VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by BobbyJo » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 9:10 PM UTC

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…

I worked at Google, and if racism is present in the hiring process, it's to the benefit of minorities. Google would (at least during my time there) jump through a lot of hoops give POCs and women on-site interviews, and the review process was scrubbed of racial information. Many employees took it upon themselves to avoid using gendered language in their reviews as well, to avoid that possibly playing a role.

That being said, over the course of ~50 on-site interviews I conducted there, only 2 were Black, and they were both from Africa, not the United States. The reality is, African Americans are woefully under represented in computer science well upstream of companies that would love to hire them. Even if you assume all corporations are evil, hiring more POCs would be in their best interest at this point just to avoid lawsuits and to have better optics.

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

#92

Post by nyczomg » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 9:10 PM UTC

anotherfounder wrote: post #75

I'm so glad she wrote this, and that she named names! As a female founder (not black though), we went through a similarly congnitively dissonant process. A-List investors who would publicly talk about supporting female founders would behave the worst (esp. female investors, Hi Aileen!), investors whose entire brand was around supporting ethical startups (or insert any similar alternative movement) would be the least…

"in the end they would invest only in the hottest SAAS startup by an ex-Googler."

If that was her main point, fair. But she's out there naming names and strongly implying that they didn't help her due to their racism and/or sexism. That's a pretty nasty accusation to throw at someone. And the names she named were the people who bothered to reply to her at all - they just didn't spend an adequate amount of effort on her to not be called out like this. She called out the only people who would give her the time of day! I think any VC who sees this article will know what to do from now on...

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

#93

Post by anotherfounder » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 9:11 PM UTC

sahaskatta wrote: post #60

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.

THIS, thank you for acknowledging that! It often feels like there are two lanes, there is all this talk of the steps to get on the fast lane, and then you realize there are some people who just got put in the fast lane, and you are still supposed to be 'working' towards getting in the fast lane.

It is frustrating that happens all over the place. Even YC - if I had a penny for every male founder that got into YC without an idea or just a new idea and then if that penny was taken away for every female founder who had a product that was doing well, well, I would be in real debt!

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

#94

Post by BobbyJo » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 9:11 PM UTC

digitaltrees wrote: post #68

s4n1ty wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

How much evidence would ever convince you? How much evidence of racism do you need? How about red lining that continued until the 90s which locked black families out of home ownership? There is so much evidence available that demanding evidence at this point is more a sign of willful blindness than intellectual rigor.

I think he's asking for evidence of Google's racism, not racism in general. Google can't 'fix racism' to hire more African Americans, they can only prevent it in their hiring process.

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

#95

Post by aSplash0fDerp » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 9:12 PM UTC

aSplash0fDerp wrote: post #77

rayiner wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Did you mean "status quota"? For some, equality may appear to be a fat baby banging on a highchair at times (when displeased usually). If we had an unadulterated version of equality, do you think we would have found our natural stride by 2020 on the issue? Racial neutral is a tough line to walk, but the talk on the other hand....

Oh not like that (gas-lighting)....

Just saying the training-wheels should come off instead of the gloves.

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

#96

Post by ericmcer » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 9:12 PM UTC

anotherfounder wrote: post #75

I'm so glad she wrote this, and that she named names! As a female founder (not black though), we went through a similarly congnitively dissonant process. A-List investors who would publicly talk about supporting female founders would behave the worst (esp. female investors, Hi Aileen!), investors whose entire brand was around supporting ethical startups (or insert any similar alternative movement) would be the least…

Are you saying that you felt you received unfair treatment, like if you had been a man you would have been received better? Or are you saying that these VCs publicly talked about making an extra effort for female founders but you did not feel that they made those efforts. I 100% agree with making exceptions for female/PoC founders so that inroads can be made to start erasing pre-conceived notions of what a founder should look like, just wondering which area the VCs failed in, or maybe both?

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

#97

Post by anotherfounder » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 9:14 PM UTC

m0zg wrote: post #88

anotherfounder wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, the classic condescending first response. > VCs invest into your track record and the ability to put together and retain a good team. "Ex-Google" is a good signal that the person can at the very least _technically_ do what they are promising to do, once they take the cash. > Nobody has ever promised that money will be given for phenotype traits alone. Who knew, thanks for enlightening me. Let's just say that I ha…

Why "condescending"? It's true. VCs are driven by ROI. ROI is driven largely by whether the person taking investment can do the job.

I assume you are genuinely asking this but I wish I had more energy to dissect it but the fact that you would need to explain that or assume that I mean that one should be funded by phenotype are two quick examples of that condescension. I hope someone else on this thread can explain more in detail..

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

#98

Post by anotherfounder » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 9:15 PM UTC

s4n1ty wrote: post #89

avilay wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And given that a majority of "Ex-Google" engineers are males, where does that leave a woman (or any under-represented group) founder? She is not asking for money "just because" she is a woman. She is asking for a fair chance. And we need to give folks from under-represented communities a more than fair chance to combat inherent selection bias.

Perhaps the reason a majority of engineers are male is that men are more likely to be interested in engineering. This is a very insightful paper exploring the subject, written by a Google engineer: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...

sigh, here we go again..

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

#99

Post by anotherfounder » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 9:15 PM UTC

avilay wrote: post #86

m0zg wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VCs invest into your track record and the ability to put together and retain a good team. "Ex-Google" is a good signal that the person can at the very least _technically_ do what they are promising to do, once they take the cash. What's your track record? Nobody has ever promised that money will be given for phenotype traits alone.

And given that a majority of "Ex-Google" engineers are males, where does that leave a woman (or any under-represented group) founder? She is not asking for money "just because" she is a woman. She is asking for a fair chance. And we need to give folks from under-represented communities a more than fair chance to combat inherent selection bias.

thank you!

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

#100

Post by zentiggr » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 9:16 PM UTC

m0zg wrote: post #88

anotherfounder wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, the classic condescending first response. > VCs invest into your track record and the ability to put together and retain a good team. "Ex-Google" is a good signal that the person can at the very least _technically_ do what they are promising to do, once they take the cash. > Nobody has ever promised that money will be given for phenotype traits alone. Who knew, thanks for enlightening me. Let's just say that I ha…

Why "condescending"? It's true. VCs are driven by ROI. ROI is driven largely by whether the person taking investment can do the job.

So first time leaders are out of luck, or have to be stellar. Gotcha.

And women even more so, not because of any inherent differences in anything but the selection process biases.

Women of color even more so, not because of any inherent differences in anything but selection bias.

Just watch the biases and the whole process even out to an actual chance for all the ideas floating around.

Doesn't have anything to do with teams or ROI when you're talking to a first time pitcher.