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Announcing the Female Founders Conference (March 1)
- pg_is_a_butt 13y agoreverse sexism is still sexism.
- aashaykumar92 13y agoThis is awesome, congrats to all the hosts! It is more common now to see female founders of non-tech companies but hopefully this conference will inspire more women to get into starting tech companies and furthermore, will inspire younger women to pursue more technical degrees, namely CS.
- minimaxir 13y agoIt should be noted that you don't need to be a current startup founder to apply: Are you a woman interested in starting a startup? Then we'd love to have you at Y Combinator's Female Founders Conference, where female founders we've funded, along with some distinguished guests, will share practical advice from their own experience.
- ripaaron 13y agoDemanding equality, except when being a woman is advantageous.
- pella 13y agohttp://femalefoundersconference.org/ http://femalefoundersconference.org/
- eevilspock 13y agoShouldn't it be called X Combinator? :)
- pixi02139 13y agoThe XX combinator
- Zenst 13y agoIf were playing that joke then a old geek would appreciate: XYZZY Combinator
- pknerd 13y agoHahahah that's awesome
- richardlblair 13y agoIn a post that is pretty serious and has some heavy conversion, I appreciate your joke.
- eevilspock 13y agoI made a serious and thoughtful comment as well, but this one is getting way more votes :P
- cousin_it 13y agoWhile we're on the topic of conferences that target a specific slice, does anyone know if there's something like an Immigrant Founders Conference? That sounds like another demographic that has huge potential and could use some pretty specific kinds of help.
- aylons 13y agoAre immigrants underrepresented in this community? My guess would be just the opposite. However, I understand they may have lots of things in common that are specific for this group.
- pixi02139 13y agoThere is the Tie group - which started off as primarily Indian-American entrepreneurs, but is now a very diverse set of members.
- Crito 13y agoI imagine, if nothing else, non-naturalized immigrants have unique concerns and obstacles. Visa concerns, ITAR (admittedly probably rarely an obstacle for YC style startups), etc. I can't say I have any personal experience with any of that though, that's all just a guess.
- ajju 13y agoWouldn't that just be a Founders Conference? :) Joking! As an immigrant founder, I can think of a couple of key issues may have been different for me than a resident founder: immigration laws and their impact on startups (obviously) and to some degree, context - understanding customers well, even when you did not grow up in the same context as them.
- alain94040 13y agoYes. At last year's startup conference, the pitch winner was from Spain. We had people from Italy, Singapore, and even Texas :-)
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- natural219 13y agoI get a feeling that Valleywag probably had less to do with this conference than you think. I would guess that this topic is something that Jessica et al have clearly been thinking about, and I wouldn't be surprised if I learned that something like this had been cooking for a while.
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- pg 13y agoAs I explained here http://paulgraham.com/wids.html http://paulgraham.com/wids.html we'd already been planning this event before that article.
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- nairteashop 13y agoIt does appear that way, but pg had said that they'd been planning this before all the controversy, so it's just a case of unfortunate timing. See email snippet at the bottom of this post: http://paulgraham.com/wids.html http://paulgraham.com/wids.html
- gbelote 13y agopg was already planning to run this conference before the whole press thing happened. See http://paulgraham.com/wids.html http://paulgraham.com/wids.html (towards the end)
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- sachinag 13y agoI ran into Donna Dubinsky at an event once and got to pick her brain for an hour. It was amazing. She's in SFBA, and I'd love to see her added to the list of speakers. (I'm really hoping someone does full notes for this conference the way that someone usually does for Startup School).
- nawitus 13y agoI'm against these, because I'm against gender discrimination. Gender discrimination means that one gender is treated differently from another. It's also interesting to know whether transwomen will be allowed. Some radical feminists only accept 'born as women' to their conferences. And if transwomen are accepted, what's their definition of that.
- badman_ting 13y ago> Gender discrimination means that one gender is treated differently from another. Yes, it does. Think on that more deeply.
- loceng 13y agoAre you trying to imply two wrongs makes a right?
