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Done with YC: Age Discrimination

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Done with YC: Age Discrimination

#51

Post by sillysaurusx »

dang wrote: post #31
Gradient-Ascent wrote: post #7

I have just scraped the comment section of the recent "Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch" announcement: - Aditya and Karan (Warrant) - Anta and Karthik (Inai) - Nishant and Pranav (Nino Foods) - Jan and Anahi (Perfekto) - Bruno and Guilherme (Jestor) - Antonio, Felipe, Joaquin and Francois (Chipax) - Ali and Omair (Abhi) As with every place "you need to fit in": Do you fit in here? I have the feeling that YC have "their…

A few things. - it's misleading to cherry-pick a single post. The analysis for all 400+ Launch HNs would look entirely different ( https://news.ycombinator.com/launches ). - the type of startups you mention (extending an existing business to a large market) are more likely to be in an aggregate thread than a standalone Launch HN [1], so you've effectively assumed your conclusion. - you presumably know nothing about t…

> In other words, the considerations are completely unrelated to everything you're implying.

Discrimination and bias are often unconscious, rather than an explicit decision.

Suppose that YC was biased against X, and that therefore the startup pool you can select from contains mostly ~X. You could select for interesting, substantive startups in Meet The Batch threads, and it would still reveal the absence of X.

I'll be honest: I'm terrified of speaking with you lately, but I'm posting this because it's worth risking myself if it helps change someone's mind about bias. So, for whatever it's worth, there's my attempt.

Re: Done with YC: Age Discrimination

#52

Post by Tarucho »

Technology startups have a mandatory narrative of "someone young, cool, smart and with a great idea...".

Anyone past 38 (if I remember correctly PG wrote 38 is the cut off date for founders) is too old for said narrative. (BTW: I´m 43)

Maybe you should game the system and match with a young and cool co-founder that does the PR part.

Re: Done with YC: Age Discrimination

#53

Post by dang »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #51
dang wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few things. - it's misleading to cherry-pick a single post. The analysis for all 400+ Launch HNs would look entirely different ( https://news.ycombinator.com/launches ). - the type of startups you mention (extending an existing business to a large market) are more likely to be in an aggregate thread than a standalone Launch HN [1], so you've effectively assumed your conclusion. - you presumably know nothing about t…

> In other words, the considerations are completely unrelated to everything you're implying. Discrimination and bias are often unconscious, rather than an explicit decision. Suppose that YC was biased against X, and that therefore the startup pool you can select from contains mostly ~X. You could select for interesting, substantive startups in Meet The Batch threads, and it would still reveal the absence of X. I'll b…

I deleted that sentence because it made my post too long, but since you've quoted it, I'll put it back. I was talking there about the editorial decision surrounding HN launches. That's not related to YC's funding decisions.

It's not clear to me what your point is, unless it was simply to mention unconscious bias. Saying that you or anyone would somehow be risking yourself by posting to HN is also a little obscure.

Re: Done with YC: Age Discrimination

#54

Post by the-dude »

jimhi wrote: post #21

They generally give feedback on your application. There is likely something with your traction or potential market more than your age. I do agree with you there are some elements that make it harder as you get older. That said: https://techcrunch.com/2009/09/07/when-it-comes-to-founding-... The average age of startup founders is older than the press makes it seem. I talk to people in each new batch of Y Combinator. T…

> They generally give feedback on your application.

AFAIK this is absolutely not true.

Re: Done with YC: Age Discrimination

#55

Post by phaemon »

whitepaint wrote: post #34

Why is this post getting so many upvotes? "Age discrimination" - based on what?! If I am a vegan and get constantly rejected by YC, should I create a post: "Done with YC: They hate vegans"? I expect much better from HN. What the hell.

I find it interesting. You can try your vegan post. Sounds a bit dull but go for it.

