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

#101

Post by m0zg » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 9:16 PM UTC

anotherfounder wrote: post #97

m0zg wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..

You're the one "assuming" on this thread, not me. I did not assume anything at all. If I "assumed" I wouldn't have commented to begin with.

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

#102

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

ericmcer wrote: post #96

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 sh…

Both, thanks for clarifying!

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

#103

Post by anticonformist » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 9:16 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…

Many white male founders have had the exact same story with VCs.

If they were black or women they might have assumed it was a matter of VCs being racist or sexist. But this is probably wrong.

Because of these three attributes, one is not like the others.

"I’m a Black woman, mom of three, and I don’t have an Ivy League degree."

Because, regardless of their own race or gender, VCs are highly connected members of the Ivy League.

VCs don't like poor people for the same reason most rich people don't for thousands of years. They believe that poor people are losers. And why would an investor want to bet on a loser?

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

#104

Post by rayiner » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

BobbyJo wrote: post #91

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…

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 bei…

So VCs pass the buck to Google, and Google passes the buck to universities. And universities presumably pass the buck to K-12 education, and the whole thing circles back to an abstract debate about “fixing the educational system” (which we have been trying to do for decades with zero results). Do you see why people are mad?

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

#105

Post by anotherfounder » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

nyczomg wrote: post #92

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 h…

I can see that naming those who didn't even respond could be more appropriate. My takeaway is that you feel let down the most by those who have the most talk, hence higher expectations, which, it seems to me is the gist of the article.

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

#106

Post by areoform » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 9:18 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…

I feel heartbroken seeing the responses to you and her. I'm a woman, but not a minority. I alter my writing style and my authorial voice every day to be less femme and more "neutral." And these exchanges confirm what I'd feared.

It breaks my heart that the first reaction by our community isn't to integrate her lived experience, but to question it. It is to question her being and (implicitly) her right to be in these spaces.

Few have asked what they can do to help. Fewer have offered to help. Instead, commentators have noted her track record. Their comments seem to approach her as if she was the sole founder. She's not. They're equal partners. Why is one given a courteous reply and the other shown the door? Is it not a good signal that she was able to find and work with a highly qualified co-founder? And build the seed of a good team? Isn't it a famous industry maxim to invest in teams?

More disappointing are the comments questioning her accomplishments based on her marriage. They're negating her lived experience and drive based on whom she married. And they're saying that perhaps she owes all of her success - including the gyms - to him. In this very forum, she has been reduced to but an extension of him. And that's heartbreaking.

There's a lot of work to be done in the industry. And I hope that this is a moment of personal growth and reflection for most involved.

There will be a day when these replies will be looked as antiquated. I look forward with hope to that day.

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

#107

Post by localcrisis » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 9:19 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…

had the same experience with Aileen.

Many VCs, founders, and DNI leaders have echoed that All Raise is primarily a way for VCs to improve their personal brand around women in tech. They don't make investments, don't run substantial programs, and spend much of their time/money on PR.

If these VCs were serious, they would commit X% of investments or X% of investment dollars to the groups they publicly support in panel after panel after tweet after TechCrunch interview.

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

#108

Post by zentiggr » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 9:19 PM UTC

sib wrote: post #38

huffmsa wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traction etc don't matter to the point she's making. Her husband sent the same info as her and got response. She got radio silence. That's the point. Not whether or not the content was good.

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.)

How about the idea that there are implicit biases in all three of those variables and her experience proves how much they multiply?

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

#109

Post by anotherfounder » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 9:19 PM UTC

areoform wrote: post #106

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…

I feel heartbroken seeing the responses to you and her. I'm a woman, but not a minority. I alter my writing style and my authorial voice every day to be less femme and more "neutral." And these exchanges confirm what I'd feared. It breaks my heart that the first reaction by our community isn't to integrate her lived experience, but to question it. It is to question her being and (implicitly) her right to be in these…

@areoform I wholeheartedly echo this! Thank you!

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

#110

Post by thinkindie » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 9:20 PM UTC

daseiner1 wrote: post #59

huffmsa wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

She reached out to VCs that pledged to support the Black community of founders. Beside the fact that we have seen VCs pouring money into all possible kind of failing business (WeWork anyone? Wag?), you can't require the same profile parameters from an underrepresented community otherwise their pledges were empty. If they spotted some of the weak points that many found in this discussion (poor product reviews etc), they could have at least provided an honest feedback, some contacts or else. I guess that before money, these cases are showing no interests at all in supporting Black founders (sometimes intros or contacts are way more valuable than money).