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Diversity and Startups
91–100 of 218 posts
Re: Diversity and Startups
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just hi-hacking this comment to talk about the same line. Everybody needs to stop with this "white-male" nonsense, which is inherently racist. There is much cultural diversity among what is considered "white" and that is painfully obvious. The "black" American guy and "white" American gal might have more in common with each other than the "white" Italian working in the cubicle next door. This also applies to the vast…
> Everybody needs to stop with this "white-male" nonsense, which is inherently racist. There is much cultural diversity among what is considered "white" and that is painfully obvious. The "black" American guy and "white" American gal might have more in common with each other than the "white" Italian working in the cubicle next door. This also applies to the vast spectrum of "Asians" whose cultures differ significantl…
It's extremely sad that this very well reasoned response stating widely accepted theories about racism has been down-voted. Now they're not widely as in UNIVERSALLY accepted, but the race-studies community at the very least would agree with the concepts behind this post, and that at the very least merits its inclusion in the discussion.
Re: Diversity and Startups
#93> Specifically, we’d like the community to help by downvoting comments that make HN an unwelcoming place to anyone. That's only a solution for half of the problem on Hacker News. The other half is that most submissions about gender/diversity get flagged to death very consistently, which make it difficult to have any meaningful discussion about these topics.
> The other half is that most submissions about gender/diversity get flagged to death very consistently, which make it difficult to have any meaningful discussion about these topics. It isn't user flagging that makes meaningful discussion difficult. It's the discussers, unfortunately, who are doing that. I wonder if you may have cause and effect reversed here. Also, it isn't true that most of these submissions get fl…
I would just like to say that I agree that this issue is much less a problem today than it use to be. Before it was such a problem that I started maintaining a list of comments/articles that kept being wrecked by ridiculous comments anytime a discussion around ethnicity or racism. I use to post the growing list in every thread that it occurred and I was generally upvoted so I guess most people agreed.
I have no idea how you folks did it, but you've somehow gotten rid of all those people. I've scanned all the comments here and, though I don't agree with all of them, none of them appear to contain ridiculously specious arguments.
Re: Diversity and Startups
#94One objection I have is with hackathons. From my observations most hackathons aren't particularly inclusive environments - they may do more harm than good. Examples include the intense focus on competition and prizes (I didn't think it was a good idea for YC Hacks to explicitly advertise the prize of getting an interview), the fact that many hackathons now have applications processes where more applicants are rejecte…
Why is competition a diversity problem? To me, the idea that aggressive competition selects for a specific age, gender, or ethnicity is itself problematic. Not to mention that I think that's not true.
Broadly speaking, competition definitely creates sex-based selection-bias. Men self-select into competitions more than women, and are more motivated by them.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-wise/201210/when-c...
https://www3.nd.edu/~wevans1/fresh_honor_seminar/vesterland....
I am not saying men are more capable, just more likely to self-select into the competition. Read up on what professional coaches of womens vs mens teams say.
Re: Diversity and Startups
#95Let me get this straight: YCombinator is pledging to snub investors who conduct sexist and racist abuses toward founders? I know we'll face adversity, and I want our team to be able to stand up for our beliefs without getting fucked by the tight-night nature of the community.
Re: Diversity and Startups
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is competition a diversity problem? To me, the idea that aggressive competition selects for a specific age, gender, or ethnicity is itself problematic. Not to mention that I think that's not true.
Broadly speaking, competition definitely creates sex-based selection-bias. Men self-select into competitions more than women, and are more motivated by them. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-wise/201210/when-c... https://www3.nd.edu/~wevans1/fresh_honor_seminar/vesterland.... I am not saying men are more capable, just more likely to self-select into the competition. Read up on what professional coaches of wo…
We work in a deeply, irretrievably competitive industry. The ability to thrive in a competitive environment is a requirement at many, perhaps most, startups. Women perform in the industry just fine, but are victimized by the perception that their gender prevents them from being competitive.
Re: Diversity and Startups
#97> We’re encouraging our startups to get HR infrastructure in place earlier.
If there's one thing that a fast and nimble startup DOES NOT NEED, it's HR drones trying to assert themselves into the startup. This is great news for us that compete with YC companies because it means that you're going to be handcuffing yourselves and bogging yourselves down employees who are literally a negative to the bottom line.
> Specifically, we’d like the community to help by downvoting comments that make HN an unwelcoming place to anyone.
In other words, you want to address diversity by stamping out any ideas that are contrary to the modern politically correct BS that most people here are dulled into believing.
Re: Diversity and Startups
#98On some level, the tech world isn't living up to its own principles, as it relates to diversity and inclusion (D&I). Many seem to view D&I as being somewhat external to the tech space--it's an issue that other industries have been discussing and is becoming more prominent in tech. I would posit that the underlying principles of the tech world share a number of core values with D&I. Think about the open source softwar…
I don't get this idea that the tech world, or even just SV startups embrace FOSS as a core values, even in software itself. Since when have most startups released all their software under a free license? Most embrace it if and when it suits them - libraries, frameworks, etc. Everything else is proprietary, and usually follows a cathedral model. When was the last time someone submitted a patch for Dropbox, or most SaaS services out there?
Three are a few brave ones out there, but they're the exception.
Re: Diversity and Startups
#991) I suspect that the bias against girls is "I don't think she'll be effective" rather than "I am sexist and don't want girls to succeed". 2) The bias doesn't seem to be that strong to me. This is a simplification, but I'd guess that girls start with about a 10% handicap. Meaning that in close cases, girls lose out. But in the cases of girls who clearly have ability, I don't see the bias against them as something tha…
The belief that African Americans were literally inferior to European Americans animated most of 20th century racism, so this observation is probably less helpful than your otherwise clear writing makes it sound. "Girls" is probably not the word you want to be using, by the way.
> The belief that African Americans were literally inferior to European Americans animated most of 20th century racism, so this observation is probably less helpful than your otherwise clear writing makes it sound.
I'm afraid I may have implied something I didn't mean to imply.
I'm not sure what you mean by "this observation". I didn't mean to imply that people see girls as "literally inferior". Just that people probably think they're less likely to be competent.
> "Girls" is probably not the word you want to be using, by the way.
I'm saying girls to be all encompassing. "Women" just includes adults. And "females" sounds weird, like dehumanizing.
Re: Diversity and Startups
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure what you're hinting at with your remark about racial disparities with regard to education, IQ and culture. Right now your comment looks pretty racist.
The average American man and the average American woman have the same IQ, were raised in fairly similar cultural environments, and received fairly similar educations. But compare the average black man and the average white man. The average black man has a lower IQ (Google it, many citations), somewhat different culture (more likely to have grown up in poverty, more likely to speak in AAVE, more likely to have come fr…
"The average black man has a lower IQ (Google it, many citations)" - wow, well, that f'd up comment says alot about alot