Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Female Founders

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 634 posts

Re: Female Founders

#41

Post by tomasien »

Also, I must say I apologize for my Gatekeeper comments (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6986872). I didn't have YC's female founder numbers at the time, but being 2x the average VC's portfolio in terms of female founders is pretty darn good evidence that you aren't biased. You weren't attempting to make the point eloquently in your "The Information" piece and you didn't, but you do here.

I'm still glad I brought it up - the discussion (not from PG but from others) was revealing, but your head is screwed on straight about how to think about whether or not YC is allowing the institutional biases of others cloud its own judgement, and that's great news.

Re: Female Founders

#42

Post by dictum »

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.

That's one positive side effect of 3G: more people can get Internet access. Data caps for pre-paid plans are low here (200MB-300MB), but at roughly $5/month, they're the only affordable option for poor families and people who live away from metro areas.

Re: Female Founders

#43

Post by a8da6b0c91d »

Why is pg engaging with these trolls? Does anyone think they truly care about women succeeding in business or software? No, this is about making a stink and attention whoring. The appropriate response is to flip these weenies the bird.

Re: Female Founders

#45

Post by crygin »

camelite wrote: post #34
herbig wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A racist is less likely to have black friends than a non-racist. I'd suggest that a racist is even less likely to have black co-founders than a non-racist. edited to add: The reason the "look at my black friends" argument is mocked is that in many cases the friends referred to are not friends in the true sense of the word. There's no such distinction possible when talking about a co-founder. One either is or is not a…

This is a dangerous oversimplification of what "racist" (or any negative bias) means. There are many people who have no problem associating with individuals of [insert class here], but would be less likely to hire them, etc. Racism, like everything else, is a spectrum, and it's critical not to characterize it by its most extreme elements.

Re: Female Founders

#46

Post by [deleted] »

git-pull wrote: post #25
temuze wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

[deleted]

Re: Female Founders

#47

Post by theorique »

cjbprime wrote: post #21
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.

Correct - stereotype threat has been significantly discredited.

Re: Female Founders

#48

Post by gfodor »

poolpool wrote: post #27

"It's hard to argue I'm biased against female founders when I have a female cofounder myself." He's going with the "black friend" defense?

Maybe you should read the rest of the essay.

Re: Female Founders

#49

Post by redthrowaway »

parfe wrote: post #26

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? Th…

It's not pg's job to equalize the gender ratio in programming, nor is it his job to get girls interested in it. Saying he thinks you need to reach girls young does not obligate him to go research what organizations are out there doing just that.

He meant the post to be a statement of his position, not a rallying cry to fix a societal problem. You seem to have wanted the latter, not the former. That's fine, but it's not a failing on his part that he didn't write the post you wanted him to write.

Re: Female Founders

#50

Post by cjbprime »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #37
parfe wrote: post #26

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? Th…

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)? Are we really going to blame algorithms now for promoting prejudice? The reason sexism-related stories fall down is not because of lack of interest or due to prejudice, but quite the contrary: too much interest , causing an imbalance in the upvote-…

> Are we really going to blame algorithms now for promoting prejudice?

Your implicit claim is that a human can't write an algorithm that promotes prejudice. Are you interested in defending that claim? It seems very obviously false.

Post reply on HN