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A Reminder To Investors

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: A Reminder To Investors

#231

Post by StandardFuture »

bmelton wrote: post #230
StandardFuture wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exchanging of ideas is the definition of conversation itself, it is not particular to 'scholarly discussions'. That alone completely negates your point. However, I understand what you are trying to say. You are worried that the dismissal of conversation is a bad attitude towards progress. That is true. BUT that is not what is happening here. The premise was already set for what this conversation would be about. Y…

Fine. Let's kill it all with semantics then. I'll just amend your allegation to this, and leave it alone. Stopping any scholarly discussion is, in my opinion, pure absurdity.

>Stopping any scholarly discussion is, in my opinion, pure absurdity.

And yet you hypocritically just put an end to a conversation that would be about: "Whether or not stopping points for scholarly discussions can be useful".

How can you not even see how unfruitful your conclusions are?

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#232

Post by throw2 »

untog wrote: post #39
obvious_throw wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"all the time" in the mind of Shanley Kane, et. al. Disclaimers like these are mainly CYA statements such that the rabid hordes of social justice warriors don't throw Y Combinator under the bus on Pando because of a disgruntled founder looking to capitalize on feels where capitalizing on actual talent or acumen failed.

Sigh. Let me guess - you're a white dude, aren't you? Of course you don't see this happening. Of course you don't see discrimination in the workplace. Maybe - just for once - accept that the people who actually do face this stuff are telling you that it does happen, and that we should do something about it. Maybe try listening to a perspective - any one will do, really - that is different from your own.

This is an incredibly offensive comment.

Firstly, discrimination in the workplace is not limited to "non-whites". Secondly, you cannot claim the supreme and unilateral right to determine what constitutes discrimination based on your race.

Simply stating "you're white and therefore you cannot see it" is both unreasonable, racist, and, if put forth as grounds for legislation, incredibly corrosive to the notion of rule of law.

The idea that only whites as a universal class are somehow unable to perceive discrimination is ridiculous and highly offensive.

You should apologize for your comment.

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#233

Post by balls187 »

afro88 wrote: post #229
acabrahams wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. You are generalizing. Massively. There is no possible situation in which a VC I had met could ask me out without making me feel extremely uncomfortable, to put it lightly. There are lots of logical reasons for this reaction, and I will list some of them briefly. 1) Power of VC network is implicit threat to 'play nice' and go along with it, even if VC in question has no intention of being nasty in any way. 2) The…

I think balls187 left off one important point as a VC: make it clear that you aren't interested in investing in their company, but want to go for coffee/lunch/whatever on a purely personal basis. As a founder, the discomfort comes from not knowing the VC's intentions and how you are supposed to act with regards to your company. The VC needs to draw a clear line (ruling out investment and all other professional involv…

> make it clear that you aren't interested in investing in their company, but want to go for coffee/lunch/whatever on a purely personal basis.

You're 100% right (which is why I said don't mislead).

However, this is far more nuanced, than I first imagined. From purely a dating perspective, I'm not sure how a guy could recover from rejecting a women professionally, to getting her to accepting a date.

I guess the circumstances would have to be something like investment thesis don't align "we do biotech, your company is education."

In startups, I'd argue that founders personal lives and their businesses are inextricably linked, and rejecting one, is tantamount to rejecting the other.

Which makes for an inbalanced dynamic as acabrahams mentioned, which could be troublesome.

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#234

Post by throw2 »

dogecoinbase wrote: post #112
jp_sc wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Racism isn't ok, not even a as form of revenge, not even if it has little effect on a group as a whole.

What, exactly, is your "Nope" directed at? Because at no point did I say that racism was "ok".

Instead you claim that slagging of white people does not constitute racism as it does not compare to the "biases experienced by women and people of color". Absurd.

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#235

Post by 7Figures2Commas »

lsc wrote: post #215
7Figures2Commas wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'm not as easily impressed as you are. Sam Altman recently wrote[1], "Yes, it’s awful to hear the horror stories of wildly inappropriate behavior from investors to the entrepreneurs pitching them. (Unfortunately, stories like these are not super rare, but because there’s a big cost to going public with them, most never get told. My hope is that YC has enough leverage at this point to make it clear that this…

> Jessica's statement subtly suggests that this behavior is less common, and that the vast majority of the investors Y Combinator works with are above engaging in it. My reading of Jessica's statement was that she was trying to make it clear that ycombinator wasn't accusing their customers without evidence. Investors, in a real way, are Ycombinator's customers. Yes, sometimes your customers do bad things and you have…

First, there is too much capital chasing too few opportunities today. Y Combinator is widely seen by many investors as being the highest-quality accelerator so if it had merely stated "Y Combinator will not tolerate inappropriate sexual or romantic behavior from investors toward founders. Period." I guarantee you it's not going to suffer any negative consequences. I'm sure there are more investors wanting to attend Demo Day than there are Demo Day invitations.