- epi8 13y agoI don't know about the person to whom you are replying, but in my opinion, in this case, two wrongs make a right, if you can call hosting a conference aimed at an under-represented group a "wrong". Sure, in a perfect world, we wouldn't want or need such conferences, but in this world, we should strive for the best equality we can manage and not limit ourselves by blind idealism. If in the future, women and men are equally represented in STEM fields, then we can have a discussion about whether such conferences have outlived their purpose. But since that is not the case today, I think that trying to rectify the imbalances in a reasonable, non-confrontational way that doesn't harm anyone is laudable.
- watwut 13y agoI dunno. I would be largely annoyed by male only anything (except restrooms). Female only whatever (except restrooms) does not sound that much better.
- Symmetry 13y agoThe harm that a FOO only conference does in directly proportional to the representation of FOOs in that industry, in terms of lost opportunities for networking. And the benefits to FOOs in terms of being able to compare experiences with other people like them that they might not be able to do otherwise is inversely proportional to their representation. It might annoy you and that's understandable, but it's still a reasonable thing to be doing despite the exclusion it causes. If half of all founders were female maybe thing would be different, and I honestly think that male only conferences for nurses or educators might be a good idea.
- pyrocat 13y agoThis is a great step towards getting more women involved in the startup scene. Thank you! Many people talk about the problem (myself included), but it's nice to see that some people are working towards resolving it.
- jjoe 13y agoCan males attend this conference? I do see an option for Male in the drop down but I figured it's best to ask...
- jl 13y agoWe want to give priority to women, since we have limited space.
- jjoe 13y agoUnderstood. Already signed up but feel free to remove me from attendance.
- detcader 13y agoYou may want to be aware of what you might face on the transactivism front; here is one account of an event that tried to prioritize women: http://radfemriseup.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/30-women-meet-for-a-weekend-misogynist-heads-explode/ http://radfemriseup.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/30-women-meet-f...
- mlyang 13y agoFantastic! Will this be streamed? For women not based in Bay Area (and therefore realistically women with even more limited access to female tech/entrepreneur role-models), this would be a great resource to be accessed remotely and real time, and could definitely be the catalyst for some quality Twitterverse discussion/encouragement for female tech entrepreneurs.
- jl 13y agoYes, we are planning to stream this. Check out the conference site closer to March 1 for more details.
- mlyang 13y agoGreat! In my experience, the most inspiring talks by female tech entrepreneurs were ones where you would have had no idea whether they were female or male based on the content of their speeches/talks (e.g. "This is how we got our first 1000 users" rather than "This is how I navigated being in an all male board room"). This conference is a great opportunity to hear the experiences and perspectives of female entrepreneurs-- I hope that its content focus is more on their achievements and strategies rather than their gender. Actionable insights like how these entrepreneurs navigated their Series A or hired their first employees give a less explicit, but (in my opinion) more resounding affirmation that women have just as much credibility to succeed and achieve in the tech space. Excited to tune in!
- soneca 13y agoI'm assuming some HNers are soon to arrive saying things like "why does it matter that a founder is a female?", "why make an excluding event? isn't it sexism all the same", "imagine if someone make a 'male founders conference'?" I would like to ask you to think for a moment, before raising this concerns (I am not bothering here to debate with haters, only with those who are genuinely concerned that this might sexism all the same). If a group is underrepresented in some professional, economical, academical field, it is worthy to understand the causes. Sometimes is a historical gap in fields that have a self-perpetuating cycle of dominance (such as blacks in politics). It is tough to adress such underrepresentation, and it take generations to make any change (as it took generations and generations to create the initial gap). This is no such case for female founders. Here we have a much simples issue: stigmatization. At least, this is how most people in this field, including the organizers of this event, seems to classify it. It is easier to address because a cultural perception is easier to change than institutionalized cycles of power (as in politics). And, as I see it, this is the only goal of this event. No one is claiming that women are better than men in founding startups. Or the opposite, that women are worse than men in founding startups that they need special treatment. This event is only trying inspire women that founding startups does need to be stigmatized as a male club. Women can have a good life in founding one if they give this thought a chance. So there the only assumptions I see in this event are that: (i) founding a startup is a good thing that they should inspire people to do (something largely supported by HN audience I would guess) and (ii) that women aren't currently being correctly or ideally presented, attracted and inspired to these opportunities of founding a startup. These two assumptions may be contested. If you disagree with assumption (i) you a have a much bigger fight to pick, basically the whole illusion that Sillicon Valley sells to the world, this event isn't particular relevant in this broader debate. And if you disagree with assumption (ii), that this event is not necessary, it means that is no harm done by such an event ocurring. It would by useless at most, but not particularly harmful. This is my perception of this, and I am writing it hoping to avoid a thread full of heated debate based on false assumptions. Maybe I am being pretentious, but I swear I am just trying to help and expose my thoughts on the subject.
