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

It baffles me that people constantly make this low-effort "read the article" remark as if (A) it's not explicitly against the rules here, and (B) it's impossible for two people to read the same article and draw different conclusions from it.

But I digress. I can put myself in the shoes of a VC for a second and know that based on a quick glance at the app's website and app store page, I wouldn't invest in it either. It's unoriginal, unlikely to be profitable, and the reviews are suspicious at best. No need to download it to see that.

Not reading or responding isn't unfair. VCs get inundated with proposals like hers. I'm a white guy who used to do freelance work. I've sent out hundreds of personalized cold emails to businesses looking for work, and got responses to maybe 5 of them, all of which were negative or "we'll keep your information on file". Maybe my sales pitch sucks. Maybe my portfolio sucks. Or maybe they just weren't interested in what I was offering. Maybe that's the case for her, too. Where's the evidence that either of us were treated unfairly? I am not entitled to anyone's time or money and neither is she.

Have we reached the point where not responding to a cold email is an act of bigotry? I myself get inundated with messages from recruiters. I respond only to the tiny fraction that are actually interesting and relevant to my skillset. It never even occurred to me to respond or not based on the gender or race of the recruiter. Does that make me a bigot?

The product is garbage either way, but garbage being pitched by someone with a track record of accomplishment and success makes no sense, so that might pique my curiosity enough to respond and see if there's a reasonable explanation for a bunch of obviously fraudulent reviews. The same product pitched by some random person with no qualifications or experience can reasonably be assumed to be spam like many similar pitches VCs receive. Credibility matters. This should not come as a surprise to anyone.

And let's not forget that these people were from her husband's contact list. He very likely actually knows many of them. Of course they're going to open the email. I open emails from everyone I know in real life. It's rude not to, and I'm curious about what they want and what they're up to. I don't feel any such obligation or curiosity towards random strangers.

Do you honestly believe that a VC that pledges to help black founders is obligated to respond to every black founder who emails them, even when doing so will obviously be a waste of their time? Furthermore, do you believe a founder who is obviously engaging in deceptive practices to trick investors even deserves the respect of a reply?

We can make a simple law:

If a VC has to operate in US, they must reserve X amount for the minorities.

If VCs think it's unfair and that minorities are not good investment then VCs can figure out how to "uplift" the minorities by creating much needed programs and network for them.

Where people have made scientific claims I've asked them for the source of their information. This is a reasonable question - not a "demand".

When someone replies to you citing another argument, it's reasonable to read that argument and to point out any flaws in it if you see them. That's what I did here. Was I not supposed to read it?

My argument doesn't rely on any citation other than Damore's memo itself, since it is the topic of discussion. I've already provided a link to that but here it is again for convenience: [1]

I followed the witch hunt against Damore very closely both at the time and since.

Without exception, every single critique I've read of Damore's memo is either a straw man, ad hominem, or a combination of both.

If you know of any counterexamples I'm happy to review them, but please pick the strongest argument rather than a long list[2]

[1] https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...

[2] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop