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As another female founder I concur: blind applications would make me more comfortable to consider applying to funds in general, not just YC. As an audio process

by marquis 13y ago

As another female founder I concur: blind applications would make me more comfortable to consider applying to funds in general, not just YC. As an audio processing geek, getting male and female voices to sound the same is actually pretty hard without losing diction, but at least having the application have a separate cover-sheet for the founder's names and any information that might give away identifiers about gender, race and nationality would be a good start, so applications could be read 'blind'.

sp332 13y ago
blind applications would make me more comfortable to consider applying What kind of pressure are you feeling about applying to funds now?
- marquis 13y ago
  The pressure of not being a 25 year old guy, basically. Or 25 for that matter.
  - sp332 13y ago
    What would make you feel more comfortable? Edit: Is this a bad question? I was trying to be empathetic.
    - marquis 13y ago
      Blind applications would make me more comfortable to consider applying. A lot of this has to do with impostor syndrome which is why the idea of a blind applications would, in my opinion, help many other talented founders think of applying. Thanks for your comment on empathy. That is something that makes me feel really welcome to comment here.
  - throwaway135 13y ago
    There is no age limit for YC. Many people in their 30's (some in their 40's) have gone through the program.
    - jacalata 13y ago
      There is no age limit for going to college either, but I have seen many people feel reluctant to begin/return to college later in life, for many reasons - they think they won't fit in with other students and hence will miss out on shared experiences, they think it's "too late" to get any use out of the degree by the time they finish, they think other people will think they are slow/stupid for being in college at their age, they think that colleges might not want to admit older people, they aren't sure if they can afford to support their family while being in college (not a concern for the traditional student), etc. I think that most of these fears are unfounded, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. One way to reassure them is often to give them specific examples of 'x went back to college to be a doctor when he was 33, and has had a long and successful career since then that totally let him pay off his student loans even though they were so huge!' or 'z did a degree in Mathematics in her 40s, and she said sure nobody invited her to keggers, but she was able to find partners for her group projects easily'. Are any of the older previous alumni open to being known as 'the guy who did YC in his 30s', or to being contacted by prospective entrants, to provide similar success stories?
      - hobs 13y ago
        I agree that people fear to do something if they think they might fail or have that the something might have a bias against them. However, I would argue YCom graduates are people who do a thing even if THEY ARE TERRIFIED. Being afraid of failure is not a justification for not trying, it is in fact a thing any healthy person has. The successful among us are the ones who operate even though they are afraid of failure. Otherwise only the people that were born with a perfect hand dealt to them would ever succeed.
        jacalata 13y ago
        That mindset could justify any arbitrary barrier to y combinator, but I don't see pg instituting a mandatory cliff dive as part of the application even though startup founders need to be able to show courage and deal with unexpected and crazy obstacles.
  - mdisraeli 13y ago
    This. Although there is no age limit on YC applications, there appears to be a natural bias towards younger candidates. Women, however, tend to move into being an entrepreneur later in life, when they have more experience.
  - 001sky 13y ago
