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Diversity and Startups

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Re: Diversity and Startups

#131

Post by runako »

staunch wrote: post #41

What about class? Ivy League Parents -> Private School -> SAT tutoring -> Ivy League College -> Investment by Ivy League VC -> Acquired by Ivy League Tech Company vs Poor parents -> Shitty Public School -> High School Drop Out -> Programmer at Ivy League Tech Company (maybe) There's a reason most of the big tech companies are from Ivy League graduates. And you can't ignore how many successful startups only happened b…

This argument dodges the thrust of Sam's essay, which centered on gender disparities. Your argument doesn't work for gender disparities.

For example, MIT is ~46% female. Stanford is 47% female. (I won't be pedantic about the Ivy League thing.) These numbers look absolutely nothing like the small end of the VC funnel.

Re: Diversity and Startups

#132

Post by [deleted] »

king_jester wrote: post #120
thomasfromcdnjs wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just adding a point that is left out of these discussions more often than not. The point is that "white" people aren't unified because of their skin pigment. Europe is a major example and of course the never ending protestant and catholic wars around the globe. > Talking about white people or even generalizing about white people is not racist. There is no institutional and systemic power backing discrimination…

I want to start by prefacing I'm from the US, so my knowledge is mostly based what racism is like in the US. > I was just adding a point that is left out of these discussions more often than not. The point is that "white" people aren't unified because of their skin pigment. Europe is a major example and of course the never ending protestant and catholic wars around the globe. The point here isn't that there are diffe…

[deleted]

Re: Diversity and Startups

#133

Post by ignostic »

Castlereagh wrote: post #29

People who are not white males... I know it's hard to believe, but relative to their proportion in the workforce white males are slightly under represented in tech. Additionally, people of color are dramatically over represented. It's easy to march under the banner of "men in tech shouldn't act like sexist jerks"—what kind of sexist jerk could object to that?—but the more accurate slogan "we need many fewer Asian mal…

.... source?

Re: Diversity and Startups

#134

Post by ritchiea »

sama wrote: post #12
_pius wrote: post #4

Glad the issue's being addressed, but sad that it dodges race almost completely. Making diversity all about gender is effectively playing the topic on "easy mode." Kinda lame, honestly.

it's really hard to address everything in one post, and i think the issues around gender and race in tech are pretty different. (we did include a stat on international founders, many of which are not white.) i don't think we're playing this on "easy mode", but i'm sorry you feel that way.

I don't think you're playing "easy mode" by any means. It's admirable that you are writing blogs posts about gender diversity in tech & at YC. It would be even more admirable if you wrote about class and race diversity in tech & at YC. Right now it feels like you are avoiding talk of other types diversity in the industry. Though I do agree the issues are different.

Re: Diversity and Startups

#135

Post by crassus »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #34
Castlereagh wrote: post #29

People who are not white males... I know it's hard to believe, but relative to their proportion in the workforce white males are slightly under represented in tech. Additionally, people of color are dramatically over represented. It's easy to march under the banner of "men in tech shouldn't act like sexist jerks"—what kind of sexist jerk could object to that?—but the more accurate slogan "we need many fewer Asian mal…

Do you have any figures on tech as a whole? The thing that I'm never sure about in these discussions (on any on HN really) is whether people are talking about "tech" to include people working 9-5 in IT at a bank somewhere or whether it really means "venture capital backed startups operating out of California".

I'm hell banned, but if you can see me then this post is useful:

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_22094415/asian-workers-now-dom...

Re: Diversity and Startups

#136

Post by kclay »

NaitJones wrote: post #57
lliwta wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so glad to see this post! You hit the nail on the head. > Black men are being left out of another generation of wealth creation and we need to stem (excuse the pun) the tide of that now. What's your suggestion, other than the normal stuff (engaging with students in HS etc)?

It can start by not brushing it under the rug. By using "diversity" as a catch all for feel goodiness, is a little bit self serving and even selfish in the grand scheme of things. If we are going to do the work then do it, don't do a bunch of marketing. If we want to look at CS and look at the harshest affected group it specifically black males (which no one is doing in all of these reports they are releasing) - it i…

>tech companies and incubators need to be targeting young black males for immersion and mentoring programs as early as 5th grade

This right here, If it wasn't for my uncle getting me into computers I don't I would ever had thought to see a career in computers let alone development. If we want to be frank I know when I was growing up (only 28), playing around with computers as a black child was something that "blacks didn't do". It was hard to find any blacks computer teachers, mentors or owners that you could access easily in the tech area and the stigma of being a "nerd" was something the culture was about to accept. Of course my parents made sure if it was something I wanted to do that they would make sure I had the best education I could to make it happen.

What we lack in the community is for children to see other blacks in a position and think "Hey I can do that". This was something that we didn't have much back then. I still only know a handful of black developers and it may be wrong to say it but sometime when going to conventions and what not I know I sorta feel like a unicorn, after a while you just go with it but its still in the back of your mind.

