I read this a few times and couldn't understand what pg meant here:
If your numbers go up steeply enough for long enough, you could have eyeballs on stalks and investors will fund you.
What are these "stalks"?
Female Founders
371–380 of 634 posts
Re: Female Founders
#372Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every time... Theory: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6441795 Potential examples: 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6885123 - Homeless coder starts app 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6365495 - Africans genetically more corrupt? 3. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6448409 - Rick Ross's history 4. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6857739 - Nelson Mandela dies 5. https://news.ycombinator.com/…
That's the amazing thing about threading. One can comment on a specific issue without derailing a main thread. I noted it was an aside (OT if you prefer) - I don't see how allowing the promotion of racism helps the thread any more than my your injunction to others to ignore it. If you don't want to comment, don't. It's an affront to the community here IMO for you to tell us what we may or may not discuss. Edit: I thi…
Yes I did edit. My original comment was congratulating & encouraging HN for ignoring & downvoting your comment but then the replies started coming in and your comment was no longer greyed-out, so instead I just changed my comment into my standard copy&paste list and you are now the 9th on the list when the next time I need to post it arises.
That is all.
Re: Female Founders
#373Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey I'm a white dude and I've worked with Black Girls Code on a few workshops. Just FYI girls of any race are allowed, it's just that this particular group caters primarily to black girls. I'd say from the outside looking in it is a thorny subject, but in my observance BGC are good people who care about their community and are giving back to it through the knowledge and resources they've accrued.
Thanks for your comment and your work - beta is one of the tools being used at BGC isn't it¹. More power to your arm! [or firings to your synapses or whatever]. > my observance BGC are good people who care about their community It's such a shame then that they promote themselves as only caring for the part of their community that has a particular colour of skin. ¹ - http://betathegame.com/
Until you've been a victim of the kind of systemic racism they are trying to reverse, maybe consider that you know nothing about how such efforts should market themselves?
Re: Female Founders
#374Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think a major argument against this, in the field of programming in particular, is that most of those other field-related imbalances are culture-neutral . You'll find more male sanitation workers, construction workers, plumbers, etc. everywhere from the US, to Brazil, to China, to Russia, to Pakistan. (Controlling, of course, for the more general inequities in employment-by-gender that those cultures face.) But the…
Do you have any statistics for your claim about female programmers in India? I have yet to meet a single Indian programmer who was female in the decade and a half I have been programming. In fact, the only females in tech of Indian heritage that I know have been US-born.
I don't have statistics, but Apple sent me to India/Infosys in 2009 to train their programmers, and it seemed about 50/50 to me (I worked with a few hundred people). I have no idea if that's representative, but I have no reason to think it isn't.
Re: Female Founders
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
To add my own experiential insight as a female who started coding at 11 (without the aid or encouragment of a parent like you!)... Reflecting on my thought processes at that age, I remember it being entirely about 2 things: 1. Expression. Nothing could have sounded more dull than building aimlessly-- I wanted to DESIGN. (My definition of this being "carrying out a specific communicative purpose through look and funct…
>"expression" >"design" >"communicative purpose" >"social dynamics" >"affect people with what I was making" >"impressing friends/boyfriends" >"coding" >websites No need to declare that you're a blogger. It's obvious.
I'm not sure if this is an insult, but it reads like one.
Re: Female Founders
#376Earlier 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…
erm, it is a potentially racist organization, here's why: BlackGirlsCode is specifically geared for one power dynamic, black girls vs white girls. While they may be attempting to level the playing field between white and black which is politically and socially acceptable, they are furthering the gap between black and (pick an underrepresented minority). This exclusivity is exactly how every power came into power and…
Ah, please regale us with your tales of successfully combatting racism and evening a tilted playing field. I know many people who need the benefit of your undoubtedly extensive experience in the trenches. I'm sure that your comment is not merely an uninformed effort made from your armchair.
Re: Female Founders
#377Earlier quoted context omitted.
Come back when black women run the Federal Reserve and have corrupted it to their own benefit. Then, maybe , we can talk about "backfiring."
It is not like profit from white males running Federal Reserves automatically goes to underadvantaged white males. My point is that if you believe in equal abilities regardless of race/gender then you probably want to completely get rid of race and gender fields in your application form. And if you actually support discriminating against these fields, then you have to explain your decision rather than simply hit down…
> My point is that if you believe in equal abilities regardless of race/gender then you probably want to completely get rid of race and gender fields in your application form.
You probably want to avoid them being used in selection decisions, but you may -- particularly if you are a group whose mission is dealing with the specific barriers to a specific disadvantaged race/sex subgroup -- want to have them on your admission form so that you can assess (a) whether you are effectively serving your mission, and (b) whether your program has broader utility than you expected and perhaps should be described differently.
Re: Female Founders
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey I'm a white dude and I've worked with Black Girls Code on a few workshops. Just FYI girls of any race are allowed, it's just that this particular group caters primarily to black girls. I'd say from the outside looking in it is a thorny subject, but in my observance BGC are good people who care about their community and are giving back to it through the knowledge and resources they've accrued.
Thanks for your comment and your work - beta is one of the tools being used at BGC isn't it¹. More power to your arm! [or firings to your synapses or whatever]. > my observance BGC are good people who care about their community It's such a shame then that they promote themselves as only caring for the part of their community that has a particular colour of skin. ¹ - http://betathegame.com/
Thanks, I guess? I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic it's hard to tell online. Just so you know I am not trying to argue with you, just sharing my experience with BGC.
You are correct that Beta is a tool being used at BGC, and we collaborate with other organizations listed by mikeleeorg.
I understand what you are saying however it's my opinion that any community (racial, ethnic, religious etc) that is attempting to impart knowledge is doing a good thing. Particularly when that knowledge is important and beneficial to the future, as I believe programming is.
Re: Female Founders
#379I read this a few times and couldn't understand what pg meant here: If your numbers go up steeply enough for long enough, you could have eyeballs on stalks and investors will fund you. What are these "stalks"?
pg is making a joke. aliens in science fiction films are often depicted as having their eyes positioned at the end of long eyestalks.
Re: Female Founders
#380The tone of this article is pretty defensive and borders on hostile. Understandably? Yeah, it sucks when people misinterpret a sentiment or take something out of context, but if you really want an open discussion about why there aren't more female founders, acknowledge your part. There's a dearth of female founders because YC and angels and VCs are just not as willing to fund females. Until 1974 -- when the Equal Credit Opportunity Act was passed -- they weren't even willing to give women a credit card in her own name.
source: http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/6500-1200.html
We were not angry that the application I (early 30's F) and my cofounder (early 20's F) submitted was rejected from the last YC application process. But we were pretty confused. It's an emerging green-tech niche in an industry beyond primed for some technical disruption. Maybe I don't have CS degree, but I did earn a master's in a male dominated field. Over these last 10 years or so have learned enough to write all the code for our prototype. My cofounder went to Cornell. With just a tiny bit of help, we could have built something great. But instead she's interning at a newspaper, making $10 an hour, and I'm getting "it's just not a great fit" rejection emails.
We decided that we were about 95 percent certain that if it had been 2 guys applying with this idea, YC would have at least given us an interview. The fact of the matter is that Silicon Valley treats us very badly. If we can't put our talent and ideas to work "for the man", why is it so hard for us to put our ideas to work for ourselves?