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Wanelo: The First Million Users

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Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#101

Post by menacingly »

gus_massa wrote: post #92
matthewmacleod wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, and fuck you. Stupid shit like this is one of the biggest reasons we are struggling to get women into tech.

Very agresive tone. I almost downvoted you because I thought it was a comment to the article, until I realize it was a reply to a deleted comment. Do you have a copy of the original comment?

It was a positive quote about moving from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm which somehow triggered an outrageously aggressive response, then was deleted to compound the confusion.

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#102

Post by Robin_Message »

mtrimpe wrote: post #95
epistasis wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She says "no tech cofounder" when she was looking around for funding, and mentions it only to the extent that it makes it more difficult to get funding. The next slides are all about the technical team. Plenty of "co-founders" disappear in early stage startups that take a long time to get going, and at that point they're no longer co-founders, they were just associated people. I think that HN has a very low tolerance…

It's a sad, sad state of affairs. Especially seeing the points for my comment cycle up and down as rapidly as they are. 12,4,7,4,7,1 so far :( After reading Sam's last two blog posts I just decided to reconsider and apply to YC after all; but the atmosphere here is so toxic that I can't help but feel that I'd spend more energy on dealing with YC misogyny than actually participating.

If I may, I would dearly hope that YC itself, rather than a loosely affiliated internet forum where anyone can participate, has orders of magnitude less misogyny.

Also, if anyone was wondering why pg was trying out comment endorsement, this is why. I wouldn't be surprised if Hacker News was shut down entirely in the future. I wonder if it is the principal discouraging factor for female applicants to YC.

FWIW, why not apply, go meet the people in person, then decide if there will be more misogyny than useful participation.

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#103

Post by riggins »

mtrimpe wrote: post #95
epistasis wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She says "no tech cofounder" when she was looking around for funding, and mentions it only to the extent that it makes it more difficult to get funding. The next slides are all about the technical team. Plenty of "co-founders" disappear in early stage startups that take a long time to get going, and at that point they're no longer co-founders, they were just associated people. I think that HN has a very low tolerance…

It's a sad, sad state of affairs. Especially seeing the points for my comment cycle up and down as rapidly as they are. 12,4,7,4,7,1 so far :( After reading Sam's last two blog posts I just decided to reconsider and apply to YC after all; but the atmosphere here is so toxic that I can't help but feel that I'd spend more energy on dealing with YC misogyny than actually participating.

the atmosphere here is so toxic

1. I can't say since I haven't been through YC, but I imagine that HN, a site that's open to every joe schmoe on the internet, is not a good reflection of the population that's accepted to YC (probably the most exclusive start-up accelerator).

2. I don't know the truth of the original claim (presumably neither do you). My question is this, if the original claim that there was a technical co-founder that got pushed out is true, is it toxic for dogfood123 to state it?

I guess I'm saying it seems like its premature to say it's 'toxic'. I agree that if there are malicious users making up lies about female founders, that's toxic. OTOH, if the claim is true, I struggle to see how talking about reality is toxic.

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#104

Post by csomar »

mtrimpe wrote: post #40
dogfood123 wrote: post #27

This is an entirely bogus history. She had a tech co-founder and cut him out. I met him back in 2009. https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=8860093 Why lie about it?

Thank you HN for instantly voting this up to the top. A woman builds a big business from scratch and rather than wondering why it took so long for her to get funding we instantly latch on to a second-hand report that she might've had a falling out with someone before her site even started taking off. Ignoring the fact that this isn't incompatible with the presentation at all or that there's plenty of male founders wh…

Sorry, when someone writes a presentation or do a talk, he's probably being pushed by something:

1. To get his self-esteem to a higher level. Lots of people do talking for this. And they say lots of bullshit to attract your attention and boost their selves.

2. To genially tell the truth and help people. My guess is that this is the minority.

So I'm always skeptic about these stories.

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#105

Post by dudus »

downandout wrote: post #70
dogfood123 wrote: post #27

This is an entirely bogus history. She had a tech co-founder and cut him out. I met him back in 2009. https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=8860093 Why lie about it?

