21–30 of 74 posts
Immigration also increases the size of the labor pool, driving down wages.
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/gborjas/publications/journal/J...
I will state my position unlike those afraid to speak so they can have deal-flow or perhaps enter YC. I do not doubt that there may be correlation between people who have performed poorly in YC and "very strong accents", it does not mean causation. Such a statement from someone whom people hang to his every-word should not be put out without clarification. The defense of "accents so strong you cannot understand" hold…
>I do not doubt that there may be correlation between people who have performed poorly in YC and "very strong accents", it does not mean causation.
It doesn't matter what the cause is, he's an investor, not a doctor. The cause is irrelevant. If there's correlation, that's enough to say no. Being an investor is a game where you find what's wrong before you try to find what's right. You don't approach deal-flow with "How can I make this work?" but "What does this person have to offer me?"
>The defense of "accents so strong you cannot understand" holds no water.
Nor should it be a defense; it's a solid fact. How many CEOs do you see in the United States who can't be understood very well when they're speaking?
>Nothing could have stopped him from saying "people who do not communicate well make bad CEOs.
You're right, nothing stopped him. Then again, he doesn't have any responsibility to people on a message board who will critique him without any experience of internal operations of Y Combinator. "Nothing stopped him" is a good enough reason for anything. It's invalid because it's not a logical rebuttal, it's just a tautology.
>Heaping the blame/responsibility of understanding on the readier/listener. How ironic considering the topic.
I'm a bit confused by this part. I think Paul Graham's entire point is that the responsibility of understanding is on the speaker...hence why strong accents aren't desirable in a CEO.
>I hope his position does not lead to default bias in YC companies. "He has a strong accent, I cannot ask him to be my co founder". Or "His strong accent means he will be a bad CEO so why employ him at all"
I don't care if it becomes a default bias. Do you know why? Because it isn't a bias in the sense of discrimination. If the statistics bears out that it's not a quality correlated with success, then you don't want it. This isn't unicorns and candy rainbows. This is capitalist investment. There isn't room for everyone to succeed. That doesn't mean we're being ethnocentric.
In fact, if the math bears it out, I honestly hope YC companies do take this on as a qualifier. If it's valid, it doesn't matter if it hurts your feelings. They're not being racist.
>This tread will soon disappear. But I will end with a Martin Luther King quote from the I have a dream speech 5o years ago yesterday. "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter"
You're taking this entirely the wrong way. This has nothing to do with unfair discrimination. It's entirely about the logistics of public speaking and communication in a company that has everything going against it. A quote from MLK has nothing to do with any of this.
Immigration also increases the size of the labor pool, driving down wages.
I will state my position unlike those afraid to speak so they can have deal-flow or perhaps enter YC. I do not doubt that there may be correlation between people who have performed poorly in YC and "very strong accents", it does not mean causation. Such a statement from someone whom people hang to his every-word should not be put out without clarification. The defense of "accents so strong you cannot understand" hold…
"It's not our top criterion. It's just one that I'm willing to talk about publicly, because there's no way to fake it.
We're not against funding people from outside the US, and we fund a lot of them. But 564 startups is enough to see patterns, and the empirical evidence about very strong accents is striking.
And I am talking about failure to communicate here. I don't mean strong accents in the sense that it's clear that someone comes from another country. I'm talking about accents so strong that you have to interrupt the conversation to ask what they just said."
and
"I talked about this on another thread, but by strong accent I mean so strong that people have a hard time understanding you. It's not a problem if founders have accents as strong as, say, the Collison brothers'."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do not doubt that there may be correlation between people who have performed poorly in YC and "very strong accents", it does not mean causation. pg is an investor. From the point of view of angel investing, causation is not important. Correlation is enough. If some trait historically shows the company will be half as likely to succeed, why should an investor put money in that company, causation be damned?
