7 ms·

Let's say for the sake of argument that you are completely, 100% right about the difficulty of fundraising and how 'banal' their product is. Even given that, t

by Fede_V 11y ago

Let's say for the sake of argument that you are completely, 100% right about the difficulty of fundraising and how 'banal' their product is. Even given that, the kind of shady behaviour that the investors tried to pull (groping, conversations with dates attached, etc) is absolutely intolerable and should be dealt with incredibly harshly.

jeswin 11y ago
I don't think parent was excusing that behavior. If the author had written the post focusing on those aspects, it would have been a compelling article on the discrimination they faced while fundraising. And like you said, it needs to be dealt with harshly and exposed. What has happened instead is that the tone seemed to suggest that it is easy for white men* to succeed. This is in a way dismissing the efforts of countless white nerds who have spent their entire youth fiddling with their computer projects. The internet is full of obscure projects that exist purely for the love of hacking. The author misses out the correlation between this and the relatively larger number of successful white men in the industry. Discrimination is real. But we shouldn't rush to attribute success to being white and male, unless there is a study which tells us: (no of hours white men have spent/successful white men) vs (no of hours X group has spent/successful X group people) To me, it seems that the way to fix it is to get kids to start programming early irrespective of gender and color. * I am male, but not white.
- Fede_V 11y ago
  I am honestly completely unqualified to comment on how good their product is. I know very little about the 'dating application' space. I did find the comments about finding funding to be somewhat entitled, but I guess most people who go through YC compare themselves to their (very highly successful) peers.
- gradstudent 11y ago
  > What has happened instead is that the tone seemed to suggest that it is easy for white men* to succeed. Having read the article I can say I did not get that impression at all. The article argues it's easier for men to be funded than women and that there are implicit biases at work in the VC-funding-system that unfairly disadvantage women. This sounds perfectly reasonable to me; it's a common and valid criticism made by feminists all the time.
  - mreiland 11y ago
    Here's the relevant quote from the article. > I knew the founders of many other companies pretty closely – their backgrounds, their revenue, their valuations, how much they raised. Sure, it’s comparing apples and oranges, but one company (with a 6’ tall, attractive white, male CEO) that was pre-product and just a few LOIs raised over a million with 3x the valuation. A smaller B2B company that had 10% of our revenue raised the same amount as us, at twice the valuation. Another B2C company, with a quarter of our revenue and much stronger, well-funded competitors, raised 3x what we raised, at twice the valuation. The main difference? They were all run by all male founders. I don't believe any reasonable person is going to read that and walk away believing the author wasn't implying that white men get funded easier than women.
    - matt_morgan 11y ago
      The question is for what reason. She's making an argument that was the only difference. With support & evidence.
    - ido 11y ago
      Easier, not easy.
      - mreiland 11y ago
        someone needs to read up on their IFF logic tables.
    - kaitai 11y ago
      That's right -- the article is saying that white guys (especially tall and handsome ones -- remember that short guys oh wait you already know) have less difficulty than many other people in the funding game. But in this discussion, the claim a few posts above was that the article says that white guys have it easy. Different. It's like claiming A greater than B means A very large, if we're talking about, say, real numbers. But just because a .5 percent chance is bigger than a .2 percent chance doesn't imply that either of these numbers is very large. In particular, it's useful to play with numbers because it reminds you that a very small difference in funding rates at the beginning may compound, leading to big differences later. If a few important investors get distracted by the idea of dating you or don't take you seriously because of small biases, that may have a substantial long-term impact.
- phkahler 11y ago
