
2014 Could Be the ‘Tipping Point’ for Female Founders, Says Jessica Livingston - DanielRibeiro
http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/01/2014-could-be-the-tipping-point-for-female-founders-says-y-combinators-jessica-livingston
======
tomelders
I think it's mildly offensive to both sexes to present the lack of female
founders in this way. To women is says; all you lack are role models and
community support. Which has a 1950s, "even a woman can do it!" Ring to it.

To men, it reinforces the idea that women are being kept down by men. Maybe
that's true and I'm simply not getting invited to the meetings where men
gather to conspire to keep women down and out of the board room. Or maybe that
doesn't happen and the real reason there are fewer women in the very high
positions is a result of something else.

There is a vocal minority of dick heads out there who hate women and happen to
be in tech. My guess is that they hate women for the very reason you would
expect a "geek/nerd" to hate women; because girls ignored them, and were
probably mean to them. The power balance in school between boys and girls goes
a long way to explaining the animosity between some men and women in my
opinion.

If I were asked to organise a talk to encourage women to become founders, I
would ask an expert in risk assessment to speak, because we know it to be true
that women are more risk averse than men. And that is why there are more male
founders AND more male prisoners. To talk about anything else is just
pretending there are no real, measurable and relevant differences between men
and women. And I don't see how that helps anyone.

~~~
puppetmaster3
:There is a vocal minority of dick heads out there who hate women and happen
to be in tech.

Prove it!

~~~
jacalata
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7328572](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7328572)

~~~
tomelders
Proved! Oh the irony.

~~~
puppetmaster3
That is one idiot, not idiots.

~~~
jacalata
How many people makes a minority these days?

------
jl
After attending the conference, I'm even more convinced that 2014 could be the
tipping point. I was blown away by both the depth and quality of the
presentations. There was a degree of openness that I've really only seen at a
YC dinner (which are all off-the-record). This was one of those magical
events, like the first Startup School in 2005, where everyone there was
realizing as it was happening, that this was something unusual.

~~~
zmitri
Honestly it was probably the best conference I've ever seen (I'm a male and I
watched online).

What was really special is that people there were actually giving useful,
practical advice instead of just telling the story of their company. There was
no bravado, no bullshit, and it sounded like the speakers actually wanted to
help people in the audience and pass on advice instead of promoting their
companies.

Oh and the segment on fundraising was probably the most useful and forward
talk on fundraising I have ever listened to in terms of practical advice.

There's a statistic - Ben Horowitz used it in a talk once - that on average an
educated woman will educate at least 4 other people in their lifetime, whereas
you're lucky if a man educates one. I felt like this really rung through as I
was watching this.

You should watch the stream of the conference if you haven't.

~~~
astrange
> There's a statistic - Ben Horowitz used it in a talk once - that on average
> an educated woman will educate at least 4 other people in their lifetime,
> whereas you're lucky if a man educates one.

How was that defined and measured? Or in other words, [citation needed].

Luckily, I've educated many people with nit-picky anonymous and pseudonymous
internet comments, so I must have great karma.

~~~
zmitri
Hey - I'm so sorry I didn't link the video for you!

Here's it is:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQnDDKDiSy8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQnDDKDiSy8)

It's 6 minutes in: "If you educated a girl in the developing world, you
educate 5 people, because if you educate one girl, on average, she'll educate
at least 4 other people through the course of her life."

I feel really bad for not linking it. Thank you so much for the reminder.

~~~
NotOscarWilde
> "If you educated a girl in the developing world, you educate 5 people,
> because if you educate one girl, on average, she'll educate at least 4 other
> people through the course of her life."

I believe the [citation needed] is meant to ask for the source of this fact,
i.e. whoever investigated this phenomenon and measured it.

To me, the statement is rather dubious because even the thesis is (in general
use of the word educate) loosely defined -- Does a mother educate the
children, is it the teacher who educates them, or do we count both? How often
do we count the father as well? What about when a foreman teaches a fresh
employee, is that education also?

Unless we exactly specify what is meant by education, this statement seems
"purely inspirational" to me, i.e. rather meaningless.

~~~
zmitri
You should ask Ben then! He's a really smart and accomplished guy and I'm sure
would be very happy to share that with you.

~~~
Dewie
This is how myths get started. _He said it and then I 'passed it on', because
if it came from him so I assumed it to be true, 'cause he's a pretty swell
guy_, rinse and repeat.

