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VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality

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Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality

#51

Post by anon102010 »

huffmsa wrote: post #44
anon102010 wrote: post #41

She asks why her husband gets more of a response (a sign of the racism she is facing). - Her linkedin doesn't show what her major was as an undergrad. - After 4 years of working she was a powerlifting coach. - Then boom, in 2017/2018 she is an owner of two gyms and in 2019 she is trying to get benchmark to invest in her app. Her Husband: Google Engineer Masters in CS from Berkeley / Undergrad in CS Started companies…

Ah, so they meant they're only going to invest in and help black founders who've already had some other VC take a chance on and are safe investments. Got it. Someone else needs to actually "venture" and take a risk. You'll just sit back and tweet about how you'd love to help, but your LPs say it's too risky.

Many vc's do like past success (even white on white candidates, if you have had multiple successful exists you are much more likely to be funded).

VCs arguably are taking less risk. Now sometimes it stuff like capital domination (I think super stupid)

They like seeing what you've done yourself. You've built x / y / z - delivered this and that - great. This can be big if you don't have an exit yet.

Or proof in pudding - good traction already, good pitch deck etc.

etc.

It's not clear what she's done herself. Even her gym ownership success is complicated by potential involvement of her husband even though she goes to some lengths to say it's racist to assume the ownership was result of some help.

And her philosophy is that she doesn't want help from white folks, just for them to get out of the way. Then she's applying to benchmark vs Harlem capital? Its confusing.

Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality

#52

Post by treis »

anon102010 wrote: post #41

She asks why her husband gets more of a response (a sign of the racism she is facing). - Her linkedin doesn't show what her major was as an undergrad. - After 4 years of working she was a powerlifting coach. - Then boom, in 2017/2018 she is an owner of two gyms and in 2019 she is trying to get benchmark to invest in her app. Her Husband: Google Engineer Masters in CS from Berkeley / Undergrad in CS Started companies…

>Her Husband:

Would like to give this guy some truth serum and see what his honest opinion of the app was and if it should have been funded.

Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality

#53

Post by gnicholas »

oh_sigh wrote: post #33
gnicholas wrote: post #19

Seems like the most compelling evidence of racially-disparate treatment is that she got no responses when reaching out via her own email address, but received some responses when reaching out via her husband's (he is an Asian-American man with a recognizably Asian name). Assuming the emails sent were identical, this would be pretty solid evidence of bias. One potential confounding issue is that her husband is a forme…

Her name is "Nerissa Zhang" - unless they are looking through for profile pictures of her or something, wouldn't they assume she is Asian as well? At least for me, "Nerissa" is a name of unknown origin, maybe Greek. Zhang is clearly Chinese. I would assume the person was Chinese or at least 50% Chinese if I was forced to guess about their race/ethnicity.

I assumed that since she claimed the email experience was evidence of bias, that her last name didn’t appear as Asian as her husband’s.

You’re absolutely correct that if her email shows up as Zhang, that makes her email bias claim much weaker.

Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality

#54

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

hckr_news wrote: post #30

VCs shouldn’t be the gatekeepers to capital. The game is rigged. Who gets funding is decided by arbitrary metrics, inherent biases, and already established networks. Personally I’m planning on bootstrapping my own business and don’t plan on asking a VC for a hand.

If it's their private capital, why shouldn't they be their own gatekeepers?

Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality

#55

Post by EB66 »

huffmsa wrote: post #42
sib wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that her experiment changed three variables: her husband is male and Asian and an ex-Google engineer, while she is none of those. So it's not possible to draw the conclusion that the difference in response comes only from race. (To be clear, I personally believe that race & gender do have an impact in the response from VCs, I just don't think her experience proves it.)

