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Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

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Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#141

Post by mtrimpe »

Crito wrote: post #132
mtrimpe wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PG either failed to grasp or completely ignored the point the article made and immediately went on to reiterate how SV is nearly as much of a meritocracy as his perception of a near perfect meritocracy (math.) By doing so he gave an almost painfully accurate example of the problem the article addressed, hence my use of the word "exemplifies." As for the east-Asians and Indians; I've never heard anything but positive…

> "As for [...] Indians; I've never heard anything but positive stereotypes about them when it comes to programming." I find that incredibly hard to believe. There are a lot of racist ideas and stereotypes surrounding Indian programmers. For just a small taste of it, coming from or perceived by this community , search "indian programmers" with quotes on hnsearch. Pages and pages of people either making negative gener…

You're correct. I should have limited myself to saying that at least there are stereotypes (and a few key public role-models) of well-adjusted, successful Asian and Indian entrepreneurs.

The point I was trying to make, staying with the spirit of the article, was that these stereotypes and the reality we see influence each other to a much greater degree than we often dare to admit.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#142

Post by bruceb »

beachstartup wrote: post #69
ceejayoz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know full well what decade we're in, and virtually everyone today outside an Aryan Nations get-together is going to call Zuckerberg a white guy.

you are delusional if you think jewish is uniformly accepted as 'white', even today. it's not. full stop.

You call him delusional yet offer not one bit of real evidence.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#143

Post by ForHackernews »

katrinae wrote: post #109

I am so happy that this view is being shared - so happy, in fact, that I created a HN username just so I could comment on it. I am female and graduated from MIT several years ago. While I was there, tech entrepreneurship far and away the sexiest thing to be doing. It was at the point where you felt like a loser if you didn't have your own startup. Unfortunately, this fetishization of startups resulted in many ideas t…

Sadly, this article has already been kicked off the HN frontpage by the "flamewar" filter, and the comments here (including from HN's illustrious founder, Paul Graham) illustrate just how resistant tech types are to the mere suggestion that factors beyond individual gumption play into their successes.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#144

Post by williamcotton »

newnewnew wrote: post #95
hacker789 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your mind, is it possible for someone to disagree with the article without "exemplifying the problem"? That's the issue with first-world "social-justice warriors", like the author of the linked opinion piece. If you disagree with their premises on factual grounds, you're labeled as part of the problem . It makes honest discussion impossible. For example, you completely ignored the point that PG made. You didn't ev…

In post-modern Marxist discourse, who is speaking matters more than what is being said[1]. There is literally no way a white male could win the argument. Since he belongs to the oppressive/over class, his viewpoint is corrupted and invalid. By the way, this is the bread and butter of what they teach to kids in the soft majors in university nowadays. [1] http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/regiftedxmas12.html

It's a shame that love and compassion has indeed left both the liberal arts educations as well as the worlds of business and entrepreneurship. But fear not, there is a coming Romantic Renaissance! Once again our children will turn to poetry, the arts and the love and celebration of their neighbors!

The danger isn't in rationalism, or in relativism, or in whatever weird and distorted man-made system of thought is de rigueur.

The danger is that the love of every man leaves our hearts and souls.

All systems of thought are ultimately erroneous because they must have been made by a single subjective vantage point. The truth comes from without, not from within.

This is the message in all great and lasting art. I dare you to find me a great song or a great poem where the messages of eternal and unending love for our brothers and sisters are not at the root of their creation!

I'd quote some poetry here, but I'm afraid the lot of your are quite illiterate! I apologize to those who do have a love of letters, but hopefully you'll grant me the license to call out this forum of philistines!

Art wins! Love is real!

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#145

Post by freefrancisco »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #16

The article, like most following this formula, assume that because rewards are not distributed among a sufficiently racially/sexually diverse group, meritocracy must therefore be absent. They fail to account for the possibility that merit might not be distributed in the manner that they think.

