> It could just as well be left to the individual team members to identify or not. This is not possible the way it works now (one HN user submits the applicati

> It could just as well be left to the individual team members to identify or not. This is not possible the way it works now (one HN user submits the application for the whole team). Asking isn't any more awkward, but it is unnecessarily so, in the sense it does no benefit to the team (vs the equity question, which forces a discussion thats likely been put off too long). I'm not white myself, but I'm more concerned about people with ambiguous ethnicity (mixed, adopted, immigrant etc) who may not like such questions (particularly as many applicants are quite young). Nonetheless, I agree that's a minor quibble. But I just don't see YC as having much of a role in solving such social problems other than how it already does so (by funding startups and (now) non-profits to "make things people want"). YC may have an outsized influence in tech, but it's really a tiny, quirky little band of ~20 people (>(1/2) of which are part-time). Clearly YC would benefit if more underrepresented minorities learned to code and started companies, but it seems the best way to do that is to make those things easier for everyone. I.e. fund startups that improve education (clever, code academy etc) and startups that make it easier to start startups (fundersclub, wefunders etc).