~~~
elohesra
In other words, it's an argument-to-authority (discarding the Latin here).
Claiming "some famous guy said it!" is no more a proof than claiming "crazy,
homeless Bill said it!": a convincing argument should be able to stand on its
own weight, without being stated by a credible source.

If the hypothetical 'crazy, homeless Bill' said that the sun were bright, he'd
be correct regardless of the fact that it came from 'crazy, homeless Bill'. If
Ben Horowitz stated that 1 = 2, then he'd be wrong, regardless of the fact
that he's 'Ben Horowitz'.

~~~
jamesaguilar
Argument from authority is a formal fallacy, but in terms of practical
reasoning it's a valuable tool. If you find that someone has been reliable in
their claims in the past, you would be a fool to not give some weight to
future claims. Of course, that has to be modulated by your priors for each
claim. But it is perfectly reasonable to form a weak belief on a respected
person's say-so.

------
natasham25
Thanks YC for putting this conference together. It was seriously the best
conference I've ever been to.

The talks were real and gave honest and practical advice we could all relate
to. The audience was incredible. Everyone I talked to was a founder and / or
engineer. I haven't been at an event with so many impressive women in one
room!

We got a glimpse of what a world with a lot more female founders would look
like, and it's going to be better than I could have imagined.

------
MartinCron
Role models matter a lot. Seeing relatable people be successful in ambitious
undertakings can be transformative. I can only hope this trend continues so
that, decades from now, our children and grandchildren will shake their heads
in disbelief that technology and entrepreneurship were "for boys".

~~~
stretchwithme
Its my belief that most women, and men, throughout human history HAVE been
entrepreneurs. What is a farmer, after all? Or a hunter? Or a gatherer?

After all, what do people naturally do? What do animals naturally do? Well,
they don't sit and wait to be told what to do. No, they seek out
opportunities.

The current economic arrangements, however productive they are, are the
anomaly.

I don't think they are going away, but the work we do will become more more
entrepreneurial as labor is automated. And as education evolves away from "sit
still and listen to the lecture" towards something more compatible with how
people actually thrive.

~~~
Fomite
> What do animals naturally do? Well, they don't sit and wait to be told what
> to do. No, they seek out opportunities.

Emulation is a massive part of animal behavior and learning, just FYI.

------
sGrabber
Totally Agree. I see more & more female founders coming up.

I think it was great initiative by YC. Though I couldn't attend this time,
Hope to have more of such conferences. Excellent way to build up our female
network and learn from each other.

Kuddos to YC for taking up this initiative

------
namenotrequired
> “Learn to program yourself. That is the best advice I could give to anyone
> non-technical,” she said. In addition, she said, non-technical founders
> should surround themselves socially with programmers.

For context, she said this specifically about women _who were having trouble
finding technical hires_.

------
curiousAl
For those who missed it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=QD...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=QDaqt9NzDUc#t=2238)

------
lifeisstillgood
A small piece of anecdata that feels relevant : I took my three year old
daughter to her friends birthday party yesterday - and there met amoungst
others a chemical scientist with two PhDs, two City lawyers and an ex-fortune
50 development lead. All female, all skilled and all normally happy. And one
who was extra happy because a local business was hiring her to do her old job,
two half days a week and at a fraction of her rates.

Any one of whom happily outshone me in risk taking, capability and skill sets,
but I was the self employed one.

I don't think that a high growth shoot for the moon startup can be run whilst
doing anything else like raising kids, but there is a world of alternatives
between the next 100m exit and nothing.

Oh and risk assessment - oh yes, given my daughter is currently jumping off
the stairs onto a chair, risk assessment is a real boon to colonising that
middle ground of entrepreneurialism as well as an equal number of all or
nothing founders

------
hawkharris
It's good to see stories that call attention to unique problems faced by women
in technology. But you will know that progress has been made when we start
seeing stories about women succeeding or failing in the industry and the news
doesn't associate those triumphs or setbacks with gender.

The four stages of overcoming social stratification:

* Contributing to or ignoring the disadvantaged group's problems.

* Recognizing that the group faces undue burdens but not acting.

* Pushing for the group members to be treated differently to recognize their intrinsic value / contributions to a society, industry, etc.

* The "Aha!" moment when a majority of people realize that not only does the group bring value to an industry, but that value has nothing to do with their ethnicity, gender or other born characteristics.

After the "Aha!" moment, more news stories focus on what individuals in the
group are doing rather than the fact that they are doing it despite their
identities.

