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Female Founders

paulgraham.com

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Re: Female Founders

#471

Post by darklrd »

crassus wrote: post #466
darklrd wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So true, in the end, it's not pg's fault if there is sexism and racism in the tech industry. They are doing their bit to improve the situation. Others should also try and do the same.

How much sexism and racism is there really in the tech industry? Most tech companies are quite the rainbow - 5 or 6 different native languages in a small company is not uncommon.

Yes, I agree with you, I don't think there is much specially in startups (although I don't have any proof to support this claim).

Re: Female Founders

#472

Post by anatoly »

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…

>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.

I've seen a lot of Twitter rage that is rather like this one: https://twitter.com/monteiro/status/416728196503973888

Re: Female Founders

#473

Post by klipt »

jlees wrote: post #176
SloughFeg wrote: post #97

It's interesting that neither this article or Paul's related December article ever address the most basic and seminal question about this in the first place: why is this a problem? Why is it a big deal if there are less female founders than male? It seems like this whole discussion has been nothing but a bunch of posturing and vague half-solutions about an issue that I'm not sure even exists.

Lemma: Women-led companies are desirable. Vivek Wadhwa is doing a bunch of research into the data. I don't have his report at my fingertips but fundamentally, not investing in women is not a rational move. Here's the media headline version: "Women-led private technology companies are more capital-efficient, achieve 35 percent higher return on investment, and, when venture-backed, bring in 12 percent higher revenue th…

Correlation is not causation.

Re: Female Founders

#474

Post by reinhardt »

crassus wrote: post #464
girvo wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'tptaeck didn't tweet, it was a comment on HN, just FYI. I think you two are taking about two different things.

I remember this guy, for starters. Nobody's holier than him: https://mobile.twitter.com/jacobian/status/41791439674503168... https://mobile.twitter.com/jacobian/status/41790492741167923... https://mobile.twitter.com/jacobian/status/41777583546709606...

What's embarrassing is that this self-righteous, guilt-tripped social justice douchebag is a BDFL of Django. I wouldn't be surprised if some current or potential Django users or contributors get sick of his jihad and turn to to a different developer community.

Re: Female Founders

#475

Post by aragot »

theorique wrote: post #353
kyro wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

pg is neither a racist nor a sexist, but because he does not jump to support every pet cause of every self-described "social justice jihadi", he is lambasted as such. Well, guess what? pg is his own person. He's just a guy who invests in startups, not some sort of idol upon whom you can project all your transformational, social-justice dreams for the tech industry. Is there racism and sexism in tech? Sure. Is that pg…

Just a question, why is pg in person supposed to care about equality and what happens if he loses the fight? Do you have prison sentences or civil excommunication about that?

Re: Female Founders

#476

Post by aragot »

crassus wrote: post #466
darklrd wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So true, in the end, it's not pg's fault if there is sexism and racism in the tech industry. They are doing their bit to improve the situation. Others should also try and do the same.

How much sexism and racism is there really in the tech industry? Most tech companies are quite the rainbow - 5 or 6 different native languages in a small company is not uncommon.

Only woked in 3 companies in 7 years but on the field, women in IT benefit a lot from positive discrimination. In fact they're promoted to managing jobs much sooner after they ask than men as far as I saw examples. Sexism is much more of a problem in the food industry and so on, so I would recommend IT jobs to girls if they want a great career with few hassles.

In fact I recommend IT jobs to everyone. The social inabilities that goes with programming is a repellent for everyone, but c'mon, we get to travel everywhere in the world, sit all day and watch gmail all the time. There couldn't be a more luxury job.

So a problem is, articles about sexism don't match the observations I've made on the field.

Edit: Added the last sentence and figures about my experience.

Re: Female Founders

#477

Post by ChrisNorstrom »

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.

You're one of the few people here that understands this. Thank you. It's mostly white men trying to be someone elses savoir to free themselves from racial tension induced white guilt.

Re: Female Founders

#478

Post by tadfisher »

wanda wrote: post #349
stephp wrote: post #300

Earlier 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.

That was untoward and uncalled for.

Re: Female Founders

#480

Post by stedaniels »

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.

"White Knighting" is common enough around the world. Let me save you from those horrible people (who probably aren't that horrible).
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