    This raises a good point, but informal inferences about age, ethnicity, and sex can be made from other parts of the application. Statistics on the discrimination of Ivy league schools show that (east) Asian face a stacked deck in college applications at "selective" schools[0]. Its plausible that much of this is inferred from ethnic names. To the extent it impacts the short-lists for interviews (ie, before candidates are seen in person), it's obviously detrimental. Which brings up another point: it would be interesting to see a YC batch where the colleges/universities' names were redacted from the screening process.[1] Again, I don;t think this will ever happen...but as a thought experiment I would likely be of equal interest in terms of "opening" access. At some stage, business is as much about trading favours as it is about measuring "competence". There are some good game-theoretic reasons for this (ie, establishing trust in sequential repeated games), but there is more to the story than that.[2] ___________ [0] http://www.businessinsider.com/ivy-league-discriminates-against-asians-2012-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/ivy-league-discriminates-agai... [1] Even if this was replaced by a sort of rating system, eg. that placed X schools into N buckets. This could be done so that the information was recorded but never made visible (say by online application). And the data could still be verified later prior as part of due-dilligence/ affadavit to avoid a problem with gaming the system. [2] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-30/jpmorgan-s-mistake-was-not-hiring-chinese-princelings-fast-enough.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-30/jpmorgan-s-mistake-...
    - marquis 13y ago
      Your comments on school history etc are completely valid in the context of inference. I'd like to think that we could genuinely make a fairly well balanced system for meritocratic selection. Yes, it's a lot of work and there is always room for error however I'd like to think that ultimately the STEM industry favours these kinds of methods and they could be improved on so we'd see some kind of futuristic system that we saw in the Starship Troopers narrative (as a crazy example that in the movie at least, no-one complained about). Maybe we just need a ton more data to be able to make better predictions. But I also think that face-to-face interviews are ultimately needed as others have mentioned: cultural fit is important to a degree as well. On that note it reminds me of the Declara article I read (about the founder Ramona Pierson), where data is working to pair relevant people. https://www.declara.com https://www.declara.com
  - jusben1369 13y ago
    Can I ask you to go one deeper there? Do you think age is more critical here than sex? Would you rather be a 25 year old female applying or a 38 year old male?
    - marquis 13y ago
      I'd rather have been me, 10 years ago (i.e. 25yr female) applying to an accelerator. Looking back however, that me needed an incredible amount of guidance regardless of talent and I'd think it's a million times easier to get productive work out of a me-now. In that sense I don't need an accelerator like YC at this point, more guidance and mentorship on how to get past the post-startup phase. And that's perfect for a 38 year-old anyone.
  - paul_f 13y ago
    When you don't want to do something, any excuse will do. You chose not to apply. No one else forced you to walk away from the opportunity.
tel 13y ago
At least in real time...
dinkumthinkum 13y ago
Well, honestly if they're going to do this why bother with distortion and just interview via chat, what is the difference at that point?
ggreer 13y ago
Why not apply to YC? Worst case, you'll spend a couple of hours answering questions on the application, then get a rejection email. On the bright side, simply answering the questions can help hone your idea and execution. If you do get an interview, great! Then you have an opportunity to meet some YC partners, applicants, and alumni. If you're turned down at that point, feedback from the partners will be personalized, and you'll have gained experience interacting with investors. If things go well and you get an offer, then you can accept or refuse based on the information gleaned from the whole process. If you're unsure about applying, I recommend doing so. No matter what happens, you stand to benefit.

