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Female Founders

paulgraham.com

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Re: Female Founders

#21

Post by cjbprime »

pshin45 wrote: post #14

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 the…

But do note that the same wikipedia page points out that several recent attempts to replicate the studies that claimed to measure stereotype threat have failed, putting the whole idea into question.

I'm not saying that out of some attempt to sweep away the general problem of improving diversity; it's just important to work on solutions that will actually make a difference.

Re: Female Founders

#22

Post by pg »

raldi wrote: post #5

From the essay's footnotes: > The 13% number is from a study we did ourselves What 13% number? I don't see the number 13 mentioned anywhere else on the page. I suppose it's related to this line: > In the current YC batch, 16 out of 68 companies, or 24%, have female founders. That's almost twice the rate at which VCs fund such companies ...but if so, it could be stated more explicitly.

Oops, I'll fix that.

Re: Female Founders

#23

Post by johnrob »

Another explanation of why girls don't start companies: maybe they are smarter? The median outcome of a startup is a loss of time and money.

Re: Female Founders

#24

Post by loumf »

temuze wrote: post #15
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".

Bill Gates did a pretty good job before that (whereas Jobs and Page&Brin brought in adults)

Re: Female Founders

#25

Post by git-pull »

temuze wrote: post #15
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".

To cut to the point, how many leg ups did Zuckerberg get between luck and connections? What part of his success was environment, what part was his own will and power?

Where does he stand as an engineer, at founding and then? Is he just a face, a legend, or does is he a real decision maker?

Re: Female Founders

#26

Post by parfe »

I find myself disappointed by this blog post. The second paragraph amounts to a sexist version of "I'm not racist! I have black friends!" Then he follows up with statistics comparing YC to the general VC market. Fine, you do better than most. However, not the worst does not mean not bad.

He comes closest to saying anything of substance with the paragraph: So how would you cause there to be more female programmers? The meta-answer is: not just one thing. People's abilities and interests by the time they're old enough to start a startup are the product of their whole lives—indeed, of their ancestors' lives as well...you probably have to go back to the point where it starts to become significant.

The fact this post mentions no group currently working towards what pg says should be done really bothers me. It appears he has done no research. Groups exist which work towards that very goal of getting girls interested in programming so they become women involved in tech.

What about Girls Who Code? (http://www.girlswhocode.com/)

What about Black Girls Code? (http://www.blackgirlscode.com/)

How would you get more girls interested in programming? I don't know much about girls specifically, but I have some ideas about how to get kids interested in programming.

This came off similar to how Stephen Colbert jokes that he "doesn't see color". If you cannot be bothered to understand the very group you hope to address why even bother? How about addressing the fact that sexism related stories get flagged off his very own website with surprising speed (either manually, or by his own automated algorithms)?

I don't think he should have written this post. He put lots of effort into writing, but seems to have put very little thought or research into the actual subject. I guess he felt defensive about his character being sullied but I think he sufficiently addressed that issue already.

Re: Female Founders

#28

Post by bsirkia »

minimaxir wrote: post #2

I recently published a statistical analysis of the proportion of female founders who receive funding from VC firms and accelerators such as Y Combinator to male founders: https://medium.com/p/2613f58e5082 Year over year, the female participation in YC batches has been improving: http://i.imgur.com/MCLqUm3.jpg

Rather than smarter, at least better at accurately assessing risk.

Re: Female Founders

#29

Post by the_watcher »

johnrob wrote: post #23

Another explanation of why girls don't start companies: maybe they are smarter? The median outcome of a startup is a loss of time and money.

PG would tell you that you shouldn't start a startup based on the median outcome.

Re: Female Founders

#30

Post by zachlatta »

loumf wrote: post #13

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.

How have you been working to overcome the lack of access to the internet? This is something I've been giving a lot of thought lately.
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