- smtddr 13y agoI agree with you so much that I broke my mouse clicking the upvote arrow. I'm also glad that ycombinator is doing this because it shows YC's official stance, as an organization , supports these kinds of events regardless of all the commentators trying to detract from them.
- philwelch 13y agoI don't know why people ascribe ideological significance to this kind of thing. Fact is, there are proportionally few female founders, probably even fewer than we would expect even if we expect more men than women to do startups, hence encouraging women in particular to do startups will increase the pool of founders overall (which benefits everyone) with the side benefit of improving YC's portfolio. There is still Startup School.
- ehm_may 13y agoSo is this some sort of response to PG's comments about women?
- Beliavsky 13y agoThe reason for a Female Founders Conference is presumably that women are under-represented among founders. A quote from Paul Graham may explain why: http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html "One advantage startups have over established companies is that there are no discrimination laws about starting businesses. For example, I would be reluctant to start a startup with a woman who had small children, or was likely to have them soon. But you're not allowed to ask prospective employees if they plan to have kids soon."
- zck 13y agoOf the speakers of this event, Diane Greene spoke at Startup School this past year. Here's the video of her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSEeFxq2X_c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSEeFxq2X_c Jessica Livingston gave a talk in 2012 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQJ6zsNCA-4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQJ6zsNCA-4), and interviewed Ron Conway in 2013 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bm-Xj2jMCk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bm-Xj2jMCk). I'm sure she's given other Startup School talks, but I can't find any right now. They're good videos, whether or not you can go to this conference.
- angersock 13y agoOut of curiosity, does anyone have statistics handy for the number of female-owned businesses of all types, outside of tech? You know, unsexy things like accountancies, laundromats, daycares, restaurants and food trucks, gyms, and so forth? I'm curious what the baseline here is.
- rdl 13y agoThis sounds awesome. I remember buying a ticket for a "female founders grub with us" thing run by jl as a present for a female founder friend. I wonder if some companies could sponsor expenses for non sfba female founders to attend. I think it is a lot easier for female Bay Area founders than female Midwestern founders, so it would help them a lot.
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- ChrisAntaki 13y agoNice! I hope this inspires more women to kick ass in the technology scene.
- krstck 13y agoVery pleased to hear about this. I've applied, even though I'd have to travel from Texas.
- kelvin0 13y agoAren't the autistic-transgendered-albino hackers are also an underrepresented group? Where does the fragmentation stop?
- MartinCron 13y agoWow, you can take something reasonable and stretch it until it is no longer reasonable! What rhetorical mastery!
- kelvin0 13y agoPlease define a 'reasonable' subset of hackers as opposed to an 'unreasonable' subset (such as the one I mentioned previously). Does not any individual or group deserve equal consideration? How can you judge what group 'makes more sense' in you opinion?
- Fibrewire 13y agoIf we created a Announcing the [Male] Founders Conference (March 1) they'd be marching on washington
- ksrm 13y agomake u think!
- mekoka 13y agoAny female-centric conference of the sort should be as praised as any "--insert-female-dominated-field-here-- Conference for Men". This should strip out most of the bigotry from both ends of the spectrum.
