Lets actually look at a more realistic example. Women in CS and Engineering today might be ~10-20pct of FTEs. That means, in a medium sized shop, where there mi

Lets actually look at a more realistic example. Women in CS and Engineering today might be ~10-20pct of FTEs. That means, in a medium sized shop, where there might be 20-30 engineers, you have a situation whee how many are women? 2-6? That sounds about right. Now, if you are in this position...the issue is that the guys have 18-24 FTEs amongst their co-hort. In order for the girls to get the same type of network-density you need to bring together the equivalent of 5 to 10x shops together. That is just simpe seeding of network effects. If you worked in a shop with only 2 or 3 other people who did your job, the "law of small numbers" means your chances of leveraging this social infrastructure are "hit or miss". There are too many simple variables (personality type, work habits, social background, etc) for an effective "matching problem" to be solved. Or use another example: would you go to a school with only 2 or 3 students in your major? Most people would see that as a red-flag. Social isolation is at odds with the type of network effects most people seek to develop at school. MBAs for example typically invest $250k to buy a commodity education, paired with a very exclusive rolodex. The value of this degree would almost be worthless in a school with 3 other students (regardless of the teaching). This is quite a different argument from lowering standards or affirmative action or whatever you want to call it. In fact, it is precisely the strategy YC used to bring its co-horts together. Back in 2005, VCs did not back many founders without an advanced degree (MA/PhD or MBA). As a result, it made sense to bring together (concentrate) a cohort, because the general peer group of VC backed CEO's would not have much in common with a 22 year old with no job experience. By bringing folks together that face similar challenges, you are not (per-se) giving these people special treatment or lowering standards; you're just providing a level os support infractructure that lets them "self-help" there way through many problems. It is actually critical that you don't "dumb down" standards, for this to work.