7 ms·

VCs invest into your track record and the ability to put together and retain a good team. "Ex-Google" is a good signal that the person can at the very least _te

by m0zg 6y ago

VCs invest into your track record and the ability to put together and retain a good team. "Ex-Google" is a good signal that the person can at the very least _technically_ do what they are promising to do, once they take the cash. What's your track record? Nobody has ever promised that money will be given for phenotype traits alone.

anotherfounder 6y ago
Ah, the classic condescending first response. > VCs invest into your track record and the ability to put together and retain a good team. "Ex-Google" is a good signal that the person can at the very least _technically_ do what they are promising to do, once they take the cash. > Nobody has ever promised that money will be given for phenotype traits alone. Who knew, thanks for enlightening me. Let's just say that I have VCs emailing me now.
- m0zg 6y ago
  Why "condescending"? It's true. VCs are driven by ROI. ROI is driven largely by whether the person taking investment can do the job.
  - anotherfounder 6y ago
    I assume you are genuinely asking this but I wish I had more energy to dissect it but the fact that you would need to explain that or assume that I mean that one should be funded by phenotype are two quick examples of that condescension. I hope someone else on this thread can explain more in detail..
    - m0zg 6y ago
      You're the one "assuming" on this thread, not me. I did not assume anything at all. If I "assumed" I wouldn't have commented to begin with.
  - zentiggr 6y ago
    So first time leaders are out of luck, or have to be stellar. Gotcha. And women even more so, not because of any inherent differences in anything but the selection process biases. Women of color even more so, not because of any inherent differences in anything but selection bias. Just watch the biases and the whole process even out to an actual chance for all the ideas floating around. Doesn't have anything to do with teams or ROI when you're talking to a first time pitcher.
    - jjeaff 6y ago
      It all just boils down to the reality of the VC world and that is that none of them have a clue what they are doing. They might as well bring in a psychic to pick their investments. But they can't let their LPs know that. They've got to justify their fee and so they will do it the safest way possible which is to be copycats or at most choose the most defensible options.
avilay 6y ago
And given that a majority of "Ex-Google" engineers are males, where does that leave a woman (or any under-represented group) founder? She is not asking for money "just because" she is a woman. She is asking for a fair chance. And we need to give folks from under-represented communities a more than fair chance to combat inherent selection bias.
- s4n1ty 6y ago
  Perhaps the reason a majority of engineers are male is that men are more likely to be interested in engineering. This is a very insightful paper exploring the subject, written by a Google engineer: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...
  - anotherfounder 6y ago
    sigh, here we go again..
  - zbentley 6y ago
    Not only has that particular piece been debunked, shredded, put back together, debunked, shredded again, and (metaphorically) left in the dumpster, but it's totally irrelevant to this thread. Interest in running a company or technology is not at issue. You have a bunch of founders in this thread with demonstrable (as in: they have founded companies) interest in doing these things, and they're having trouble getting over the line because of bias. Perhaps the VCs they pitched to read the same paper, and jumped to the same conclusions you did. If so, that's super fucked up.
    - s4n1ty 6y ago
      > Not only has that particular piece been debunked, shredded, put back together, debunked, shredded again, and (metaphorically) left in the dumpster Not at all. Damore's memo was reasonable, accurate, and the criticism of it has been, like yours, entirely without substance.
tmpz22 6y ago
Like the team that built the Iowa Caucasus app?
perseusmandate 6y ago
Alphabet has 120K employees right now. Ex-Google was a meaningful distinction 15 years ago. Today it does not remotely entitle you to being funded. Many VCs today recognize that Google is an extremely bureaucratic place that does not resemble a startup and I know more than a few who view Google experience as a negative signal.
- m0zg 6y ago
  > Google is an extremely bureaucratic place And that would be accurate, to a large extent. But it's also one of the few remaining _technically competent_ places that does not hire people who can't code. That is why I qualified my statement by saying that the prospective founder would be _technically_ capable, not capable in general. If anything, they could be less organizationally capable, but that can be resolved with the right co-founder. To put it into more concrete terms: say you had a million dollars and would want to allocate it towards a bet in order to potentially turn it into a lot more. Who would _you_ pick, someone with tech aptitude credentials (which a substantial stint at Google as an engineer all but guarantees), or someone with no discernible credentials? Note that I'm not even mentioning race here. Race/gender/sexual orientation is 100% irrelevant in this calculation unless it actually confers an increased chance of turning $1M into $10M. E.g. as an investor I'd probably prefer a gay person to lead a gay dating service, just for the domain expertise. I'd still require that they have technical and/or business chops, however.

