Oh, this American sexism nonsense again. Why, btw, no one is complaining that women have no predispositions for "autistic traits" ("being a male is to have some slight form of autism", like they said) and that girls with Asperger's, like, supposedly, Ayn Rand, is one for a billion. Why no one is protesting against the facts that men are much worse in caring for babies, because they have not enough "non-verbal communication abilities" to stay in a "continuous non-verbal rapport" with a toddler 24 hours a day? Why just not accept the fact that women are evolved to be better at some tasks at the expense of the other (and so are men)? So-called gender equality is a nonsensical "mental" concept (like any other "equality" nonsense which goes against the nature - genes is the very vehicle of inequality), given that the whole "evolutionary reasoning" behind a gender is necessary diversification of functions and abilities.
What I Didn't Say
461–470 of 601 posts
Re: What I Didn't Say
#462Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fine, he was mischaracterized and he replied. But jesus, > pg's response is actually priceless: it is like a soft-spoken witness upending a bullying lawyer who had just viciously attacked him, leaving the attacker reeling for all to see. What's with the almost cult-like reverence for this largely pseudo-intellectual entrepreneur?
You mean like the cult-like reverence for the pseudo-intellectual issues commentary on Twitter and Medium? The people who have less than a decade in the industry but are experts on compensation, ocracies, power dynamics, and psychology? The ones who work at Silicon Valley startups and lecture the entire industry about how things work, then surround themselves with like-minded people to have strength in numbers? You a…
I suppose you wouldn't listen to Einstein when he was under 40 too, hmmm?
There are numerous examples of younger, less experienced people being in the right while the older, more experienced are at fault because of one thing or another. Of course, this is the exception, not the rule. However, less experienced people often have an interesting take on things that more experienced people miss. When you're 35 you might be better served reading a brilliant 35 year old's thoughts than a brilliant 55 year old's. In many ways, you may be able to better relate and understand the younger one's thoughts.
Re: What I Didn't Say
#463Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fine, he was mischaracterized and he replied. But jesus, > pg's response is actually priceless: it is like a soft-spoken witness upending a bullying lawyer who had just viciously attacked him, leaving the attacker reeling for all to see. What's with the almost cult-like reverence for this largely pseudo-intellectual entrepreneur?
What's with the almost cult-like relevance for this largely pseudo-intellectual entrepreneur? - Founded a successful web apps company back in the 1990s when that wasn't common, and sold it to Yahoo - Founded Y Combinator to advise and invest in startups - Smart investor with substantial success and track record (Dropbox, AirBnB, etc) In other words, he's earned a reputation for doing some very smart things, and docum…
"Founded a successful web apps company back in the 1990s when that wasn't common, and sold it to Yahoo"
While that is awesome, it is a substantially different game we play nowadays than in the 90's.
Re: What I Didn't Say
#464As a female founder, I think this is a well-thought-out, articulate response, and I appreciate pg stepping up to say something about women in tech. In a similar vein, I'd love to see YC take on one or both of the following: 1) Do at least one application cycle completely blind. How could you accomplish this? Much like in the concert auditions where this was first tried, put people behind a curtain--and then use techn…
As a founder, with due respect, why you don't do anything about it? I think they are good ideas. So how is that you expect someone else to do the work for you? As a founder I know how hard is to make an idea a reality, and my ideas had relative success(I managed to get things done and most people look to me now like "all I have was given" to me, or that what I created was obvious and easy, as it is obvious now, but t…
> The "frat house" is working very well and there is no reason to change what works. Different systems could work, but with different people, and different focus.
Yes. Y Combinator could very well decide that their current process is offputting to women, but that it is so successful that they don't care, and that they're perfectly happy to keep doing what they're doing even if it effectively excludes women.
But if this is the case, then their only two options are to lie about it or to stand up in public and say that they don't care about including women. The former has significant risk as a long-term strategy, and the latter is a PR debacle that could negatively impact their ability to attract a significant percentage of male founders -- which is to say, anyone who cares about gender equality.
Re: What I Didn't Say
#465Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, I should probably point out that pg went to Harvard specifically to study Philosophy. He earned a Doctor of Philosophy in 1990. Therefore your critique that he should have a degree before writing about philosophy is interesting. All of those people are academics par execellance. I'm not talking about business-ified institutional academica. I'm talking about spending a long time on a topic, researching it and thin…
> pg spent weeks on each of his early essays. He spent a solid month writing What You Can't Say. He spent at least a couple days writing this one. Stephenie Meyer spent years writing the Twilight books. Time spent on a work is in no way indicative on the quality of that work.