  >> Even given that, the kind of shady behaviour that the investors tried to pull (groping, conversations with dates attached, etc) is absolutely intolerable and should be dealt with incredibly harshly. Some of those should not be invited back to YC. Isn't that one of the things YC does, bring in quality investors? What about the drunk at demo day? These are examples of the investors not taking the founders and what they're doing seriously. Has YC passed its peak?
throw23345 11y ago
> and should be dealt with incredibly harshly. Yeah, lets shoot them, because she said so. Date invitation is the worst form of rape.
- Fede_V 11y ago
  I'm assuming that the person telling the story did not flagrantly lie. Obviously, before proceeding with professional/legal repercussions, all the claims should be heavily scrutinized. However - if the claims are true, you do not believe they merit repercussion and that the actions of the VC are just harmless 'date invitations'?
- dantillberg 11y ago
  Let's say you're a man, and the tables have turned -- men are the long-oppressed sex, and you need to turn to women investors to raise money for a business: How would you feel if you showed up to an event to raise money for your budding business, but instead of serious conversations with the mostly-female crowd of investors, most seem childishly interested in glancing at and discussing your butt, or perhaps feeling your biceps. You keep trying to bring the conversation back from butts and biceps to YourCompany, and finally one of the investors interjects that no, they only invest in "serious" companies (coded language which you know means: companies founded by people that look like themselves), but that they do like feisty men, and perhaps they could invite you out for a drink or two sometime. Would that not be infuriating? How would you feel if you had listened to that conversation play out in front of you? What would you want to do in response? Would you empathize with the experience of the person that came to talk business but is instead treated as a sex object? Or would you laugh, because it amuses you to watch someone carelessly crush the dreams and soul of someone that doesn't look like you? Date invitation, in certain inappropriate contexts, while not illegal per se, ought to be punished via civil means.
  - mreiland 11y ago
    You don't actually know how it happened. quoting from the article: > It’s extremely intimidating walking up to older men, getting them to make eye contact, and then convincing them to fund you through a quick convo. It’s also extremely easy to confuse these approaches with flirting – which is exactly what happened.
facepalm 11y ago
Groping is not OK, but an invitation to a date? How are people going to get together in the future, matchmaking by computer is the only "form" allowed? I suppose that would be good news for her startup... It's sleazy to invite somebody hoping to date them but giving the impression that you want to invest in them. But the guy mentioned explicitly stated "it's a personal invitation", meaning it would be a date. What is so horrible about that? Can women not even say "no thanks" by email anymore, is that too much of an ordeal (or, if that is too hard, just ignore an email - too hard?)?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- kaitai 11y ago
  Somehow we've gotten to a point in society where it is relatively accepted that me saying to a student, "Come to my office for a... personal meeting..." or "I'd like to have beers with you after class alone -- it's a personal invite. is wrong. This is not offering a date no-strings-attached, simply because of our jobs.
  - facepalm 11y ago
    I think that's bullshit. Rich people are not allowed to date anymore? Actually there was recently a study that showed that upward mobility has severely decreased because fewer women are marrying richer men (used to be a major way to become richer). So this is yet another example of feminism harming women. By "protecting" the supposed victims of powerful men you deprive women of the option to date powerful men. And what if a student is interested in dating a professor? Running a startup is not such a dire situation that it forces you to become a sex slave. Edit: in reply to the comment below: The corollary of the statistic is that men don't have a lot of upward mobility. So often the unspoken assumptions that go along with feminism are simply wrong. Being able to marry upwards is a "privilege" of women mostly. It doesn't imply that they can not try other routes like everybody else. YC doesn't allow me to comment further atm, so good bye.
    - 11y ago