Of course she isn't, but that's the point. Black women are extremely underrepresented, hired and funded. You can't say "well we're not going to fund you without a good track record, even though it's damn near impossible for you to build a track record because we won't fund or hire you. Good luck". You can't say "we're going to fund more black founders, but only those who've already been proven a safe, reliable commod…

I think you're underestimating the impact of being an ex-Googler. VCs are inundated with mobile app pitch decks from all kinds of random people with no relevant experience. Receiving a pitch deck from an ex-engineer of a highly respected software firm is going to make that pitch stand out. It lends instant credibility. EDIT: looking at his LinkedIn, it's clear that he has way more experience and an established track record than just working at Google.

Also, don't forget that it was the husband who had the LinkedIn connections to the pitch deck recipients. Race, gender and experience aside, you're obviously more likely to get a response from recipients who already know you (or are friends of friends) than from recipients who are total strangers to you.

If the author was also an ex-engineer of a highly respected software firm and had the same LinkedIn connections, then you would have a much stronger anecdotal case that racism or bias was the cause of being ignored.

Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality

#56

Post by s4n1ty »

rayiner wrote: post #47
sib wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that her experiment changed three variables: her husband is male and Asian and an ex-Google engineer, while she is none of those. So it's not possible to draw the conclusion that the difference in response comes only from race. (To be clear, I personally believe that race & gender do have an impact in the response from VCs, I just don't think her experience proves it.)

But if there are hurdles to black women getting hired at places like Google, isn’t your explanation just passing the buck? People aren’t happy with the status quo, where one of our most important and creative industries is nearly devoid of people who make up more than 1 in 10 Americans. In view of that, I don’t think it passes muster to say that “we don’t discriminate against black women, we just look for Founders in…

> But if there are hurdles to black women getting hired at places like Google, isn’t your explanation just passing the buck?

What is the evidence that there are hurdles for black women getting hired at Google?

For example, does their representation differ significantly from, say, the rate at which they graduate with CS degrees?

Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality

#57

Post by pl0x »

Most of the comments are trying to disprove the racism that this black female founder is facing. Microsoft has put out a great unconscious bias course that this mostly cismale dominated forum can benefit from. https://www.mslearning.microsoft.com/course/72169/launch

Why downvote this comment?

Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality

#58

Post by s4n1ty »

pl0x wrote: post #57

Most of the comments are trying to disprove the racism that this black female founder is facing. Microsoft has put out a great unconscious bias course that this mostly cismale dominated forum can benefit from. https://www.mslearning.microsoft.com/course/72169/launch Why downvote this comment?

What is a "cismale", and what makes you think they dominate this forum?

Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality

#59

Post by daseiner1 »

huffmsa wrote: post #39
gnicholas wrote: post #19

Seems like the most compelling evidence of racially-disparate treatment is that she got no responses when reaching out via her own email address, but received some responses when reaching out via her husband's (he is an Asian-American man with a recognizably Asian name). Assuming the emails sent were identical, this would be pretty solid evidence of bias. One potential confounding issue is that her husband is a forme…

So they're vetting out black women because they haven't had the necessary experience, because hiring and funding is biased against them, particularly because they haven't had the necessary experience. See the problem here?

it’s not VCs responsibilities to cultivate people worthy of VC-level funding. and from all the college outreach i’ve seen in the past several years, FAANGs are absolutely desperate for women and minority engineers. companies are doing plenty

Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality

#60

Post by sahaskatta »

anon102010 wrote: post #41

She asks why her husband gets more of a response (a sign of the racism she is facing). - Her linkedin doesn't show what her major was as an undergrad. - After 4 years of working she was a powerlifting coach. - Then boom, in 2017/2018 she is an owner of two gyms and in 2019 she is trying to get benchmark to invest in her app. Her Husband: Google Engineer Masters in CS from Berkeley / Undergrad in CS Started companies…

Just to add a counterpoint.

I raised a $2M seed for Smartcar. I had no college degree as I had dropped out. I had no prior work experience. I had no team. The product was still an early prototype.

MANY of the founders I know who've also raised similar sized rounds from top VCs have stories quite like mine.

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