6 ms·

Welcome Sharon

58 points by dwaxe 10y ago

simonebrunozzi 10y ago
Sometimes we take certain things for granted - I would bet most people reading this announcement don't know what the continuity fund [0] is. [0]: https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-continuity-fund https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-continuity-fund
pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
lady brain
koolba 10y ago
Is there a complete list of YC partners? I don't see one one anywhere on the site.
- sytse 10y ago
  http://www.ycombinator.com/people/ http://www.ycombinator.com/people/ but I don't see Sharon on there.
pwrgrrll 10y ago
Face pics?
- Mz 10y ago
  I don't think anyone has ever asked for face pics when they have hired men. On the one hand, I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to provide pics of the entire staff/all new hires. On the other, this comment strikes me as an expression of sexism. Sigh.
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    That impression crossed my mind. I'm not sure, though. Remember that a lot of people are visual thinkers that prefer to have a face and/or voice associated with a name. I'm one of them. I know what most YC people referenced in these articles look like given they have pics. The key men, esp sama or pg, usually had pics in many articles or stories so no need to ask for them. I'm interested in what she looks like for image-on-name even if not having one is ultimately inconsequential. That said, I'd be more interested in seeing how she looks, sounds, and approaches doing a marketing presentation or sales pitch. Given her track record, it would more accurately portray her in her YC role and I might even learn something. :)
    - Mz 10y ago
      One of the problems is that you can never be sure. I seem to be the highest karma woman on HN. I have had someone high on the leaderboard tell me he just does not see women treated differently here. I am clear I have been treated differently and I have worked extremely hard to shut down problematic kinds of attention, as well as bad habits on my end that I did not realize were a problem when I first showed up. Sexism usually presents itself not as some blatant and obvious different standard, but as a subtler pattern of behaviors. It ends up being maddeningly difficult to get other people to see it. In fact, it took me an extremely long time to conclude that my gender was a problem on HN because it is a remarkably well-behaved environment. I am only able to recognize certain issues because of experiencing the pattern more blatantly elsewhere. Yet, the reality is that I am a very prominent woman on HN and I remain extremely poor. The connection between my gender and my poverty seems blatantly obvious to me. I have extremely good reason to believe that if I were male, I would be taken far more seriously and people would promote my work. I would have more traffic, and that would result in more income and I would find it easier to get useful feedback. Of course, no one owes me any of that. But it is, nonetheless, a source of enormous frustration for me. Thus, I feel it matters that I speak out. No one seems to even notice the glaring example that the highest ranked woman here is desperately poor and homeless while the highest ranked men are all quite comfortable and I am reasonably confident that at least two of them are self-made millionaires. When there are as many self made millionaire women on the leaderboard as there are self made millionaire men, then you can tell me that remarks like the one above -- which is, happily, currently flagged to death-- are not an expression of sexism.
      - internals 10y ago
        Thank you for bringing attention to the remark as you did, and for sharing your own experience.
      - viraptor 10y ago
        > It ends up being maddeningly difficult to get other people to see it. Have you got some specific examples? I'm interested if it's simply that there are people who are sexist (that seems fairly obvious every few days, although it seems to be called out here more than in other places), or something you see on HN overall. (which I can't say I'm really aware of (apart from the technical work with woman's name on it always gets pointed out as something that a woman did)) > The connection between my gender and my poverty seems blatantly obvious to me. Have you ever tried/would you try using a gender-less persona behind what you're doing? (it's an actual question, not a suggestion) Assuming that's possible in your work - I don't think I ever read what it is that you do.
- dang 10y ago
  We banned this account for trolling. Please don't do this here.
  - lisper 10y ago
    You banned a new account after posting a single two-word comment? That seems a little harsh.
    - dang 10y ago
      Moderation is guesswork.
nickpsecurity 10y ago
Green Dot was an interesting company to me. I knew a lot of people in poor and working class communities that benefited from it. Its proposition was simple with straight-forward benefit and small, easy-to-understand cost. No chance of getting in endless spiral of debt either that hit many impulse buyers. eBay friendly. Got big or dominant. Hard to tell as outsider given every company has cards these days. Sharon, is there a good write-up on how they showed up, marketed themselves, and expanded to get to their level of success? I think lessons learned might help in many other ventures, including YC's payment investments.
arkad 10y ago
Habemus papam! :) Congratulations!

