Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder? • Hacker News Board

Re: Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

#131

Post by drzaiusapelord » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 5:49 PM UTC

sn wrote: post #117

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure there's a lack of women or blind people or people who can't speak or write English. The thing overly-PC types don't want to address is that certain fields attract certain types. Geeky males in tech, women and gay men in fashion, etc. The lack of population matching demographics isn't proof of racism. That said, I'd argue that unless you grew up with computers and were interested in programming them early in…

>That said, I'd argue that unless you grew up with computers and were interested in programming them early in life you probably aren't the startup type. "That said, I'd argue that unless you grew up with money and were interested in trading early in life you probably aren't the wall-street type." "That said, I'd argue that unless you grew up with movies and were interested in acting early in life you probably aren't…

My point isn't that they can't do x or y if not by age z, but that if we see an income-based disparity on whether someone studies CS or starts a startup, it probably has a lot to do with being in an income bracket where your parents could afford to give you your own PC and the time to play with it. Not to mention being able to get into a decent CS program.

Perhaps this isn't much of an issue today where PCs are commodities, but if you grew up in the 1980s, like I did, then it probably was an issue. An Apple //e or a //c in the mid eighties was around $1500. That's over $3000 in today's money. Having parents with disposable income matters.

Re: Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

#132

Post by dasil003 » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 6:05 PM UTC

Lukeas14 wrote: post #127

dasil003 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about peer pressure? I'm not black, but I went to a public high school, fairly diverse, let's say 15%/20%/10%/55% black/asian/latino/white. My experience with black classmates was that in individual classes they were pretty typical in the mix of other students, reasonably friendly and participatory in class, etc. But then out in the hallways it was a whole different story. It just was not cool to be studious in…

Good point. For high school I switched to a private school with around the same demographics and since it was "college prep" all the black students understood that we were there to make something of ourselves. So I never experienced the anti-intellectual peer pressure in a school setting. My friends from outside of school, however, STILL refer to me as "that corporate nigga". But since I know them from places like my…

Well I hung out with the stoners and freaks, which incidentally was one of the largest groups. I pretty much did give in to the peer pressure, but I was fortunate that A) I had a computer at home and B) I came up right as the web was taking off, so I learned as I went, thereby neatly bypassing the need for academic credentials. I did eventually finish a CS degree, but it was irrelevant to my career path.

My story is more one of taking advantage of opportunities, rather than overcoming obstacles.

Re: Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

#133

Post by tom_b » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 6:36 PM UTC

Can't speak to YC's experience, but I attended a historically black college/university (referred to as HBCUs) and knew a number of top-notch African-American CS students/hackers while I was there.

At one point, out of 7 or 8 undergrads in a research group I was with, more than half had completed PhDs and I think the rest of us (I was the lone white student in the group) had picked up MS degrees.

A number of the higher-quality students from this institution were heavily recruited by big corps with eyes on increasing minority hires and diversity rates.

What I mostly know is that successful CS students from this institution had their choice of top-notch careers or academic research opportunities. As a school (and my general region), not much emphasis was placed on entrepreneurship. Maybe both facts come into play with startup culture today.

Re: Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

#134

Post by anamax » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 6:51 PM UTC

JonnieCache wrote: post #16

naithemilkman wrote: post #11

I really don't think YC cares about ethnicity. I also don't quite get the point of this post.

I don't think anybody is accusing YC of racism or any other discrimination. The causal relationships are higher order ones than that, but no less important for it.

> I don't think anybody is accusing YC of racism or any other discrimination.

Not yet, but what usually happens after the answer to "how many X are black?" comes back "not proportional to Y"?

Re: Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

#135

Post by anamax » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 6:55 PM UTC

rabble wrote: post #24

It'd be interesting to see. African Americans and Latinos* make up about %28 of the US population, but are very under represented in startups. East Asians, South Asians, Arabs and Jews are over represented in tech based on over all population. What's more, most of the black programmers i've worked with at startups were born in Africa or the Caribbean. I suspect that YC would be wise to try and recruit diversity, havi…

> I suspect that YC would be wise to try and recruit diversity

Why?

