Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

XX Combinator

terezan.tumblr.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–67 of 67 posts

Re: XX Combinator

#61

Post by mkramlich »

this old debate

memo to the planet: males and females are different

stop thinking, open your eyes and ears and get out in the world. do this for say 20+ years so you get exposed to a lot of reality, enough to overwhelm your theories/thinking, then revisit the issue.

one last point: I think universities and colleges are the main vectors for this "males and females are the same with exact same potential, desires, talents, predilections -- but mean old Society is oppressing/distorting them" idea. can't wait to see it die out.

Re: XX Combinator

#62

Post by Alex3917 »

kaens wrote: post #53
Alex3917 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Don't assume there are fundamental (crippling) differences." I think you should assume fundamental differences, because that's what both the research and experience show. Certainly more can be done for younger women, but if you don't think that businesswomen in their 40s are on average more capable than their younger counterparts then you probably haven't spent much time around businesswomen. (For reference, I took…

Does the research and experience show that businessmen in their 40s are on average more capable than their younger counterparts? I bet it does!

You can make fun of me if you want, but the fact is that there are many, many differences between men and women. We don't really know what those differences mean in the real world, but we shouldn't pretend they don't exist any more than we should assume that they're 'crippling'.

As for which ones would prevent a woman from being successful as an entrepreneur in her 20s, it's impossible to say because success as an entrepreneur is multiplicative. There are dozens of factors, and only one has to be zero or near zero to make the whole thing fall apart. But the very fact that women are so different from men makes this theory quite plausible, albeit completely speculative.

Re: XX Combinator

#63

Post by kaens »

Alex3917 wrote: post #62
kaens wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the research and experience show that businessmen in their 40s are on average more capable than their younger counterparts? I bet it does!

You can make fun of me if you want, but the fact is that there are many, many differences between men and women. We don't really know what those differences mean in the real world, but we shouldn't pretend they don't exist any more than we should assume that they're 'crippling'. As for which ones would prevent a woman from being successful as an entrepreneur in her 20s, it's impossible to say because success as an en…

I'm not making fun of you. I'm saying that women being more successful entrepreneurs in their 40s may not be tied to them being women, but to them being twice as old and experienced as a 20 year old

Re: XX Combinator

#64

Post by anamax »

kaens wrote: post #26
anamax wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This whole article smacks of the idea that there is something fundamentally different about men and women and their capabilities at different points in their adult life. I think this idea is harmful. The vast majority of male humans are not capable of giving birth at any point during their lives. We can argue about the consequences of that fact, but it's hard to believe that there are no consequences. What other fa…

I absolutely think that should be discussed. I don't doubt that there are some consequences of that, but I don't think they're nearly as extreme as some people paint them to be. Edit: I don't think that anything should be barred from discussion. Taboo topics are harmful, in my opinion.

> Taboo topics are harmful, in my opinion.

You get to argue that point with the person who wrote "I think this idea is harmful."

Re: XX Combinator

#65

Post by nickpinkston »

arijo wrote: post #39
btilly wrote: post #30

What I read is this, "I want a Y-combinator, except where I live, aimed at my gender and with a schedule I can accept. Oh, and please supply the tech talent I need. If things work out I can reward the coders with salary and possibly a CTO position down the road." Need I explain what is wrong with that picture? If you don't see the problems, you might start by reading http://blog.wepay.com/2010/03/5-things-i-%E2%80%9C…

Objectifying tech people as reusable and throw away nerds seems to be a recurrent pattern along non-tech folks trying to create a startup.

Though not the successful ones... In Pittsburgh, it seems like everyone, even "old people", repeats the mantra of good hackers being a huge part of success.

Re: XX Combinator

#66

Post by kaens »

anamax wrote: post #64
kaens wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely think that should be discussed. I don't doubt that there are some consequences of that, but I don't think they're nearly as extreme as some people paint them to be. Edit: I don't think that anything should be barred from discussion. Taboo topics are harmful, in my opinion.

> Taboo topics are harmful, in my opinion. You get to argue that point with the person who wrote "I think this idea is harmful."

I wrote that. Whether or not I think an idea, or the implementation of an idea, is harmful has no bearing on whether or not I think it should be barred from discussion.

Re: XX Combinator

#67

Post by ryanelkins »

natgordon wrote: post #20
ryanelkins wrote: post #3

I don't think any of the reasons mentioned here for keeping women out is gender specific. It's more hacker vs "idea person" or how I prefer to think of it, those who can code vs those who can't code. This is more about "Y Combinator for non coders" than it is about "Y Combinator for women". This is something I see a lot of - people with some experience that want to start a tech startup but want to hire out some devel…

The 35-year old cut-off could be considered gender-specific. I'm a 30-year old female entrepreneur and software developer. I would love to do Y-combinator or other incubator program. I also want to start a family. If I wait for years to have kids, there is a statistically higher risk of infertility. This isn't the case for men. I think the author is correct that women may be more ready to launch a start-up when they'…

The 35-year old cut-off could be considered gender-specific.

The problem with this is that there is no 35 year old cutoff. Why does YCombinator have a high percentage of people in their 20s? People in their 20s are just more likely to be willing to try to do something like Y-Combinator. It's a difficult program to do if you're 40, have a well paying job, a family, and a mortgage, regardless of your gender. If you're a 40 year old person I'm sure you are more than welcome to apply to Y Combinator and that your age will not play a part in the selection process. I don't have the numbers, but I'm sure the vast majority of people that apply are in their 20s.

I'm in a startup incubator in Utah called BoomStartup, and while we also have very few women (1 out of ~25 or 30 founders) the average age is probably closer to 40 than to 20.

Post reply on HN