7 ms·

I really don't think YC cares about ethnicity. I also don't quite get the point of this post.

JonnieCache 16y ago
I don't think anybody is accusing YC of racism or any other discrimination. The causal relationships are higher order ones than that, but no less important for it.
- anamax 16y ago
  > I don't think anybody is accusing YC of racism or any other discrimination. Not yet, but what usually happens after the answer to "how many X are black?" comes back "not proportional to Y"?
ascendant 16y ago
It sounds like a reasonable question to me. He's just wondering.
raganwald 16y ago
I don't see the question or the discussion so far as meeting the standard for "An interesting new phenomena." It looks like something that would be better served over on Quora than on HN. It's a reasonable question, but just as many subjects--explicitly including politics--are of interest to HN's readerships but still not HN-worthy, it doesn't appear to meet the standards in the FAQ for the front page. Discussions of minority participation in technology and entrepreneurship goes on ad nauseaum elsewhere. If it is to come up here out of the blue, we ought to have some interesting angle to YCombinator funding. For example, if we know that YCombinator funds double the proportion of the rest of the industry, that would be interesting and new. If we have no evidence of anything interesting or new, the question hardly seems like Hacker News. If it's a simple question, an email to Paul Graham would probably obtain a simple answer.
- jedsmith 16y ago
  "An interesting new phenomenon" is used an exception to the rule that politics (and so forth) shouldn't be posted. In the paragraph right before that quote, we find: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. [...] anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. I was at PyCon as well, and observed the exact same anecdote that the OP describes. At my company's booth, the only minorities I can think of who talked to us were more than likely visiting from Europe, Asia, or South America. Therefore, I'm curious, and I'm interested to see the response; not from accusing Y Combinator of racism, as some seem to suggest, but merely to get some data on minority penetration into our field. There is no "standard" for the front page. We're all smart people, and we can be trusted to make judgments.
  - raganwald 16y ago
    Actually, there is a standard for the front page, and "We're all smart people, and we can be trusted to make judgements" isn't it. If it were, there would be no need for moderation. We would never need to flag posts or have moderators kill them, because the voting by the smart people making judgments would drive unworthy posts off the front page without any discussion or intervention. There are a lot of reasons why moderation needs to trump voting, but that's probably even more OT. For now, I hope you accept that we should be smart, we should exercise our judgment, AND we should sometimes kill a discussion even if it's popular. p.s. Of course, an argument that moderation trumps voting isn't an argument that this post needs moderation. It gratifies your intellectual curiosity, I get that. So far it doesn't gratify mine, but it could be that I have read an awful lot about this topic over the years and I would like to see an HN discussion have more to say than what I've already read on Reddit over the years, on UseNet, in editorials, and so forth.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - allenbrunson 16y ago
    I was all set to vote this up until I got to the last paragraph. It seems that a lot of people have the idea that HN is a democracy, run by the will of the people. Nothing could be further from the truth. pg and the editors have the last word on everything. It's not immediately obvious, because pg doesn't go around saying "I banned this guy because he was a jerk." That's polite of him, but the truth is, quite a few people get banned for being jerks, every day. And quite a few submissions get killed for being off-topic. Having said that, I agree with you that this is a good submission, and I'm a little dismayed that raganwald is arguing against it. When I saw the subject line, and that it had over 100 comments, I figured it was going to be ugly. I was delightfully surprised to find myself honestly learning something from almost every comment I've read here. I haven't upvoted this much stuff in months. Pretty well restored my faith in humanity, it did.
prime0196 16y ago
The point of the post? Being able to smile from ear to ear when I found out about Michael Seibel.
- naithemilkman 16y ago
  I see your point. But apologies if this sounds insensitive as I am not American and I am not privy to the social complexities that exists. What I think is that as budding entrepreneurs all trying to figure out some method from this madness, I think we ought to celebrate the success of everyone and anyone who has made it. Black, white, blue, green whatever. Singling out someone because of skin colour I feel almost contravenes the spirit of YC and hacker news. We are all here because of ideals and passion, beliefs and doggedness. I think I speak for most people when I say the community at HN is by and large colour blind. What makes Michael Seibel special is not because he is Black but because he has succeeded at least on some level where many have tried and failed. So your last sentence "...was just wondering if anyone that looks like ME has EVER made it." is really coming from a wrong angle IMO.
bradleyland 16y ago
Race is a difficult subject to address, but it doesn't have to be. Increased openness in the discussion is always better. In the context of relationships, you'll often hear someone say that a person is "guarded". This usually means that they don't open themselves to being hurt by averting feelings of affection from others. In other words, if they never become "close" with another person, they can't feel the pain of loss. With regard to racism, if we avoid the discussion altogether, we are simply avoid the pain of being reminded that it exists. The appropriate response is not to shy away from the conversation, but to open yourself to it. Answer the question based on the facts, but address the question of "why" separately. There may very well be good reasons why. There may not. We should strive to understand the difference. I try to fight the urge to set up defenses to conversations I think may be going a certain direction. By putting up our defenses early, we only strengthen the divide rather than break it down.

