To me the question boils down to, "Do you trust YC to have the right people reading your application to make a good decision?" I know that they have high enough volume that it makes no sense for pg to make every decision personally. What I just read is, "They have found a way to scale higher and while sticking to high quality people who have direct experience with what you want to do." That makes the answer to the fi…
I think this sums it up best. It comes down to trust and you either trust YC or not. If anything, this is a good litmus test for them.
I feel like this is going to work against me - in a really serious way. First of all, I really liked knowing that I had a one in three chance of a woman, Jessica Livingston, reading my application. I liked how the application felt like a college application; they judge you based upon your potential and what you've done in your circumstances, not like an investor who says: "What experience and traction do you have?".…
I know that there are VERY FEW female YC founders and I know that having male coders looking at my application is going to totally work against me, if for no other reason than they don't relate to me. Individuals tend to internalize negatives. If you tell them that they aren't going to relate to you because they're men, they're going to internalize that and have trouble relating to you . There is plenty of overt and…
Since the beginning, I have found this sexism. People are VERY hesitant to talk about it. I always hope it will go away, but when I consistently walk into meetings and men will not look me in the face and they re-ask my male partner the same questions they ask me... well, you learn from past experiences.
Does YC not run a risk here of falling into a reinforcement loop where each generation gets more and more "perfect" from the POV of the current generation, leading to highly specialised but unadaptable individuals a few generations down the line?
Yes, they should inject bad genes in the interest of preserving the species.
I know it's verboten to talk about HN on HN, but it's fun clicking refresh and watching people upvote and downvote my comment. Talking about male prejudice in the tech community really gets under people's skin, including my cofounder bravura who said that maybe I shouldn't have posted and rankled people.
Yes, you're correct: people don't like being accused of being prejudice, especially in a community like this which prides itself on being open minded. Your gender isn't important here. Whether or not you're an entrepreneur with a plan, is. EDIT: This discussion really belongs in another thread.
It's easy to pride oneself on being open-minded when one is surrounded by the same type of person.
I wish my gender wasn't important, but the way I've gotten treated by a majority of men in tech has spoken volumes.
You've been on HN for 8 days. Imagine you were on it for 800 days, and then take your average comment mark, that's how you'll rank regardless of what makes you you.
agreed, investors reading something is no big deal, since they aren't going to go out and use your ideas. A possible competitor reading it is a whole other story all together.
Actually it's really not. At justin.tv we already have a list as long as my arm of great ideas that we don't have time to implement. Seeing a few more great ideas from a potential competitor wouldn't make much difference to us in my opinion.
Seconded. I have done resource allocation for companies from 1 employee to 100k employees and the one common factor is that there is always too much to do and too few people to do it.
I feel like this is going to work against me - in a really serious way. First of all, I really liked knowing that I had a one in three chance of a woman, Jessica Livingston, reading my application. I liked how the application felt like a college application; they judge you based upon your potential and what you've done in your circumstances, not like an investor who says: "What experience and traction do you have?".…
So you know, Robert Morris is also a partner. Your chances were one in four.
You've been on HN for 8 days. Imagine you were on it for 800 days, and then take your average comment mark, that's how you'll rank regardless of what makes you you.
I know it's verboten to talk about HN on HN, but it's fun clicking refresh and watching people upvote and downvote my comment. Talking about male prejudice in the tech community really gets under people's skin, including my cofounder bravura who said that maybe I shouldn't have posted and rankled people.
Yes, you're correct: people don't like being accused of being prejudice, especially in a community like this which prides itself on being open minded. Your gender isn't important here. Whether or not you're an entrepreneur with a plan, is. EDIT: This discussion really belongs in another thread.
Prejudice is a loaded word, but everyone is prejudiced. It's not unreasonable to think that people with totally different life experiences than yours are going to see things in a different light.
I feel like this is going to work against me - in a really serious way. First of all, I really liked knowing that I had a one in three chance of a woman, Jessica Livingston, reading my application. I liked how the application felt like a college application; they judge you based upon your potential and what you've done in your circumstances, not like an investor who says: "What experience and traction do you have?".…
So you know, Robert Morris is also a partner. Your chances were one in four. http://ycombinator.com/people.html
We've spoken to a few YC alum and they suggested RTM isn't so involved in the selection process. Perhaps they were misinformed.