Why are there so few black tech entrepreneurs? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why are there so few black tech entrepreneurs?

#21

Post by strikelaserclaw » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

brainless wrote: post #5

I didn't think about it before but just thinking now - I know more Indian origin tech founders in the US than Black tech founders in the US. I find that a bit surprising suddenly. I'm an Indian who has never been to the US so I can not imagine the ground reality. But it's odd when I think of this. And I follow a good chunk of tech stuff online from various founders.

Well ask your self are the Indians founders from the upper castes or lower castes in India? I read an article which states that Dalit's make up only like 2-5% of all the Indians who come to America. African Americans are like the dalits of india in that they have faced systematic discrimination which has probably effected every part of their existence for a long time, it is not something that can easily change with the waving of a magic wand.

Re: Why are there so few black tech entrepreneurs?

#22

Post by founderofcolour » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

Ancapistani wrote: post #10

founderofcolour wrote: post #3

Posting anonymous for obvious reasons. I'm not black, but I am a minority. The racism in tech is so obvious, my eyes bleed sometimes. At my workplace, they will consistently take an average white worker (no special degrees, no special schools) and promote them over and over until they are multiple levels higher than others. Its all BLM woo haa on slack but what really matters is promotions, raises, projects, opportun…

Out of curiosity - the 25-year-old white VP seems very specific, so I assume it’s based on a personal experience. When were you able to enter the field, compared to them? Do they have more experience at an earlier age? To be clear, I am in no way arguing or trying to minimize your experiences. I’m looking for holes in my own view of the problem, which I stated in a top-level comment. Based on that I would expect that…

Yes, we have 4 such cases in a relatively small company, all in early to mid 20s. None with any degrees of note nor any prior successes or any prior superchargers (such as McKinsey). This is a specific experience. However, as I see our employees go to other companies, it is fascinating to follow a nice upward stairwell people of non-color follow.

Meanwhile, PoC with extensive experience are told, "oh next year, you will be eligible for Associate Director or some other BS"

I entered the company at just above entry level despite quite a bit of experience. I cant say more or it might become obvious who I am.

Re: Why are there so few black tech entrepreneurs?

#23

Post by shakezula » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #19

Ancapistani wrote: post #2

While bias in hiring is certainly an issue, I don’t believe that its the primary factor. Most of this disparity is due to differences in opportunity. Blacks in the US are less likely to have the resources at their disposal to enter our field. They are less likely to have two parents at home, to be able to afford college on their own, to have the familial financial and emotional support system necessary to have the re…

> the only way to solve that problem is the address the root causes: stable families, educational opportunities, easier access to decent wages, and lower housing costs. That first one seems much more difficult than the others. How do you go from pervasive single-parent households to consistent two parent households? You can't simply throw money at the problem and expect the next generation to bootstrap itself into st…

It can't be addressed directly, it's a latent expression of the problem. Address all the other things and you'll see increased stability in the average family.

Re: Why are there so few black tech entrepreneurs?

#24

Post by brainless » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

Ancapistani wrote: post #12

brainless wrote: post #5

I didn't think about it before but just thinking now - I know more Indian origin tech founders in the US than Black tech founders in the US. I find that a bit surprising suddenly. I'm an Indian who has never been to the US so I can not imagine the ground reality. But it's odd when I think of this. And I follow a good chunk of tech stuff online from various founders.

There are ~1.4 billion people in India. The subset of those who are able to afford to immigrate to the US is a small fraction of that - a fraction that by definition has either the financial means to do so or extreme motivation and persistence. In light of that, it’s not at all surprising to me that people of Indian descent in America are disproportionately successful.

There are 1.4 billion people now. Indians have been doing some wonderful things in the US for a couple decades now. Which means even previous generation expats were probably having more chance at success than Black Americans?

I am happy with where Indians are but I'm just trying to understand, in the light of recent situations, how deeply Black Americans feel they don't have any chance at success within their own country.

Re: Why are there so few black tech entrepreneurs?

#25

Post by founderofcolour » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

adwn wrote: post #18

founderofcolour wrote: post #3

Posting anonymous for obvious reasons. I'm not black, but I am a minority. The racism in tech is so obvious, my eyes bleed sometimes. At my workplace, they will consistently take an average white worker (no special degrees, no special schools) and promote them over and over until they are multiple levels higher than others. Its all BLM woo haa on slack but what really matters is promotions, raises, projects, opportun…

> At my workplace, they will consistently take an average white worker (no special degrees, no special schools) and promote them over and over until they are multiple levels higher than others. Are you saying that they also discriminate against above-average white workers in favor of average white workers? > The entire c-suite has a single person of color. How many people are in the C-suite, and what's the ratio of P…

How many people are in the C-suite? 8 with 1 PoC

We have a bit over 100 employees and about 30% are PoC.

Re: Why are there so few black tech entrepreneurs?