~~~
mildtrepidation
Did you get these from somewhere or are they just your opinion on how this
does/should happen?

 _Pushing for the group members to be treated differently to recognize their
intrinsic value / contributions to a society, industry, etc._

If you mean treated differently as in no longer doing whatever it was you were
presumably doing before that contributed to this group's "undue burdens," OK.
But I'm not clear that that is what you mean, based on what you said.

If you're advocating preferential treatment due to "undue burdens" (e.g.
Affirmative Action), all you're doing is discriminating in the other direction
and adding an undeserved burden to other groups that didn't have it before.
That's not progress; it will only ever 'work' at the expense of creating or
inflaming animosity based on this attempt to counter inequality with
unfairness.

 _But you will know that progress has been made when we start seeing stories
about women succeeding or failing in the industry and the news doesn 't
associate those triumphs or setbacks with gender._

This I absolutely agree with. Women are underrepresented in all sorts of
areas, but firmly planting that badge on their foreheads takes away from their
individual successes and failures. Defining someone -- anyone -- based on
their sex, ethnicity, nationality, etc. for the purpose of categorization
serves only to tacitly affirm discrimination.

~~~
hawkharris
I was sharing my opinion based on observations about how various disadvantaged
groups have made social progress in the United States.

I agree with your ideas about the way "treated differently" should be defined
and how preferential treatment is counterproductive. Hopefully we'll see more
news stories in the future that focus on women's successes and failures but
don't concentrate so much on gender.

------
kartikkumar
I think it's great that there are more female role models, which will
undoubtedly have a knock on effect in the industry.

The one thing that really puzzles me in this article is the following quote:

“I’m not an aggressive person, and often, girls aren’t trained to be
aggressive in the same way that boys are.”

I am hoping this has been taken out of context because otherwise it's really a
sweeping generalization without substantiation. This worries me. I think it's
great to make women aware of trends in the tech industry and society, but
statements like this will put people off from listening. I'd be interested in
data that backs up the fact that boys are trained to be aggressive. My
anecdotal evidence to the contrary includes myself and my male friends. I
don't have any reason to believe that we have been trained to be aggressive,
but that might be because we fall outside the "often" bracket.

~~~
lnanek2
There actually are studies showing women ask for raises less often, etc.. That
could be what they are talking about re lack of aggression. Although I admit I
haven't seen anything re if it is nature or nurture that causes it. Although,
personally, even as a non-aggressive tech geek myself, as a male I had a
couple fights back in school when people stuck me with needles, etc.. We might
be able to find stats that males fight more often.

~~~
kartikkumar
Interesting, any links to studies that indicate that women systematically ask
for raises less often? I find that topic particularly difficult myself, so I'm
curious to know if I'm the odd one out when it comes to men in general.

I've never had a physical fight in my life. I'm also not sure that that's what
was the intention of the quote.

------
grey-area
What a great set of talks - from the introduction giving an overview of the
founding of YC, through the homejoy founder talking about their horrible
mistakes and failures on the way to an epiphany, these talks have a lot of
really fascinating, practical and useful advice. Thanks!

I loved the bit in jl's talk where she announces this conference, and it is
reported in the press as 'Paul Graham announces...' :)

I'd definitely recommend watching all of these talks, and avoiding the toxic
and inexplicable troll threads on HN on the original story. Perhaps those
result from people not watching the talks before commenting? Anyway, here is a
direct link to the video for anyone who has not seen these:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDaqt9NzDUc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDaqt9NzDUc)

------
loladesoto
amazing conference. women lining the walls, sitting on the floor--all of us
incredibly grateful to be there.

female founders have more than our share of Sisyphian tasks; events like this
give us the strength to keep going.

------
k-mcgrady
>> "Fully 34.5 percent of the female founders who have launched companies out
of Y Combinator have had significant others as co-founders"

An interesting statistic. Does anyone know why this is the case?

