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

My story of applying, getting in, and being a mom in Y Combinator

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 108 posts

Re: My story of applying, getting in, and being a mom in Y Combinator

#71

Post by random28345 »

webwright wrote: post #70
valleycynic wrote: post #32

"Access to venture capitalists: Raising money is incredibly hard and incredibly distracting. The faster you can get it done, the faster you can get back to building something people want. YC is the perfect forcing function to help you raise capital. Network: Being an entrepreneur is a lonely path. There are few people who truly understand what you’re going through and even if your friends (or parents) are well meanin…

Two points. There was a non-rich mom in my batch in 2008 (one of the hardest fundraising climates in the last decade). She and her co-founder kicked ass and raised more money than most of the batch. Point #2: You need to expand your view of meritocracy beyond just product/code. Expanding who you know, how much they like/admire you, and how much they want to work with you is part of meritocracy . Imagine it as a multi…

> Point #2: You need to expand your view of meritocracy beyond just product/code. Expanding who you know, how much they like/admire you, and how much they want to work with you is part of meritocracy.

This is why I also include skin color, culture, gender, and how rich my parents are in my definition of merit. This allows me to honestly believe that all my success is based on merit.

Because nothing says, "merit", like being connected to a small group of very wealthy, very insular people who have the ability to magically bestow success on whoever they please.

Re: My story of applying, getting in, and being a mom in Y Combinator

#72

Post by Iftheshoefits »

ig1 wrote: post #67
Iftheshoefits wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of people whose "luck and connections" come from "skill and execution" is smaller than the number whose "luck and connections" come by accident of birth. This is true no matter where one lives, or how one wants to leverage his own skills.

While it probably varies between different fields, I haven't seen any evidence for that in the startup world. There's obviously a certain level of "accident of birth", you have a much better chance if you were born in a developed country, one where you can go to university, etc. But if we standardise at say pool of CS graduates from good universities it's certainly a much more level playing field. If we take what's p…

One does have a much better chance if one is born in a developed country--but it's still a small chance.

Also, a "pool of CS graduates from good universities" is already biased toward people who were born into (relative) privilege. Have you considered that you "haven't seen any evidence" because you are effectively excluding from your analysis a large quantity of the data?

Look, I'm not saying it's pointless for those who were born into poor or middle class (or even many upper-middle class) families without connections to try. I'm saying it's disingenuous to pretend that a system that self-selects against those very people is somehow a meritocracy or that it is not, in fact, self-selecting against people who aren't, essentially "born lucky."

Re: My story of applying, getting in, and being a mom in Y Combinator

#73

Post by philh »

webwright wrote: post #70
valleycynic wrote: post #32

"Access to venture capitalists: Raising money is incredibly hard and incredibly distracting. The faster you can get it done, the faster you can get back to building something people want. YC is the perfect forcing function to help you raise capital. Network: Being an entrepreneur is a lonely path. There are few people who truly understand what you’re going through and even if your friends (or parents) are well meanin…

Two points. There was a non-rich mom in my batch in 2008 (one of the hardest fundraising climates in the last decade). She and her co-founder kicked ass and raised more money than most of the batch. Point #2: You need to expand your view of meritocracy beyond just product/code. Expanding who you know, how much they like/admire you, and how much they want to work with you is part of meritocracy . Imagine it as a multi…

> Expanding who you know, how much they like/admire you, and how much they want to work with you is part of meritocracy. Imagine it as a multiplier to product merit and,as a founder, you NEED to imagine it as part of your job.

Why are you counting these as part of meritocracy, rather than deviations from it?

(If they're sufficiently small deviations, you could still call the overall ecosystem a meritocracy. But then you have a meritocracy with deviations, and enshrining the deviations as part of meritocracy seems like a mistake.)

(I could also see an argument that "meritocracy plus it matters how likeable you are" would be preferable in many ways to just pure meritocracy. But "meritocracy plus it matters who you know" seems like a bad direction to go in.)

Re: My story of applying, getting in, and being a mom in Y Combinator

#74

Post by ch4s3 »

webwright wrote: post #70
valleycynic wrote: post #32

"Access to venture capitalists: Raising money is incredibly hard and incredibly distracting. The faster you can get it done, the faster you can get back to building something people want. YC is the perfect forcing function to help you raise capital. Network: Being an entrepreneur is a lonely path. There are few people who truly understand what you’re going through and even if your friends (or parents) are well meanin…

Two points. There was a non-rich mom in my batch in 2008 (one of the hardest fundraising climates in the last decade). She and her co-founder kicked ass and raised more money than most of the batch. Point #2: You need to expand your view of meritocracy beyond just product/code. Expanding who you know, how much they like/admire you, and how much they want to work with you is part of meritocracy . Imagine it as a multi…

>Expanding who you know, how much they like/admire you, and how much they want to work with you is part of meritocracy

This is a lot like the original definition of meritocracy. A very negative one.[1] If merit is determined solely by the people already in places of power like A16Z on the arbitrary measure of "how much they like/admire you" then it is exactly like and by definition Cronyism.[2] I'm not making a value judgement, but if it quacks like a duck...