by Fede_V 11y ago

jeswin 11y ago

I don't think parent was excusing that behavior. If the author had written the post focusing on those aspects, it would have been a compelling article on the discrimination they faced while fundraising. And like you said, it needs to be dealt with harshly and exposed. What has happened instead is that the tone seemed to suggest that it is easy for white men* to succeed. This is in a way dismissing the efforts of countless white nerds who have spent their entire youth fiddling with their computer projects. The internet is full of obscure projects that exist purely for the love of hacking. The author misses out the correlation between this and the relatively larger number of successful white men in the industry. Discrimination is real. But we shouldn't rush to attribute success to being white and male, unless there is a study which tells us: (no of hours white men have spent/successful white men) vs (no of hours X group has spent/successful X group people) To me, it seems that the way to fix it is to get kids to start programming early irrespective of gender and color. * I am male, but not white.

Fede_V 11y ago
I am honestly completely unqualified to comment on how good their product is. I know very little about the 'dating application' space. I did find the comments about finding funding to be somewhat entitled, but I guess most people who go through YC compare themselves to their (very highly successful) peers.
gradstudent 11y ago
> What has happened instead is that the tone seemed to suggest that it is easy for white men* to succeed. Having read the article I can say I did not get that impression at all. The article argues it's easier for men to be funded than women and that there are implicit biases at work in the VC-funding-system that unfairly disadvantage women. This sounds perfectly reasonable to me; it's a common and valid criticism made by feminists all the time.
- mreiland 11y ago
  Here's the relevant quote from the article. > I knew the founders of many other companies pretty closely – their backgrounds, their revenue, their valuations, how much they raised. Sure, it’s comparing apples and oranges, but one company (with a 6’ tall, attractive white, male CEO) that was pre-product and just a few LOIs raised over a million with 3x the valuation. A smaller B2B company that had 10% of our revenue raised the same amount as us, at twice the valuation. Another B2C company, with a quarter of our revenue and much stronger, well-funded competitors, raised 3x what we raised, at twice the valuation. The main difference? They were all run by all male founders. I don't believe any reasonable person is going to read that and walk away believing the author wasn't implying that white men get funded easier than women.
  - matt_morgan 11y ago
    The question is for what reason. She's making an argument that was the only difference. With support & evidence.
  - ido 11y ago
    Easier, not easy.
    - mreiland 11y ago
      someone needs to read up on their IFF logic tables.
  - kaitai 11y ago
    That's right -- the article is saying that white guys (especially tall and handsome ones -- remember that short guys oh wait you already know) have less difficulty than many other people in the funding game. But in this discussion, the claim a few posts above was that the article says that white guys have it easy. Different. It's like claiming A greater than B means A very large, if we're talking about, say, real numbers. But just because a .5 percent chance is bigger than a .2 percent chance doesn't imply that either of these numbers is very large. In particular, it's useful to play with numbers because it reminds you that a very small difference in funding rates at the beginning may compound, leading to big differences later. If a few important investors get distracted by the idea of dating you or don't take you seriously because of small biases, that may have a substantial long-term impact.
phkahler 11y ago
>> Even given that, the kind of shady behaviour that the investors tried to pull (groping, conversations with dates attached, etc) is absolutely intolerable and should be dealt with incredibly harshly. Some of those should not be invited back to YC. Isn't that one of the things YC does, bring in quality investors? What about the drunk at demo day? These are examples of the investors not taking the founders and what they're doing seriously. Has YC passed its peak?

throw23345 11y ago

> and should be dealt with incredibly harshly. Yeah, lets shoot them, because she said so. Date invitation is the worst form of rape.

Fede_V 11y ago
I'm assuming that the person telling the story did not flagrantly lie. Obviously, before proceeding with professional/legal repercussions, all the claims should be heavily scrutinized. However - if the claims are true, you do not believe they merit repercussion and that the actions of the VC are just harmless 'date invitations'?
dantillberg 11y ago
Let's say you're a man, and the tables have turned -- men are the long-oppressed sex, and you need to turn to women investors to raise money for a business: How would you feel if you showed up to an event to raise money for your budding business, but instead of serious conversations with the mostly-female crowd of investors, most seem childishly interested in glancing at and discussing your butt, or perhaps feeling your biceps. You keep trying to bring the conversation back from butts and biceps to YourCompany, and finally one of the investors interjects that no, they only invest in "serious" companies (coded language which you know means: companies founded by people that look like themselves), but that they do like feisty men, and perhaps they could invite you out for a drink or two sometime. Would that not be infuriating? How would you feel if you had listened to that conversation play out in front of you? What would you want to do in response? Would you empathize with the experience of the person that came to talk business but is instead treated as a sex object? Or would you laugh, because it amuses you to watch someone carelessly crush the dreams and soul of someone that doesn't look like you? Date invitation, in certain inappropriate contexts, while not illegal per se, ought to be punished via civil means.
- mreiland 11y ago
  You don't actually know how it happened. quoting from the article: > It’s extremely intimidating walking up to older men, getting them to make eye contact, and then convincing them to fund you through a quick convo. It’s also extremely easy to confuse these approaches with flirting – which is exactly what happened.

facepalm 11y ago

Groping is not OK, but an invitation to a date? How are people going to get together in the future, matchmaking by computer is the only "form" allowed? I suppose that would be good news for her startup... It's sleazy to invite somebody hoping to date them but giving the impression that you want to invest in them. But the guy mentioned explicitly stated "it's a personal invitation", meaning it would be a date. What is so horrible about that? Can women not even say "no thanks" by email anymore, is that too much of an ordeal (or, if that is too hard, just ignore an email - too hard?)?

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
kaitai 11y ago
Somehow we've gotten to a point in society where it is relatively accepted that me saying to a student, "Come to my office for a... personal meeting..." or "I'd like to have beers with you after class alone -- it's a personal invite. is wrong. This is not offering a date no-strings-attached, simply because of our jobs.
- facepalm 11y ago
  I think that's bullshit. Rich people are not allowed to date anymore? Actually there was recently a study that showed that upward mobility has severely decreased because fewer women are marrying richer men (used to be a major way to become richer). So this is yet another example of feminism harming women. By "protecting" the supposed victims of powerful men you deprive women of the option to date powerful men. And what if a student is interested in dating a professor? Running a startup is not such a dire situation that it forces you to become a sex slave. Edit: in reply to the comment below: The corollary of the statistic is that men don't have a lot of upward mobility. So often the unspoken assumptions that go along with feminism are simply wrong. Being able to marry upwards is a "privilege" of women mostly. It doesn't imply that they can not try other routes like everybody else. YC doesn't allow me to comment further atm, so good bye.
  - 11y ago