How are we measuring "quality"?
Reaction from literary critics? Reaction from the target audience? Financial success?
It seems to me that by two of those standards Stephenie Meyer knocked the ball out of the park. It is not clear to me why we should care about the other standard of quality.
Re: What I Didn't Say
#466Earlier quoted context omitted.
> as if PG can't be trusted Just because we're in pg's house, it doesn't mean we have to treat him like a god. He's a fallible human being, just like the rest of us. The whole point of a blind interview is to prevent implicit bias that the bearer might not even be aware of.
Paul Graham is assumed guilty of being sexist and he's probably unaware of it. Got it.
That's not any more reasonable an interpretation than accusing anyone who prefers double-blind medical studies of believing that doctors can't be trusted.
Re: What I Didn't Say
#467As a female founder, I think this is a well-thought-out, articulate response, and I appreciate pg stepping up to say something about women in tech. In a similar vein, I'd love to see YC take on one or both of the following: 1) Do at least one application cycle completely blind. How could you accomplish this? Much like in the concert auditions where this was first tried, put people behind a curtain--and then use techn…
As another female founder I concur: blind applications would make me more comfortable to consider applying to funds in general, not just YC. As an audio processing geek, getting male and female voices to sound the same is actually pretty hard without losing diction, but at least having the application have a separate cover-sheet for the founder's names and any information that might give away identifiers about gender…
Why not apply to YC? Worst case, you'll spend a couple of hours answering questions on the application, then get a rejection email. On the bright side, simply answering the questions can help hone your idea and execution. If you do get an interview, great! Then you have an opportunity to meet some YC partners, applicants, and alumni. If you're turned down at that point, feedback from the partners will be personalized, and you'll have gained experience interacting with investors. If things go well and you get an offer, then you can accept or refuse based on the information gleaned from the whole process.
If you're unsure about applying, I recommend doing so. No matter what happens, you stand to benefit.
Re: What I Didn't Say
#468pg is being disingenuous. He did only refer to programmers. That's true. But what he left out is that, he defined programmers as the "pool of potential startup founders". (You have to read the full transcript to notice that.) So he is not actually referring to a subset of women. He very clearly says women as a whole are underrepresented as founders because they haven't been hacking since age 13 like the attendees of…
it's amazing you have to scroll down this far to find someone actually thinking critically about the issue at hand rather than saying "they edited out the word 'these'! that's not how journalism works!". yes, they edited the quote. no, the original was not really much less sexist.
Re: What I Didn't Say
#469The media has amazing power to manipulate stories and fabricate what will be taken as facts by the masses. This power is almost impossible to counter. They have molded public opinion, destroyed people and manipulated elections at nearly every level.
When I was a kid I was told a story as a means to communicate the gravity of telling lies. A lie, as the story goes, is like ripping open a feather pillow atop a mountain. Feathers fly everywhere. To undo a lie you have to collect every single feather, a task monumentally more difficult than telling the lie.
The Internet multiplies the power of the lie at every level. From a simple comments to blog posts to more established media outlets. Since the feathers can't be collected the damage can be extensive, permanent and even outlive the victim. Given this it would almost seem that the law needs to develop beyond liebel and slander (which I think might not be up to the task).
Re: What I Didn't Say
#470Earlier quoted context omitted.
A reputation can be a blessing or a curse. YCombinator has a great reputation as the best startup incubator and it's founders have sterling reputations as being the people you absolutely need to talk to if you're considering a tech startup. It takes a lifetime to become known as superlative, the proverbial gold standard. It's as true on the mean streets as it is in the halls of power: You are what people think you ar…
Hey I think your intentions are in a good place but I think you're placing the onus on the wrong party. @ericabiz is very open, transparent and direct about what she has seen and heard. It sounds like she's quite talented and had a choice available to her in the marketplace. Based on her market research she went with what she believed to be the better option for her situation. It's possible that she may have decided…
"@ericabiz is very open, transparent and direct about what she has seen and heard." Really? Sounds like she just sat around with some friends who all agreed with each other without any knowledge of anything.
Erica: "I've talked to many female founders and YC does have a reputation as a "frat house"
"Genuine question: Did you reach out to any female founders who went through YC to ask about their experience?"
Erica: "The straight answer is no. Here's a slightly longer version of the story..." goes on to ramble about unrelated bs.