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy#Early_definitions [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cronyism#Concept

Re: My story of applying, getting in, and being a mom in Y Combinator

#75

Post by webwright »

random28345 wrote: post #71
webwright wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two points. There was a non-rich mom in my batch in 2008 (one of the hardest fundraising climates in the last decade). She and her co-founder kicked ass and raised more money than most of the batch. Point #2: You need to expand your view of meritocracy beyond just product/code. Expanding who you know, how much they like/admire you, and how much they want to work with you is part of meritocracy . Imagine it as a multi…

> Point #2: You need to expand your view of meritocracy beyond just product/code. Expanding who you know, how much they like/admire you, and how much they want to work with you is part of meritocracy. This is why I also include skin color, culture, gender, and how rich my parents are in my definition of merit. This allows me to honestly believe that all my success is based on merit. Because nothing says, "merit", lik…

This is another strawman argument. Of course there's cronyism, racism, sexism, ageism, etc. And of course we should discourage that. Was I championing any of those things you're attacking?

I'm going to add some stats to my OP.

Re: My story of applying, getting in, and being a mom in Y Combinator

#77

Post by webwright »

ch4s3 wrote: post #74
webwright wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two points. There was a non-rich mom in my batch in 2008 (one of the hardest fundraising climates in the last decade). She and her co-founder kicked ass and raised more money than most of the batch. Point #2: You need to expand your view of meritocracy beyond just product/code. Expanding who you know, how much they like/admire you, and how much they want to work with you is part of meritocracy . Imagine it as a multi…

>Expanding who you know, how much they like/admire you, and how much they want to work with you is part of meritocracy This is a lot like the original definition of meritocracy. A very negative one.[1] If merit is determined solely by the people already in places of power like A16Z on the arbitrary measure of "how much they like/admire you" then it is exactly like and by definition Cronyism.[2] I'm not making a value…

That's why I said "part of meritocracy". Which words did I use that made you think that I believed that was most or all of it? I just added a stat to my original comment-- about half of the top venture backed startups have immigrants on the founding team, and 75% in key positions.

Re: My story of applying, getting in, and being a mom in Y Combinator

#78

Post by webwright »

philh wrote: post #73
webwright wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two points. There was a non-rich mom in my batch in 2008 (one of the hardest fundraising climates in the last decade). She and her co-founder kicked ass and raised more money than most of the batch. Point #2: You need to expand your view of meritocracy beyond just product/code. Expanding who you know, how much they like/admire you, and how much they want to work with you is part of meritocracy . Imagine it as a multi…

> Expanding who you know, how much they like/admire you, and how much they want to work with you is part of meritocracy. Imagine it as a multiplier to product merit and,as a founder, you NEED to imagine it as part of your job. Why are you counting these as part of meritocracy, rather than deviations from it? (If they're sufficiently small deviations, you could still call the overall ecosystem a meritocracy. But then…

"Why are you counting these as part of meritocracy, rather than deviations from it?"

Because hiring, sales, pr, marketing, bizdev and fundraising are all part of startup success... Building and cultivating a good network is hugely valuable for all of that, no?

Re: My story of applying, getting in, and being a mom in Y Combinator

#79

Post by amirmc »

webwright wrote: post #75
random28345 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Point #2: You need to expand your view of meritocracy beyond just product/code. Expanding who you know, how much they like/admire you, and how much they want to work with you is part of meritocracy. This is why I also include skin color, culture, gender, and how rich my parents are in my definition of merit. This allows me to honestly believe that all my success is based on merit. Because nothing says, "merit", lik…

This is another strawman argument. Of course there's cronyism, racism, sexism, ageism, etc. And of course we should discourage that. Was I championing any of those things you're attacking? I'm going to add some stats to my OP.

You said "You need to expand your view of meritocracy beyond just product/code. Expanding who you know, how much they like/admire you, and how much they want to work with you is part of meritocracy."

So yes, you may as well be championing gender, race and background, since you've already redefined 'merit' (in a rather perverse way, imho).

Edit: I see others have also commented on this and the Wikipedia link from another comment is interesting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy

Re: My story of applying, getting in, and being a mom in Y Combinator

#80

Post by DanBC »

foobarfizzbuzz wrote: post #76

I guess I fail to see what would differentiate between a father/mother. Like why does any option make a difference?

Mothers breastfeed. Companies need to have places for mothers to breast feed children, of for mothers to pump breast milk.

Mothers sometimes have complications during birth. This can cause considerable physical difficulty in the following months. Here's some advice about recovery after c-section. http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Caesarean-section/Pages/Recover...

This post was written by a female parent. We call those "mothers". If it had been written by a male parent it would have used the word "father".

There is currently a gender imbalance and so posts from people who are not male have some interest.

Post reply on HN