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Female Founders

paulgraham.com

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Re: Female Founders

#361

Post by mikeleeorg »

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…

Some more links:

http://www.engineergirl.org/

http://www.techneedsgirls.org/

http://www.techgirlz.org/

http://www.stemettes.org/

http://www.dotdiva.org/

http://learninglabs.org/members/girls-learning-code/

http://www.girldevelopit.com/

And I'm sure there are lots of great entrepreneurial minds here who are building similar solutions too.

Re: Female Founders

#362

Post by makomk »

jammur wrote: post #325
abalone wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also this gem. PG: "A lot of people outside the startup world seem to assume that investors have the same sort of naive bias ordinary people do when deciding who to invite to join a club—that they simply fund the people most like them. That is not true." John Doerr, famous investor: "That correlates more with any other success factor that I’ve seen in the world’s greatest entrepreneurs. If you look at Bezos,…

I think you misinterpreted that. PG said funding decisions aren't made based on similarity to the people making the funding decision. John Doerr is saying that sometimes one of factors in making a funding decision is similarity to other massively successful founders, not the people making the funding decisions. PG has been pretty open about the fact that pattern matching to other successful founders is very common.

The other massively successful founders are also incredibly similar to the people making the funding decisions, though - in fact, quite often they are the people making those decisions.

Re: Female Founders

#363

Post by dragonwriter »

eatitraw wrote: post #339
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside: I've looked at that BlackGirlsCode link a bit more and I'm quite shocked that such segregation is encouraged, lauded even. Now there's some argument to support educating the sexes separately but if you're an asian girl living in Brooklyn (say) you can't go? Just because you're Asian ... ??? Really? What if you're half-Asian+half-African, how about your skins black but you're South American. Damn. Do people rea…

Why the fuck is this being downvoted? The comment isn't stupid: such gender/race discrimination _may_ backfire(for example, if your message is read not as "black girls have the same abilities but may need extra help" but as "black girls need extra help because they are black & girls -- inherently less smart and talented". Now, I'm not saying that it _will_ backfire(I guess it probably won't) but it _may_. Also, the a…

> Also, the author makes a really good point that you probably want to help all disadvantaged(unless you're racist/sexist for some reason): why exclude asian girls if they get less help?

That one group is focussed on dealing with the problems experienced by one disadvantaged group does not imply intent to exclude others, it can just mean that they feel that the particular reason that one group is underrepresented are specific and that that is what they are focussed on addressing.

Particularly if the problem they are addressing isn't outright racism/sexism, but disadvantage due to mainstream educational systems being culturally maladapted to the target group, other groups -- even if similarly disadvantaged by the mainstream system -- may naturally not be well served by their particular programs either, and making clear where the focus is helps people to find the right fit for their needs.

Obviously, the ideal state would be to not need such targetted groups, but the existence of disadvantage doesn't mean that there is a good short-term one-size fits all solution.

Re: Female Founders

#364

Post by pbhjpbhj »

[deleted] wrote: post #355
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is racism. It's just that it's racism you appear to like.

[deleted]

>an opportunity created for one person //

An opportunity only offered to one person out of a group who would similarly benefit from that opportunity simply based on their racial heritage is racism. Yes. It's entirely unnecessary discrimination.

"All the blue-eyed children may leave early for recess." [not a direct quote AFAIK] - the brown/green/whatever eyed children would equally benefit from early recess.

Re: Female Founders

#365

Post by Crito »

dragonwriter wrote: post #319
Crito wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose my hangup here is what I perceive to be the difference between evidence and proof. It is entirely possible to find evidence of things that turn out to be false. For example, you could take the seemingly chaotic retrograde motion of the planets in the night sky as evidence of the existence of gods with self-determination. We know know that isn't true, we have better explanations for that phenomenon (notably…

Evidence for or against bias on a particular axis is something that tends to indicate the presence or absence of differential treatment basis on that axis. Facts which do not provide a basis for comparisons of how different values on that axis are treated are not much evidence for or against bias, this include facts about outcome (e.g., all the people I hired are black, etc.) without additional information from which…

I don't think such statements are totally worthless, but I do see where you are coming from now. Thank you.

