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A vanishingly small percentage of venture funding has been raised by black women

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Re: A vanishingly small percentage of venture funding has been raised by black women

#31

Post by rwill128 »

uncletaco wrote: post #9
sbierwagen wrote: post #3

Only 12 Black women led startups (yes only 12) have raised $1MM or more in outside funding since 2012. Twelve is now "zero"?

It would have been more accurate to say "virtually no" black women have led startups. Though I guess she gets a pass for saying "statistically". It would have also been nice if a comparison was done as to the race of other startup founders and... I don't know more than a single chart listing the companies and how much they raised each? This isn't a very good statistic to trumpet around if its going to be presented ou…

Ironically, saying 'virtually no black women have led startups' would still be 100% wrong, just emphatically so.

Re: A vanishingly small percentage of venture funding has been raised by black women

#33

Post by jfidmemdj »

aristus wrote: post #29
jfidmemdj wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, but "effectively zero" != "statistically zero" The "actual point" of the post is a lie.

So there's no discrimination, the entire post is a lie, because you found a point of math to be pedantic about. Got it.

The post is "statistically" a lie and you just used a straw man argument. Congrats.

Re: A vanishingly small percentage of venture funding has been raised by black women

#34

Post by aristus »

rambos wrote: post #19

Some thoughts and questions here. Should we in the tech industry feel obligated to spend energy on these social movements? Are we wrong and selfish to not? Honestly, I'd rather not. I'd rather get technical things done, and let policy makers and influencers focus on those issues. If you're in on something with me, great AWESOME, I honestly don't care who you are. Things like race and gender don't matter to me as long…

It's your choice to ignore it. More precisely, it's your privilege to ignore it.

"...how do we as a technical industry even change that when we need to focus..."

The point of startups is not blindly attacking the biggest pile of work at hand. It's to find blindspots and exploit them. If every single one of your competitors is systematically undervaluing entire classes of potential workers, dontcha think that just maybe there's an opportunity to be had there?

But no. For all the talk of merit, getting shit done, hustle, etc, it's mostly about connections. You can't hold onto the meritocratic myth and ignore completely obvious evidence to the contrary forever. But damn, so many rich white guys around here love to try.

Re: A vanishingly small percentage of venture funding has been raised by black women

#36

Post by noir_lord »

rambos wrote: post #19

Some thoughts and questions here. Should we in the tech industry feel obligated to spend energy on these social movements? Are we wrong and selfish to not? Honestly, I'd rather not. I'd rather get technical things done, and let policy makers and influencers focus on those issues. If you're in on something with me, great AWESOME, I honestly don't care who you are. Things like race and gender don't matter to me as long…

One of the communities I'm in has gone to war over its Code of Conduct, I'm largely uninterested, I think a CoC is probably required but the proposed one is terrible (cynical me thinks it looks like a power grab).

It's a tricky balance to get right.

Re: A vanishingly small percentage of venture funding has been raised by black women

#37

Post by [deleted] »

rambos wrote: post #19

Some thoughts and questions here. Should we in the tech industry feel obligated to spend energy on these social movements? Are we wrong and selfish to not? Honestly, I'd rather not. I'd rather get technical things done, and let policy makers and influencers focus on those issues. If you're in on something with me, great AWESOME, I honestly don't care who you are. Things like race and gender don't matter to me as long…

[deleted]

Re: A vanishingly small percentage of venture funding has been raised by black women

#39

Post by pluma »

sbierwagen wrote: post #4
wmeredith wrote: post #2

Yes, and? Did any try? If so, what happened? If not, why not? I need more information for this to be interesting.

Second paragraph. Only 12 Black women led startups (yes only 12) have raised $1MM or more in outside funding since 2012.

Out of how many? When were they founded? When did they raise the money? What's the trend (founded/total, funded/total and funded/founded)?

It's nonsense to talk about this kind of thing without the correct frame of reference. At least if you're trying to argue that not enough black women led startups get funded (which seems to be what the headline is getting at).

Also, what about other ethnicities? What about black men? What about white women? What about social backgrounds? Was their ethnicity the distinguishing factor at that point or were they preselected prior to becoming entrepreneurs?

The first step to finding out how to solve the problem is to find out where the problem actually stems from. The 5 Whys apply to social problems as much as to technical ones.

Re: A vanishingly small percentage of venture funding has been raised by black women

#40

Post by nolite »

jfidmemdj wrote: post #22
nolite wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you people high? "Statistically" doesn't mean "12 == 0". It means "Effectively zero"

I may be extremely dumb for learning math and statistics incorrectly, but as far as I know, 12 statistically is not 0.

When you're comparing it to 10,000 fundraises, it is..

24/10000 = 0.0024 -> two tenth's of 1%.... ie... statistically zero..

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