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VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality

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Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality

#191

Post by PascLeRasc »

s4n1ty wrote: post #185
tptacek wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the disadvantage is racialized. White households at the 10th, 50th, and 90th percentile of income live in neighborhoods where the median income is a double digits percentile higher than black households at the same income level , and the effect amplifies the lower your household income is.

What is the source of the data you're citing, and how does it establish that race is a causal factor?

Please stop responding to every comment asking for a source, it’s incredibly unhelpful. If that’s honestly all you got from this discussion about inequality then I truly feel sorry for you.

Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality

#192

Post by JangoSteve »

anticonformist wrote: post #162
JangoSteve wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is exactly part of the problem, though. The thing about systemic racism and sexism, versus just regular racism and sexism, is that they're entangled (or worse, encoded) into the existing systems. You can't really solve the issues without unraveling the systems. Regular racism and sexism is when the reason you're not given a chance is because of direct racial or gender-based bias. Systemic racism and sexism can a…

More rich women and rich black people joining the VC network would not solve the problem. And yet that's the conclusion this thinking leads to. It's the author's solution as well and doesn't address the real problem at all. What portion of non-rich people make up the VC network? It's definitely lower than the percentage of women or black people. No one is more "underrepresented" than non-rich people. VCs are the 1%.…

One type of bias does not preclude the other. In this case, one may even strengthen the other. The argument that VCs discriminate on wealth strengthens the argument of systemic racial and gender-based bias, given the disparities in income and wealth between races and genders. This is the indirect nature of systemic bias I was describing.

Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality

#193

Post by PascLeRasc »

causality0 wrote: post #135
nyczomg wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"in the end they would invest only in the hottest SAAS startup by an ex-Googler." If that was her main point, fair. But she's out there naming names and strongly implying that they didn't help her due to their racism and/or sexism. That's a pretty nasty accusation to throw at someone. And the names she named were the people who bothered to reply to her at all - they just didn't spend an adequate amount of effort on h…

I have zero business experience whatsoever. That said, I wouldn't have invested in her business for the simple reason she made it too easy to cut out the middleman. She intends to make money by hooking people up with personal trainers but there's nothing stopping said trainers and clients from just doing business themselves after she's done the work of connecting them.

That’s something a VC could say instead of silence. Helping someone build their business would be incredibly supportive. However it seems that no VCs were interested in doing that.

Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality

#194

Post by krapp »

s4n1ty wrote: post #184
zbentley wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only has that particular piece been debunked, shredded, put back together, debunked, shredded again, and (metaphorically) left in the dumpster, but it's totally irrelevant to this thread. Interest in running a company or technology is not at issue. You have a bunch of founders in this thread with demonstrable (as in: they have founded companies) interest in doing these things, and they're having trouble getting o…

> Not only has that particular piece been debunked, shredded, put back together, debunked, shredded again, and (metaphorically) left in the dumpster Not at all. Damore's memo was reasonable, accurate, and the criticism of it has been, like yours, entirely without substance.

>Damore's memo was reasonable, accurate, and the criticism to it has been, like yours, entirely without substance.

The Wikipedia article on Damore's memo lists a number of substantive criticisms[0]. For convenience, I'll list them here:

This Vox article[1] gives a brief background of Damore's argument from biological essentialism. It references the general consensus that the premise (that cultural and sociological gender roles result from innate and immutable differences in gender biology and neurology) has been discredited[2,3], as well as a Stanford research paper[4] which concludes “Through a rather constructivist approach most studies show that no scientific experiment has proved the existence of systematic and/or significant biological sex differences in most cognitive functions.”

This BBC article[5] mentions a criticism by a cognitive scientist, This Intelligencer article[6] lists numerous criticisms and rebuttals by scientists, referencing this Quora article by an evolutionary scientist[7], and another criticism from studies of gender and STEM[8].

Now, that's as many as I've been willing to list because I'm now thoroughly bored of hunting down sources, but there are many others I haven't listed if you want to do the research yourself. Now granted, wikipedia also lists a number of counter-criticisms, but that alone doesn't render the criticism invalid, it merely demonstrates the existence of a controversy.

I'm leaving this comment here for future reference, and referring to it every time I notice someone bringing up the myth that Damore's memo is based on rock-solid, unassailable science, or that no "substantive" criticisms have or can been made.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Ch...

[1]https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/8/8/16106728/google-fire...

[2]https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2016/may/...