by marquis 13y ago

sp332 13y ago

blind applications would make me more comfortable to consider applying What kind of pressure are you feeling about applying to funds now?

marquis 13y ago
The pressure of not being a 25 year old guy, basically. Or 25 for that matter.
- sp332 13y ago
  What would make you feel more comfortable? Edit: Is this a bad question? I was trying to be empathetic.
  - marquis 13y ago
    Blind applications would make me more comfortable to consider applying. A lot of this has to do with impostor syndrome which is why the idea of a blind applications would, in my opinion, help many other talented founders think of applying. Thanks for your comment on empathy. That is something that makes me feel really welcome to comment here.
- throwaway135 13y ago
  There is no age limit for YC. Many people in their 30's (some in their 40's) have gone through the program.
  - jacalata 13y ago
    There is no age limit for going to college either, but I have seen many people feel reluctant to begin/return to college later in life, for many reasons - they think they won't fit in with other students and hence will miss out on shared experiences, they think it's "too late" to get any use out of the degree by the time they finish, they think other people will think they are slow/stupid for being in college at their age, they think that colleges might not want to admit older people, they aren't sure if they can afford to support their family while being in college (not a concern for the traditional student), etc. I think that most of these fears are unfounded, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. One way to reassure them is often to give them specific examples of 'x went back to college to be a doctor when he was 33, and has had a long and successful career since then that totally let him pay off his student loans even though they were so huge!' or 'z did a degree in Mathematics in her 40s, and she said sure nobody invited her to keggers, but she was able to find partners for her group projects easily'. Are any of the older previous alumni open to being known as 'the guy who did YC in his 30s', or to being contacted by prospective entrants, to provide similar success stories?
    - hobs 13y ago
      I agree that people fear to do something if they think they might fail or have that the something might have a bias against them. However, I would argue YCom graduates are people who do a thing even if THEY ARE TERRIFIED. Being afraid of failure is not a justification for not trying, it is in fact a thing any healthy person has. The successful among us are the ones who operate even though they are afraid of failure. Otherwise only the people that were born with a perfect hand dealt to them would ever succeed.
      - jacalata 13y ago
        That mindset could justify any arbitrary barrier to y combinator, but I don't see pg instituting a mandatory cliff dive as part of the application even though startup founders need to be able to show courage and deal with unexpected and crazy obstacles.
- mdisraeli 13y ago
  This. Although there is no age limit on YC applications, there appears to be a natural bias towards younger candidates. Women, however, tend to move into being an entrepreneur later in life, when they have more experience.
- 001sky 13y ago
  This raises a good point, but informal inferences about age, ethnicity, and sex can be made from other parts of the application. Statistics on the discrimination of Ivy league schools show that (east) Asian face a stacked deck in college applications at "selective" schools[0]. Its plausible that much of this is inferred from ethnic names. To the extent it impacts the short-lists for interviews (ie, before candidates are seen in person), it's obviously detrimental. Which brings up another point: it would be interesting to see a YC batch where the colleges/universities' names were redacted from the screening process.[1] Again, I don;t think this will ever happen...but as a thought experiment I would likely be of equal interest in terms of "opening" access. At some stage, business is as much about trading favours as it is about measuring "competence". There are some good game-theoretic reasons for this (ie, establishing trust in sequential repeated games), but there is more to the story than that.[2] ___________ [0] http://www.businessinsider.com/ivy-league-discriminates-against-asians-2012-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/ivy-league-discriminates-agai... [1] Even if this was replaced by a sort of rating system, eg. that placed X schools into N buckets. This could be done so that the information was recorded but never made visible (say by online application). And the data could still be verified later prior as part of due-dilligence/ affadavit to avoid a problem with gaming the system. [2] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-30/jpmorgan-s-mistake-was-not-hiring-chinese-princelings-fast-enough.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-30/jpmorgan-s-mistake-...
  - marquis 13y ago
    Your comments on school history etc are completely valid in the context of inference. I'd like to think that we could genuinely make a fairly well balanced system for meritocratic selection. Yes, it's a lot of work and there is always room for error however I'd like to think that ultimately the STEM industry favours these kinds of methods and they could be improved on so we'd see some kind of futuristic system that we saw in the Starship Troopers narrative (as a crazy example that in the movie at least, no-one complained about). Maybe we just need a ton more data to be able to make better predictions. But I also think that face-to-face interviews are ultimately needed as others have mentioned: cultural fit is important to a degree as well. On that note it reminds me of the Declara article I read (about the founder Ramona Pierson), where data is working to pair relevant people. https://www.declara.com https://www.declara.com
- jusben1369 13y ago
  Can I ask you to go one deeper there? Do you think age is more critical here than sex? Would you rather be a 25 year old female applying or a 38 year old male?
  - marquis 13y ago
    I'd rather have been me, 10 years ago (i.e. 25yr female) applying to an accelerator. Looking back however, that me needed an incredible amount of guidance regardless of talent and I'd think it's a million times easier to get productive work out of a me-now. In that sense I don't need an accelerator like YC at this point, more guidance and mentorship on how to get past the post-startup phase. And that's perfect for a 38 year-old anyone.
- paul_f 13y ago
  When you don't want to do something, any excuse will do. You chose not to apply. No one else forced you to walk away from the opportunity.

tel 13y ago

At least in real time...

dinkumthinkum 13y ago

Well, honestly if they're going to do this why bother with distortion and just interview via chat, what is the difference at that point?

ggreer 13y ago

Why not apply to YC? Worst case, you'll spend a couple of hours answering questions on the application, then get a rejection email. On the bright side, simply answering the questions can help hone your idea and execution. If you do get an interview, great! Then you have an opportunity to meet some YC partners, applicants, and alumni. If you're turned down at that point, feedback from the partners will be personalized, and you'll have gained experience interacting with investors. If things go well and you get an offer, then you can accept or refuse based on the information gleaned from the whole process. If you're unsure about applying, I recommend doing so. No matter what happens, you stand to benefit.