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Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

wired.com

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Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#21

Post by FD3SA »

I agree with most of what this article is saying, but the existence of YC is a perfect counter-argument. Although I've disagreed with PG regarding his opinions on "Zuckerberg-likeness" being important in founders, I know that YC selects for merit above all else.

How do I know this? Because PG has stated many times that he is excited about founders from the University of Waterloo in Canada, which used to be unknown on the international level. Clearly, after having met some incredibly talented founders, the YC team has calibrated its "prestige" ranking to match their observations based upon UW founder success.

To me, this is as close as one can get to a merit based system. Hire based on reputation, but adjust your reputation based upon the data you collect in real time. And most importantly, give everyone a fair chance. Never disqualify anyone preemptively without viewing their application.

Furthermore, as far as VCs are involved, there can be no better stamp on your resume than having gone through a program like YC.

Now, the counterpoint to all this is that, ideally, you should be able to crowd source/bootstrap this whole thing as a solo founder because you have merit. I think we are definitely moving in that direction, but some ventures will always be more capital intensive in terms of burn rate. As such, incubators and VCs will still be the "safe" path for fast growing and/or very ambitious companies.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#22

Post by steven2012 »

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 as hard. I had a friend who moved to Japan, and despite the fact that his wife was native Japanese, because she was 31 and married, she was practically unemployable. And the best he could do was get a job at coffee shop speaking English to customers. After 10 months, they moved back to the US. He hates Japan because there is no meritocracy whatsoever. Everything is based on age.

There may not be a lot of women who are CEOs of startups, but it's getting better every day, and the corporate ladder is very rewarding to smart women and minorities, at least in Silicon Valley and probably other places like NYC, LA, etc. My wife, who is in finance, went from Senior Manager to Senior Director is 3 years because she's very, very smart and the CFO recognized this and rewarded her aptly. Her bonus was >$100,000 for the 3rd year in a row, and 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. If she were living in any other country in the world, who knows if she would have been given as lucrative of an opportunity.

So sure, it's not perfect, but it's a pretty good meritocracy here, and as I said, getting better every year.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#23

Post by seiji »

Kurtz79 wrote: post #7
beachstartup wrote: post #6

> But if the tech scene is really a meritocracy, why are so many of its key players, from Mark Zuckerberg to Steve Jobs, white men? a jewish guy and a half arab guy aren't exactly the best examples of the point this guy's trying to make. there's also no shortage of asian and indian "key players" so ... i think this guy is trying to make one point, but accidentally making another point altogether, and then failing at…

In what ways a jewish white man is not a white man ? It's a serious question, are people of jewish faith not considered "white" in the US ?

It's complicated. Jewish is a religion as well as an ethnicity.

The much-before-CE cult turned into a religion turned into one of the longest running breeding experiments we have. The historical focus on internal tribal mating self-selected certain superpowers (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence) that come in quite handy these days.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#24

Post by rhdoenges »

beachstartup wrote: post #20
Anechoic wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

of the point this guy's trying to make i think this guy I think this post makes the article's point nicely. (take another look at the article byline, and lookup the author on Google)

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.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#25

Post by MAGZine »

jnovek wrote: post #8
mathattack wrote: post #3

I think it's fair to start with, "No industries or geographies are pure meritocracies." Then it's worth asking, "Where does Silicon Valley fit in the spectrum?" Is it more or less meritocratic than teaching? Being an actuary? A politician? A banker? A lawyer? Advertising? Writing? I don't know all of the answers, but my impression is the market forces on startups (Can you get funding? Can you get customers?) at least…

The thing the author is challenging here is not whether Silicon Valley is a meritocracy, but whether it is as much of a meritocracy as its participants believe. It doesn't matter much how it compares to other industries. In my (limited) experience, among successful founders and investors -- the "trend setters" of startup culture -- there is a widely held notion that anyone with a computer, a good brain, a decent idea…

I'd tend to believe that if you have a badass business deal that is truly worth 1B, you have know-how to get it off the ground, and have exceptional presentation skills (its all about the sell, at this point) a VC wouldn't say no because a person is black, female, gay, or all 3. VCs are their to make money, and they see white male harvard dropouts with no social life to be a safe bet. Convince them that you have a plan to net a return, that is, convince them based on your MERIT, and you'll be successful.

Meritocracy is based on merit, not "giving everyone a fair chance," even if that's what the author would prefer. Though, that's not to say that a bias doesn't exist.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#26

Post by mtrimpe »

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…

The point of the article was that we're pretending it's an almost pure meritocracy though; which itself is hampering efforts to improve on the current situation.

More than anything else it's about the tech industry being in denial about this.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#27

Post by woah »

freefrancisco wrote: post #19

' Helene Ahl found that in business discourse 70 percent of words used to describe entrepreneurs were male-gendered — these included “self-reliant”, “assertive”, “forceful”, “risk-taking”, “self-sufficient”, “leader”, “competitive”, and “ambitious”.' I don't see anything male about any of these words, I know many women who can be accurately described by these words, as well as many men who cannot. Why is the author c…

There's a very deep rabbit-hole of feminist studies...

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#28

Post by Anechoic »

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…

but it is the most meritocratic of any other place in the world

Really? I think most pro sports leagues would give SV a run for it's money in terms of meritocracy.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#29

Post by walshemj »

FD3SA wrote: post #21

I agree with most of what this article is saying, but the existence of YC is a perfect counter-argument. Although I've disagreed with PG regarding his opinions on "Zuckerberg-likeness" being important in founders, I know that YC selects for merit above all else. How do I know this? Because PG has stated many times that he is excited about founders from the University of Waterloo in Canada, which used to be unknown on…

You do know waterloo is where some of the builders/inventors of colossus ended up post ww2 and has along history in computing.

Re: Silicon Valley Isn’t a Meritocracy

#30

Post by parsnips »

Anechoic wrote: post #28
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…

but it is the most meritocratic of any other place in the world Really? I think most pro sports leagues would give SV a run for it's money in terms of meritocracy.

To be fair, that's just beginning to change because of analytics.
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