~~~
namenotrequired
Did you expect it to be higher or lower? (She said, by the way, it's a lower
bound because they don't actually _ask_ , so she might not know about all of
them.)

I have one wild guess that may influence it, while I'm sure there's many other
factors; selection. They pay close attention to the strength of the
relationship that the founders have because one of the most common ways to
fail is for the co-founders to have a fall-out. When you're a couple, you've
probably been on holidays or other adventures together (look at the Lanyrd
founders for instance, who I think started Lanyrd on a long honeymoon) or
worked your way out of tough times and sticked together, there's clear
evidence you have the potential to work together through stressful situations.
(And who knows, perhaps they're less likely to walk away if it means walking
away from their startup _and_ spouse.)

~~~
k-mcgrady
I expected it to be lower but tbh I hadn't really thought about it. Selection
is a good point though, it could be a good criteria for a strong co-founder
relationship.

------
onmydesk
On the conference itself - Great information imparted by talented and
interesting individuals. Unfortunately the event also shames YC with its overt
sexism. You're better than this. I noted most speakers rose above it by
keeping sexism out of their talks. Not all did and that is a shame.

------
undoware
This is very cool, but could we please stop calling things a tipping point?
The tipping point for 'tipping point' was when Groupon stopped being
thetippingpoint.com. Since then it's just been shorthand for 'change is
happening'.

Could we please get a more interesting metaphor?

------
dmead
i fail to see why this matters.

------
goggles99
Women typically don't want to be founders. The ones that do generally lack the
physical and emotional stamina, intuition, instincts, persistence, are too
emotional in their decision making, lack natural leadership skills ETC. If all
this somehow changes, any year could be the tipping point. Good luck ladies.

Women in general, I think your best bet would be to try to rid the world of
all the no talent entertainers (such as Miley Cyrus, Beyonce singers actresses
ETC). All these women do is shake their butt or breasts all over and try to
sell sex. Speaking of selling sex, get rid of all hookers, strippers, porn
stars, nude models, start dressing your teenagers and yourselves modestly
(cover up), stop sleeping around, no more one night stands, having 4 kids from
3 daddies, stop stripping down in movies too, doing half naked fashion shows
or miss X contests, ETC. You do nothing but lose respect when you do all of
this. You think men are pigs for ignoring the fact that you have a good brain
in that head and just staring at your chest, yet women doing all of the things
I mentioned are why men think like this (a vicious cycle I know).

Do this and I guarantee that you will have a tipping point that is
unprecedented. Men will take you seriously and the amount of respect that you
get will be far greater than today.

I am not saying that this would guarantee or put you on equal footing as a
founder because the skills and desire that is necessary are not common in
women. But it would sure help you be taken seriously, and there is not much
that is more important than that.

~~~
smtddr
I've just been ignoring _(well, downvoting a few)_ the HN-comments around
these YC Female Founder. But this one, this one is just awful. You represent
the absolute fringe worse-case scenario that I suspect a few of the other
commenters are thinking just not foolish enough to actually post.

Get back in your time-machine and return to the 1950s.

~~~
ElComradio
People will believe anything they fear is true.

------
fisherprice
I have two daughters, I strongly believe that women are very talented, in
particular communications, management and focus are their strengths where they
can easily outplay their male competition but I dislike this women movement
everywhere.

Women do not need special treatment, they are not disabled. They were enough
women making stellar careers for years. Such events make women feel
_disabled_.

But I know that many weak protagonists jump on this trend because that's the
only way they can get attention (Jessica Livingston, Sheryl Sandberg and many
more).

~~~
namenotrequired
Concluding that they therefore must be doing it purely for attention is quite
a stretch. Please don't forget to consider the possibility some people simply
disagree with your opinion about such events, especially when they're affected
by the situation in different ways than you.

~~~
fisherprice
I think you didn't get my point -- they engage in such activities because they
couldnt succeed somewhere else and think the cause of their failure is that
women do not have same opportunities. Moreover, it's easy to get attention
with this subject. Women and career is a foolproof topic press and media love.
Women who really succeed do not have the time to engage and they do not need
to. They don't need this special treatment because they are successful because
of what they do and not what they are.

~~~
namenotrequired
You're right, I didn't get that point, I still can't say I agree but thanks
for clarifying.

