4 ms·

Of course she isn't, but that's the point. Black women are extremely underrepresented, hired and funded. You can't say "well we're not going to fund you withou

Of course she isn't, but that's the point. Black women are extremely underrepresented, hired and funded. You can't say "well we're not going to fund you without a good track record, even though it's damn near impossible for you to build a track record because we won't fund or hire you. Good luck". You can't say "we're going to fund more black founders, but only those who've already been proven a safe, reliable commodity."

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EB66 6y ago
I think you're underestimating the impact of being an ex-Googler. VCs are inundated with mobile app pitch decks from all kinds of random people with no relevant experience. Receiving a pitch deck from an ex-engineer of a highly respected software firm is going to make that pitch stand out. It lends instant credibility. EDIT: looking at his LinkedIn, it's clear that he has way more experience and an established track record than just working at Google. Also, don't forget that it was the husband who had the LinkedIn connections to the pitch deck recipients. Race, gender and experience aside, you're obviously more likely to get a response from recipients who already know you (or are friends of friends) than from recipients who are total strangers to you. If the author was also an ex-engineer of a highly respected software firm and had the same LinkedIn connections, then you would have a much stronger anecdotal case that racism or bias was the cause of being ignored.
- jjeaff 6y ago
  The ex googler husband was on the front page of both pitch decks with the same title as CTO in both cases. The only difference was that it came from his email account the second time.
  - bleah1000 6y ago
    But that assumes that people looked at the deck. You can't make that assumption, they might look only at the person sending them the deck, then decide to look at the deck. In fact, she said she sent out the deck from her own e-mail and linked-in account. So, that means it was probably easy to get her husband's linked-in when he sent it out. You could make the case that people claiming to want to help minorities, should at least spend time reading the deck, but that doesn't mean that anyone was racist/sexist in this particular instance. It seems like even after sending it out by the husband, nobody was very interested.

deleted 6y ago

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EB66 6y ago

I think you're underestimating the impact of being an ex-Googler. VCs are inundated with mobile app pitch decks from all kinds of random people with no relevant experience. Receiving a pitch deck from an ex-engineer of a highly respected software firm is going to make that pitch stand out. It lends instant credibility. EDIT: looking at his LinkedIn, it's clear that he has way more experience and an established track record than just working at Google. Also, don't forget that it was the husband who had the LinkedIn connections to the pitch deck recipients. Race, gender and experience aside, you're obviously more likely to get a response from recipients who already know you (or are friends of friends) than from recipients who are total strangers to you. If the author was also an ex-engineer of a highly respected software firm and had the same LinkedIn connections, then you would have a much stronger anecdotal case that racism or bias was the cause of being ignored.

jjeaff 6y ago
The ex googler husband was on the front page of both pitch decks with the same title as CTO in both cases. The only difference was that it came from his email account the second time.
- bleah1000 6y ago
  But that assumes that people looked at the deck. You can't make that assumption, they might look only at the person sending them the deck, then decide to look at the deck. In fact, she said she sent out the deck from her own e-mail and linked-in account. So, that means it was probably easy to get her husband's linked-in when he sent it out. You could make the case that people claiming to want to help minorities, should at least spend time reading the deck, but that doesn't mean that anyone was racist/sexist in this particular instance. It seems like even after sending it out by the husband, nobody was very interested.