Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

For black CEOs in Silicon Valley, humiliation is a part of doing business

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 828 posts

Re: For black CEOs in Silicon Valley, humiliation is a part of doing business

#131

Post by giancarlostoro »

exhilaration wrote: post #36
gamblor956 wrote: post #9

My boss did this to a client once. He was not amused and soon thereafter became a former client.

If the ONLY thing readers take away from this article is to stop assuming who's who when walking into meetings, then that alone is a valuable lesson.

This is what shocks me the most about this whole thing. You should ask your clients to introduce themselves and their roles so that you can better communicate and work with them, no matter if they're all the same ethnicity, or completely diverse or anywhere in between.

Re: For black CEOs in Silicon Valley, humiliation is a part of doing business

#132

Post by m0zg »

I would have never even guessed Hayes is black. He looks Middle Eastern to me. He doesn't look like a CEO in these pictures: a constantly worried facial expression sends the wrong message IMO. Givens does project calm confidence, and therefore looks like a boss. I think his experience is more illustrative of the problem here.

Re: For black CEOs in Silicon Valley, humiliation is a part of doing business

#133

Post by whydoyoucare »

I am not convinced about the argument the authors try to make about Silicon Valley, and VCs'. I also see cherry-picking of data to make the point ("...0.4% of people who received venture capital were Black..."), okay so how many Black people applied? How many other races? How many white? Etc. We cannot form the full picture since other critical variables have been ommitted without providing cross-references to the study. That reduces credibility of the article.

As for where should a VC invest, I think it is his/her decision alone, and nobody else has any say that. Including the article's author.

Re: For black CEOs in Silicon Valley, humiliation is a part of doing business

#134

Post by jfrankamp »

JPKab wrote: post #56
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #21

I thought this was a great article. One of the most interesting things to me was how the embarrassment/defensiveness of the white people involved was one of the biggest blocks to the black CEOs in their advancement, e.g. the VCs who "just wanted to get the hell out of there" after mistaking a white subordinate for the CEO. I've recently been reading/watching some videos and writings by Robin Diangelo on systemic raci…

I've read "White Fragility". While I completely agree that the stories in this article are hugely problematic and represent issues that need to be solved, I think books like "White Fragility" are not helpful in solving them. This is due to a focus on group identity, and describing "White" as if it's a monolithic group of people, all with the same culture, emotions, and reactions. Another interesting aspect I identifi…

> Statistical knowledge isn't present in the vast majority of these folks.

This seems like a key moment to... cite data? Since you are broadly making pseudo-mathy sounding claims while complaining that others aren't as mathematically/statistically/factually rigorous as 'people on HN'.

Re: For black CEOs in Silicon Valley, humiliation is a part of doing business

#135

Post by zozbot234 »

_8j50 wrote: post #101
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #21

I thought this was a great article. One of the most interesting things to me was how the embarrassment/defensiveness of the white people involved was one of the biggest blocks to the black CEOs in their advancement, e.g. the VCs who "just wanted to get the hell out of there" after mistaking a white subordinate for the CEO. I've recently been reading/watching some videos and writings by Robin Diangelo on systemic raci…

It is stereotyping but not neccesarily racism. I've made the same mistake at a car shop, I thought the small lady on my side of the counter was a customer, i ignored her and talked to the guy behind the counter, but turns out she was the boss+worker and the guy was helping out. I did feel embarrassed, but I know it's not because I think less of women, you just don't see women in those roles a lot. Maybe associative g…

> Why would the person on the victim end of this feel humiliated?

Why wouldn't they? Being unfavorably stereotyped is almost universally frustrating and humiliating, regardless of any systemic concerns about racism and the like.

Wrt. the case mentioned by parent, it seems clear to me that the person involved should definitely apologize for their social faux pas and mistaken assumptions-- and that seeing them refuse to address the issue for fear of being regarded as racist or whatever would only result in even more frustration.

