playing sports.

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

#127

Post by Lukeas14 »

dasil003 wrote: post #122
Lukeas14 wrote: post #103

As a black programmer with about 5 years of professional experience, I've always asked myself the same question. Throughout all the job interviews, conferences and meetups I've been to I've met no more than 3 other black programmers. One is my dad while the other is a friend and his dad. I still haven't come up with an answer but I do have two theories: Role Models: There is no black Bill Gates. Not everyone is a tra…

What about peer pressure? I'm not black, but I went to a public high school, fairly diverse, let's say 15%/20%/10%/55% black/asian/latino/white. My experience with black classmates was that in individual classes they were pretty typical in the mix of other students, reasonably friendly and participatory in class, etc. But then out in the hallways it was a whole different story. It just was not cool to be studious in…

Good point. For high school I switched to a private school with around the same demographics and since it was "college prep" all the black students understood that we were there to make something of ourselves. So I never experienced the anti-intellectual peer pressure in a school setting.

My friends from outside of school, however, STILL refer to me as "that corporate nigga". But since I know them from places like my neighborhood or sports teams where clics and social standings didn't exist there were no detrimental effects to being a nerd.

Anybody at any high school who is known as a programmer is going to be teased to some extent. What kept you from giving into the peer pressure?

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

#128

Post by mtogo »

krschultz wrote: post #114
haploid wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

There are more types of startups than just web applications.

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

#129

Post by GeoffreyHull »

tersiag wrote: post #92
vaksel wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because there are very few women in tech, and that number goes down even further if you just consider those that are black.

As a black woman .... I have to agree

Hey tersiag I'm putting together a blog post on your experience thus far. Would love to get your insight. Hit me http://thegeoffreyhull.com

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

#130

Post by tersiag »

GeoffreyHull wrote: post #129
tersiag wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a black woman .... I have to agree

Hey tersiag I'm putting together a blog post on your experience thus far. Would love to get your insight. Hit me http://thegeoffreyhull.com

Sure I would love to. keep in mind that I'm a black woman from African and not America, but I'm sure my insights are universal...
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