58 points by dwaxe 10y ago

Sometimes we take certain things for granted - I would bet most people reading this announcement don't know what the continuity fund [0] is. [0]: https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-continuity-fund https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-continuity-fund

pg_is_a_butt 10y ago

lady brain

koolba 10y ago

Is there a complete list of YC partners? I don't see one one anywhere on the site.

sytse 10y ago
http://www.ycombinator.com/people/ http://www.ycombinator.com/people/ but I don't see Sharon on there.

pwrgrrll 10y ago

Face pics?

Mz 10y ago
I don't think anyone has ever asked for face pics when they have hired men. On the one hand, I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to provide pics of the entire staff/all new hires. On the other, this comment strikes me as an expression of sexism. Sigh.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  That impression crossed my mind. I'm not sure, though. Remember that a lot of people are visual thinkers that prefer to have a face and/or voice associated with a name. I'm one of them. I know what most YC people referenced in these articles look like given they have pics. The key men, esp sama or pg, usually had pics in many articles or stories so no need to ask for them. I'm interested in what she looks like for image-on-name even if not having one is ultimately inconsequential. That said, I'd be more interested in seeing how she looks, sounds, and approaches doing a marketing presentation or sales pitch. Given her track record, it would more accurately portray her in her YC role and I might even learn something. :)
  - Mz 10y ago
    One of the problems is that you can never be sure. I seem to be the highest karma woman on HN. I have had someone high on the leaderboard tell me he just does not see women treated differently here. I am clear I have been treated differently and I have worked extremely hard to shut down problematic kinds of attention, as well as bad habits on my end that I did not realize were a problem when I first showed up. Sexism usually presents itself not as some blatant and obvious different standard, but as a subtler pattern of behaviors. It ends up being maddeningly difficult to get other people to see it. In fact, it took me an extremely long time to conclude that my gender was a problem on HN because it is a remarkably well-behaved environment. I am only able to recognize certain issues because of experiencing the pattern more blatantly elsewhere. Yet, the reality is that I am a very prominent woman on HN and I remain extremely poor. The connection between my gender and my poverty seems blatantly obvious to me. I have extremely good reason to believe that if I were male, I would be taken far more seriously and people would promote my work. I would have more traffic, and that would result in more income and I would find it easier to get useful feedback. Of course, no one owes me any of that. But it is, nonetheless, a source of enormous frustration for me. Thus, I feel it matters that I speak out. No one seems to even notice the glaring example that the highest ranked woman here is desperately poor and homeless while the highest ranked men are all quite comfortable and I am reasonably confident that at least two of them are self-made millionaires. When there are as many self made millionaire women on the leaderboard as there are self made millionaire men, then you can tell me that remarks like the one above -- which is, happily, currently flagged to death-- are not an expression of sexism.
    - internals 10y ago
      Thank you for bringing attention to the remark as you did, and for sharing your own experience.
    - viraptor 10y ago
      > It ends up being maddeningly difficult to get other people to see it. Have you got some specific examples? I'm interested if it's simply that there are people who are sexist (that seems fairly obvious every few days, although it seems to be called out here more than in other places), or something you see on HN overall. (which I can't say I'm really aware of (apart from the technical work with woman's name on it always gets pointed out as something that a woman did)) > The connection between my gender and my poverty seems blatantly obvious to me. Have you ever tried/would you try using a gender-less persona behind what you're doing? (it's an actual question, not a suggestion) Assuming that's possible in your work - I don't think I ever read what it is that you do.
dang 10y ago
We banned this account for trolling. Please don't do this here.
- lisper 10y ago
  You banned a new account after posting a single two-word comment? That seems a little harsh.
  - dang 10y ago
    Moderation is guesswork.

nickpsecurity 10y ago

Green Dot was an interesting company to me. I knew a lot of people in poor and working class communities that benefited from it. Its proposition was simple with straight-forward benefit and small, easy-to-understand cost. No chance of getting in endless spiral of debt either that hit many impulse buyers. eBay friendly. Got big or dominant. Hard to tell as outsider given every company has cards these days. Sharon, is there a good write-up on how they showed up, marketed themselves, and expanded to get to their level of success? I think lessons learned might help in many other ventures, including YC's payment investments.

arkad 10y ago

Habemus papam! :) Congratulations!