Re: For black CEOs in Silicon Valley, humiliation is a part of doing business

#136

Post by brlewis »

SkyBelow wrote: post #63
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #21

I thought this was a great article. One of the most interesting things to me was how the embarrassment/defensiveness of the white people involved was one of the biggest blocks to the black CEOs in their advancement, e.g. the VCs who "just wanted to get the hell out of there" after mistaking a white subordinate for the CEO. I've recently been reading/watching some videos and writings by Robin Diangelo on systemic raci…

Isn't this part of a different problem of not being allowed to be wrong? It has major impacts on racism (and sexism and other forms of discrimination) making it worse, but also is a factor when someone is wrong in other areas of life and can have negative impacts because owning up to a mistake is something our experiences have taught us to avoid. Why is it that we have a shared experience that you should flee a mista…

No. A VC is expected to be wrong most of the time. They can be right only once and be an excellent VC. A VC should not have a difficult time owning up to a mistake under normal circumstances. In this case, they should be able to apologize, move on, and be extra attentive during the presentation to try to make up for the wrong.

Re: For black CEOs in Silicon Valley, humiliation is a part of doing business

#137

Post by jgwil2 »

wottamap wrote: post #115

The messages that need to be said right now are very difficult to say because people have steeled themselves. But they need to be said. This is not meant to be flamebait, I truly deeply believe these messages need to be heard and understood, so please understand that I'm speaking in good faith here. If you feel strongly that I am wrong, please reply with well thought out reasons why. I will listen. Articles like this…

> Blacks that believe in widespread racism will be less likely to go to university and get a job.

> Blacks that believe cops are out to kill them will be more likely to resist arrest and get killed.

Do you have any evidence for these assertions? I would be surprised if so, particularly with respect to the second, since police killings are notoriously difficult to gather data on, but I would certainly be interested to hear it.

Re: For black CEOs in Silicon Valley, humiliation is a part of doing business

#138

Post by ahominid »

Is it possible that when put in unfamiliar situations, people will by default direct themselves toward others who are most like themselves?

A hypothetical: Reverse all the races in the VC/CEO situation. Who would the black VC assume was the CEO?

Repeat the experiment with whichever combination of race/sex you like.

Re: For black CEOs in Silicon Valley, humiliation is a part of doing business

#139

Post by goodoldbiff »

leoc wrote: post #125

Here's a recent Twitter thread by Timothy Jones https://twitter.com/timbeejones/ which seems relevant: https://twitter.com/timbeejones/status/1268665921364770816 . I can't vouch for it as I have zero experience of SV or being black, let alone the specifics here, but the author seems to be someone worth hearing on the subject. Someone always complains about reading Twitter threads, so here's a thread unroll https://th…

Bringing in Biff is what VCs always do. Or at least always used to do. I've encountered it personally. The term they used was "seasoned executive". Biff is a better name.

I'm not doubting Timothy's experience, but if he's right, the point would have to be that VCs bring-in-Biff more often with black founders than they do white ones. Which seems entirely plausible, but that's not the argument I think I'm reading here.

Re: For black CEOs in Silicon Valley, humiliation is a part of doing business

#140

Post by ibudiallo »

I usually choose to believe in "the honest mistake". It happens, two people walk in, one of them is the CEO, you assume it is the one on the right. And then when you realize it is a mistake, you apologize. We are only human.

But when it happens over and over and over, you can't help but feel frustrated. You realize that people natural instinct is to think you are the subordinate. One second your are on stage at Techcrunch (I was in 2017), where you have clearly introduced yourself. You get off-stage, they greet your colleague and ask him the questions as if he was on stage.

I was often in the interview room waiting for my interviewer, only to have him show up, and tell me I must be in the wrong room. A simple "Hey are you XYZ?" could have avoided this frustration.

I've written an article about my experience working as a black developer, I'll post it here in the near future. You wouldn't believe how lonely it is. In my team of 150 people, we were two black people.

Post reply on HN