In fact, a true meritocracy in a very competitive field is more likely to exacerbate the differences that already exist in society and result in an extremely uneven distribution. In a non-merit based industry uncle Bob can get a top job for his 3 children, and his friend's children regardless of gender, race, and any other characteristics. He can also appease reporters that criticize the distribution of his company and hire more people in the less represented populations to correct the problem. In a purely meritocratic field uncle Bob has no influence, no control, and each of the kids has to fight his or her way in. All uncle Bob can do is pay for the best education and the best opportunities for his children to compete in the meritocracy. To the extent that there are small inequalities among the population, those with the most resources will prepare their kids best to compete, and those kids will be over represented in the most competitive fields. The fact that the tech industry is dominated by white males only indicates that it is very competitive, and that white males historically have had a leg up in American society. A leg up that the meritocracy is quickly erasing.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#146

Post by 7Figures2Commas »

steven2012 wrote: post #65
peter_l_downs wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations on your wife's success, but how does that paragraph serve your point? I'm willing to bet she's made more money from her bonuses than 90% of the aspirational startup founders on HN. Her peers in finance are >60% women, and they are all extremely smart and well compensated as well. That's finance, not the startup world, and you even make the comparison yourself! Sounds like finance companies are a much…

My point is that just because there aren't a bunch of startup founders who are women, doesn't mean that women aren't benefiting from the halo effect of meritocracy in SV. And you don't have to be a startup founder to be extremely well compensated. Looking at Snapchat and complaining that there aren't enough women CEOs owning $4B valuation companies is not the point. It's almost ludicrous to use what is basically a bl…

> ...doesn't mean that women aren't benefiting from the halo effect of meritocracy in SV.

You haven't provided any real evidence of the existence of a "halo effect of meritocracy" that is benefiting women in Silicon Valley.

There are lots of women who are well-compensated outside of Silicon Valley. Have you never met a female lawyer, doctor, investment banker, accountant, dentist, real estate agent or small business owner who lives and works outside of this area?

> It's almost ludicrous to use what is basically a black-swan, lottery ticket winner as some sort of point of comparison for progress.

That is a reasonable argument, but just because you can show that this is a less-than-convincing way of debunking the notion that Silicon Valley is a meritocracy doesn't mean that you have proven Silicon Valley is a meritocracy.

> The real story isn't that there aren't enough of these female lottery ticket winners in SV, it's that if you are a smart and hardworking woman, you can make a lot more money than most startup founders ever will.

You keep pot-shotting "startup founders" but it's not clear what point you're trying to make.

Given the high failure rate of new businesses generally, you're not saying much by pointing out that it's easier to "make a lot more money" through gainful employment than entrepreneurship. Heck, a person making minimum wage is earning "a lot more" than the broke, couchsurfing founders you will inevitably meet from time to time in Silicon Valley.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#147

Post by avifreedman »

Effort does not correlate exactly with results, but the chances of success are high if one tries and is capable.

In both tech and hustle, it's easier with wealth, privilege, connections, luck, and/or friends.

But large swaths of tech and hacking can be done on a $200 netbook or a lab of $100 used notebooks.

The hustle part... That's easier if you have hustle. If you are a geek, make a tool that's needed and sell it to another geek.

I've seen male, female, black, white, mongrel, rich, poor, and those with role models and without success at tech and business. It's harder without but still possible.

And I think SV may indeed be the best place in the country to succeed in - in gambling terms, the result converges faster with the expected value given effort and application.

Particularly (in my opinion) because past failures are discounted and companies, especially startups, are willing to give startups a try without as much suspicion.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#148

Post by krstck »

rhdoenges wrote: post #24
beachstartup wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well the point specifically said white men. not men, white men. i was reacting to the content - what does it matter who wrote it? aren't we discussing ideas here?

The article was written by a woman, so why would you assume it was written by a man? We're discussing ideas, yes, and those ideas have a lot to do with gender.

Not the parent, but I can't be the only guy who uses "guy" as a synonym for "person" (i.e., not necessarily "male person").

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#149

Post by mathattack »

bugsbunnyak wrote: post #139
mathattack wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. But I'd suggest that it's much easier to get to $20 million as a non-white-Male than it would be in most other fields with similar educations. I don't see too many non-white Males at the top of law firms, in our country's cabinet, or atop large investment banks. But this is speculation. What would be interesting to see is hard data based on an entry point (People graduating with CS degrees applying for V…

> in our country's cabinet http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/20120730-cabin...

I stand corrected. I wonder how the past 20 years have looked. (Not trying to be a smartass, interested in the #s)

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#150

Post by hammerzeit »

pg wrote: post #50

The same arguments would prove that math isn't a meritocracy. Which it presumably isn't, entirely, but only because nothing is entirely. And if SV is only as much of a meritocracy as math, that's pretty good. Indeed, that's what the word means in ordinary usage.

Math is a good analogy, because I think it illustrates the real question here -- to what degree should we care about the pipeline into the meritocracy?

Is a meritocracy effective if it's selecting the most deserving candidates from a skewed pool? Can we call it a meritocracy? Is it fair, for that matter, to evaluate a meritocracy by expecting an even distribution among attributes like gender or ethnicity?

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