Re: Diversity and Startups

#137

Post by JVIDEL »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #65
staunch wrote: post #41

What about class? Ivy League Parents -> Private School -> SAT tutoring -> Ivy League College -> Investment by Ivy League VC -> Acquired by Ivy League Tech Company vs Poor parents -> Shitty Public School -> High School Drop Out -> Programmer at Ivy League Tech Company (maybe) There's a reason most of the big tech companies are from Ivy League graduates. And you can't ignore how many successful startups only happened b…

There's likely to be big correlations between class and race. Gender is obviously a much more complicated one. I think aspirations are likely to play a big role here, after all people tend to judge their successes relative to their family and close friends. So for a kid from a poor neighbourhood (who's more likely to be black), getting a good job with a decent salary and benefits is a great success already and runnin…

The problem is that as the gap widens that poor kid might have no actual chance at a decent stable job with benefits. Odds are he will be stuck in part-time land with no benefits and doing odd jobs on the side, so for him going with a startup must seem like a better choice.

Also since we are talking about aspirations you have to consider the "all or nothing" attitude that's so common these days, and I see a lot of people particularly in the lower classes who are far more motivated about the tiniest possibility of a quick jackpot than a slow but steady improvement in their lives.

But then again that way of thinking might have more to do with the way the middle class (the "steady option") is disappearing than with a social fad.

Re: Diversity and Startups

#138

Post by streptomycin »

NaitJones wrote: post #100
streptomycin wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average American man and the average American woman have the same IQ, were raised in fairly similar cultural environments, and received fairly similar educations. But compare the average black man and the average white man. The average black man has a lower IQ (Google it, many citations), somewhat different culture (more likely to have grown up in poverty, more likely to speak in AAVE, more likely to have come fr…

"The average black man has a lower IQ (Google it, many citations)" - wow, well, that f'd up comment says alot about alot

That you'd rather ignore things than try to solve problems? It's very easy to ignore the IQ gap and other differences between groups. It's harder to try to solve it with things like improved education, reduced poverty, etc. This is exactly the problem. Pretend the problem doesn't exist, and you don't even have to worry about attempting to solve it!

In case you really are unaware and averse to Googling, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence#United_St...

Rushton & Jensen (2005) write that, in the United States, self-identified blacks and whites have been the subjects of the greatest number of studies. They state that the black-white IQ difference is about 15 to 18 points or 1 to 1.1 standard deviations (SDs), which implies that between 11 and 16 percent of the black population have an IQ above 100 (the general population median). ... Roth et al. (2001), in a review of the results of a total of 6,246,729 participants on other tests of cognitive ability or aptitude, found a difference in mean IQ scores between blacks and whites of 1.1 SD. Consistent results were found for college and university application tests such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (N = 2.4 million) and Graduate Record Examination (N = 2.3 million), as well as for tests of job applicants in corporate sections (N = 0.5 million) and in the military (N = 0.4 million).

Re: Diversity and Startups

#139

Post by whybroke »

alexanderss wrote: post #125
whybroke wrote: post #69

Its fantastic the gender issue is being looked at. And it's nice that non-US citizens are funded. But what percentage of the founders were pg's age or older?

What percentage of applicants are his age or older? Probably very, very small for obvious reasons. Most founders PG's age and older have more financial resources (and network, etc) making YC's terms less appealing than for younger founders without any experience. In terms of diversity, age doesn't quite fit in here.

19% female applicants were accepted, and 24% applicants were female.

39% accepted applicants were from outside the US.

0% of founders were anywhere near pg's age. Are all Entrepreneurs under 40? Not remotely.

But more astounding: You would never get tech industry leaders saying "men are just smarter" or "whites are just smarter" yet Zuckerberg makes exactly that statement for agism.

And he made that statement at a Y Combinator Startup event.

So re your "obvious reasons", it is not that every one over 40 is rich, it is that few intelligent people over say 40 would be fool enough to go near those organizations given that very public attitude.

Re: Diversity and Startups

#140

Post by streptomycin »

gizmo wrote: post #68
streptomycin wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average American man and the average American woman have the same IQ, were raised in fairly similar cultural environments, and received fairly similar educations. But compare the average black man and the average white man. The average black man has a lower IQ (Google it, many citations), somewhat different culture (more likely to have grown up in poverty, more likely to speak in AAVE, more likely to have come fr…

Because of racist laws, policies and practices Black people have fewer opportunities from literally before they're born. Studies indicate that poor nutrition and other environmental factors explain the "IQ gap" nearly completely. The remaining points are most likely an issue of bias in the tests themselves. Most white people wouldn't do well in an AAVE based IQ test. Black people (and other minorities) are being acti…

I don't disagree with you. In fact, everything you wrote is in agreement with my original post. All of those challenges you describe are just some of the factors that make the racial disparity a more difficult problem to solve than the gender disparity.

And yet, my original post is now deleted, so we can go along pretending these problems don't exist.

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