Are you assuming that different races might have different strengths (on average)? If so, that assumption implies that, again on average, a purely merit based system will result in less diversity than the general population.

To the extent that race correlates with culture and culture has an effect on strengths, the same applies.

So, remind me why diversity is important?

Re: Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

#136

Post by codenerdz » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 7:28 PM UTC

Lukeas14 wrote: post #103

As a black programmer with about 5 years of professional experience, I've always asked myself the same question. Throughout all the job interviews, conferences and meetups I've been to I've met no more than 3 other black programmers. One is my dad while the other is a friend and his dad. I still haven't come up with an answer but I do have two theories: Role Models: There is no black Bill Gates. Not everyone is a tra…

Umm, I dont think Bill Gates at the height of his prime was ever a Role Model :) Even for Nerds..

Re: Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

#137

Post by AngelaBenton » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 8:08 PM UTC

Aloisius wrote: post #102

EMRo wrote: post #38

I'm black as well. Went to Harvard and when I graduated I worked at the Kauffman Foundation. During that summer I pitched the idea to lawyers for deferred payment on corp formation and found a technical cofounder in August. We wound up building a pretty miz alpha because I had no clue what I actually wanted to create to solve the problem I had in mind. Got very minimal traction, worked at a quant hedge fund to bootst…

Gah why doesn't that site let you post job openings? I got some great advice from a Berkeley professor about increasing diversity in the workplace. I had issues giving preferential treatment to resumes that came in just because I thought diversity was important and he suggested I post job openings in places that are already heavily black/latino/etc. I thought it was a great idea, but they aren't easy to find.

Hi Aloisius, we have a job board it's called Vocay.com, posting come up on the sidebar on Black Web 2.0 and we also try to post them as posts so that it gets distributed through our social graph. :)

-Angela Benton Founder, Black Web 2.0

Re: Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

#138

Post by AngelaBenton » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 8:55 PM UTC

I think this is a good question, I'd like to piggyback on it and ask of the people who have applied did they apply as a team or as a single co-founders? Were they technical? etc.

I only ask these questions because I think they are important. I applied to YC and just had a conversation w/ someone who applied also however at the time of application we were both single founders.

I consider myself technical but I'm sure not as technical as many of you since I've only dealt in front-end web development. YC does have super specific criteria for applying, they are looking for a certain type of founder (or team of co-founders) so it would be helpful to this discussion to know.

I think it also depends on the idea/start-up submitted. Part of the review process does seem like they are looking at the entrepreneur but it also seems like they are looking at the entrepreneur (or team) and their ability to execute on the idea.

Just my thoughts...

Re: Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

#139

Post by krakensden » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 9:39 PM UTC

ig1 wrote: post #125

krakensden wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American society has a very different relationship with Indian-subcontinent-Asians and African-Americans.

oh definitely, but I think nocko was broadening the question to ask about other ethnic groups as well.

That's a fair point, but people of Asian (subcontinent included) descent are pretty damn ubiquitous in the industry, and I don't think anybody worries that they're being discriminated against.

I feel like something more relevant to the OP would be including Latinos, or talking about how rich the parents of programmers are.

Re: Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

#140

Post by ig1 » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 11:18 PM UTC

krakensden wrote: post #139

ig1 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh definitely, but I think nocko was broadening the question to ask about other ethnic groups as well.

That's a fair point, but people of Asian (subcontinent included) descent are pretty damn ubiquitous in the industry, and I don't think anybody worries that they're being discriminated against. I feel like something more relevant to the OP would be including Latinos, or talking about how rich the parents of programmers are.

I don't think anyone's saying blacks are being discriminated against either, rather asking the question what are the factors driving the change.

British Asians on a whole tend to come from lesser educated poorer backgrounds than average, do less well in school, etc. That they're well represented in the developer and startup community despite that makes an interesting data point.