You sir, have just described pattern matching. e.g Thee cliche white male that attended an Ivy League school was successful. therefore, to be safe I go that way all the time. This then goes ahead and pollutes your data-set because it would be built on that bias. Now, I am not saying that those that patten match are bad, but they should at the very least try not to make their 'findings' influence other people who migh…
Does it make it more difficult to get a foot in the door if you're female, Ecuadorian and went to a community college, despite being a phenomenal programmer with a great idea? Yes, it does make it more difficult, but that's not their problem. They are choosing where to invest their money, and using math to do so should be encouraged.
If they don't have a spreadsheet in front of them, then at the very least they should understand that prestige is prestige for a reason.
Does that make it impossible to succeed without those qualifiers? No, but it's not unfair that it's more difficult to do so without them. You can't play a fair game all the way through. Sooner or later something's going to happen that's not in your favor.
This whole "controversy" is so stupid. It consists of people taking pg's words out of context and assigning the maximally stupid interpretation to them. I mean, are there any examples of successful U.S. based founders who have accents that are so heavy that you struggle to understand what they are saying? I'm genuinely curious.
What part of what he said was taken out of context? Up until a few years ago, there were no examples of successful black Quarterbacks in the NFL.. IF everyone just looked at that "fact", there would still be none. Data can be used to justify anything you like, as long as you are already sufficiently biased.
All other things being equal, there is a lot of difference between what an eloquent speaker can achieve and what a heavily accented speaker can achieve in the role of CEO.
This has nothing to do with preconceived bias. This has to do with Paul Graham's examination, over the course of funding over 500 different startups and his experience in that entire domain as a whole, that foreign accents are not desirable. The data is there; your bias prevents you from seeing it because you're misinterpreting it as discriminatory.
Slightly offtopic: The whole idea of the immigration restrictions is ridiculous. There is not a single justification for it. Unless of course you believe that somehow your people deserve better than everyone else. When people bring up the fact that it drives down wages and residents lose as a result - why don't they also mention that residents win by getting a cheaper product or a service? When people bring up the we…
This whole "controversy" is so stupid. It consists of people taking pg's words out of context and assigning the maximally stupid interpretation to them. I mean, are there any examples of successful U.S. based founders who have accents that are so heavy that you struggle to understand what they are saying? I'm genuinely curious.
What part of what he said was taken out of context? Up until a few years ago, there were no examples of successful black Quarterbacks in the NFL.. IF everyone just looked at that "fact", there would still be none. Data can be used to justify anything you like, as long as you are already sufficiently biased.
As far as I know this all started with a valleywag article a couple days ago, that somehow turned (paraphrased) "Something we've noticed after funding 500+ startups is that people with difficult-to-understand accents have trouble raising money and recruiting cofounders/employees" into "Paul Graham is a racist xenophobe who hates immigrants, pregnant women, and probably non-white people too."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You sir, have just described pattern matching. e.g Thee cliche white male that attended an Ivy League school was successful. therefore, to be safe I go that way all the time. This then goes ahead and pollutes your data-set because it would be built on that bias. Now, I am not saying that those that patten match are bad, but they should at the very least try not to make their 'findings' influence other people who migh…
If being male, being white, and attending Harvard are all positively correlated with being successful in a startup, then there's actually nothing wrong with selectively looking for those qualifiers. Does it make it more difficult to get a foot in the door if you're female, Ecuadorian and went to a community college, despite being a phenomenal programmer with a great idea? Yes, it does make it more difficult, but that…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What part of what he said was taken out of context? Up until a few years ago, there were no examples of successful black Quarterbacks in the NFL.. IF everyone just looked at that "fact", there would still be none. Data can be used to justify anything you like, as long as you are already sufficiently biased.
Bad example. There is nothing intrinsically different between a black QB and a white one, all other things being equal. All other things being equal, there is a lot of difference between what an eloquent speaker can achieve and what a heavily accented speaker can achieve in the role of CEO. This has nothing to do with preconceived bias. This has to do with Paul Graham's examination, over the course of funding over 50…