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Female Founders

paulgraham.com

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Re: Female Founders

#271

Post by haberman »

pshin45 wrote: post #132
jl wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment makes me so angry that it is difficult to remain calm, but I will try. You have this wrong. All three of us are in charge of so much more than you suggest here. We all participate in investment decisions and advise the companies on many different matters-- including business strategy. Since we started YC, there has not been one important decision we've made that I have not been a part of.

(On behalf of the same friend) "That's good to know - I wasn't aware of that. I'm happy to hear this isn't the case, but I've heard this from YC founders many times which is why it was my perception."

Sounds like you, your friend, and their YC founder friends were actually hurting women by spreading untrue rumors that underplayed the true importance of these women in YC.

And yet there is no sense of remorse or apology for that.

Where is the indignation now towards yourself and them? Or is that only reserved for people who are actually doing something in the world?

Re: Female Founders

#272

Post by cynicalkane »

mcantelon wrote: post #269
cynicalkane wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the shallowness of that kind of P.C. bullying--Paul Graham has done much more for women in technology than any Internet bully, but he will continue to be attacked because it is possible to assign uncharitable interpretations to a few things he said once. When one realizes that this whole kerfuffle is not about being pro-woman, it's about posturing such that one appears to be pro-woman, then the attackers' vie…

I'm reminded of Ted Kaczynski's take on P.C. activism: "Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principle, and moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist…

I was referring to a specific subset of leftist behavior which I called "P.C. bullying."

But good job applying it to all leftist activism. By quoting the Unibomber. Because the Unibomber has done so much more for the cause of women and blacks than have left-wing activists.

That is to say, I'm not interested in going all anti-leftist and turning things into politics. You have me mistaken.

Re: Female Founders

#273

Post by crassus »

alecdbrooks wrote: post #253
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…

>And what exactly is wrong with the "I have black friends" defense? Are you trying to say that pg is friends with someone in spite of his supposed hateful nature? That he's somehow looked past the person's "shortcomings"? The critics I've read aren't saying pg has a hateful nature. They're saying that he hasn't fully accounted for his unconscious biases. Given that everyone's friends have actual shortcomings, it does…

Nobody can ever account for all unconscious bias. It's the original sin doctrine of the social justice warrior community.

Re: Female Founders

#274

Post by DanBC »

glenra wrote: post #226
DanBC wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Note that there is no similar hand-wringing about the lack of women in the fields of sanitation, construction, Yes there is, and examples of programmes to get men into. Ursing or women into construction have been posted to HN before. Someone always always makes the same point as you and for some reason it always manages to infuriate me. I've had to re-write this 4 times because it was so vicious at first. But it do…

The fact that you know of programs "to get men into nursing or women into construction" that have been "posted to HN before" or have seen some claim "debunked" in the past doesn't mean the person you're writing to has. FWIW, I read HN pretty regularly and had never noticed any programs to get more women into construction. Not to say that they don't exist, but I'd agree with your interlocutor that the level of hand-wr…

The women into construction line seems to be specific to a certain type of poster. It's a trope that gets trotted out by people who have seen it somewhere else.

Re: Female Founders

#275

Post by mcantelon »

cynicalkane wrote: post #272
mcantelon wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reminded of Ted Kaczynski's take on P.C. activism: "Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principle, and moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist…

I was referring to a specific subset of leftist behavior which I called "P.C. bullying." But good job applying it to all leftist activism. By quoting the Unibomber. Because the Unibomber has done so much more for the cause of women and blacks than have left-wing activists. That is to say, I'm not interested in going all anti-leftist and turning things into politics. You have me mistaken.

I'm not saying you're anti-leftist, simply quoting someone's take on the psychology behind P.C. bullying. Not everything has to involve left/right-wing tribalism.

Re: Female Founders

#276

Post by zaroth »

I wish I could contribute to conversations on sexism in tech, but I'm always too afraid of being burned at the stake for saying something the Internet doesn't like.

Re: Female Founders

#277

Post by Crito »

_delirium wrote: post #264
Crito wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PG is asserting that these particular women, Jessica, Kirsty, and Carolynn, are not sexists. Responding with statistics about women in general, rather than relevant information about those particular women, is problematic.

The personal opinions of individuals are pretty irrelevant when discussing systemic issues, so I don't see that as very productive to focus on. In either direction, actually; personally well-meaning people can nonetheless be complicit in systemic racism/sexism/etc., and personally bigoted people might not be. I do think YC is probably more open to women as founders than the VC norm, but it's the overall statistics th…

Systems are made of (or by) people. Systematic biases are not curses handed down by gods, they originate from somewhere within organizations.

It is therefore relevant to consider the individuals involved when we are talking about systematic biases of the system which is composed of them. You cannot talk about the biases of YC without talking about the biases of the people who comprise YC. It would be like talking about the structural integrity of a building while trying to never consider the physical properties of the building materials.

(Of course, even if we strike off this entire thread of conversation as irrelevant, that does not make the comment I was responding to any less problematic.)

Re: Female Founders

#278

Post by Karunamon »

DanBC wrote: post #105
cjbprime wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aren't upvotes a measure of interest? I would argue that the lack of upvotes on sexism-related posts indicates a lack of interest in discussing these issues on the part of the general population of HN. The sexism-related posts have a large number of upvotes, yet they are penalized anyway by the controversial algorithm under discussion.

Or maybe those threads are flagged by many people?

That was my understanding as well. Every single "sexism in tech" thread on HN devolves into some combination of the following:

   * The Tumblr SJW PC brigade flinging poo
   * The people who wish the first group would FOAD, flinging poo
   * The people who have something interesting to say lamenting the existence of
     the first two groups, who wish they'd both FOAD.
   * The people who make meta posts about the whole thing.
I.e. boring, predictable, bile-filled, and more suited to certain Reddit and Tumblr communities who shall remain nameless. Every time this comes up, especially this high up on the page, my reaction is "Oh god, not this shit again..."

I would have flagged it myself, but somehow I don't think flagging a PG article is conducive to my further ability to use the feature...

Re: Female Founders

#279

Post by debacle »

gaius wrote: post #184
frandroid wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don't think that's a scalable analogy. Programmers aren't an elite, really, among professionals. Anyone smart enough to be an accountant or a doctor or a civil engineer is smart enough for 99% of programming jobs, and many of them, for any programming job. Even someone who ended up as a journalist could probably handle the helpdesk or doing QA or websites.

I'm pretty elite, though.

Re: Female Founders

#280

Post by Tycho »

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…

I misread 'equality monk' as 'equity monk.' Now there's an interesting term... for startup founders and early stage employees perhaps.
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