- ye 13y agoIsn't that illegal? Discrimination based on gender, which the organizer openly admits to: "We want to give priority to women". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964
- tonyarkles 13y agoI'm Canadian, I fully admit that I don't know how your legislation works in its entirety, but after giving it a quick read I have to ask: Illegal under which Title?
- protomyth 13y agoNo, the act does not cover private events such as this.
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- kyro 13y agoThere is literally nothing bad that could come of this, and I'm totally serious. I'm sure the women that attend will benefit hugely. I may get the missus to watch the stream. Been trying to ignite her entrepreneurial spirit!
- crazy1van 13y agoThe problem -- and the reason they are popular -- with identity events like these are that they give lots of people except the most talented women a cop out: Sexist males - "See, women can't hack it as founders in the real world. They need extra help." Non-sexist males - "Whew. I'll support this event and stop second guessing myself whenever I choose to fund a male-led organization." Mediocre females - "Sweet. Now I can get recognition even though a don't deserve it" Talented females - "Crap. Now everyone assumes I have this position just because I'm a woman" Maybe I'm just a naive idealist. I still believe that on average people's individual greed causes then to hire the best people no matter their sex.
- mtrimpe 13y agoYou probably are a naive idealist; there's nothing wrong with that. If you want to get rid of that give the IAT on gender a try at https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit I'm willing to bet that just the experience of taking it will make you somewhat uncomfortable.
- tonyarkles 13y agoThe moment where I felt my brain slowing down to parse things was rough. I knew I wasn't going as quickly but I felt like I couldn't do anything to speed up again. Very fascinating how that stuff works subconsciously.
- poorelise 13y agoI think I did that for homosexuals (as a random choice). I am not really convinced by it. So maybe I was more ready to associate negative things with gay people. But is that because I think those negative things about them, or because I have heard a lot about their struggles (the "negative things" were more like "troubled" or "depressed" and stuff like that iirc)? It's an interesting experiment, but I doubt it shows what many people would like to believe it shows (including it's creators). Haven't taken the one about gender, though.
- elohesra 13y agoWell, I took it and it determined that I don't associate gender with science or liberal arts. It also felt extremely contrived, and felt as though it functions largely on cheap tricks, like building a clear pattern of a theme being presented on one side of the screen for a long while and then suddenly switching it to the other side. To be frank, it seemed like the purpose of it was to induce cognitive stress from trying to figure out where you're trying to click than to actually assess anything to do with gender. I'm aware that biases are doubtless a very hard phenomenon to study accurately, because they can't simply be compared to some arbitrary 'unbiased' standard, because no-one is unbiased, but this did nonetheless feel like it was more a test of motor skills than beliefs. For what it's worth, I'd be interested in seeing something which accurately assesses personal biases, because it'd help one in determining where/if their reasoning might be being influenced by irrational factors.
- goggles99 13y agoHow sexist.... I am offended. When was the Male Founders Conference again???
- hythloday 13y agoLooking forward to going once you organize it and pay for it. Make sure to post your amazing speaker lineup on HN, it's pretty hard to get people to go to conferences that are predominantly attended by men.
- goggles99 13y agoSo if next year Black Hat was men only (which it pretty much already is), no one would show up? LOL
- theorique 13y agoWhen is there going to be a conference for male founders only? - where we sit with legs spread and scratch our balls without females giving us dirty looks - where we can wear sweatpants and football jerseys and watch sports - where we can talk about cars and cheerleaders and drink beer all day - where there's no threat of a sexual harassment lawsuit if some feminist witch overhears you and decides she doesn't like you talking about a "dongle" There are some things that women just don't get about men, and in a mixed-sex group, we're forced to conceal our true natures. Where is the conference for men only? (FYI: If you take this post at all seriously, relax. It's a joke, poking fun at both men and women.)
- supersystem 13y ago"There are some things that women just don't get about men" Seems more like you don't really get what it means to be a man.
- theorique 13y agoI'm curious to know why you say that. I wrote down a bunch of different stereotypes that people have about being a man, as a joke. What do you think it means to be a man?