Re: Female Founders

#366

Post by crassus »

MrZongle2 wrote: post #78
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!"' Tangent: if I am attempting to prove that I am not bigoted against group X and by doing so I point out that I have members of group X amongst my friends, haven't I made my point if they really ARE my friends? Or is it up to the mob to define what "friendship" is?

You can't prove that you're not a witch.

Someday, the community can wake up and decide that witch-hunting is not a respectable hobby.

Re: Female Founders

#367

Post by johngalt »

Helianthus wrote: post #112
pg wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the trolls I care about so much as more moderate people who may have seen the fight from a distance and come away with the idea that YC is somehow sexist. Particularly women, because I want them to apply.

In other words, this is a posture piece: it's about your reputation, and only about the issue at hand insomuch as it is important to give that issue its due. I mean that ('posture piece') as neutrally, perhaps, as it is possible to mean it. >come away with the idea that YC is somehow sexist. And you can say, with a straight face, that YC is not sexist? That it's just the tech environment, and you're on the 'right sid…

i.e. Not only is pg a witch but also a liar for not admitting it!

Look we get it. You enjoy being some moral arbiter that has impossible standards so you can act like your better than everyone while accomplishing nothing.

Re: Female Founders

#368

Post by 001sky »

001sky wrote: post #255
angersock wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it matter?

YC is generally biased against non-technical founders. So, yes...

"We tend to fund technical founders..."

From the article, "What stops female founders?"[1].

[1] Citation: http://www.foundersatwork.com/1/post/2011/01/what-stops-fema...

Re: Female Founders

#369

Post by jessedhillon »

hnriot wrote: post #346
prayag wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you don't understand what racism is. Racism isn't just treating someone differently because she belongs to a different race. Racism has more to do with power dynamics than with color of a person's skin. For example, just because a college has different standards of admission for different races to promote diversity is not racism but to give preferential treatment to the group of people who have mo…

While that's an interesting view, it's also wrong. It might make for a good way of justifying things in your mind, you should really take a look at the more common definitions of racism to understand why this point of view you have in one held by a minority of people.

Hey, you know what? If every black person sees you and thinks "honkey," you will likely experience hurt feelings, and a slight discomfort when in certain neighborhoods. You probably will stop going to those places. It would be very hard to blame lack of progress in your professional or academic career on this perception. You could go almost your whole life without that perception having any tangible manifestation in your life.

If every white person thinks the N-word when he sees a black person, that fact creates an inescapable environment of hostility where anyone would feel completely helpless to create any sort of positive future for themselves. Of course we don't live in a world where everyone is this blatantly racist. The point of this is to explain to you in a different way why racism is more powerful than just "you exclude people based on race." Some people need environments where they can feel comfortable learning, before they can get up to speed and have the confidence to defend themselves against criticism and hostility.

...you should really take a look at the more common definitions of racism to understand why this point of view you have in one held by a minority of people.

Right. Because letting the majority population define which terms an aggrieved minority can use to describe its own situation is completely sensible. What a surprise, the discriminated minority has a different view of the majority's behaviors than do those in the majority!

Re: Female Founders

#370

Post by mkr-hn »

prayag wrote: post #340
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside: I've looked at that BlackGirlsCode link a bit more and I'm quite shocked that such segregation is encouraged, lauded even. Now there's some argument to support educating the sexes separately but if you're an asian girl living in Brooklyn (say) you can't go? Just because you're Asian ... ??? Really? What if you're half-Asian+half-African, how about your skins black but you're South American. Damn. Do people rea…

The problem is that you don't understand what racism is. Racism isn't just treating someone differently because she belongs to a different race. Racism has more to do with power dynamics than with color of a person's skin. For example, just because a college has different standards of admission for different races to promote diversity is not racism but to give preferential treatment to the group of people who have mo…

> The problem is that you don't understand what racism is. Racism isn't just treating someone differently because she belongs to a different race. Racism has more to do with power dynamics than with color of a person's skin.

Some smart people cleared this up for me: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskSocialScience/comments/1rwvc3/why...

To answer "is this racism?", you have to ask "which racism?"

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