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Female Founders

paulgraham.com

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Re: Female Founders

#201

Post by Helianthus »

derefr wrote: post #182
Helianthus wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not hate, cynicism. Talk's cheap and tends to benefit the speaker. The rhetorical arc of the piece is public self-exoneration. I don't think you can reasonably argue otherwise. PG isn't required to give a deposition of his thoughts on the matter. He could remain silent and continue working on what's important to him. Or more interestingly, he could launch YC initiatives to get girls coding, shift resources towards so…

I find that a very strange definition for cynicism. Usually cynics tend to assume that people are, more often than not, consequentialists: pursuing means for their ends. PG's ends, in this case, are his business; he wants to make more money. This piece, seen as a consequentialist act, would be a gambit played to calm a possible negative tide in feminist circles toward YC, that might have resulted in YC getting fewer…

I didn't intend to particularly provide a definition for cynicism so much as deflect the idea I was writing out of hatred.

>This piece, seen as a consequentialist act, would be a gambit played to calm a possible negative tide in feminist circles toward YC, that might have resulted in YC getting fewer (qualified!) female applicants... which would be bad for business.

Precisely, with a possible qualifier on 'feminist circles'--moderate, maybe even conservative feminist circles.

By which I mean to say, he's pointedly ignoring the feminist concerns outside of the most mainstream: even those that have a point.

Which is why this isn't a conversation! There is no interchange of ideas happening here, only the inevitable flame war spawned by a HN gender topic.

Re: Female Founders

#202

Post by frandroid »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #43

Why is pg engaging with these trolls? Does anyone think they truly care about women succeeding in business or software? No, this is about making a stink and attention whoring. The appropriate response is to flip these weenies the bird.

A troll asking pg not to deal with trolls. How fitting.

Re: Female Founders

#203

Post by derefr »

evincarofautumn wrote: post #64
johnrob wrote: post #23

Another explanation of why girls don't start companies: maybe they are smarter? The median outcome of a startup is a loss of time and money.

“Smarter” is too blunt a point. Your average young woman is probably more risk-averse than your average young man.

I don't know why this isn't a well-established point, taken as an axiom of these discussions. It has been proven that testosterone increases risk-taking. Men, on average, are more willing to take risks--and even more willing, the more testosterone-triggering a situation becomes (e.g. a competition with the possibility of impressing a potential mate will induce higher risk-taking.) It's not so much a fact about "men" in the strict biological sense, either; it's just a fact about testosterone itself. Trans-men take more risks, too, when they're on hormone therapy.

Re: Female Founders

#204

Post by cgore »

noblethrasher wrote: post #166
pyrocat wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say it's more like "I'm not racist! I adopted a black kid." The second paragraph was mostly fine but it did come off a little... unhumble. And humility is usually the tone you want when talking about how your company is doing good for X cause, but it could be doing more.

It would be more like saying "I'm not racist because my spouse is black".

I'm not sexist because my wife is a woman?

Re: Female Founders

#205

Post by frandroid »

enraged_camel wrote: post #8
_bfhp wrote: post #4

"It's hard to argue I'm biased against female founders when I have a female cofounder myself." No matter how the rest of the essay is, this honestly doesn't mean jack and insults the intelligence of his critics, no matter how off-the-mark they were. He goes on to note other, more meaningful statistics, which is great, but this sentence alone is kind of laughable.

I agree. Isn't Jessica his wife? edit: the downvote was predictable, although still disappointing. I was simply pointing out that picking your wife as a cofounder should not be used as proof that you are not biased against women. Honestly, PG's argument would be stronger as a whole if he removed that line from the essay.

That's a serious lack of disclosure, thanks for pointing it out.

Re: Female Founders

#206

Post by VladRussian2 »

derefr wrote: post #174
MrZongle2 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that there is no similar hand-wringing about the lack of women in the fields of sanitation, construction, plumbing or cartooning. Likewise, not much hubbub about the gender imbalance in the fashion industry. Could it possibly be that men and women think differently, and those minor differences are reflected in their career preferences? Could it be that these preferences play a bigger role in gender imbalances in…

I think a major argument against this, in the field of programming in particular, is that most of those other field-related imbalances are culture-neutral . You'll find more male sanitation workers, construction workers, plumbers, etc. everywhere from the US, to Brazil, to China, to Russia, to Pakistan. (Controlling, of course, for the more general inequities in employment-by-gender that those cultures face.) But the…

>But the "no female programmers" thing is specific to western culture. There are plenty of female programmers in India, and in Russia. So this is likely something about western culture, that has caused this difference.

i'd be very curious to hear from a female programmer from Russia. I just find it hard to believe in overturning of the sexist culture there, and my impression that we have more females in hi-tech here in SV.

Re: Female Founders

#207

Post by jchung »

zachlatta wrote: post #30
loumf wrote: post #13

In a footnote, PG says the poor need hardware to program. I work with poor kids (and volunteer to teach technology to them). Hardware is relatively easy to come by (there are cheap options and donations), but access to the Internet is not.

How have you been working to overcome the lack of access to the internet? This is something I've been giving a lot of thought lately.

If you're seriously interested in this topic, I'd suggest looking into the work being done by Evan Marwell from Education Superhighway.

Re: Female Founders

#208

Post by reallyseriously »

parfe wrote: post #26

I find myself disappointed by this blog post. The second paragraph amounts to a sexist version of "I'm not racist! I have black friends!" Then he follows up with statistics comparing YC to the general VC market. Fine, you do better than most. However, not the worst does not mean not bad. He comes closest to saying anything of substance with the paragraph: So how would you cause there to be more female programmers? Th…

Glad PG wrote this and equally glad this is the top comment so far. It appears PG hasn't yet learned that it will never be enough for some people. In anything he writes on this topic he'll leave out some group or state a point in a way that someone disagrees with. And then, all they'll do is attack attack attack.

Even Seinfeld isn't immune: http://youtu.be/VXbDJ3uBl9M?t=1h26m36s

Re: Female Founders

#209

Post by Rylinks »

Helianthus wrote: post #160
baddox wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And you can say, with a straight face, that YC is not sexist? I don't think he could have made that any clearer.

I suppose I was looking for double jeopardy. The nature of this kind of discussion is always going to be hyperbolic and emotionally charged, which is why gender discussions here get nuked. That's what I find so amusing about PG's foray today: PG could write the most innocuous treatise imaginable, and he'd still be getting into trouble, and deservedly so. Ask yourself: what happens after this? Is YC going to be the sh…

If pg would get in trouble no matter how innocuous the essay, why should we pay any attention to whether he does?

Re: Female Founders

#210

Post by jdbernard »

derefr wrote: post #174
MrZongle2 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that there is no similar hand-wringing about the lack of women in the fields of sanitation, construction, plumbing or cartooning. Likewise, not much hubbub about the gender imbalance in the fashion industry. Could it possibly be that men and women think differently, and those minor differences are reflected in their career preferences? Could it be that these preferences play a bigger role in gender imbalances in…

I think a major argument against this, in the field of programming in particular, is that most of those other field-related imbalances are culture-neutral . You'll find more male sanitation workers, construction workers, plumbers, etc. everywhere from the US, to Brazil, to China, to Russia, to Pakistan. (Controlling, of course, for the more general inequities in employment-by-gender that those cultures face.) But the…

Do you have any statistics for your claim about female programmers in India? I have yet to meet a single Indian programmer who was female in the decade and a half I have been programming. In fact, the only females in tech of Indian heritage that I know have been US-born.
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