#26

Post by Ancapistani » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #16

Like mentioned in the article, only 13% of Americans are black[0]. Secondly, nearly 30% of that 13% are living in poverty[1]. So really you only have ~8% of Americans who are both black and not in poverty. From there it gets whittled down further for cultural reasons. You could similarly ask "where are there so few white rappers?" or "why are there so few male nurses?" and find cultural reasons and pressures involved…

“Cultural reasons” is often a “dog whistle” term. I don’t believe that’s the case here, and am responding in that spirit.

Why does “Black culture” in the US differ from “White culture”?

I believe it’s because their experiences differ. Blacks in the US are disproportionately poor, urban, and from unstable home environments. While I don’t have facts to back this up, I expect that if we compared groups segmented by these factors we would find the racial/ethnic disparities to be much less pronounced. That difference could be reasonably attributed to culture.

What shaped those cultures? That’s the important piece of information, and the root cause here. Looking back over American history, I’m aware of no point in which Whites and Blacks had even roughly equivalent conditions as a whole. At best, I would expect that the Black experience today is somewhere close to first-generation Irish or Italian immigrants in during their initial surges. Perhaps a closer fit would be Chinese immigrants during the railroad boom of westward expansion. It took generations for those groups to be fully integrated into our society.

I fully expect it to take generations to solve this problem. There’s much to do that can speed it up - like ensuring legislation does not discriminate either explicitly or implicitly - but it’s going to take time.

Changing hiring practices alone will not solve this.

Re: Why are there so few black tech entrepreneurs?

#27

Post by mytailorisrich » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 5:48 PM UTC

brainless wrote: post #20

mytailorisrich wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it's a general cultural trait, but my feeling is that Indians in Western countries tend to invest massively in education and point their children towards 'practical subjects: tech, medicine, law, business. I think that they are over-represented in all these subjects compared to their demographic weight in the general population. On top of that, there is a significant migration of Indian engineers to t…

Right, but do you think we would have continued that if, like other commenters here are sharing, Indians could not succeed - if they were systematically stopped from succeeding?

Black people are not systematically stopped from succeeding.

Here in the UK Indians 'succeed' because, as I mentioned, they invest massively in education. If you look at the grammar schools (selective state schools) exam, quite often the majority of children in the room are Asians.

The same route is open to black people, to white people, to anyone. The issue is much more complex than claiming that a specific group is victimised.

People are, in the vast majority, hired on merit. If you have an opening for a software engineer you can only hire someone who applied for that job. Few black people in tech starts at 6 years old.

Re: Why are there so few black tech entrepreneurs?

#28

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

Ancapistani wrote: post #2

While bias in hiring is certainly an issue, I don’t believe that its the primary factor. Most of this disparity is due to differences in opportunity. Blacks in the US are less likely to have the resources at their disposal to enter our field. They are less likely to have two parents at home, to be able to afford college on their own, to have the familial financial and emotional support system necessary to have the re…

[deleted]

Re: Why are there so few black tech entrepreneurs?

#29

Post by jknz » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #19

Ancapistani wrote: post #2

While bias in hiring is certainly an issue, I don’t believe that its the primary factor. Most of this disparity is due to differences in opportunity. Blacks in the US are less likely to have the resources at their disposal to enter our field. They are less likely to have two parents at home, to be able to afford college on their own, to have the familial financial and emotional support system necessary to have the re…

> the only way to solve that problem is the address the root causes: stable families, educational opportunities, easier access to decent wages, and lower housing costs. That first one seems much more difficult than the others. How do you go from pervasive single-parent households to consistent two parent households? You can't simply throw money at the problem and expect the next generation to bootstrap itself into st…

Truancy: the action of staying away from school without good reason; absenteeism. (Had to google it! Thanks for a new word)

Truancy can be dealt with by providing food to the kid at the end of the school day, food meant to be brought home.

There are of course arguments against this, e.g., school are not meant for this. Well, schools are not meant to operate with absent students and whatever can fix should be considered.

Re: Why are there so few black tech entrepreneurs?

#30

Post by brainless » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #21

brainless wrote: post #5

I didn't think about it before but just thinking now - I know more Indian origin tech founders in the US than Black tech founders in the US. I find that a bit surprising suddenly. I'm an Indian who has never been to the US so I can not imagine the ground reality. But it's odd when I think of this. And I follow a good chunk of tech stuff online from various founders.

Well ask your self are the Indians founders from the upper castes or lower castes in India? I read an article which states that Dalit's make up only like 2-5% of all the Indians who come to America. African Americans are like the dalits of india in that they have faced systematic discrimination which has probably effected every part of their existence for a long time, it is not something that can easily change with t…

Yes I think these are points we have to accept but many are not willing to. I myself come from a lower caste, although not Dalit. But I'm lucky to come from a region where caste system wasn't strong many decades back even (Bengal). But I can imagine, from news and other sources, what it might have done to my social existence if applied to me. I'm thankful to say the least.