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Arrington, Race, and Silicon Valley

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Re: Arrington, Race, and Silicon Valley

#71

Post by riffraff »

rdl wrote: post #50
philwelch wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what immigrant population, statistically, is even more successful than the stereotypical "model minority" Chinese and Indians? Immigrants from actual Africa.

How many of them are white African immigrants (i.e. from RSA, Rhodesia, etc.), or are from Arab North Africa (Egypt), though?

why the downvotes? This seems a reaonable question to ask.

In a more general form, it would be nice to hsve some reference to the statistics on this since it's very interesting.

Re: Arrington, Race, and Silicon Valley

#73

Post by jcampbell1 »

rdl wrote: post #51
patio11 wrote: post #31

Silicon Valley is chum-tactic, so if you really care about the differential access problem for X, regardless of the value of X, make extra special effort to both tell X that Silicon Valley is chum-tactic and to introduce them to the right people. Chum-tactic: the first filter applied to you, for press or investment or anything, is "Who sent you to me?" Some people think "Silicon Valley is a meritocracy" implies that…

Outside of closed environments with pre-screening (students in a class, for instance), what systems don't work this way?

Professional athletics? It seems to be as close to a pure meritocracy as I can think of.

Re: Arrington, Race, and Silicon Valley

#74

Post by patio11 »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #73
rdl wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside of closed environments with pre-screening (students in a class, for instance), what systems don't work this way?

Professional athletics? It seems to be as close to a pure meritocracy as I can think of.

See Moneyball. Traditionally, people can't measure merit. They measure things which they think are proxies, but some popular proxies are hilariously inaccurate. Like, "Lines of code is a proxy for programming skill" hilariously inaccurate.

Re: Arrington, Race, and Silicon Valley

#75

Post by wan23 »

zasz wrote: post #42
yummyfajitas wrote: post #2

People, for the most part, want to work with people that are “like them” or that fit a pattern that appeals to them. I see this argument made a lot. But this argument has a huge hole in it - Chinese and Indians are also not "like them". And yet, Chinese/Indians are not underrepresented. If Hank William's theory were correct, they should be. Any theory concerning the underrepresentation of blacks which does not distin…

I'm Chinese. There is way more to me than just being Chinese, and there is way more to the white people I meet than just them being white. I can usually take it for granted that they're like me, and it's obviously not for the race; I can usually take it for granted in the Valley that the other people I meet are college-educated. In general, I do not make this assumption for black people; hence, black people are not l…

Even when you find them in the Valley? If so, why?

(Note: I am from New York, so I actually don't know the answer)

Re: Arrington, Race, and Silicon Valley

#76

Post by achompas »

patio11 wrote: post #74
jcampbell1 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Professional athletics? It seems to be as close to a pure meritocracy as I can think of.

See Moneyball. Traditionally, people can't measure merit. They measure things which they think are proxies, but some popular proxies are hilariously inaccurate. Like, "Lines of code is a proxy for programming skill" hilariously inaccurate.

There's no question that professional sports is a meritocracy. Players like LeBron James, Albert Pujols, and Peyton Manning make the most money because they deserve to make the most money. They merit their contracts.

Moneyball deals with inefficiencies in antiquated markets, and fits well into Lewis's oeuvre (see Big Short, Liar's Poker for examples of how to take advantage of credit default swaps or the bond market). It has much less to do with "merit," as one can observe a player's true merit over a sufficient sample in baseball. If the guy's a bum, he'll live in Single A for the rest of his career.

tl;dr: baseball statistics are much better at quantifying a player's skills. See "WAR" and the recent Red Sox and Yankees teams for examples.

Re: Arrington, Race, and Silicon Valley

#77

Post by jcampbell1 »

patio11 wrote: post #74
jcampbell1 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Professional athletics? It seems to be as close to a pure meritocracy as I can think of.

See Moneyball. Traditionally, people can't measure merit. They measure things which they think are proxies, but some popular proxies are hilariously inaccurate. Like, "Lines of code is a proxy for programming skill" hilariously inaccurate.

I haven't seen the movie, but my understanding was that someone used some math skills to better acquire skilled players, thus making professional athletics even more of a meritocracy than it was.

If I had to put a bunch of rich people on a chart with three axises of merit, luck, and inheritance, I still think professional athletes lie the closest to the pure merit line.

Re: Arrington, Race, and Silicon Valley

#78

Post by jackpirate »

pjin wrote: post #57
jpadvo wrote: post #45

I skimmed through the comments and was surprised to not see anything about Project Implicit being done at Harvard. This is a research project that is being done using actual, real science. We don't need to armchair speculate about this stuff; we have science for a reason. The researchers have found that our minds make subconscious judgements of people base on their appearance. No shock here, of course. It turns out t…

If you're going to raise science on a pedestal, you should write a comment other than "Oh it's science, we should trust whatever those scientists are doing." (C.f. the Milgram experiment.) We don't need to mindlessly praise research; we have peer review for a reason. This seems to be the original Implicit Association Test or IAT paper (from 1998). It's quite accessible and should provide a better justification for wh…

C.f. the Milgram experiment.

Are you suggesting Milgram's experiments are somehow unsound?

Re: Arrington, Race, and Silicon Valley

#79

Post by csallen »

TomOfTTB wrote: post #27
wh-uws wrote: post #23

I really hate getting into these discussions because can quickly devolve into either: a) a stale conversation because people get afraid of coming off racist b) ad hominem and actually racist ignorantly spouting stereotypes of different races without any factual basis but I feel like at times its good for me to add my perspective for people who really wouldn't have any idea without it I am a black ( african-american w…

I'd argue what you're saying and what he's saying are different arguments. Your arguments almost all apply to poor people in general (and I believe them to be absolutely true). In fact I'd argue it's more true than people know. When hearing the legend of Microsoft rarely do people include the fact that his Mom was on the United Way Board with the CEO of IBM and it was she who pointed IBM in Microsoft's direction. But…

> You're making the point that it's hard to get to the startup level he's arguing that once you get there you're at a disadvantage because the Valley has a subconscious racism in it.

These points may be more related than you think. "Getting to the startup level" is not so simple a concept as "either you get there or you don't." People arrive at this destination with widely varying amounts of skill, preparation, connections, and credentials. Not all entrepreneurs are equally attractive.

So wh-uws' point makes a lot of sense. If it seems that disadvantaged-group-X is having more trouble securing funding than other groups, it doesn't necessarily mean investors are to blame. It could very easily be the case that X is running into issues earlier in life that, generally, make it much harder for its members to become great entrepreneurs. When trying to answer the question, "Why do so few females run funded tech companies?", it might make sense to take a few steps back and ask, "Why do so few females study computer science", or hell, "Why do girls play with dolls while boys play with legos?"

Re: Arrington, Race, and Silicon Valley

#80

Post by zasz »

wan23 wrote: post #75
zasz wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Chinese. There is way more to me than just being Chinese, and there is way more to the white people I meet than just them being white. I can usually take it for granted that they're like me, and it's obviously not for the race; I can usually take it for granted in the Valley that the other people I meet are college-educated. In general, I do not make this assumption for black people; hence, black people are not l…

Even when you find them in the Valley? If so, why? (Note: I am from New York, so I actually don't know the answer)

I've internalized bad stereotypes of black people, especially since my Asian parents are racist and sexist as hell, right down to pulling out the gene card. And having grown up in the Valley, the vast majority of well-educated and ambitious people I know are white, East Asian, or Indian. I've met only two black college graduates in my twenty-odd years of existence here, so I don't have a lot of examples to make my mental image of a go-getting entrepreneur more inclusive.
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