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What I Didn't Say

paulgraham.com

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Re: What I Didn't Say

#171

Post by VLM »

bambax wrote: post #140
ericabiz wrote: post #32

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…

Yes. The whole problem of every controversy involving YC rests on the fact that there's no control population. The great majority of YC alumni are young white males. Every time the issue is raised of some minority or another being under represented, the answer is invariably that the process is completely fair and that the problem lies somewhere upstream. That may be so. But wouldn't it be interesting to have some pro…

Well that just does it. Someone needs to found a YC funded startup to use standardized A/B testing to implement outsourced founder evaluation as a service. Keep your finances and negotiators and mentors in house, but think of this similar to an outsourced credit check, call it a ... credibility check or something.

To say it would be high risk / low volume / high cost service would be an understatement. And just defining success would be hard. But a hard problem is a good startup problem. And you could probably pivot into (or out of?) employee interviewing.

I guess you could bootstrap as some kind of outsourced HR lady to ask those annoying anxiety producing interview questions (you know the typical HR lady questions, like explain your worst attibute, or tell me about your greatest failure, or the classic when did you stop beating your wife? (kidding about the last one)). This is a legit business opportunity to help small biz do the "HR" questions at an interview and formalize the reporting of multiple candidates, and could pivot into this A/B testing of startup founders once some cash starts flowing.

I'm not kidding about this. Someone else with more spare time that me, take it and run.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#172

Post by Dewie »

crassus wrote: post #139
throwaway135 wrote: post #80

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…

I wonder if part of it is that hackers look down on female-dominated lines of work. We imagine that being like us is the best thing in the world. It is a decent line of work, mind you, but it has its downsides and not everybody is cut out for it.

All of the disdain that some people show for activities and occupations that are more associated with participation from women does have some very ironic implications, given the stated intentions of those people.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#173

Post by pedrosorio »

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #88
ericabiz wrote: post #32

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…

"I appreciate pg stepping up to say something about women in tech." "Do at least one application cycle completely blind." Sorry but this comes off as insulting (I know that wasn't your intention), you applaud and agree with him then turn around and pull a "but I still don't trust you". As if PG can't be trusted, or you think that he's secretly sexist and want him to change his successful interview process just to pro…

Applying the scientific method to investigate whether there is an unconscious bias in the selection of founders (perhaps resulting in the selection of less than optimal candidates) should not be insulting to anyone.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#174

Post by ajju »

ericabiz wrote: post #148
ajju wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Erica, genuine question: Did you reach out to any female founders who went through YC to ask about their experience?

The straight answer is no. Here's a slightly longer version of the story, in case you're curious: I first met pg at SXSW several years ago, when he was swamped by hungry startup founders. The whole scene was intimidating to me--I hate crowds! I finally got to ask him a question, which I can't recall the exact content of now, but was something about women and YC. He suggested I email Jessica about it. I didn't do that…

Thank you for sharing that.

For context: I am male and Indian. There were several female founders in my YC batch and I know female founders from other batches. From everything I heard, they felt quite comfortable and enjoyed and value the YC experience as much as I did.

Having been through it, I know YC definitely treats founders the way great startups treat customers - they pay a lot of attention to what founders want.

If a group of my prospective customers had trepidation about using my product, especially if it was because of undeserved generalizations, I would work hard to fix that. Looks like YC is going to do more of that with the female founders conference they have planned.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#175

Post by smtddr »

throwaway135 wrote: post #80

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…

Here's my take: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6530237

Re: What I Didn't Say

#176

Post by pg_is_a_butt »

ericabiz wrote: post #32

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…

why does paul graham hate women?

Re: What I Didn't Say

#177

Post by [deleted] »

calibraxis wrote: post #143
yawn wrote: post #26

Jakob Kaplan Moss owes PG a public apology for his behavior. The witch hunt tweets that were coming out of him without getting the facts straight are downright disheartening.

So far seems he hasn't; he's explained why, and all the more power to him. BTW, I'm disappointed that only "witch hunt" (terrorism against women) is used in this particular thread so far. Where's "lynch mob" and "McCarthyism", to round out the irony trifecta? (Hilariously sick when men liken themselves to women, whites to blacks, and capitalists to communists.)

[deleted]

Re: What I Didn't Say

#178

Post by semiel »

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #145
rcfox wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as if PG can't be trusted Just because we're in pg's house, it doesn't mean we have to treat him like a god. He's a fallible human being, just like the rest of us. The whole point of a blind interview is to prevent implicit bias that the bearer might not even be aware of.

Paul Graham is assumed guilty of being sexist and he's probably unaware of it. Got it.

Given that PG is a human living in America, psychological studies suggest that is statistically very likely.

Re: What I Didn't Say

#179

Post by ChuckMcM »

Nicely responded.

Over Thanksgiving a friend of mine who is studying for his Masters in Philosophy introduced me to the formal concept of the 'Principle of Charity' [1] which is on the hearer's part a requirement of applying the most reasonable interpretation of the argument presented. When pg wrote this:

"Also (as we've seen), if you talk about controversial topics, the audience for an interview will include people who for various reasons want to misinterpret what you say, so you have to be careful not to leave them any room to, whereas in a conversation you can assume good faith and speak as loosely as you would in everyday life."

It connected with me that both in the interwebs and here on HN too often people do not apply this principle, either in prejudice or in ignorance, to the topics being discussed. That is really too bad, because it helps the quality of the discussion tremendously.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity

Re: What I Didn't Say

#180

Post by Crito »

nashequilibrium wrote: post #161
Crito wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not say that 25+ is old, but I would say that it is slightly older . Slightly older than the people typically interested in a "fratty" culture.

You should read "The fall of Long Term Capital Management by Robert Lowenstein". Fratty culture is not limted to the young or inexperienced. John William Meriwether - born August 10, 1947 Myron Samuel Scholes - born July 1, 1941 Robert Cox Merton - born 31 July 1944

I didn't say that I think it is limited to the young.

I said that I think that people interested in fratty culture tend to be young.

Beanbag chairs and a constantly flowing keg are not meant to attract older talent. Certainly there are some older people who are attracted to that type of climate, but that really is not the target audience.

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