Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds • Hacker News Board

Re: Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds

#61

Post by malandrew » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 6:13 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #47

mtgp1000 wrote: post #36

"diversity and inclusion" initiatives are coming up on a long overdue reckoning. The premise is to allege discrimination, based solely on "evidence" in the form of inequality of outcome, and then use that unilateral accusation as justification for the accusing party to practice the discrimination they claim to oppose. Bonus: you are liable to lose your job for criticising these practices. The comments ITT suggest tha…

You can't conclude anything from a single thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23555398 Would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules on HN? I'm afraid you've been breaking them in two ways. First, it's not ok to use the site primarily [1] for political or ideological battle. That's probably the single most destructive thing people do here, because battle mode…

For people to use a consistent identity especially with issues where you get fired for an unorthodox opinion, it's necessary for people to be able to go back and delete comments that could be used to doxx them. This is one of the biggest drawbacks of HN and why I increasingly use throwaway accounts.

Re: Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds

#62

Post by blululu » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 6:13 PM UTC

tuna-piano wrote: post #41

blululu wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>What person from an underrepresented group wants to be chosen just because of their group status? Isn't that highly patronizing for someone who likely had worked hard to get to where they got? Do you want to be "pretty great for a xxxxx person!" or just "one of the best". For comparison, consider the case of people who get their jobs via nepotism. The people who are hired for nepotism are seldom concerned with the…

I think your nepotism example and "preponderance of talent and success is hard to quantify precisely" are nice arguments and give me something to think about, thanks. But when you say "I'm not sure if meritocracy makes sense"... you are really saying that instead of trying for meritocracy, they should just use skin color? How do you feel about the idea of blind auditions for orchestras (auditions where the candidate…

Well I'm not really advocating for choosing people based on skin color or gender per se. Rather that in a cases where there is an surplus of talent for the role we should consider making a choice based upon serving the interests of society more broadly. Sometimes this will fall along racial lines. For example, having doctors of color to serve communities of color has demonstrable positive health outcomes for society more broadly.

In the case of managing portfolios, I think that there are compelling reasons from a risk management perspective to cultivate different perspectives (a room full of Bulls will get burned in a downturn). Increasing the number of people from working class backgrounds, genders with different spending priorities, or races with different community ties can potentially add a lot of important perspectives to a financial portfolio.

Blind Auditions in orchestras are an interesting idea. People are actually much better and judging sound quality of violins than they are judging the quality of stock options, so it is easier to definitively state that someone is the 'best' Violinist in a group.

Re: Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds

#63

Post by john_moscow » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 6:14 PM UTC

bmcfeeley wrote: post #28

TheGrim999 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this will be hard to accept, but no matter how many people tell me that minorities are being killed because of the color of their skin, I've noticed that not a single one of these people ever include any facts or data to back up that claim. Sure, black people are killed by police. So are white people. So are people of every race. All the actual data I've seen is that black people are killed less frequently, in…

You've brought exactly as many sources to bear in this conversation as the parent you've replied to, which is to say, none. When admonishing others for their lack of sources and making a counterclaim, you may want to consider providing the source yourself. As for sources of evidence suggesting disproportionate use of force against black persons, here's one to consider: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC608…

>Victims of fatal shootings by police were majority white, but disproportionately black.

That depends on what you take as a baseline. I would assume that police shootings mostly happen in response to violent behavior. I couldn't find any data on the violent behavior, however there is an open FBI dataset on homicide offenders by race [0].

If you assume a correlation between the number of homicide offenders and the general probability of violent behavior, it could very much explain the disproportion you pointed out.

[0] https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

Re: Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds

#64

Post by gowld » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 6:14 PM UTC

tmpz22 wrote: post #22

tuna-piano wrote: post #9

What person from an underrepresented group wants to be chosen just because of their group status? Isn't that highly patronizing for someone who likely had worked hard to get to where they got? Do you want to be "pretty great for a xxxxx person!" or just "one of the best". Is this a lesson that people want their kids to learn? Doesn't this also lead discrimination actually being a rational (and maybe ethical) thing to…

I remember several comments in the Iowa Caucus app debacle threads calling out the ex-googler who led the project as an affirmative action hire. Irregardless of morality or righteousness the more affirmative action permeates our culture the more resentment is going to build up in groups that feel cheated by such a system.

Weird how no one seemed to care much when racism permeates our culture and law and resentment builds up in groups that feel cheated by such a system.

Re: Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds

#65

Post by jeffdavis » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 6:14 PM UTC

blululu wrote: post #27

tuna-piano wrote: post #9

What person from an underrepresented group wants to be chosen just because of their group status? Isn't that highly patronizing for someone who likely had worked hard to get to where they got? Do you want to be "pretty great for a xxxxx person!" or just "one of the best". Is this a lesson that people want their kids to learn? Doesn't this also lead discrimination actually being a rational (and maybe ethical) thing to…

>>What person from an underrepresented group wants to be chosen just because of their group status? Isn't that highly patronizing for someone who likely had worked hard to get to where they got? Do you want to be "pretty great for a xxxxx person!" or just "one of the best". For comparison, consider the case of people who get their jobs via nepotism. The people who are hired for nepotism are seldom concerned with the…

I'm not sure we want to use nepotism as the standard to meet.