Second, Y Combinator could have prepared a code of conduct and sent it directly to the investors invited to participate in Demo Day. Demo Day is an invitation-only event and sending a code of conduct to invitees via email would have been a more effective way to reach the target audience than publishing a "Reminder to Investors" blog post which was clearly intended to be read by a broader audience.

I don't doubt that Y Combinator sincerely wants to quell this behavior, which is a good thing. But maximizing the good you do isn't always aligned with maximizing the PR you do.

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#236

Post by bmelton »

StandardFuture wrote: post #231
bmelton wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fine. Let's kill it all with semantics then. I'll just amend your allegation to this, and leave it alone. Stopping any scholarly discussion is, in my opinion, pure absurdity.

>Stopping any scholarly discussion is, in my opinion, pure absurdity. And yet you hypocritically just put an end to a conversation that would be about: "Whether or not stopping points for scholarly discussions can be useful". How can you not even see how unfruitful your conclusions are?

Because I don't have any desire to prolong a conversation with someone who feels like a possibly poor choice of words on my part renders my entire argument useless.

Choosing to opt out of a discussion is not the same as attempting to prevent others from having one.

Having a discussion with someone whose principle argument is that the discussion shouldn't be had seems like folly to me. Call it unfruitful if you like, but I wasn't attempting to start an argument as much as do my duty and explain the downvote.

We could go on and talk about the hypocrisy of how your attempts to extend the conversation are being made in order to bolster your argument against having one in the first place, but truly, I was not, nor am not trying to be condescending, as much as expressing my outright rejection for the idea that there is ever grounds for preventing an intellectual discussion on the grounds that someone might not like it.

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#237

Post by DrJokepu »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #226
DrJokepu wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was not making an hypothesis, I was describing how situations like this make people feel and then I described how that makes me feel. The irony is that even though you believed that you made a rational counter-argument what you really did is describing your very own feelings with a comment that is betraying your insecurities.

...it's shit like this why many women shy away from participating in technology. That's a hypothesis, a claim about how the world works. That's the point I'm questioning. I don't much care about your feelings, nor was I commenting on them. You can feel whatever you like. If you want to make status lowering comments ("betraying your insecurities"), have at it. I'm well aware that personal attacks and the like are one…

I don't much care about your feelings, nor was I commenting on them.

But that's exactly the problem, bro! It's a good thing to care about other people's feelings.

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#238

Post by yummyfajitas »

tptacek wrote: post #218
yummyfajitas wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When is the last time an A-C level exec at a tech company was fired for being insufficiently green?

The premise of this question is that execs have been fired for being "insufficiently diverse" or "insufficiently feminist". But there's a difference between not believing that anthropogenic global warming is a problem that demands changes to the way industry is run, and doing things that have the overt effect of creating barriers for women in the industry. Leaving that aside, I think you'll find that a more careful l…

I don't see why you think Dickinson is an unrelated example. He was never accused of any misconduct beyond wearing sunglasses while disagreeing with feminists.

The fact is that feminists have power in our society and the tech industry is relatively weak. We provide a great source of symbolic victories for them.

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#239

Post by cylinder »

dsirijus wrote: post #192
LandoCalrissian wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just be a professional, come on. Engaging in any kind of romantic relationship with someone who you are giving millions of dollars is the definition of unprofessional. You shouldn't have that job, period, end of story.

Worked for Hefner.

And here is how you casually reveal your misogyny.

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#240

Post by StandardFuture »

bmelton wrote: post #236
StandardFuture wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Stopping any scholarly discussion is, in my opinion, pure absurdity. And yet you hypocritically just put an end to a conversation that would be about: "Whether or not stopping points for scholarly discussions can be useful". How can you not even see how unfruitful your conclusions are?

Because I don't have any desire to prolong a conversation with someone who feels like a possibly poor choice of words on my part renders my entire argument useless. Choosing to opt out of a discussion is not the same as attempting to prevent others from having one. Having a discussion with someone whose principle argument is that the discussion shouldn't be had seems like folly to me. Call it unfruitful if you like,…

>extend the conversation

The original conversation is not the one being extended. And who chose to take a leap away from the original conversation? You did. Your entire comment: invalid.

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