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it's really hard to address everything in one post, and i think the issues around gender and race in tech are pretty different. Sure, but you clearly didn't ca

by _pius 12y ago

it's really hard to address everything in one post, and i think the issues around gender and race in tech are pretty different. Sure, but you clearly didn't call the piece "Gender and Startups" or "Sexism and Startups." Presumably the broader title was chosen deliberately. For instance, I'd push back on an essay called "YC and Startups" if it only mentioned one company in one batch, but with a quick token sentence about other batches. i don't think we're playing this on "easy mode", but i'm sorry you feel that way. What can I say? It's a piece that scores points for "addressing diversity" but only substantively discusses the less controversial, more tractable subtopic of sexism. Excited to read the upcoming, more inclusive posts though.

sama 12y ago
we shared the stats on founders born outside the US. it's not a perfect map to race, but it's not a bad one either--there are people of all colors in this YC batch. do you really think we are trying to "score points for 'addressing diversity'"? i had an early draft titled "sexism and startups", but many people pointed out the last 7 paragraphs apply to racial minorities just as much as women.
- _pius 12y ago
  do you really think we are trying to "score points for 'addressing diversity'"? That's the net effect; it's not my place to impute a motive. All I'm saying is that you wrote a piece about sexism and titled it as if it were about a broader topic. And I know that you're usually a sharp, precise writer. I do recognize that none of this is easy and I think it's admirable that you've addressed this (very thorny) topic. You've said that you plan to address the other aspects of diversity as it relates to YC and I'm looking forward to reading about it.
- incision 12y ago
  >"we shared the stats on founders born outside the US. it's not a perfect map to race, but it's not a bad one either." It's pretty well established that there are lots of people who were born outside the US in tech in general [1] and among founders specifically [2]. Simply noting the same isn't necessarily saying anything. >"there are people of all colors in this YC batch." That's great. Seeing numbers broken out by ethnicity would be a lot more interesting as it would facilitate a more direct comparison to the rest of the recent releases on diversity. 1: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/516546/silicon-valley-fights-for-immigrant-talent/ http://www.technologyreview.com/news/516546/silicon-valley-f... 2: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/immigration-and-entrepreneurship/ http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/immigration-and...
- thrownaway999 12y ago
  I've met quite a few YC founders from Europe. They were white, and shouldn't count towards your reputation for diversity.
harryh 12y ago
What's the evidence that sexism is a more tractable problem than racism? Just curious...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - gizmo 12y ago
    I'm not sure what you're hinting at with your remark about racial disparities with regard to education, IQ and culture. Right now your comment looks pretty racist.
    - streptomycin 12y ago
      The average American man and the average American woman have the same IQ, were raised in fairly similar cultural environments, and received fairly similar educations. But compare the average black man and the average white man. The average black man has a lower IQ (Google it, many citations), somewhat different culture (more likely to have grown up in poverty, more likely to speak in AAVE, more likely to have come from a broken home, etc), and worse education (likely went to worse schools as a kid, less likely to have gone to college, etc). Maybe I am racist for writing that, but I think it would be more racist to ignore those facts, because that would lead to ignoring the problems and not trying to help disadvantaged groups.
      - gizmo 12y ago
        Because of racist laws, policies and practices Black people have fewer opportunities from literally before they're born. Studies indicate that poor nutrition and other environmental factors explain the "IQ gap" nearly completely. The remaining points are most likely an issue of bias in the tests themselves. Most white people wouldn't do well in an AAVE based IQ test. Black people (and other minorities) are being actively discriminated against. In terms of the neighborhoods they live in (white flight), law enforcement (stop and frisk, minimum sentences, racial profiling), employment, housing (mortgage applications) and so on. This active discrimination is an ongoing and constant problem that goes all the way back to apartheid. Black people will do better when white people stop holding them back. Conflating black culture and active discrimination has racist connotations. For instance appalling Wall Street behavior is not condemned as a failing of white culture, but street crime is erroneously attributed as a failing of black culture. There are a thousand other examples. Black culture: music, food, dance, art, speech are not to blame. No more than white culture is to blame for WW2. It's part of the racist discourse where environmental factors are described as if they're innate failings of people who are genetically no different from anybody else. Now I don't believe you're a racist person (you probably don't think group X is inferior to group Y), but the arguments you make have racist connotations for the reasons I gave above.

