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Female Founders

paulgraham.com

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Re: Female Founders

#241

Post by baddox »

anthuswilliams wrote: post #235
baddox wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, it's a big deal because a lot of people hold as a normative axiom that the proportional representation of people groups (genders, nationalities, ethnicities, etc.) in organizations (businesses, governments, YC classes, etc.) ought to match their proportions in the general population. I suspect this is either an axiom, or a close conclusion from a broader axiom like egalitarianism. As an axiom, t…

I think this axiom only applies to inclusion in desirable groups or roles. It's hard to imagine even the most egalitarian thinker working to improve the male:female ratio among death row inmates, for example.

I don't know. I suspect many would think that. The disproportionately large number of African Americans in prison and on death row is certainly widely considered (by myself included) to be a bad thing. Of course, for me personally, I don't want it to be resolved by adding more people of other ethnicities to the group.

Re: Female Founders

#242

Post by pshin45 »

_dps wrote: post #167
kn0thing wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jessica is the reason Steve + I got into Y Combinator. It was her decision to give us a second chance after we were rejected (reddit would end up being one of the first breakout hits from YC). I wouldn't have just told Charlie Rose "All Hail Jessica Livingston" if her role were just "founder relations" -- without going into the roles all the partners (male and female alike) play in YC, that simplification is way off.…

... and lest anyone think this is limited just to (the extremely helpful and insightful) JL, we (a recent-batch YC company) have been repeatedly and substantially helped on important strategy matters by KN and CL. Reducing their roles to "taxes" and "legal" misses the point completely; they are more like "finance strategy" and "legal strategy". Both have advised us on important structural decisions we made early in o…

Although I'm merely a messenger in "my" two comments above, there seem to be 2 important takeaways here:

(1) First off, it's great that several YC founders are so quick to come to the female YC partners' defense, which lends a lot of credence to PG and JL's claims about the large role of female partners at YC.

(2) We all know that even the greatest product can be held back by poor marketing. I don't personally know the YC founders my friend above referenced (via my username), but the fact that some~many YC founders would think that at all, shows that there's a lack of good marketing/branding around how active and influential women (i.e. JL/KN/CL) are at YC.

The (positive) reality clearly does not match the (negative) perceptions.

I don't know what the solution would be, and you could certainly argue that PG/JL/et al. shouldn't have to "market" or "brand" this aspect of YC at all, but clearly this a problem, especially in light of PG's latest essay, the Information/Valleywag incident, etc.

Re: Female Founders

#243

Post by baddox »

the_watcher wrote: post #220
baddox wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all seriousness, why would that be the case? I assume you mean that you should start a startup if you believe that you can outperform the median, although presumably all (or most) founders believe that of themselves. I guess gambling based on your confidence in your ability is preferable to gambling on something else with poor performance at the median, like the lottery.

No, he would say you should start a startup because you want to start one. Your reading of it as "I should only start a startup if I think I am above median" is probably even more risk averse than he would advise, since he thinks many more people can start companies than do.

I should have been more explicit, and said "I should only start a startup if I think I am above median if my goal is to build a company that makes a net gain."

Re: Female Founders

#244

Post by glenra »

frandroid wrote: post #169
gaius wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I have noticed is female journalists, who chose not to do CS themselves, but feel very strongly that other women should go into CS. Not even that they wish they themselves could go back in time and get into BBC Micros. It's a curious phenomenon and I wonder if it's really driven by anything other bandwagoneering.

Do you not root for your country's athletes at the Olympics, and wish that more people would enroll in X so that your country would have a shot at a gold medal?

> Do you not root for your country's athletes at the Olympics, and wish that more people would enroll in X so that your country would have a shot at a gold medal?

This might be the wrong audience to ask a question like that. :-)

(My own answer: no, of course I don't root for my country's athletes at the Olympics or care whether "we" have a shot at a gold medal.)

Re: Female Founders

#246

Post by krstck »

codegeek wrote: post #211

I really want to ask pg why he even thinks there is a need to defend himself on these sensitive topics ? Is he really worried about his reputation that much ? I mean everyone knows what pg is known for: startups and innovations. Who cares about a misinterpretation of what he said or meant ? Honestly, every time he has to write a blog on what he meant, it kinda fuels the trolls and haters to counter argue. Why not jus…

I'd say it's not so much about defending his reputation as it is about trying to make sure that female founders don't avoid applying to YC because of this drama.

Re: Female Founders

#248

Post by eaurouge »

pg wrote: post #40
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…

The second paragraph amounts to a sexist version of "I'm not racist! I have black friends!" Actually by pointing out the degree to which women run things at YC it's closer to saying "I'm not racist! I'm black." And while it's possible for women to be sexist too, if you think Jessica, Kirsty, and Carolynn are sexist, I'd like to see you say it to their faces. And I do know something about groups working on getting gir…

I may be the public face of the company, but it's impossible to imagine YC doing something that Jessica, Kirsty, and Carolynn were against.

So effectively they have veto powers. This sounds a bit like "my wife runs the house, I'm only allowed to do what she lets me do." I know that's not what you mean, but you come off sounding too defensive in most of the essay. Stop playing defense with words, let your actions (or YC results speak for themselves). More importantly, take a step back to truly understand the problem and perhaps study some solutions that have worked in other industries.

Why do I think you should do some more studying?

Because you still make comments like this: "You can tell what the pool of potential startup founders looks like. There’s a bunch of ways you can do it. You can go on Google and search for audience photos of PyCon." You made a similar comment two years ago [1].

Because of statements in your essay like the ones highlighted by parfe in the parent post and by me in this post. These statements don't mean anything, they carry no weight, and I'm surprised you would think they do. All your best friends could be Martians and you could be actively trying to destroy every Martian on Mars, except your friends of course. One does not preclude the other.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3256052

Re: Female Founders

#249

Post by SandersAK »

mikeleeorg wrote: post #213

My main takeaway from reading this article and the comments here is: The awareness of this problem is still very nascent and more & more solutions are emerging, as are criticisms of people who are beginning to acknowledge this problem. To hopefully steer this in another direction, and because I have a little girl, what are some resources you all have seen that can help girls become interested and go into technical di…

this is probably the most constructive thing anyone could have done. this is a great list. thanks!

Re: Female Founders

#250

Post by kyro »

Zikes wrote: post #146

Judging by the comments on this article, it would appear that once you've been labeled a sexist it is downright impossible to dispel. I'm not sure what people expect, exactly. Is pg supposed to give up all his worldly goals and possessions and live as some sort of equality monk? Should he know of and contribute to every one of the many groups and organizations involved in gender equality? And what exactly is wrong wi…

PG is high profile. His companies and their founders are high profile. For as long as I can remember there's been a thick thread of schadenfreude woven throughout this community's reactions to various stories that have come out about YC, from Dropbox to Airbnb to PG's supposed racism and now sexism.

Trying to defend yourself or setting the record straight is almost useless when everyone's already made up their mind before entering the debate, especially here where there is this odd presumption that PG et al are money-grubbing fools willing to sacrifice their morals. No benefit of doubt is given. I've met PG briefly, have been to Startup Schools and can say that all the YC folk I've met seem like genuinely great people. Unfortunately, I don't have a citation handy.

This place as usual reads like a den of rabid pussycats.

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