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Y Combinator's Graham Discusses Start-Up Industry

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Re: Y Combinator's Graham Discusses Start-Up Industry

#31

Post by vasco »

I don't understand the women+minority problem. Different people have different interests, and I believe this is a good thing and not a problem. If more diversity were to come to the startup world that would be awesome, but I don't see this as a problem that needs fixing.

Startup people just have to keep doing what they do and if more people get interested in startups then things will all fall into place. What about the percentages of women and minorities in such places as politics? Is this a problem too? What about other industries that are dominated by women, is there a problem there?

People like what they like and that's that!

Re: Y Combinator's Graham Discusses Start-Up Industry

#32

Post by dctoedt »

shareme wrote: post #30
aculver wrote: post #3

In the later part of the interview she asks some questions about the recent discussions regarding minorities in the startup community. I thought his response was insightful: "Well, I think the problem is upstream from us. I don't think it's that, like, huge numbers of women and minorities want to start startups and that we're filtering them out because they're not white or men or something like that. I think that the…

I am sorry but PG is wrong and blindsided by experiences rather than knowledge. Look at developing countries, their shares of minorities doing start-ups is at an all-time high. No, in fact the USA problem is directly tied to housing debt and EDU debt being too high in a specific demographic age group that happens to be the talent and the co-founder pool for start-ups in the USA. Whereas if is compared to small busine…

Not sure I understand your comment:

* The share of minorities doing startups being at an all-time high in developing countries -- are you referring to people who would be minorities here in the US but are majority in their own countries? How does that refute PG's point about the problem in the US being "upstream" of YC?

* I don't get at all what you're trying to say in your third paragraph, about the USA problem being directly tied to housing debt, etc. -- again, how does that refute PG's point?

Re: Y Combinator's Graham Discusses Start-Up Industry

#33

Post by pwim »

Eric Ries claims to have had "shocking" results when having recruiters remove all demographics from resumes. His suggestion for YC:

I suggest the following experiment: for your next batch of admissions, have half of your reviewers use a blind screening technique and the other half use your standard technique, on your first screen (before you’ve met any applicants). Compare the outputs of both selection processes. I predict they will show different demographics.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/19/racism-and-meritocracy/

Obviously YC needs to interview applicants, but as it already cuts people before the first interview, it might be an interesting experiment.

Re: Y Combinator's Graham Discusses Start-Up Industry

#34

Post by [deleted] »

shareme wrote: post #30
aculver wrote: post #3

In the later part of the interview she asks some questions about the recent discussions regarding minorities in the startup community. I thought his response was insightful: "Well, I think the problem is upstream from us. I don't think it's that, like, huge numbers of women and minorities want to start startups and that we're filtering them out because they're not white or men or something like that. I think that the…

I am sorry but PG is wrong and blindsided by experiences rather than knowledge. Look at developing countries, their shares of minorities doing start-ups is at an all-time high. No, in fact the USA problem is directly tied to housing debt and EDU debt being too high in a specific demographic age group that happens to be the talent and the co-founder pool for start-ups in the USA. Whereas if is compared to small busine…

[deleted]

Re: Y Combinator's Graham Discusses Start-Up Industry

#35

Post by kevincjemison »

pg wrote: post #10
jdp23 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some other incubators fund more women and minorities than YC, so this seems like it's only part of the story. A couple questions this leaves in my mind: - what are they doing to broaden the applicant pool? - have they considered that something about the process or their reputation might lead to women and minorities steering away from YC?

Probably the biggest things we've done to broaden the applicant pool are Hacker News, Startup School, and all the essays I've written about startups. I don't think there's anything about our process or reputation that directly discourages people of any gender or race. But we do prefer founders who are hackers, which presumably thus causes fewer members of groups that are underrepresented among hackers to apply to YC.

It's definitely a complicated issue with no clear overriding cause. As a minority who did take apart his mothers computer at 13 and compressed the windows partition to install linux (woo hoo slackware) and has gone on to found a startup I think some of Paul's commentary is spot on. Though I was representative of some of the larger stats (single parent home, lower middle income specturm) I was also one of two kids on my block with access to a computer in the home, and my single parent was a teacher who made education a priority. If you looked at the cohort of kids I grew up with you'd find myself and 2 others out of 11 or so that are not either a. dead or b. in jail, or have been in jail. Why is that? I don't know and don't claim to know, but the road to changing it starts very young.

Re: Y Combinator's Graham Discusses Start-Up Industry

#36

Post by pg »

pwim wrote: post #33

Eric Ries claims to have had "shocking" results when having recruiters remove all demographics from resumes. His suggestion for YC: I suggest the following experiment: for your next batch of admissions, have half of your reviewers use a blind screening technique and the other half use your standard technique, on your first screen (before you’ve met any applicants). Compare the outputs of both selection processes. I p…

We see them at the application stage too, because the application includes a video. The video tells us a lot more than their race and sex. So if half the people reading applications didn't see the video, we'd do a lot worse at reading applications.

Re: Y Combinator's Graham Discusses Start-Up Industry

#37

Post by andrewhillman »

pwim wrote: post #33

Eric Ries claims to have had "shocking" results when having recruiters remove all demographics from resumes. His suggestion for YC: I suggest the following experiment: for your next batch of admissions, have half of your reviewers use a blind screening technique and the other half use your standard technique, on your first screen (before you’ve met any applicants). Compare the outputs of both selection processes. I p…

I do not think YC wants to do an experiment for the sake of experimenting because YC is an experiment in itself. Seems like many commenting are missing the his point. The pool of applicants seems to come from those who gain access to computers at an early age. Unfortunately, minorities don't get this early access to computing, therefore, very few applicants are minorities. This has little to do with race and color and more to do with the level of interest of the person, but again, this tails back to how early a person comes in contact with a computer.
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