by m0zg 6y ago

anotherfounder 6y ago

Ah, the classic condescending first response. > VCs invest into your track record and the ability to put together and retain a good team. "Ex-Google" is a good signal that the person can at the very least _technically_ do what they are promising to do, once they take the cash. > Nobody has ever promised that money will be given for phenotype traits alone. Who knew, thanks for enlightening me. Let's just say that I have VCs emailing me now.

m0zg 6y ago
Why "condescending"? It's true. VCs are driven by ROI. ROI is driven largely by whether the person taking investment can do the job.
- anotherfounder 6y ago
  I assume you are genuinely asking this but I wish I had more energy to dissect it but the fact that you would need to explain that or assume that I mean that one should be funded by phenotype are two quick examples of that condescension. I hope someone else on this thread can explain more in detail..
  - m0zg 6y ago
    You're the one "assuming" on this thread, not me. I did not assume anything at all. If I "assumed" I wouldn't have commented to begin with.
- zentiggr 6y ago
  So first time leaders are out of luck, or have to be stellar. Gotcha. And women even more so, not because of any inherent differences in anything but the selection process biases. Women of color even more so, not because of any inherent differences in anything but selection bias. Just watch the biases and the whole process even out to an actual chance for all the ideas floating around. Doesn't have anything to do with teams or ROI when you're talking to a first time pitcher.
  - jjeaff 6y ago
    It all just boils down to the reality of the VC world and that is that none of them have a clue what they are doing. They might as well bring in a psychic to pick their investments. But they can't let their LPs know that. They've got to justify their fee and so they will do it the safest way possible which is to be copycats or at most choose the most defensible options.

avilay 6y ago

And given that a majority of "Ex-Google" engineers are males, where does that leave a woman (or any under-represented group) founder? She is not asking for money "just because" she is a woman. She is asking for a fair chance. And we need to give folks from under-represented communities a more than fair chance to combat inherent selection bias.

s4n1ty 6y ago
Perhaps the reason a majority of engineers are male is that men are more likely to be interested in engineering. This is a very insightful paper exploring the subject, written by a Google engineer: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...
- anotherfounder 6y ago
  sigh, here we go again..
- zbentley 6y ago
  Not only has that particular piece been debunked, shredded, put back together, debunked, shredded again, and (metaphorically) left in the dumpster, but it's totally irrelevant to this thread. Interest in running a company or technology is not at issue. You have a bunch of founders in this thread with demonstrable (as in: they have founded companies) interest in doing these things, and they're having trouble getting over the line because of bias. Perhaps the VCs they pitched to read the same paper, and jumped to the same conclusions you did. If so, that's super fucked up.
  - s4n1ty 6y ago
    > Not only has that particular piece been debunked, shredded, put back together, debunked, shredded again, and (metaphorically) left in the dumpster Not at all. Damore's memo was reasonable, accurate, and the criticism of it has been, like yours, entirely without substance.

tmpz22 6y ago

Like the team that built the Iowa Caucasus app?

perseusmandate 6y ago

Alphabet has 120K employees right now. Ex-Google was a meaningful distinction 15 years ago. Today it does not remotely entitle you to being funded. Many VCs today recognize that Google is an extremely bureaucratic place that does not resemble a startup and I know more than a few who view Google experience as a negative signal.

m0zg 6y ago
> Google is an extremely bureaucratic place And that would be accurate, to a large extent. But it's also one of the few remaining _technically competent_ places that does not hire people who can't code. That is why I qualified my statement by saying that the prospective founder would be _technically_ capable, not capable in general. If anything, they could be less organizationally capable, but that can be resolved with the right co-founder. To put it into more concrete terms: say you had a million dollars and would want to allocate it towards a bet in order to potentially turn it into a lot more. Who would _you_ pick, someone with tech aptitude credentials (which a substantial stint at Google as an engineer all but guarantees), or someone with no discernible credentials? Note that I'm not even mentioning race here. Race/gender/sexual orientation is 100% irrelevant in this calculation unless it actually confers an increased chance of turning $1M into $10M. E.g. as an investor I'd probably prefer a gay person to lead a gay dating service, just for the domain expertise. I'd still require that they have technical and/or business chops, however.