by _pius 12y ago

sama 12y ago

we shared the stats on founders born outside the US. it's not a perfect map to race, but it's not a bad one either--there are people of all colors in this YC batch. do you really think we are trying to "score points for 'addressing diversity'"? i had an early draft titled "sexism and startups", but many people pointed out the last 7 paragraphs apply to racial minorities just as much as women.

_pius 12y ago
do you really think we are trying to "score points for 'addressing diversity'"? That's the net effect; it's not my place to impute a motive. All I'm saying is that you wrote a piece about sexism and titled it as if it were about a broader topic. And I know that you're usually a sharp, precise writer. I do recognize that none of this is easy and I think it's admirable that you've addressed this (very thorny) topic. You've said that you plan to address the other aspects of diversity as it relates to YC and I'm looking forward to reading about it.
incision 12y ago
>"we shared the stats on founders born outside the US. it's not a perfect map to race, but it's not a bad one either." It's pretty well established that there are lots of people who were born outside the US in tech in general [1] and among founders specifically [2]. Simply noting the same isn't necessarily saying anything. >"there are people of all colors in this YC batch." That's great. Seeing numbers broken out by ethnicity would be a lot more interesting as it would facilitate a more direct comparison to the rest of the recent releases on diversity. 1: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/516546/silicon-valley-fights-for-immigrant-talent/ http://www.technologyreview.com/news/516546/silicon-valley-f... 2: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/immigration-and-entrepreneurship/ http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/immigration-and...
thrownaway999 12y ago
I've met quite a few YC founders from Europe. They were white, and shouldn't count towards your reputation for diversity.

harryh 12y ago

What's the evidence that sexism is a more tractable problem than racism? Just curious...

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- gizmo 12y ago
  I'm not sure what you're hinting at with your remark about racial disparities with regard to education, IQ and culture. Right now your comment looks pretty racist.
  - streptomycin 12y ago
    The average American man and the average American woman have the same IQ, were raised in fairly similar cultural environments, and received fairly similar educations. But compare the average black man and the average white man. The average black man has a lower IQ (Google it, many citations), somewhat different culture (more likely to have grown up in poverty, more likely to speak in AAVE, more likely to have come from a broken home, etc), and worse education (likely went to worse schools as a kid, less likely to have gone to college, etc). Maybe I am racist for writing that, but I think it would be more racist to ignore those facts, because that would lead to ignoring the problems and not trying to help disadvantaged groups.
    - gizmo 12y ago
      Because of racist laws, policies and practices Black people have fewer opportunities from literally before they're born. Studies indicate that poor nutrition and other environmental factors explain the "IQ gap" nearly completely. The remaining points are most likely an issue of bias in the tests themselves. Most white people wouldn't do well in an AAVE based IQ test. Black people (and other minorities) are being actively discriminated against. In terms of the neighborhoods they live in (white flight), law enforcement (stop and frisk, minimum sentences, racial profiling), employment, housing (mortgage applications) and so on. This active discrimination is an ongoing and constant problem that goes all the way back to apartheid. Black people will do better when white people stop holding them back. Conflating black culture and active discrimination has racist connotations. For instance appalling Wall Street behavior is not condemned as a failing of white culture, but street crime is erroneously attributed as a failing of black culture. There are a thousand other examples. Black culture: music, food, dance, art, speech are not to blame. No more than white culture is to blame for WW2. It's part of the racist discourse where environmental factors are described as if they're innate failings of people who are genetically no different from anybody else. Now I don't believe you're a racist person (you probably don't think group X is inferior to group Y), but the arguments you make have racist connotations for the reasons I gave above.