Re: Done with YC: Age Discrimination

#57

Post by caddemon »

ericjang wrote: post #14

This is a sensitive topic, so I hope my question comes off as genuinely curious and not invalidating to the OPs experience, but rather a general question about how applicant selection ought to work. I wonder if the OP has some qualities that are weakly or strongly correlated with age (e.g. number of "older silicon valley institutions" one has worked at), and YC was selecting on those factors rather than explicitly fi…

IMO it isn't inherently immoral to select based on some correlate if it's also correlated with success, but I think it depends a lot on the details. How important is the opportunity, what is the typical acceptance rate, are there analogous opportunities that are selected for using different metrics, etc. I think YC is okay on this front - kind of like access to Harvard instead of access to higher education in general.

That's just my opinion, and it is a tough, subjective question. However I think where things often go wrong in practice is that the metrics aren't actually correlated with success, or are very weakly so! I am not familiar with the YC process, but my experience with selective applications in general is that institutions are slow to update their methods, and often don't really back up their decisions with data.

Of course it is an extremely hard problem to predict start up success in the first place, that's pretty much the whole YC business model. So they should have a lot more incentive to determine the metrics that hold some real signal than a university or even a FAANG does. Which makes me think there are legitimate reasons they ask these questions, but I do hope they've considered the tradeoff in how much signal is obtained versus how much bias may be introduced.

As a bit of an aside, this is why I like the idea of pushing for more diversity between institutions instead of just within. If different places were more meaningfully different we should see more diversity in metrics used and hopefully this would result in a fairer landscape across the population without needing to enforce overbearing rules on individual institutions. Of course that makes the assumption that a particular set of metrics won't end up naturally dominating, but I'm fairly confident in that. Different people thrive in different environments, and honestly the measurements we currently have are full of uncertainty anyway.

Re: Done with YC: Age Discrimination

#58

Post by void_mint »

whitepaint wrote: post #50
sillysaurusx wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What evidence would convince you? (It helps to imagine you're asking for evidence of gender discrimination.)

If you accuse people of discrimination (which is a serious accusation) you better have very good evidence. Nothing less is acceptable.

You didn't really answer the above question (What evidence would convince you)

Re: Done with YC: Age Discrimination

#59

Post by caddemon »

aabhay wrote: post #29
ericjang wrote: post #14

This is a sensitive topic, so I hope my question comes off as genuinely curious and not invalidating to the OPs experience, but rather a general question about how applicant selection ought to work. I wonder if the OP has some qualities that are weakly or strongly correlated with age (e.g. number of "older silicon valley institutions" one has worked at), and YC was selecting on those factors rather than explicitly fi…

If you are a gatekeeper for an industry where protected classes are inversely correlated with success, then you should strongly consider the negative effect your gatekeeping has on the world.

Having a medical degree (for example) is inversely correlated with protected classes, so I'm not sure it is entirely up to industry gatekeepers to fix this. Having a college degree also is, so without a major overhaul of the way medical school works, there is only so much that can be done at that point either.

I agree it is something people need to think about more, and in the case of software engineering it is more feasible to directly address, as the degree is much less critical. I'm all for some companies introducing training programs to hire promising potential SWEs without much prior background. But just dropping all criteria that correlate with a protected class is not a feasible solution, and it is not always the case that people making these decisions are having a net negative impact.

Re: Done with YC: Age Discrimination

#60

Post by whitepaint »

void_mint wrote: post #58
whitepaint wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you accuse people of discrimination (which is a serious accusation) you better have very good evidence. Nothing less is acceptable.

You didn't really answer the above question (What evidence would convince you)

Oh, you're right, I missed it. Hm, let's think together, it's a tough one, isn't it? Statistics? Let's say YC never invested in founders over 35. Would that be enough though? Maybe there are other reasons why people over 35 are not the greatest people to invest in and that's why they haven't done it? It's all hypothetical, but we can ask: in general, what proves discrimination?

I for sure don't think the main post is evidence of anything, so I struggle to see how it's getting so popular.

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