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I think this train of thought would be considered a violation of the author's "No hand-wringing" rule. The last half of this article is dedicated towards debunk

by yummies 15y ago

I think this train of thought would be considered a violation of the author's "No hand-wringing" rule. The last half of this article is dedicated towards debunking the "pipeline problem" which you are describing. Now whether or not he effectively debunked it is up to debate, but at least in the case of women entrepreneurs he offers some compelling data: "...women receive only about 30% of degrees in CS. But 30% is a lot larger than 4% – and that’s a big math problem for advocates of the pipeline theory."

Retric 15y ago
Restricting things to gender makes it vary obvious that it's not a single stage pipeline, because YC get's much closer to 4% women applicants than 30%. The simple fact is for a variety of reasons a lower percentage of female graduates with a CS degree are interested in moving to the valley or joining / starting a start-up. That's not to say there is no discrimination just that discrimination does not account for the massive differences by it's self. If we really want to understand what's going on we need to look at areas that attract more women than men. It turns out that the northern Virginia area has a significant female bias where there are far more young well educated females than you would expect based on graduation rates etc. Perhaps the prospect of a safe 80+k job in a good area acts a golden handcuffs that prevents many young capable women from 'seeking their fortune'. But, good or bad, cultural or biological, it's not simply a question of employer bias, people chose the areas they want to live in far more than they are force into or out of a specific region.
philwelch 15y ago
The observed pattern seems to be that women make more risk-averse career choices, which founding a startup definitely isn't. The pipeline theory applies much better to blacks than to women. Further, pg somewhere argued that there's a multiplicative factor once you factor in cofounders--cofounding a startup implies an extremely close platonic relationship, people are more likely to form extremely close platonic relationships with members of the same sex, and hence men have a wider range of possible cofounders than women. I think this argument is at least partially flawed--many businesses are started by husband-and-wife teams and there's no clear reason why opposite-sex platonic cofounder relationships couldn't work either.
w1ntermute 15y ago
> at least in the case of women entrepreneurs he offers some compelling data Come on, let's not be coy about this. The particular issue that philwelch is referring to is not that of women, but of blacks. Women have a completely different set of reasons for why they don't achieve as much career-wise as men, despite similar levels of education (the first thing that comes to mind is of course the time demands of child-bearing/rearing). But for blacks, there definitely is a "pipeline problem." The quality of education available to the average black child is much poorer than that available to the average white child. Although there is definitely both conscious and subconscious discrimination against blacks, in the enterpreneurial industry as well as a raft of others, the biggest chunk of the problem can be attributed to subpar education and a culture that actively discourages success through math/science/engineering.

by yummies 15y ago

Retric 15y ago

Restricting things to gender makes it vary obvious that it's not a single stage pipeline, because YC get's much closer to 4% women applicants than 30%. The simple fact is for a variety of reasons a lower percentage of female graduates with a CS degree are interested in moving to the valley or joining / starting a start-up. That's not to say there is no discrimination just that discrimination does not account for the massive differences by it's self. If we really want to understand what's going on we need to look at areas that attract more women than men. It turns out that the northern Virginia area has a significant female bias where there are far more young well educated females than you would expect based on graduation rates etc. Perhaps the prospect of a safe 80+k job in a good area acts a golden handcuffs that prevents many young capable women from 'seeking their fortune'. But, good or bad, cultural or biological, it's not simply a question of employer bias, people chose the areas they want to live in far more than they are force into or out of a specific region.

philwelch 15y ago

The observed pattern seems to be that women make more risk-averse career choices, which founding a startup definitely isn't. The pipeline theory applies much better to blacks than to women. Further, pg somewhere argued that there's a multiplicative factor once you factor in cofounders--cofounding a startup implies an extremely close platonic relationship, people are more likely to form extremely close platonic relationships with members of the same sex, and hence men have a wider range of possible cofounders than women. I think this argument is at least partially flawed--many businesses are started by husband-and-wife teams and there's no clear reason why opposite-sex platonic cofounder relationships couldn't work either.

w1ntermute 15y ago

> at least in the case of women entrepreneurs he offers some compelling data Come on, let's not be coy about this. The particular issue that philwelch is referring to is not that of women, but of blacks. Women have a completely different set of reasons for why they don't achieve as much career-wise as men, despite similar levels of education (the first thing that comes to mind is of course the time demands of child-bearing/rearing). But for blacks, there definitely is a "pipeline problem." The quality of education available to the average black child is much poorer than that available to the average white child. Although there is definitely both conscious and subconscious discrimination against blacks, in the enterpreneurial industry as well as a raft of others, the biggest chunk of the problem can be attributed to subpar education and a culture that actively discourages success through math/science/engineering.