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Slightly related PG quote: I didn't realize it till I was writing this, but that may help explain why there are so few female startup founders. I read on the I
by andreyf 18y ago
Slightly related PG quote:
I didn't realize it till I was writing this, but that may help explain why there are so few female startup founders. I read on the Internet (so it must be true) that only 1.7% of VC-backed startups are founded by women. The percentage of female hackers is small, but not that small. So why the discrepancy?
When you realize that successful startups tend to have multiple founders who were already friends, a possible explanation emerges. People's best friends are likely to be of the same sex, and if one group is a minority in some population, pairs of them will be a minority squared.
Source: http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html
- edw519 18y ago"pairs of them will be a minority squared" A mathematical answer to a social question. Beautiful!
- jlees 18y agoThere are a lot of women who get involved starting companies as someone's significant other, though, so I don't think that's entirely true.
- jurjenh 18y agoThen again, people of a like mind tend to be found near each other, so the minority squared is likely to be an underestimation. It could also be that women tend to procrastinate less due to better multi-tasking skills, but that's just wild speculation on my part...