Re: Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds

#66

Post by malandrew » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 6:17 PM UTC

TheGrim999 wrote: post #19

amluto wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> by being as racist as it's possible to be. Even if someone were to hire someone else solely because of the color of their skin, this would be nowhere near as racist as it’s possible to be. Hint: people are being killed because of the color of their skin right now. People in the US used to buy people in large numbers because of the color of their skin.

I know this will be hard to accept, but no matter how many people tell me that minorities are being killed because of the color of their skin, I've noticed that not a single one of these people ever include any facts or data to back up that claim. Sure, black people are killed by police. So are white people. So are people of every race. All the actual data I've seen is that black people are killed less frequently, in…

> There's plenty of videos of white people being killed by police that you all just ignore.

Two perfect examples are the videos of Daniel Leetin Shaver (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBUUx0jUKxc) and Tony Timpa (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X4PUwrq8tA).

Ending qualified immunity, no-knock warrants, civil asset forfeiture, over-criminalization, mandatory minimums and militarization of police are not race specific issues. They affect all Americans.

Re: Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds

#67

Post by gentlesoulcarp » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 6:17 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #13

rblatz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These policies exist because we live in an imperfect system that does see race and actively favors whiteness. It’s the pinnacle of white privilege and ignorance to say that “I don’t see race.”

> It’s the pinnacle of white privilege and ignorance to say that “I don’t see race.” Who gets to decide when "white privilege" no longer exists? Not intended to be inflammatory, just curious what the benchmark is. “If you can't measure it, you can't improve it.” sort of thing.

No one. The statistics decide. Roughly speaking, the USA is a corporatocracy. With the powerful lobbying and incentives the corporations have on how the government functions, these organizations and the people who control them have the most power to influence the country. The answer to the question "when has power been appropriately dispersed" is ultimately simple--Look at the makeup of the executive leadership at the most powerful companies. When it consistently matches the demographic makeup of the country as a whole, then it will have largely been demonstrated that there is a certain level of equality.

Re: Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds

#68

Post by bzb3 » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 6:21 PM UTC

spaniard89277 wrote: post #53

DeusExMachina wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably sooner than you think. Thanks to the internet nowadays things travel incredibly fast.

Yeah, we noticed with the last BLM protests. It's funny to see your government rushing to virtue signaling and pushing people into the streets, in the middle of the current crisis and calling the opposition to be criminals just a few weeks ago for suggesting that we had to stop quarantines. And this in a country ravaged with structural unemployment and It's an increasing problem. People gets distracted with american…

We have a social-communist government, I don't know what you'd expect from them.

Re: Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds

#69

Post by Avicebron » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 6:25 PM UTC

Natsu wrote: post #46

TheGrim999 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you haven't noticed, that's been the goal for a long time now. People get accepted to college because of the color of their skin. People get better SAT scores now because of the color of their skin. Every major company has diversity boards which make sure to hire people based in the color of their skin. Hollywood and big business choose who to be in ads, movies, and other customer facing media because of the color…

It's weird that people act like this is the only solution to correct past injustice, too, when there's a much simpler racially-neutral method. You just help all disadvantaged persons equally. Inasmuch as any particular identifiable group is thereby disadvantaged, they're disproportionately helped by this neutral method. If only people of race X were poor, then helping all poor people would be isomorphic to helping al…

Yeah it's a weird contortion of the mind that a vast majority of people are willing to make. Like the issue is poverty and opportunity, for every race, but no, suddenly there is this disproportionate rush to be "anti-racist" by being racist, it's so obviously orwellian 2+2 = 5 i'm surprised it hasn't been made the headline of every major media

Re: Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds

#70

Post by john_moscow » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 6:27 PM UTC

mullingitover wrote: post #52

john_moscow wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would dare say the causality is reversed here. Once your company reaches a certain size, NOT having a diverse executive team will very quickly get you labeled as racist and will cost you dearly. Nobody cares about a mom and pop bakery, but imagine the outrage in the media, if Apple or Google did not pick their executive teams based on the diversity constraints.

Seems like you're assuming that having an all-white workforce, absent the political blowback that this would cause, is some kind of competitive advantage? Am I understanding you correctly?

I am assuming that having workforce hired purely based on their ability to perform the job, would be a competitive advantage if the company was aiming at efficiency rather than playing games with investors (which is another long story). I am not saying anything about their race and I personally know many competent people from many races and ethnicities.

Ironically, by interpreting my statement as an claim that such a policy would lead to an all-white workforce, you yourself just made an assumption that many people would call very racist.