"Sigh. You do know that almost all of us are on your side, right?" If you mean random people on HN, definitely not. Nearly every thread on women in the indust

"Sigh. You do know that almost all of us are on your side, right?" If you mean random people on HN, definitely not. Nearly every thread on women in the industry here devolves into rants about how stupid, weak, and whiny women are, and many or most of the posters who don't drop into open misogyny instead pretend we're in a perfectly equal world (or, at least, a perfectly equal industry) and that sexism is a moot issue that only conniving lib'ruls try to whip up out of nothing. Now, if you mean people you work with, I'm willing to believe they'd like to do the right thing. However, a big part of actually DOING the right thing is entertaining the possibility that you're doing it wrong, and that involves not being defensive. That includes such things as not trying to foist the blame on the women themselves (as TFA did) and not trying to shout down people who point out problems (as you did). "This isn't actually a male or female issue" It's not a strictly racial or sexual issue, either, but this is still a setup where a bunch of mostly straight white guys will end up giving much better odds to similar folks than they will give to equally talented people who aren't straight, white, and/or guys. Not "there are fewer of them in the first place", but straight-up "we are making this harder for you if you're gay, black, or a woman". Suggestions? 1) Think of it as marketing. Try to look at finding talented people beyond the standard pool of straight white guys as something that's on you in order to make more money, not some problem you're saddled with that just benefits them. Look at the positions you're offering as something you're trying to sell and see how attractive they are - and think of things like "almost no women apply" as "we're failing to attract a major segment of the market". 2) Don't emulate TFA. Don't patronize the people you say you want to recruit. Would you try to sell something by squinting at customers who turned you down and saying, "Let's try this again"? That sure wouldn't work on me, why would that work on women? 3) Keying into that "possibility that you're doing it wrong" - when you can, find out why women aren't applying for something. If you had good rapport with one or more of those six programmers you mentioned, why did she or they not want to apply to Y Combinator? They all had reasons.