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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?

#141

Post by allenbrunson »

jedsmith wrote: post #27
raganwald wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the question or the discussion so far as meeting the standard for "An interesting new phenomena." It looks like something that would be better served over on Quora than on HN. It's a reasonable question, but just as many subjects--explicitly including politics--are of interest to HN's readerships but still not HN-worthy, it doesn't appear to meet the standards in the FAQ for the front page. Discussions of…

"An interesting new phenomenon" is used an exception to the rule that politics (and so forth) shouldn't be posted. In the paragraph right before that quote, we find: 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 w…

I was all set to vote this up until I got to the last paragraph.

It seems that a lot of people have the idea that HN is a democracy, run by the will of the people. Nothing could be further from the truth. pg and the editors have the last word on everything. It's not immediately obvious, because pg doesn't go around saying "I banned this guy because he was a jerk." That's polite of him, but the truth is, quite a few people get banned for being jerks, every day. And quite a few submissions get killed for being off-topic.

Having said that, I agree with you that this is a good submission, and I'm a little dismayed that raganwald is arguing against it. When I saw the subject line, and that it had over 100 comments, I figured it was going to be ugly. I was delightfully surprised to find myself honestly learning something from almost every comment I've read here. I haven't upvoted this much stuff in months. Pretty well restored my faith in humanity, it did.

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

#142

Post by tiabasnk »

rabble wrote: post #24

It'd be interesting to see. African Americans and Latinos* make up about %28 of the US population, but are very under represented in startups. East Asians, South Asians, Arabs and Jews are over represented in tech based on over all population. What's more, most of the black programmers i've worked with at startups were born in Africa or the Caribbean. I suspect that YC would be wise to try and recruit diversity, havi…

"What's more, most of the black programmers i've worked with at startups were born in Africa or the Caribbean." There's a good reason for that.From the African perspective what I can say, is that Africans has very strong will and motivation. The level of excellence that is expected by African parents from there children is abnormally high. In my country, Uganda, it's very common for a parent to punish his/her child for being the Second in class regardless of the good grades earned.

At present because of the technology boom in Africa, one's ability to skillfully work with different technologies is revered by others. Consequently, more Africans are tackling various fields in technology, especially computer science, with the same motivation and determination that was dedicated to traditional fields such as tropical medicine and electrical engineering.

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

#143

Post by tiabasnk »

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…

That's an interestingly familiar situation. Since my freshman year, there were more the 4 black students in my computer science classes. In fact at some point, the African Americans ende up dropping the major whereas the African students kept going. It's not like we had much of a choice really, our parents would have "killed us" for wasting their hard earned money :)

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

#144

Post by anamax »

anamax wrote: post #135
rabble wrote: post #24

It'd be interesting to see. African Americans and Latinos* make up about %28 of the US population, but are very under represented in startups. East Asians, South Asians, Arabs and Jews are over represented in tech based on over all population. What's more, most of the black programmers i've worked with at startups were born in Africa or the Caribbean. I suspect that YC would be wise to try and recruit diversity, havi…

> I suspect that YC would be wise to try and recruit diversity Why? Are you assuming that different races might have different strengths (on average)? If so, that assumption implies that, again on average, a purely merit based system will result in less diversity than the general population. To the extent that race correlates with culture and culture has an effect on strengths, the same applies. So, remind me why div…

Note that said "less diversity" is in each role, because different roles require different strengths. Whether or not a given organization ends up less diverse depends on the roles in said organization.

However, I'm still looking for an answer to my question - why should YC care about diversity?

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

#145

Post by Gizzle »

Udo wrote: post #83
wheels wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, no, my intent was not at all to paint you as being racist. What I meant as "typically German" is that most Germans, even those who are not particularly racist themselves, have something of a blind-spot for noticing the depth of racism within German society. And sure, there are families where race is a non-issue. I could list examples as well of where I've seen things go the other way, but that's side-stepping…

> even those who are not particularly racist themselves, have something of a blind-spot for noticing the depth of racism within German society. In this context it's worth pointing out that my grandpa was a Nazi, and even worse, as is one of my cousins to this day - in an otherwise lefty-liberal family. So if I want to see racism, I don't have to look very hard. But even the Nazi cousin behaved normally toward my girl…

Well, I was born in Russia and moved to Germany 20 years ago with my family, I was 11 then. Today I consider myself as German, so far the background. What is really true, even if you speak native German and identify yourself with the people and the country, for most Germans, you are not German. I do not mean it in the negative way, I think it is just the way it is, if you have not a German name or look "Russian". But I do not have/ had any problems with it. Moreover I realized, that although people know you are originally not from Germany, you are valued on your skills (at school, job, sport, etc) and not by you ethnical background. And those people from Russia/Turkey or whatever who claim they are discriminated e.g while looking for a job I just can repeat, no, you just did not tried hard enough. In Russia there is a saying: You are greeted by your look, but bid goodbyed for your skills. I think in Germany this is a very reality.

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

#146

Post by tungwaiyip »

It doesn't address your question directly. But I find it a good opportunity to show you a visualization I've made for San Francisco Elementary school assignment by ethnicity. Clearly the city is not distributed evenly.

http://tungwaiyip.info/2011/2011_SFUSD_ethnicity.html

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

#147

Post by [deleted] »

Udo wrote: post #44
_delirium wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It definitely matters in Europe, possibly moreso than in the USA, at least in the circles I've been in (I'm white myself, so this is mostly from observation and friends). In Denmark at least, there is a lot of awkwardness around race, and it certainly isn't the case that non-white people generally feel comfortable in groups where they're the only non-white person (even worse if everyone else is not only white, but sp…

That's interesting. I'm from Germany myself, and I'm convinced it's the most unfriendly "western" country ever. There is certainly a lot of racism here, but it generally happens in socially and economically compromised regions with low unemployment, and then it's usually directed toward the Turks (because "they took our jooooooobs"). Not that there are many black people in Germany to begin with, but I worked with a l…

[deleted]

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

#148

Post by myearwood »

Udo wrote: post #44
_delirium wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It definitely matters in Europe, possibly moreso than in the USA, at least in the circles I've been in (I'm white myself, so this is mostly from observation and friends). In Denmark at least, there is a lot of awkwardness around race, and it certainly isn't the case that non-white people generally feel comfortable in groups where they're the only non-white person (even worse if everyone else is not only white, but sp…

That's interesting. I'm from Germany myself, and I'm convinced it's the most unfriendly "western" country ever. There is certainly a lot of racism here, but it generally happens in socially and economically compromised regions with low unemployment, and then it's usually directed toward the Turks (because "they took our jooooooobs"). Not that there are many black people in Germany to begin with, but I worked with a l…

>That's interesting. I'm from Germany myself, and I'm convinced it's the most unfriendly "western" country ever.

Unfriendly doesn't mean racist.

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

#149

Post by Qykno »

Kalimah Priforce (Qykno | Career Matchmaking 4 Kids)

There have been several discussions about this topic, including my own: "Startup America Should Look Like America" http://bit.ly/fuqcBB.

There are groups that are forming to address the need for diversity in the tech world.

The "Black Founders" Kickoff Launch Event is on Thursday, March 24th, 2011 at www.meetup.com/BlackFounders/events/16882191/ The Plancast event details are here: http://plancast.com/p/4cq2

We've recently launched four "Building While Brown" groups on facebook: Bay Area: http://on.fb.me/hyJJhM, NYC http://on.fb.me/fF2lXW, DC|VA http://on.fb.me/gf4beu and the RTP http://on.fb.me/dZCrnj

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