10 ms·
100 Days as a Black Man in Silicon Valley
- beamatronic 11y agoI really enjoyed this article because I also came to the Bay Area from the South. I don't know if you went into detail on this, but I feel like the interview process on the West Coast is very different from that on the East Coast ( far more technically rigorous ). I feel like if you took all the positive statements out of your article, and put them together, you'd make one hell of a first impression in a conversation: "I'm a Tesla-driving lawyer from an elite boutique law firm! I just moved here to pursue my dream of working in tech! I love SF and I'm here to stay!" If I heard that from an interview candidate I'd be really impressed.
- mindcrime 11y agoThe comment about bias against going to school in the South really resonates. I mean, in one sense it's hilarious to think that there are people who don't realize that schools like UNC-CH, Georgia Tech, Clemson, NCSU, Campbell, Wake Forest, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Virginia Tech, William & Mary, etc. are great schools. But in another sense it's very, very sad. And I almost find it weirder to hear that about people from the West Coast, where the stereotype about people has them being so much more open minded and accepting, vs. people from the Northeast who are stereotyped as being more elitist and dismissive of Southerners. Oh well... at the end of the day, all you can really do is, as they say, "Be so damn good they can't ignore you".
- santaclaus 11y agoIs there really a bias against schools south of the Mason-Dixon? I feel like most of NYC went to Duke. Tim Cook also seems to be doing alright.
- lsiebert 11y agoPeople from the west coast don't necessarily have a nuanced understanding of the south.
- lsiebert 11y agoTo be clear, I say that as a west coast person who has visited the south.
- benihana 11y agoI graduated from Florida State University on the cheap a decade ago and now live in New York City. I don't think it's a bias as much as it's NYC is really up its own ass. If you didn't go to an expensive private college they're aware of they don't care and assume that since they haven't heard of it, it sucks. Which seems true about any subject and New Yorkers.
- jane_is_here 11y agoApart from William & Mary I have never heard anything about any of those schools. As for William & Mary I think that I have heard that it is an above average liberal arts college. I could google it and the rest of the list, but that is honestly my level of knowledge of them. Are they considered to be something special in the Southern states ?
- mindcrime 11y ago> Are they considered to be something special in the Southern states ? Special? No, why would they be "special"? The point is that they're fine schools; on par with good schools anywhere else in the country - but not necessarily "elite" schools like Yale or Harvard. But some people seem to have this "thing" of acting like having gone to school in the South singles you out as some barely-literate, uneducated hillbilly. This is far, far from the truth. That's all I'm getting at. That said, there are several Southern schools that help make up the original group of "Public Ivies"[1], including three of the schools named above (W&M, UNC-CH and UVA). [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Ivy#The_original_Public_Ivies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Ivy#The_original_Public_...
- jrs99 11y agohe says people ARE aware that UNC-CH is a good college. but that "few realize the University of Georgia is a Top 30 law school and Top 5 for my master’s program." That sounds pretty understandable to me. I don't feel like there's anything wrong with that.
- mindcrime 11y agoRight, he mentioned UNC-CH in particular, but otherwise, there seems to be a trend of people on the West Coast / Silicon Valley, being painfully unaware of how good many Southern schools are. And no, I don't expect any random person in CA to know specifically that "UGA is a Top 30 law school", but I'd expect pretty much anybody to realize that it's a pretty damn good school in general. Same for the other schools I mentioned. But, maybe I'm just putting too much stock into things I read here on HN and in startup related blog posts and articles. I haven't spent that much time in SF/SV and surrounding areas, so maybe this is just a filter bubble thing in effect.
- mgkimsal 11y agoThe sad part of this is that the only time most people hear about any school is related to sports. Almost all schools get judged by the wider population first based on their sports records. In most cases, it's often about the only thing most people know about most schools. Even with most schools that are "good" or "great", most people couldn't tell you why, but they can tell you about some football pass person X made in 2002 which saved the game!
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y agoI've lived and worked all over the country and do a lot of engagement with the academic literature and academics in general, and I've never even heard of Campbell.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y agoI checked, their math department appears to be five professors and an instructor, and only three of them have phds.