I'm not sure that she - the founder - is lying in this presentation (though she fails to mention her technical cofounder). I think it's more that the title of this submission, which was presumably not made by her, was inaccurate (and has since been changed to its current title which is more accurate). Lots of companies screw their technical cofounders. I was the technical cofounder of a company that was later acquire…

Technical folks screw business cofounders too. Look at facebook.

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#106

Post by jmharvey »

mtrimpe wrote: post #95
epistasis wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She says "no tech cofounder" when she was looking around for funding, and mentions it only to the extent that it makes it more difficult to get funding. The next slides are all about the technical team. Plenty of "co-founders" disappear in early stage startups that take a long time to get going, and at that point they're no longer co-founders, they were just associated people. I think that HN has a very low tolerance…

It's a sad, sad state of affairs. Especially seeing the points for my comment cycle up and down as rapidly as they are. 12,4,7,4,7,1 so far :( After reading Sam's last two blog posts I just decided to reconsider and apply to YC after all; but the atmosphere here is so toxic that I can't help but feel that I'd spend more energy on dealing with YC misogyny than actually participating.

I wouldn't let the atmosphere on HN deter you from applying to YC. YC is far from perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than a semi-anonymous internet forum.

I had a female (technical) cofounder, and her general take on YC was that she was treated well by the partners, and didn't encounter any blatant sexism from the batch, but many founders in the batch were young techie guys who gravitated toward conversing with other guys, so she really only got to know a subset of the batch (other women, plus the minority of male founders who were comfortable talking to women). Also, she felt there was a general assumption (among the batch, not the partners) that male founders were technical, but female founders were non-technical, which affected how people interacted with her in subtle ways. YC could do more to educate founders about unconscious bias (and for all I know, they have), but at least in our batch, I think that would have been considered somewhat beyond the scope of the program. I don't think she'd ever characterize it as "YC misogyny."

HN, on the other hand, is probably more representative of the attitude of the tech world at large, and possibly a bit worse. YC-founder HN comments are almost universally more civil and enlightened than the bulk of the comments on the site.

Apply to YC, or don't, that decision is yours. But as long as you're in the tech world, you're not going to avoid any extra sexism by avoiding YC.

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#107

Post by peterwwillis »

downandout wrote: post #99
xux wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a word of caution, if you're pursuing legal actions, you might consider not posting about any details publicly. Talk to your lawyer before you do anything...

I thought about that, but I've said nothing here that would hinder my case. They outright stole from me, and then when I called them on it, they responded with extortion. They aren't in a great legal position.

> I've said nothing here that would hinder my case

Any good lawyer will tell you the same piece of advice: "never say anything." It does absolutely zero positive good for your case and can only serve to hinder it later. It's very difficult sometimes to keep from providing what you consider to be valuable feedback for others, but you have your own interests to consider first.

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#108

Post by kaitai »

jmharvey wrote: post #106
mtrimpe wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a sad, sad state of affairs. Especially seeing the points for my comment cycle up and down as rapidly as they are. 12,4,7,4,7,1 so far :( After reading Sam's last two blog posts I just decided to reconsider and apply to YC after all; but the atmosphere here is so toxic that I can't help but feel that I'd spend more energy on dealing with YC misogyny than actually participating.

I wouldn't let the atmosphere on HN deter you from applying to YC. YC is far from perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than a semi-anonymous internet forum. I had a female (technical) cofounder, and her general take on YC was that she was treated well by the partners, and didn't encounter any blatant sexism from the batch, but many founders in the batch were young techie guys who gravitated toward conversing with…

This is a very informative comment. Sounds like a familiar environment to me. To the person you were responding to, sounds like YC still may have a lot to offer but you'll have to figure out if you can deal with the low-grade non-intentional but still-present social exclusion.

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#110

Post by Kluny »

downandout wrote: post #88
imdsm wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any name?

I probably shouldn't say here, but since I've posted the info before here years ago, I guess it doesn't really matter. http://anakam.com (redirects to Equifax, who bought the company and tried to extort me, original company was Anakam LLC).

As much as I'm interested and curious to hear the details, I really wish you would delete all the comments you've made about this. I would hate it if they were able to convince a judge that your case is invalid based on something careless you said on the internet.
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