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You're making an incredible assumption that marketing offers the same level of happiness as parenting. You might say it's just a hypothetical, but it's a totall

by abalone 13y ago

You're making an incredible assumption that marketing offers the same level of happiness as parenting. You might say it's just a hypothetical, but it's a totally unsupported one that offers zero insight on the question. The questions is not merely one of "happiness" either. Parenting also involves maturity and well-roundedness. Much like other extracurricular interests and accomplishments which are considered great positives in say college admissions, despite how they might take 20 hours away from studying each week.

yummyfajitas 13y ago
As an investor I care about productivity, not happiness. If you want to run a trading strategy on the theory that parents are better founders, be my guest. Complaining that this investor ran a different strategy is silly.
- mst 13y ago
  Running that strategy may or may not make him wrong. Saying "actually, if I'd known I wouldn't've funded you", when (a) he already had (b) she was already committed to parenthood provided no useful information whatsoever to her ... except for the information that one of her investors was capable of engaging in pointless criticism based on couterfactuals and that as such her estimate of his capacity to maintain relationships with other people should likely be revised downwards. Because, realistically, non-actionable after-the-fact criticism is a WOFTAM and risks damaging the relationship to no gain.
  - yummyfajitas 13y ago
    Elsewhere in the thread I agreed with this point. The profit-maximizing action for the investor to take would have been to hide his feelings of disappointment from the founder, and quietly alter his process and raise the bar for women or try to assess the likelihood of them becoming pregnant. He screwed up and spoke honestly for a moment. That makes him human, not an asshole.
    - mst 13y ago
      Given it's already happened, he should either be focusing on the specific negative consequences on her engagement with the startup ... or if there aren't any such, recalibrating to not be disappointed. Continuing to hold the estimate related to a guess when you're about to get actual data seems ... suboptimal, at best. Also, I specifically said that the "estimate of his capacity to maintain relationships with other people should likely be revised downwards" which was intentionally rather more nuanced than "asshole"/"not an asshole".
- abalone 13y ago
  You completely missed the point about it being about more than happiness. If you want to run a college admissions program on the theory that significant extracurricular accomplishments offer no value, are mere happiness-generating distractions and that maximum study time is the sole key to academic fitness, be my guest. It would in fact be silly for a school to run such a program, if only because the data on achievement so strongly opposes it. Same for entrepreneurship and parenting; the median founder age is 40 and older age correlates with success[1]. No doubt many of these older, more successful founders are parents. Of course we're not talking merely about study time or even parenting, but an attitude and complex of poorly reasoned arguments calculated to keep women disadvantaged. This is beyond silliness; it is chauvinism masquerading as (pseudo) intellectualism. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/28/peak-age-entrepreneurship/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/28/peak-age-entrepreneurship/
  - yummyfajitas 13y ago
    You should read up on why colleges ask about extracurriculars and leadership: Neither strategy worked [to keep the Jews out]. Finally, Lowell—and his counterparts at Yale and Princeton—realized that if a definition of merit based on academic prowess was leading to the wrong kind of student, the solution was to change the definition of merit... ...Lowell told his admissions officers to elicit information about the “character” of candidates...provide a photograph...personal essays, demonstrating their aptitude for leadership, and list their extracurricular activities. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010crat_atlarge?currentPage=all http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010crat_atlar... But yes, I'm sure you are right - expecting founders to focus solely on their startup is "calculated to keep women disadvantaged". I'm sure that if a man wanted to, I dunno, do a startup without quitting his day job, investors would be totally fine with that.
    - abalone 13y ago
      You didn't read your own citation. "But what did Hunter achieve with that best-students model?... As graduates... they weren’t nearly as distinguished as they were expected to be... The researchers spend a great deal of time trying to figure out why Hunter graduates are so disappointing, and end up sounding very much like Wilbur Bender. Being a smart child isn’t a terribly good predictor of success in later life, they conclude. 'Non-intellective' factors—like motivation and social skills—probably matter more... [Harvard] wanted superstars, and Bender and his colleagues recognized that if this is your goal a best-students model isn’t enough."
Mz 13y ago
Parents do tend to be better workers. They have commitments to keep that are personally important to them. They have people they care about counting on them. They tend to be more reliable, more committed, etc. Young, single and childless may give you the time and energy to do more but it doesn't necessarily give you the impetus to do so.