- mindcrime 11y agoThey're probably best known for the law school, not their undergraduate stuff. Anyway, that was just one example.
- collyw 11y agoInterestingly I see a lot of comments saying we need more women in tech, but none saying we need more black people in tech. I have worked with a number of women, and only ever seen one consultant come in who was black. Are we more racist than sexist? (I see plenty of Indians however, maybe a disproportionate amount compared to the general population?). I am based in Europe, and I do think there is less of a cultural division amongst races here. People appear to pigeonhole themselves into categories more in the US in my opinion, be it on race, job, music tastes or whatever.
- draugadrotten 11y ago> Interestingly I see a lot of comments saying we need more women in tech, but none saying we need more black people in tech. Let's assume California needs more black people in tech. Does China need more white people in tech?
- heldrida 11y agoEven better, in the US why don't we see more native Americans in Tech ? In Australia why don't we see more aboriginal in Tech ? Why in America, police shoot black people all the time ? Why is there so many poor black people, homeless black people ? The same for aboriginal people in Australia. It's not hard to figure out where all this is coming from.
- ivanca 11y agoWhite people in China accounts for 0.8%, black people accounts for 13% of the US, meaning statistically one in every 10 techies should be black but they are not and financial opportunities are also statistically low in that racial group (probably not for white people in China) I also believe segregating help is not the best idea in the world but lets face that is not so clear cut.
- enupten 11y agoYes, but only in an alternate world where China smuggled white slaves, repressed them for 400 years, and who then went on to become naturalised citizens. The stupidity!
- rjbwork 11y agoA shame he left. We need more smart techies staying here in Atlanta.
- nailer 11y agoIt says that he's still in San Francisco in his bio. Which is good because: a) he's on the front page of HN b) he's available for tech legal roles c) he seems like a pretty capable guy
- ansible 11y agoI'd have thought that the easier path would have been to join a law firm in the SF area first. Maybe just for a year or so. That might give more perspective on the startup scene, and help to establish credentials. A law firm would understand the quality of his education and experience better than some small startup.
- gambiting 11y ago"Blacks in Oakland frequently question why I would live in SF with people who don’t look like me" This is the most racist thing I read whole day.
- wantab 11y agoI came to say the same thing. This is another, "Poor black me" article where he's offended by everything he construes to be against him. As if Atlanta is better.
- brtt 11y agoYou're a bit off-base there.
- wantab 11y agoNo. Not at all. Substitute all the words "black" with "white" and see all the "You're a racist!" comments come out if I had written it.
- hluska 11y agoBrtt was too charitable. You are completely off base here, but hey, way to prove the writer's point!
- spacemanmatt 11y agoThere are a lot of ways to explain that power imbalances are critical context to racist statements. Yes, when black people say racist things in America, it's racist, but when white people do it, it's racism. But the very best explanation is long-form stand-up comedy. If you don't understand, you really should watch this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw_mRaIHb-M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw_mRaIHb-M
- konceptz 11y agoI really wouldn't classify this as racist. It sounds to me more like an honest share about his community or extended community's view on where he is living.
- wink 11y agoVery good article, but I really didn't like the "if only I could quickly get coding skills and be an engineer" part. I'm really the last one to call for mandatory lengthy education, but there's a reason I'd usually agree that people having studied Computer Science and worked in the field for few years tend to know certain things people that "learnt to code" don't. But yeah, maybe the valley is different and there's a huge market for people learning stuff for a few months and rightfully making a lot more money than I do in Europe :)
- nsxwolf 11y ago"You know this is a tech event, right?" ... haha... that's tolerant, liberal Silicon Valley for you!
- rm_-rf_slash 11y agoThe author is doing good work and I commend him. It's a million more times easy to complain about a problem or prescribe a solution than it is to roll up your sleeves and do the hard work. We need more people like him.
- stevendaniels 11y agoI recently watched American Experience's Silicon Valley. I was a bit shocked by the lack of diversity in the those early companies (Fairchild Seminconductor, AMD, Intel, etc.). Andy Grove, a Hungarian, seemed to be the most diverse of the bunch. There wasn't even a token Black, Asian, or Indian in the company photos I saw.
