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Female Founders

paulgraham.com

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Re: Female Founders

#381

Post by pshin45 »

haberman wrote: post #331
pshin45 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you have me/us do then?

It's not my place to ask, but if I were Jessica I would probably appreciate an apology. She said you made her so angry that it was difficult to remain calm. If you make someone that angry in real life based on your own mistake, wouldn't you normally apologize for it? But my greater point was that there is generally too much criticism and indignation that are substituting for listening and understanding. Put yourself…

(closing comment from my friend)

"Yes, I absolutely am sorry and saddened to have made JL upset. Again, it's been my understanding that while the female partners are great and I'm sure sit in on important decisions, they are primarily YC's accountant and lawyer. If that's not their main role at YC, I and others are mistaken. For the record, I think JL is /great/ and YC would do itself a lot of good to hire other women like her."

Re: Female Founders

#382

Post by funthree »

nicholasjbs wrote: post #263
EricaJoy wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And I do know something about groups working on getting girls and women interested in programming. In fact we've funded two that are partially focused on that: Hacker School and one of the nonprofits in the current batch. Can you share more about what Hacker School is doing to get girls and women interested in programming? "Hacker School is currently only for people who already know how to code," according to their…

Hacker School founder here. You're correct that Hacker School is not for people who have never programmed before. We are not directly working on helping people write their first line of code. But we do help people, including many women, take the next step (e.g., we've had women come to HS as little as eight weeks after they wrote their first lines of code). Learning to code is a continuum (and something that takes pl…

After reading this from pg today and your comment here, I'll again suggest considering a change to your logo to a young female hacker or a male/female hacker pair and changing your name to NY Hacker Apprenticeship. Role model, balance, etc, etc. Possibly we can then have many Apprenticeship programs across the US, a useful but long gone part of our economy as people. The needs of role models are fulfilled, and the equality debate can be put in its place by making the political stance clear at the front door.

Re: Female Founders

#383

Post by erichocean »

crassus wrote: post #356
reinhardt wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why we can't have nice things. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Such bullying incidents may look like PR victories for the PC crowd in terms of shaping public opinion. What they miss though is that even when they don't backfire loudly (see "donglegate"), they turn off moderate people who are otherwise neutral or sympathetic to reasonable calls for equal opportunities. By trying to guilt trip the whole wh…

The weird secret of Social Justice, including the "all white men are evil, because the group on average is successful" faction, is that it's mostly white men bullying other white men.

That reminded me of this gem from The Onion:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-finally-put-in-charge-o...

Re: Female Founders

#384

Post by dragonwriter »

joyeuse6701 wrote: post #357
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…

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…

> BlackGirlsCode is specifically geared for one power dynamic, black girls vs white girls.

I'm pretty sure its not geared for that at all.

Re: Female Founders

#385

Post by gohrt »

shawnee_ wrote: post #380

The 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 Cre…

> 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.

You can try it! There is common practice in China to hire a white American actor to overcome the prejudices of business dealmakers.

Re: Female Founders

#386

Post by mwetzler »

zorpner wrote: post #65
pg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. That... is not an argument? There's ample evidence to show that members of underrepresented groups within individual companies/industries experience unconscious biases in hiring/ranking/etc, even towards groups of which they're a member.

Everyone is sexist to some degree, even women, even me. We all have unconscious biases because that's the way the human brain works. We do pattern matching. And we currently live in an environment where women are _usually_ not amazing programmers and startup CEOS. Admitting that would add a lot more strength to PG's piece.

For more info and facts on unconscious bias and women in tech:

http://www.ncwit.org/sites/default/files/resources/ncwit_the...

Unconscious bias is the reason a resume with a female name is rated more poorly, even by women.

Re: Female Founders

#387

Post by noblethrasher »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #328
noblethrasher wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be more like saying "I'm not racist because my spouse is black".

Odds are good if you're married to someone of a different race, your in-laws are of a different race, and you know your kids are going to be mixed, that you're probably not racist.

Precisely.

Re: Female Founders

#388

Post by gohrt »

rhizome wrote: post #344
eatitraw wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Come back when black women run the Federal Reserve and have corrupted it to their own benefit. Then, maybe , we can talk about "backfiring."

Your comment is insinuating that Asian, Indian, etc women and men have corrupted it for their own beefit, and that this corruption somehow benefits a mutual-aid society of white males. Is that what you intend to claim?

Re: Female Founders

#389

Post by comicjk »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #320
comicjk wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can we speed things to being better by being unfair the other way now? Absolutely not. Do you have any evidence for this? Because prima facie, reaching out to women does get some of them into tech fields, and we know that young women who grow up around women in tech are more likely to become such themselves. Are you claiming that we can't actually influence the number of women in tech by discriminating in their fav…

Are you prepared to argue that because my mother was discriminated against in the past based on her sex it's now moral to discriminate against me (male) because of my sex? Either I quash your argument by showing you how my grandfather was sexual discriminated against (which would by the logic that made such an argument above make discriminating against my mother justified) or we have to say that it's OK to discrimina…

The justification for affirmative action is not past discrimination itself, but its continued effects. Many groups have been discriminated against but recovered; there is no affirmative action for the Irish. For those that haven't, we use affirmative action. Thus, we wouldn't discriminate against your daughter entering tech unless men had in the meantime become ostracized as unmanly for pursuing tech, which is unlikely.

Re: Female Founders

#390

Post by jamesbritt »

rhizome wrote: post #347
crassus wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what are you going to do if your daughter wants to be a veterinarian? Is that a problem?

Do you not know that Veterinary Medicine is heavily populated with women?

I think that was part of the point being made.
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