111–120 of 601 posts
For those curious, here's a chart of the proportion of female founders funded by Y Combinator in the last 4 years, which correlates with YC's intention to add more female founders: http://i.imgur.com/MCLqUm3.jpg Data source: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjPFdCURhZvddHJ...
How horrifying must it be to have every word dissected by a linkbait culture? Then when the mob hears something in their pre-determined wheelhouse, the pitchforks come out with a vengeance. Moreover, anyone who has read pg knows this kerfuffle was likely spam. I'm just sad our culture has degenerated to convict first, ask questions later. Shameless has supplanted shameful.
Ugh, how depressing.
Something needs to change about this industry's obsession with sensationalist journalism. If this industry is truly as forward-thinking and progressive as it is, and hopes to make strides in issues like gender/minority equality, then we need to build defenses against severely twisted, unfounded, and intentionally heinous hit-pieces by nobody bloggers who are trying to break into the industry by being edgy and aggress…
I don't think there is anything wrong with this industry. This seems to be how most 'news' is made these days. I'm guessing that people who closely follow a non-technical industry have seen similar sensationalism on other issues.
As a female founder, I think this is a well-thought-out, articulate response, and I appreciate pg stepping up to say something about women in tech. In a similar vein, I'd love to see YC take on one or both of the following: 1) Do at least one application cycle completely blind. How could you accomplish this? Much like in the concert auditions where this was first tried, put people behind a curtain--and then use techn…
One thing that nobody is mentioning is that many "fratty" companies have been wildly successful. That's why VCs aren't cracking down on startups to make them more professional. (Although it is a good idea to become more professional as your startup grows, for cultural appeal to the median tech worker) This fratty culture certainly drives away slightly older founders (by that, I mean 25+!) and others who don't appreci…
The truly break-out companies founded in markets where customers are willing to pay, are started by entrepreneurs over 28. Age is not a hard rule but we talking about averages here. Steve blanks spoke well about how he started up his companies while still managing family life. Check quora for famous tech founders over 30 and their take on it.
An example about how a person over 30 starts a business from Quora:
Marc Bodnick, Co-Founder, Elevation Partners
We did it by starting with a profitable service line.
I was 34 when I founded Arcstone. We had three young kids (we now have four). I was coming off a VC salary of ~$250K, and yet didn't have much savings to speak of. I started Arcstone with $18K borrowed from my brother-in-law, and a couple credit cards to service revolving debt.
We started a service business targeting a specific, relevant pain point, which has a quick sales cycle. We became profitable immediately; with our profits we both fed ourselves and invested in technology and infrastructure. We were careful not to overbuild on our way up, though some expenditures (like our 5-year lease) were taken with a leap of faith.
Three+ years on, we are a nationally respected financial services firm (primarily in the valuation niche) with a healthy top (and bottom) line, and a very happy and dedicated team of seven.
Getting out of the Silicon Valley mindset -- Seed/A/B/C/Exit -- has been incredibly liberating.
At the heart of the matter is that witch-burnings are popular (turn into clicks) and that Gawker has a witch quota to keep up. I'm glad to see such a thorough, intelligent reply from PG. He is extremely careful and precise in his language, without coming across as robotic or inhuman. It's impressive. But this kind of thing is going to continue to happen. There is no market for taking an honest man at his word without…
Agreed, although I don't think it's the talkers vs. the doers; it's the talkers' audiences vs. the doers.
Here's your "somehow": The lack of critical thinking skills in the general population (not new), combined with the power of instant global communication (new).
The lack of critical thinking skills leads people to seek absolutes, simplicity, and swift action in areas where shades of gray, nuance, and care should be called for. Again, nothing new here: mob justice is a well-understood, if regrettable, characteristic of human society.
Instant global communication much more swiftly connects 1) the easily-manipulated with 2) those who lack experience and maturity but who nevertheless possess the gift of persuasion.
In short, I blame the listeners, not the talkers. It would be a Good Thing(tm) if people were generally more skeptical of everything they heard and read, and even better if they knew how to ask the right questions to resolve that skepticism. It would make it harder for unworthy critics to hold power, and easier for worthy ones to be heard.
Here's another quote, from Joseph de Maistre: "Every nation gets the government it deserves." A similar thing could be said for culture and civil society.
Why is adding more women to the tech industry automatically assumed a laudable goal to throw resources behind? I'm Middle-Eastern (probably a smaller minority in the North-American tech scene compared to women), and while I (like most people) would certainly like to be surrounded by more of my brethren, it's not something I'd be comfortable spending resources on because the return on investment is so nebulous; divers…
My response elsewhere: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6985366 From an economic perspective, having any group not participate in a valuable activity is a waste.
Is that correct?
I wonder why pg did an interview for a site that was going to go behind an (expensive) paywall and was going to be edited. I know that "fixing journalism" is something pg would like to see[1], and (pg, sorry to put words in your mouth here) maybe he felt a for-pay site aiming for quality journalism was the answer? But it still seems weird he did this interview. EDIT: I did read the article and know he was allegedly t…
I didn't find any of the quotes that I read, even if they were out of context, remotely offensive. But I can see how someone who makes it a point to be offended by things might deliberately interpret it in a bad way, and convince other people that that is in fact what was meant by it. For example, you say that you don't know how you'd convince 13 year old girls to be interested in programming. The normal interpretati…
There are things in the edited version of the interview that are problematic - not offensive, and PG also points this out. The very first incorrect quote - "We can't make women look at the world through hacker eyes and start Facebook because they haven't been hacking for the past 10 years." is problematic because it says women are NOT hackers. Given the number of women who are founders of YC companies, or are enginee…
That's a quote that, when I read it the first time, I tried to interpret charitably. It's one that I read as, 'Women generally (but with exceptions) don't start hacking at the age of 13, and there's nothing we can do to make these women see the world through hacker eyes.'
Rather than, 'There's no such thing as a woman who's hacked since she was 13, and thus no woman can see the world through hacker eyes.'
Saying the quote is 'problematic' and that it needs clarifying -- I have no problem with that, and in fact I totally agree. What I don't like is how large swaths of the blog-o-sphere didn't even consider the first interpretation; they talk as if the second interpretation is just clearly without qualifiers what he must have meant.