[3]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/07/silico...

[4]http://genderedinnovations.stanford.edu/images/TR3_Stereotyp...

[5]https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-40865261

[6]https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/08/some-scientific-argu...

[7]https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-bio...

[8]https://www.vox.com/2017/8/11/16127992/google-engineer-memo-...

Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality

#195

Post by digitaltrees »

bagacrap wrote: post #164
digitaltrees wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. You think people are actually looking at her LinkedIn before the racial email filtering kicks in? You could easily test that, I suspect the implicit bias kick in right at the name and email stage. About 20 years ago, before LinkedIn, my dad sent resumes with his Brazilian name and an anglicized version. It was like 10:1 greater response to the Anglo version, and he changed our family name shortly after. 2. If the…

How would they know she's black from an email? Does her name sound African American to you?

Fair. But the fact that we can tell, generally, does kind of give credibility to her point.

Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality

#196

Post by PascLeRasc »

pluto9 wrote: post #167
avilay wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And given that a majority of "Ex-Google" engineers are males, where does that leave a woman (or any under-represented group) founder? She is not asking for money "just because" she is a woman. She is asking for a fair chance. And we need to give folks from under-represented communities a more than fair chance to combat inherent selection bias.

> She is asking for a fair chance. Where is the evidence that she didn't get one? A fair chance is not a guarantee of funding.

Reading her email and responding, or downloading the app, would be some fair chances. There’s plenty of evidence in the article linked at the top of this page that that did not happen. Take a look.

Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality

#197

Post by [deleted] »

s4n1ty wrote: post #58
pl0x wrote: post #57

Most of the comments are trying to disprove the racism that this black female founder is facing. Microsoft has put out a great unconscious bias course that this mostly cismale dominated forum can benefit from. https://www.mslearning.microsoft.com/course/72169/launch Why downvote this comment?

What is a "cismale", and what makes you think they dominate this forum?

[deleted]

Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality

#198

Post by [deleted] »

s4n1ty wrote: post #58
pl0x wrote: post #57

Most of the comments are trying to disprove the racism that this black female founder is facing. Microsoft has put out a great unconscious bias course that this mostly cismale dominated forum can benefit from. https://www.mslearning.microsoft.com/course/72169/launch Why downvote this comment?

What is a "cismale", and what makes you think they dominate this forum?

[deleted]

Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality

#199

Post by s4n1ty »

krapp wrote: post #194
s4n1ty wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not only has that particular piece been debunked, shredded, put back together, debunked, shredded again, and (metaphorically) left in the dumpster Not at all. Damore's memo was reasonable, accurate, and the criticism of it has been, like yours, entirely without substance.

>Damore's memo was reasonable, accurate, and the criticism to it has been, like yours, entirely without substance. The Wikipedia article on Damore's memo lists a number of substantive criticisms[0]. For convenience, I'll list them here: This Vox article[1] gives a brief background of Damore's argument from biological essentialism. It references the general consensus that the premise (that cultural and sociological ge…

Starting with the first critique in your list of citations, the Vox article - third paragraph:

> He uses primarily stereotyped misconceptions about men and women to argue that “gender gaps [do not always] imply sexism,” and declares that “discriminating just to increase the representation of women in tech” is “misguided and biased” as well as “unfair, divisive, and bad for business.”

The question of stereotyping is addressed in the memo itself:

> I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes. When addressing the gap in representation in the population, we need to look at population level differences in distributions. If we can't have an honest discussion about this,then we can never truly solve the problem.

Can you point to where in Damore's memo he relies on stereotyped misconceptions? I've read it many times and I didn't see anything fitting that characterization.

Specificity would be helpful.

Re: VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality

#200

Post by triceratops »

m0zg wrote: post #90
avilay wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And given that a majority of "Ex-Google" engineers are males, where does that leave a woman (or any under-represented group) founder? She is not asking for money "just because" she is a woman. She is asking for a fair chance. And we need to give folks from under-represented communities a more than fair chance to combat inherent selection bias.

> She is not asking for money "just because" she is a woman. That's why I asked to see the track record. You won't get anywhere in this business without a track record. Moreover, if you do have a track record being a woman is an advantage these days, not a disadvantage. There are a lot of VCs chomping at the bit to invest into women- and minority-led startups. But they won't give you money if they don't have some deg…

https://www.portablepress.com/blog/2014/04/chomping-vs-champ...
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