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Female Founders

paulgraham.com

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Re: Female Founders

#551

Post by Crake »

kens wrote: post #267
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…

Based on my daughter and her friends, involvement in Lego Mindstorms robotics and First Lego League competitions is another great way to get girls interested in programming and technology.

I wanted a Lego Mindstorm kit so badly as a kid, but my parents never got me one. I think my life would have been a lot different if my home situation had at least afforded me that one thing.

Re: Female Founders

#552

Post by anatoly »

erichocean wrote: post #534
crassus wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would never work with him or one of the other SJWs in tech (Alex Gaynor, Bryan Cantrill, Adria Richards). You know they would be more than happy to ruin you if you slip up and say something remotely non-progressive, or that can be twisted to sound non-progressive.

Bryan Cantrill Citation please.

http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun

(context at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6825924)

Re: Female Founders

#553

Post by joyeuse6701 »

kaitai wrote: post #396
joyeuse6701 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No: Black Girls Code is focusing on black vs white (dominant paradigm in US) female vs male young vs old It's attempting to do successful intervention & marketing, essentially, by focusing on a specific demographic. As we all should know, focusing on a specific demographic is a fine way to produce a product targeted to that demographic's needs. Young black women have different pain points in tech than Zuckalikes or m…

You're right, but I'd say my comparison is at least a subset of what you're covering.

Yeah, targeting is one thing, exclusion is entirely another. If you're excluding other races from your product that's well...racist.

>The rest of your comment is pure silliness. Every power that came into power, to repeat your phrasing, did so by claiming they were the best and then grabbing the money. When I see the black girls of code claiming they are racially and morally superior to everyone else, and making tons of cash, I'll consider believing you.

Well, I said potentially and you said 'claiming' implying an active process of obtaining power. We are in agreement that black girls are not a powerful force in the development community, but neither were (pick small exclusionary group/minority that came to power). Rwanda anyone?

They aren't now, but could be, especially with the principles they are using that are in place.

Re: Female Founders

#554

Post by theodoracharl »

Helianthus wrote: post #225
Rylinks wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If pg would get in trouble no matter how innocuous the essay, why should we pay any attention to whether he does?

Because by engaging the toxic, he's cementing his role in the toxic. Dude actually wrote : 'by pointing out the degree to which women run things at YC it's closer to saying "I'm not racist! I'm black."' Comedy gold. You just don't say stuff like that. I mean, maybe he's got some semblance of a good point in there somewhere, but you can't hear it over the kneejerk outrage. And maybe that's where I have a problem with…

PG is now and always has been one of those ruthlessly pragmatic people. He has his mission and he sticks to it. His mission exists within an overarching framework that many of us consider horrific. His work is genuinely less horrific than that of his competitors (standard VCs) and that is one of his selling points.

It's business as usual. I suppose people like you and I are more interested in understanding the relation of SV to the broad context of humanity. Which is why we always get downvoted into oblivion and have to create new accounts.

Re: Female Founders

#555

Post by erichocean »

anatoly wrote: post #552
erichocean wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bryan Cantrill Citation please.

http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun (context at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6825924 )

Thanks!

UPDATE: Read up on the thread. Very sad to see how people, and Joyent in particular, came down on Ben. WTF. For what it's worth, here's Ben's response.[0] Reading that, it's pretty obvious he's the only adult involved in that whole fiasco. Seriously, W.T.F.

[0] https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015#issuecomment-29568...

Re: Female Founders

#556

Post by joyeuse6701 »

jessedhillon wrote: post #376
joyeuse6701 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm half black half white, born of a polish father who managed to make it from Poland in 1975, and an army brat african american mother. I grew up in a predominantly white irish and white jewish community on the North Shore of Chicago, racism was subtle but it was there. My older sister has significant experience in this particular field as a woman who was pushed into various programs like this. I happened to end up in CEED at UCLA, a minority focused engineering program and went through the fun stuff of National Achievement related stuff.

So, I know something of the subject.

Re: Female Founders

#557

Post by Crito »

baddox wrote: post #241
anthuswilliams wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this axiom only applies to inclusion in desirable groups or roles. It's hard to imagine even the most egalitarian thinker working to improve the male:female ratio among death row inmates, for example.

I don't know. I suspect many would think that. The disproportionately large number of African Americans in prison and on death row is certainly widely considered (by myself included) to be a bad thing. Of course, for me personally, I don't want it to be resolved by adding more people of other ethnicities to the group.

The issue is fuzzed when you consider less extreme cases than "death row inmates". That is something of a special case since there are many people who think that nobody should be a death row inmate.

A more normal case might be "gender imbalance among garbage collectors" Nobody is going to argue that this imbalance should be corrected by reducing the number of garbage collectors, since they like their trash to be collected. Would they instead argue that the imbalance should be corrected by adding more female garbage collectors? Doubtful. In practice, they will just ignore that imbalance completely. It won't be discussed.

Re: Female Founders

#558

Post by joyeuse6701 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #384
joyeuse6701 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This was in context to the previous comment about power dynamics, but you're right.

Re: Female Founders

#559

Post by Crake »

pshin45 wrote: post #242
_dps wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... and lest anyone think this is limited just to (the extremely helpful and insightful) JL, we (a recent-batch YC company) have been repeatedly and substantially helped on important strategy matters by KN and CL. Reducing their roles to "taxes" and "legal" misses the point completely; they are more like "finance strategy" and "legal strategy". Both have advised us on important structural decisions we made early in o…

Although I'm merely a messenger in "my" two comments above, there seem to be 2 important takeaways here: (1) First off, it's great that several YC founders are so quick to come to the female YC partners' defense, which lends a lot of credence to PG and JL's claims about the large role of female partners at YC. (2) We all know that even the greatest product can be held back by poor marketing. I don't personally know t…

Just because your friend wasn't aware of their roles doesn't mean that his/her lack of awareness is someone else's fault and responsibility. Maybe s/he should research a little more next time before singling out and belittling female tech workers. Isn't the rallying cry of social justice something like "it's not our job to educate you?"

Re: Female Founders

#560

Post by Crake »

Tossrock wrote: post #336
pshin45 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you have me/us do then?

Name your friend, name the YC founders who held this perception so they can discuss it with the involved parties. Of course, that won't happen.

Naming and shaming is something sjws do, not suffer through. Equal treatment would be sex/rac/heterosex/ist!
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