- dudul 11y ago"why pay all that money for college when you can go to coding school for a fraction of the price, make over six figures, and get equity in a company?" You realize that most engineers do have a college degree right? You realize that most engineers are not dumb script kiddies who went through 10 PHP tutorials to learn how to code? "I definitely feel like my high school guidance counselor dropped the ball on that one." Yeah, cause please don't take any responsibility for not doing the work of thinking and planning your own future.
- FLUX-YOU 11y ago>You realize that most engineers do have a college degree right? You realize that most engineers are not dumb script kiddies who went through 10 PHP tutorials to learn how to code? This doesn't match the dialogue I see here and other places about college graduates and/or job candidates who can't fizzbuzz or have no other skills required in the industry. Although I think it would be nice if we simultaneously had a steady supply of skilled engineers, constantly increasing salaries, and constantly increasing demand.
- dudul 11y agoNot sure I see your point. Most "non-fizzbuzzers" are college graduates who got a liberal arts degree and are trying to pivot to a more lucrative field. Just to be clear: I don't think all developers need a degree, but I think there is much more than just attending a 4 week codecamp required to become a good developer. The author makes it sound so trivial and easy.
- kasey_junk 11y ago> Most "non-fizzbuzzers" are college graduates who got a liberal arts degree and are trying to pivot to a more lucrative field. Prove it. That has not been my experience in hiring at all.
- dudul 11y agoIt has been mine. I have been interviewing and hiring developers for the past 6 years, this was my empirical observation. I am glad you had a different experience.
- b6 11y agoI would be overjoyed if people would stop capitalizing "black", "white", etc. It feels like I'm reading something from Stormfront. Do we want body attributes and tribes to be less important in the future, or more?
- spacemanmatt 11y agoDo you seriously propose that ignoring tribes will help anything?
- b6 11y agoI don't think I'm proposing to ignore tribes. I'm calling tribes out as harmful. If people promote the old idea of declaring themselves distinct from the rest of the human family because of various body attributes, I'm going to oppose it.
- hluska 11y agoYou know, my iPhone has taken to auto-capitalizing the word 'white'. As a white man, this scares the hell out of me, as it strikes me as being racist as hell. I don't have the same reaction when I see the word 'black' capitalized. We are an odd species...
- ebfe 11y agoThe average IQ of African-Americans is a standard deviation below that of whites, which in turn is a bit below that of Asians and Ashkenazi Jews [1]. Under the assumption that the tech industry has a higher average IQ than the population as a whole, then in a world free of any sort of discrimination, one would expect to see blacks underrepresented and Asians overrepresented. This isn't a fun fact to discuss; I don't intend any sort of disrespect towards people like the author who are most likely smarter than me. But it's one that needs to be accounted for in discussions about race. 1. http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/Rushton-Jensen30years.pdf http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/Rushton-Jensen3...
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoYeah that's widely disputed. Maybe because its just the PC line; maybe its actually nonsense. That article spends an uncomfortable amount of time tooting its own horn about being the underdog and what national newspapers its been featured in. The obvious criticism is, the classes measured in so-called 'Jensenism' are defined by cultures as well as race. What attempt has been made to disambiguate that?
- Geekette 11y agoI would certainly discount info from a researcher who amongst other things: consistently ignored evidence disproving his assertions over time, was funded and endorsed by racist/white supremacist organization specifically to produce literature suggesting racial hierarchy in intelligence[1][2]. More importantly, the concept of IQ is a myth: there is no single measure of intelligence, different neural networks coordinate verbal vs reasoning vs short-term memory abilities, etc[3][4]. That one test (based on solving certain classes of problems at most) is still being extrapolated to assessment of overall intelligence and used to somehow differentiate people is ludicrous. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#Criticism [2] http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.174.265&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.174... [3]http://www.thestar.com/life/2012/12/19/iq_a_myth_study_says.html http://www.thestar.com/life/2012/12/19/iq_a_myth_study_says.... [4] http://www.owenlab.uwo.ca/pdf/2012%20-%20Hampshire%20-%20Neuron.pdf http://www.owenlab.uwo.ca/pdf/2012%20-%20Hampshire%20-%20Neu...