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Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

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Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#171

Post by wonderzombie »

steven2012 wrote: post #22

This article is largely garbage. Sure, Silicon Valley isn't a "perfect" meritocracy, but it is the most meritocratic of any other place in the world, at least that I've been in. In Japan, and presumably other places in Asia, women are still supposed to include a photograph with their resume, and employers are reluctant to hire married women past a certain age because they feel they will get pregnant and stop working…

This is anecdata. And if we're being as rigorous about evidence against the claim that it's meritocratic, we need to be as rigorous as evidence affirming that it's meritocratic. This does not meet that standard.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#172

Post by wonderzombie »

freefrancisco wrote: post #137
newnewnew wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notice that if any other group is proportionately overrepresented in a population, it can still be "meritocratic". It is only if there are too many white men, and only white men, that a group can no longer be considered meritocratic. Meanwhile, people tend to forget that half of successful startup founders are immigrants, including large portions from China and India. Most tech companies I've seen are not very white.…

Also, apparently women from other countries didn't get the memo that the tech industry is sexist, and they come in droves to Silicon Valley to kick ass and chew bubble gum.

The plural of anecdote is not data, let alone the singular.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#173

Post by Crito »

hacker789 wrote: post #161
Crito wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if you are making an intentional reference to this or not, but it does make an interesting counter-point to the assertion that mathematics is a meritocracy: http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556 "This is a special collection of problems that were given to select applicants during oral entrance exams to the math department of Moscow State University. These problems were designed to prevent Jews and other undesir…

I don't think that's a counter point; it's a long discontinued practice of deliberately discriminating against people of a given race because other people of that race were too successful. It's not something I support, by the way, in case the sarcasm in my above comment wasn't apparent.

It is one example (of many) of access to a mathematics education not being a meritocracy. In the linked discussions on that paper, there are people arguing that this practice is ongoing in the US (although tweaked a bit to be less obvious).

Regardless, I think it is important to realize that access to a [mathematics] education not being a meritocracy is different from mathematics itself not being a meritocracy. It is related, so this is only a partial counterpoint, but I think it is interesting to consider nevertheless. Certainly one has to keep in mind that biases in our education system will influence what we see in industry, even if the industry really is a meritocracy.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#174

Post by Crito »

wonderzombie wrote: post #169
williamcotton wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

I am seriously trying to figure out if you are trolling or not. I mean, there's something to what you're saying here. Just that you've picked the weirdest-ass venue for it. You're not supposed to give a shit about your fellow human being if he or she is (imputatively) genetically incapable of or unwilling to perform the same feats of achievement as you.

> " 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 am guessing he is not sincere, unless he has something against instrumental pieces...

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#175

Post by girvo »

SilasX wrote: post #165
williamcotton wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The burden of proof doesn't rest on the person arguing against your borderline phrenological explanations of intelligence. And yes, faith in humanity IS needed for an enlightened thinker. The meaning and purpose of life will never be proven. There is plenty of room for faith in our world of rationalism. You need more art in your life! The world is more than just a bunch of metrics in a spreadsheet to fret and argue a…

How is "different genes have different impact on different mental tasks" anything like a phrenological explanation?

Because it makes it easy to keep his faux-outrage going.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#176

Post by kamaal »

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…

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

Entrepreneurship itself is a massive black swan event. With failure being most common outcome, and success a rarity.

The whole idea of a start up revolves around the concept of persistence. Its a long drawn battle, which demands a arduous march towards a point where some thing magical is supposed to happen. If you are not ready to put in efforts which can kill you, only face crippling failure on routine basis, don't start a company.

There is nothing fair/unfair merit or otherwise about it. This is how the game is.

Don't expect to walk into a boxing game and expect to be hit by cotton buds.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#177

Post by acgourley »

ahomescu1 wrote: post #158
acgourley wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a SV demographic outsider (say: black, gay, female) it's still going to be an order of magnitude harder to raise institutional money. You're not going to socialize in the same circles and thus your referral network will be tiny. If you get a meeting, you're going to need to spend the first 15 minute somehow counteracting the generalizations piling against you. That said, starting with the same skills and mo…

> You're not going to socialize in the same circles and thus your referral network will be tiny. I don't think white nerdy males from top schools (like MIT) socialize much in rich VC circles either.

They socialize with entrepreneurs and senior mgmt who have been funded by VCs - which is a common and effect intro path to said investors.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#178

Post by xrctl »

freefrancisco wrote: post #81
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.

That's an interesting question, is there an institution or subculture in the world that is more meritocratic than Silicon Valley? If there is, then the author's argument has some merit. If there isn't, then the author is wasting time attacking the one institution that comes the closest to embodying the meritocracy ideal. To what end?

I would submit that mind sports are the most meritocratic subculture; performance is statistically ranked and sometimes measured directly.

And........ we find that there are no women at the top.

There is 1 woman in the top 100 at speedcubing [1].

There is 1 woman in the top 100 at chess.

There are only a few women in the top 100 at scrabble [2].

There is only one woman in the top 100 at Go (EGF).

[1] http://rcm-papers.info/gender-and-speedcubing.html

[2] http://rcm-papers.info/gender-and-scrabble.html

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#179

Post by elchief »

beat wrote: post #138
elchief wrote: post #103

So I was editing OpenStreetMap the other day, because I wanted to fill in the shops in my neighbourhood. They have a feature where you can see all the editors that are near you. There were dozens of them, and they were all men. Why? What could possibly be preventing women from editing OpenStreetMap? Why are men at the vanguard of this project? This project is good for society, and I saw no women. I was actually surpr…

Alternately, when you assume there's nothing preventing someone from doing something, that doesn't mean there's nothing preventing it. First rule of debugging should be to not walk in with a bunch of assumptions and jump to conclusions based on them. Start following out the logic of your concluding sentence, and it leads to "groups of people are unsuccessful because they are lazy and/or stupid". Is that really a conc…

Two economists see a Ferrari. "I want one of those", says the first. "Obviously not", says the other.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#180

Post by yummyfajitas »

jacalata wrote: post #151
freefrancisco wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a huge difference between saying "tech industry, you are so innovative, why don't you look at this problem and see if there is something you can do to fix it" and saying "tech industry, you are racist, sexist, misogynist, and you should be ashamed of yourselves". I am all for the tech industry finding solutions to hard problems, and I am all against the tech industry being blamed for something it did not cau…

Yes, and 'tech industry, you are so sexist and should be ashamed of yourselves' is a reasonable response to people saying 'Lack of women in tech is clearly a sign that women don't want to be in tech/aren't suited to it because anyone can enter tech and pitch a VC if they want', or 'Affirmative action will just mean there are incompetent females getting ahead at the expense of more competent males' (see the complaints…

is a reasonable response to people saying 'Lack of women in tech is clearly a sign that women don't want to be in tech/aren't suited to it because anyone can enter tech and pitch a VC if they want'

Is there any argument against your views for which an ad-hominem attack would not be a reasonable counterargument?

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