- xrctl 13y agoEncouraging women's complaining might be the last thing they actually need. This is kind of like throwing a kegger for alcoholics.
- detcader 13y agoActually, you're exactly why this conference is necessary
- mikeleeorg 13y agoIt would be very, very interesting to repurpose the Brown Eyes/Blue Eyes Racism Experiment[1] to one that highlighted the subtle (or not so subtle) differences faced with gender. Then applied to the audience here. I wonder if more empathy for such a conference would be seen. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeK759FF84s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeK759FF84s
- yongjun 13y agoMany HNers appear to be outraged that this event is 'female only.' I think creating a conference environment that is restricted to women is very important. For a group that is under-represented in this community, having a safe space where open discussions can take place without fear can help strengthen a growing community of female startup founders (just look at some of these comments; you can't reasonably expect anyone to feel open to discussing these issues when there might be concern for some of these types of responses). Even as someone who believes in the importance of gender equality, as a male co-founder, I acknowledge that I do have subconscious biases that need to be checked periodically (or better, constantly). When there are more female founders, and more of a presence of female leadership, I believe those biases (and the biases of other men in our community) will decline over time. Having a safe space where supportive discussions may lead to success for more female founders is a great place to start.
- judk 13y agoMen looking to marry into a wealthy family will be hanging around the local clubs and lounges.
- teh_klev 13y agoI've scanned this thread and the other [1] and my reaction is this. In the Western world we are free to assemble in groups of like minded interests - publicly and privately. If private organisations wish to have conferences or meetings aimed specifically at certain groups then that is their right, as is the case with YC's FFC. It's YC's money, they can spend it how they like, and decide who gets to attend or not. I see plenty of veiled and not so veiled accusations of positive discrimination, but you forget YC/pg already "discriminates" against sole founder startups. He also pretty much insists you move to SF if you accept a place on his/their startup treadmill. Annoying? Discrimination? Yes/No/Maybe, but it's his company, and I guess statistically for him sole/remote founders are much harder and costlier to work with than startups who are local and have 2+ founders. That's YC's choice as a private company operating in an interference free capitalist democracy such as the US. I might, if I was bloody minded, take issue at government trying to fund and run these Special Interest Group meetings without demanding an equivalent "man only" conference. But to be honest I don't, for various common sense reasons, and the obvious fact that in industry the number of males sitting at the top tables of companies far outweigh the number of women. The recent thirty to forty years of equality enshrined in law does not eradicate hundreds of years of inequality, we still have years of work to do with regards to gender and race equality. I think what the "outraged" HN crowd (which I liken to the UK Daily Mail "outraged of Little Upper Bottomly" types) forgets is that these special interest group conferences don't affect existing hiring practices. I'm heavily involved in hiring staff for our company, I do the technical screening calls and assess how well a candidate might or might not fit with our company, staff and goals. I don't really care if the person I'm hiring is in a "special interest group" and has been attending or promoting "Women Only" conferences or classes, all I care about is hiring staff based on the merits of skill, ability and commitment. There is a huge amount of "Reductio ad absurdum" in both these threads (and please note I am not accusing anyone of sexism), but I really wish some members of our community would try to gain a bit of perspective. Privately run conferences, focusing on particular gender or social groups are not the same as active positive discrimination (which I am vehemently against) when it comes to hiring/promotion in the workplace. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7097326 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7097326
- sdegutis 13y agoI can't comment about this because I'm a white male and therefore cannot relate to anyone who is oppressed, since I've experienced nothing but privilege my whole life. So the only thing I can do is be silent so that the silenced can be heard.
- therogerwilco 13y agoThis is like feminism. Once I had a feminism say it was about equality for women AND men. I said, "would you like to join an organization called 'maleism'? It's for the equal treatment of men AND women."
- therogerwilco 13y agoThis is like feminism. Once I had a feminism say it was about equality for women AND men. I said, "would you like to join an organization called 'maleism'? It's for the equal treatment of men AND women."
- mankypro 13y agoHeh, let's add some gas to the fire and talk about the rampant age discrimination in the SiliValley!