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Female Founders

paulgraham.com

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Re: Female Founders

#11

Post by herbig »

_bfhp wrote: post #4

"It's hard to argue I'm biased against female founders when I have a female cofounder myself." No matter how the rest of the essay is, this honestly doesn't mean jack and insults the intelligence of his critics, no matter how off-the-mark they were. He goes on to note other, more meaningful statistics, which is great, but this sentence alone is kind of laughable.

Yeah, I agree. The rest of the points make a convincing argument, but the "I can't be racist, look at all my black friends" argument doesn't fly.

Re: Female Founders

#12

Post by Jd »

I'm glad it that he doesn't go into depth about the core and controversial statement re: why 13 year old girls don't flock to programming in the way that nerdy 13 year old boys do.

I'm also glad YC is being proactive here. It's always clear that certain biases exist, and the only way to overcome them is by addressing them specifically. Deep cognitive biases (against young people for example) can only be overcome by amazing success stories.

Re: Female Founders

#13

Post by loumf »

In a footnote, PG says the poor need hardware to program. I work with poor kids (and volunteer to teach technology to them). Hardware is relatively easy to come by (there are cheap options and donations), but access to the Internet is not.

Re: Female Founders

#14

Post by pshin45 »

I posted this in a previous "Ask HN" thread about African American founders in YC [1], and reposting here because I think it bears repeating.

> For those wondering why this is important, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat

"If negative stereotypes are present regarding a specific group, group members are likely to become anxious about their performance, which may hinder their ability to perform at their maximum level. For example, stereotype threat can lower the intellectual performance of African-Americans taking the SAT reasoning test used for college entrance in the United States, due to the stereotype that African-Americans are less intelligent than other groups. Importantly, the individual does not need to subscribe to the stereotype for it to be activated. Moreover, the specific mechanism through which anxiety (induced by the activation of the stereotype) decreases performance is by depleting working memory (especially the phonological aspects of the working memory system).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6966969

Re: Female Founders

#15

Post by temuze »

git-pull wrote: post #9

Like mediocre people in any field, they're fighting the last war, and the last war was won by Mark Zuckerberg. My curiosity has been piqued. Does the author have point of view previously stated on Zuckerberg? Where does Zuckerberg stand merit wise? I see him in the news headlines often with his smiling picture. What makes him more clever than the rest of you.

Because he destroyed the idea that young whippersnappers need "adult supervision".

Re: Female Founders

#16

Post by loumf »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #10
moocowduckquack wrote: post #7

I don't know about female founders, but I always thought that given the readership, pseudocode problems placed as job adverts in some of the puzzle magazines would get a lot of interesting candidates, many of them middle aged women who have been solving a variety of logic puzzles daily for decades, entirely for their own amusement. I bet some of them could code like demons, if given the impetus.

Like Lindsay - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2534733/Victorias-...

She has a CS degree.

Re: Female Founders

#17

Post by wvenable »

_bfhp wrote: post #4

"It's hard to argue I'm biased against female founders when I have a female cofounder myself." No matter how the rest of the essay is, this honestly doesn't mean jack and insults the intelligence of his critics, no matter how off-the-mark they were. He goes on to note other, more meaningful statistics, which is great, but this sentence alone is kind of laughable.

Given the statements made his critics, perhaps they deserve to have their intelligence insulted.

Re: Female Founders

#18

Post by saraid216 »

enraged_camel wrote: post #8
_bfhp wrote: post #4

"It's hard to argue I'm biased against female founders when I have a female cofounder myself." No matter how the rest of the essay is, this honestly doesn't mean jack and insults the intelligence of his critics, no matter how off-the-mark they were. He goes on to note other, more meaningful statistics, which is great, but this sentence alone is kind of laughable.

I agree. Isn't Jessica his wife? edit: the downvote was predictable, although still disappointing. I was simply pointing out that picking your wife as a cofounder should not be used as proof that you are not biased against women. Honestly, PG's argument would be stronger as a whole if he removed that line from the essay.

They married after founding, according to Wikipedia. FWIW.

Re: Female Founders

#19

Post by hyperpape »

_bfhp wrote: post #4

"It's hard to argue I'm biased against female founders when I have a female cofounder myself." No matter how the rest of the essay is, this honestly doesn't mean jack and insults the intelligence of his critics, no matter how off-the-mark they were. He goes on to note other, more meaningful statistics, which is great, but this sentence alone is kind of laughable.

In the same vein the argument later that investors aren't going to be biased against women because they're interested in money is a dud. Most businessmen are motivated by money, but there's more than one instance of businesses who discriminated in the past.

The fact that investors make or lose money based on their beliefs does provide one source of pressure to be rational, but it's not a guarantee.

Re: Female Founders

#20

Post by loumf »

enraged_camel wrote: post #8
_bfhp wrote: post #4

"It's hard to argue I'm biased against female founders when I have a female cofounder myself." No matter how the rest of the essay is, this honestly doesn't mean jack and insults the intelligence of his critics, no matter how off-the-mark they were. He goes on to note other, more meaningful statistics, which is great, but this sentence alone is kind of laughable.

I agree. Isn't Jessica his wife? edit: the downvote was predictable, although still disappointing. I was simply pointing out that picking your wife as a cofounder should not be used as proof that you are not biased against women. Honestly, PG's argument would be stronger as a whole if he removed that line from the essay.

She was an investment banker, I believe (or some equivalent) at the time YC was formed. I seriously doubt PG would take on a cofounder that couldn't pull her weight, even if he were in love with her.
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