I don't think anybody is accusing YC of racism or any other discrimination. The causal relationships are higher order ones than that, but no less important for it.

anamax 16y ago
> I don't think anybody is accusing YC of racism or any other discrimination. Not yet, but what usually happens after the answer to "how many X are black?" comes back "not proportional to Y"?

ascendant 16y ago

It sounds like a reasonable question to me. He's just wondering.

raganwald 16y ago

I don't see the question or the discussion so far as meeting the standard for "An interesting new phenomena." It looks like something that would be better served over on Quora than on HN. It's a reasonable question, but just as many subjects--explicitly including politics--are of interest to HN's readerships but still not HN-worthy, it doesn't appear to meet the standards in the FAQ for the front page. Discussions of minority participation in technology and entrepreneurship goes on ad nauseaum elsewhere. If it is to come up here out of the blue, we ought to have some interesting angle to YCombinator funding. For example, if we know that YCombinator funds double the proportion of the rest of the industry, that would be interesting and new. If we have no evidence of anything interesting or new, the question hardly seems like Hacker News. If it's a simple question, an email to Paul Graham would probably obtain a simple answer.

jedsmith 16y ago
"An interesting new phenomenon" is used an exception to the rule that politics (and so forth) shouldn't be posted. In the paragraph right before that quote, we find: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. [...] anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. I was at PyCon as well, and observed the exact same anecdote that the OP describes. At my company's booth, the only minorities I can think of who talked to us were more than likely visiting from Europe, Asia, or South America. Therefore, I'm curious, and I'm interested to see the response; not from accusing Y Combinator of racism, as some seem to suggest, but merely to get some data on minority penetration into our field. There is no "standard" for the front page. We're all smart people, and we can be trusted to make judgments.
- raganwald 16y ago
  Actually, there is a standard for the front page, and "We're all smart people, and we can be trusted to make judgements" isn't it. If it were, there would be no need for moderation. We would never need to flag posts or have moderators kill them, because the voting by the smart people making judgments would drive unworthy posts off the front page without any discussion or intervention. There are a lot of reasons why moderation needs to trump voting, but that's probably even more OT. For now, I hope you accept that we should be smart, we should exercise our judgment, AND we should sometimes kill a discussion even if it's popular. p.s. Of course, an argument that moderation trumps voting isn't an argument that this post needs moderation. It gratifies your intellectual curiosity, I get that. So far it doesn't gratify mine, but it could be that I have read an awful lot about this topic over the years and I would like to see an HN discussion have more to say than what I've already read on Reddit over the years, on UseNet, in editorials, and so forth.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- allenbrunson 16y ago
  I was all set to vote this up until I got to the last paragraph. It seems that a lot of people have the idea that HN is a democracy, run by the will of the people. Nothing could be further from the truth. pg and the editors have the last word on everything. It's not immediately obvious, because pg doesn't go around saying "I banned this guy because he was a jerk." That's polite of him, but the truth is, quite a few people get banned for being jerks, every day. And quite a few submissions get killed for being off-topic. Having said that, I agree with you that this is a good submission, and I'm a little dismayed that raganwald is arguing against it. When I saw the subject line, and that it had over 100 comments, I figured it was going to be ugly. I was delightfully surprised to find myself honestly learning something from almost every comment I've read here. I haven't upvoted this much stuff in months. Pretty well restored my faith in humanity, it did.

prime0196 16y ago

The point of the post? Being able to smile from ear to ear when I found out about Michael Seibel.

naithemilkman 16y ago
I see your point. But apologies if this sounds insensitive as I am not American and I am not privy to the social complexities that exists. What I think is that as budding entrepreneurs all trying to figure out some method from this madness, I think we ought to celebrate the success of everyone and anyone who has made it. Black, white, blue, green whatever. Singling out someone because of skin colour I feel almost contravenes the spirit of YC and hacker news. We are all here because of ideals and passion, beliefs and doggedness. I think I speak for most people when I say the community at HN is by and large colour blind. What makes Michael Seibel special is not because he is Black but because he has succeeded at least on some level where many have tried and failed. So your last sentence "...was just wondering if anyone that looks like ME has EVER made it." is really coming from a wrong angle IMO.

bradleyland 16y ago

Race is a difficult subject to address, but it doesn't have to be. Increased openness in the discussion is always better. In the context of relationships, you'll often hear someone say that a person is "guarded". This usually means that they don't open themselves to being hurt by averting feelings of affection from others. In other words, if they never become "close" with another person, they can't feel the pain of loss. With regard to racism, if we avoid the discussion altogether, we are simply avoid the pain of being reminded that it exists. The appropriate response is not to shy away from the conversation, but to open yourself to it. Answer the question based on the facts, but address the question of "why" separately. There may very well be good reasons why. There may not. We should strive to understand the difference. I try to fight the urge to set up defenses to conversations I think may be going a certain direction. By putting up our defenses early, we only strengthen the divide rather than break it down.