by abalone 13y ago

yummyfajitas 13y ago

As an investor I care about productivity, not happiness. If you want to run a trading strategy on the theory that parents are better founders, be my guest. Complaining that this investor ran a different strategy is silly.

mst 13y ago
Running that strategy may or may not make him wrong. Saying "actually, if I'd known I wouldn't've funded you", when (a) he already had (b) she was already committed to parenthood provided no useful information whatsoever to her ... except for the information that one of her investors was capable of engaging in pointless criticism based on couterfactuals and that as such her estimate of his capacity to maintain relationships with other people should likely be revised downwards. Because, realistically, non-actionable after-the-fact criticism is a WOFTAM and risks damaging the relationship to no gain.
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  Elsewhere in the thread I agreed with this point. The profit-maximizing action for the investor to take would have been to hide his feelings of disappointment from the founder, and quietly alter his process and raise the bar for women or try to assess the likelihood of them becoming pregnant. He screwed up and spoke honestly for a moment. That makes him human, not an asshole.
  - mst 13y ago
    Given it's already happened, he should either be focusing on the specific negative consequences on her engagement with the startup ... or if there aren't any such, recalibrating to not be disappointed. Continuing to hold the estimate related to a guess when you're about to get actual data seems ... suboptimal, at best. Also, I specifically said that the "estimate of his capacity to maintain relationships with other people should likely be revised downwards" which was intentionally rather more nuanced than "asshole"/"not an asshole".
abalone 13y ago
You completely missed the point about it being about more than happiness. If you want to run a college admissions program on the theory that significant extracurricular accomplishments offer no value, are mere happiness-generating distractions and that maximum study time is the sole key to academic fitness, be my guest. It would in fact be silly for a school to run such a program, if only because the data on achievement so strongly opposes it. Same for entrepreneurship and parenting; the median founder age is 40 and older age correlates with success[1]. No doubt many of these older, more successful founders are parents. Of course we're not talking merely about study time or even parenting, but an attitude and complex of poorly reasoned arguments calculated to keep women disadvantaged. This is beyond silliness; it is chauvinism masquerading as (pseudo) intellectualism. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/28/peak-age-entrepreneurship/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/28/peak-age-entrepreneurship/
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  You should read up on why colleges ask about extracurriculars and leadership: Neither strategy worked [to keep the Jews out]. Finally, Lowell—and his counterparts at Yale and Princeton—realized that if a definition of merit based on academic prowess was leading to the wrong kind of student, the solution was to change the definition of merit... ...Lowell told his admissions officers to elicit information about the “character” of candidates...provide a photograph...personal essays, demonstrating their aptitude for leadership, and list their extracurricular activities. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010crat_atlarge?currentPage=all http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010crat_atlar... But yes, I'm sure you are right - expecting founders to focus solely on their startup is "calculated to keep women disadvantaged". I'm sure that if a man wanted to, I dunno, do a startup without quitting his day job, investors would be totally fine with that.
  - abalone 13y ago
    You didn't read your own citation. "But what did Hunter achieve with that best-students model?... As graduates... they weren’t nearly as distinguished as they were expected to be... The researchers spend a great deal of time trying to figure out why Hunter graduates are so disappointing, and end up sounding very much like Wilbur Bender. Being a smart child isn’t a terribly good predictor of success in later life, they conclude. 'Non-intellective' factors—like motivation and social skills—probably matter more... [Harvard] wanted superstars, and Bender and his colleagues recognized that if this is your goal a best-students model isn’t enough."

Mz 13y ago

Parents do tend to be better workers. They have commitments to keep that are personally important to them. They have people they care about counting on them. They tend to be more reliable, more committed, etc. Young, single and childless may give you the time and energy to do more but it doesn't necessarily give you the impetus to do so.