
Racism and Meritocracy - Jarred
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/19/racism-and-meritocracy/
======
patio11
So, how about stepping back from the issue of race because that makes people
stupid: if Silicon Valley (or a large chunk of the institutions which make it
up) has a persistent bias against X, regardless of whether that is invidious
or just a result of suboptimal processes, and that bias is unconnected to
merit, then you should be able to profitably exploit it.

Silicon Valley has many biases, of varying levels of connection to actual
merit. One is that it is a very chummy place: who you know is, historically,
the first filter applied to you (there is an entire culture around intros) and
some folks consider it to be the best available method of approximating merit.
This suggests the existence of a strategy which repeatably beats the tar out
of the Valley: invest in people before they are known by the powers-that-be,
introduce them to the powers-that-be, make out like a bandit. You will
probably end up rich enough to take up amusing hobbies like running message
boards in your spare time.

It is entirely possible that Silicon Valley has a blind spot with respect to
X, where X is a entrepreneurial demographic or a market or a business model or
a geographic location or a personality type or a whatever. If X is unconnected
to merit, then that suggests the existence of a strategy which will
predictably produce crushing. I might even go so far as to say that absence of
crushing is fairly persuasive circumstantial evidence about either the
existence of the blind spot or about the connection to merit.

~~~
thaumaturgy
I think the article was a solidly not-stupid approach to the issue of race; I
would like to see more discussion like it.

I don't think capitalism can solve all ills; even if there is an opportunity
for, say, seed-stage investment for startups run by tech "minorities", there
is a whole litany of necessities and problems which give it long odds of being
successful. You have to find individuals who are both interested in the
problem, and have the resources required to address it; they have to have the
right recipe of skills; they, themselves, have to know certain people (that
chumminess again); and, moreover, they have to be willing to throw significant
capital at addressing a problem which might not exist in 5 years.

Or, to put it another way: I think there can be common agreement at this point
that YC is not funding and accepting as many startups as they would like to,
which implies that there is a strong market demand for another YC which could
be as successful, or nearly as successful, as YC itself.

So why doesn't one exist?

~~~
patio11
There are a _lot_ of investment groups which have been, ahem, inspired by the
YC model. I'm totally agnostic on what degree of success any particular one or
the field in general will have, but in 2022, we'll have trivially checkable
empirical evidence on whether there needed to be more seed stage funding than
YC was doing for itself.

 _long odds of being successful_

Do you realize that, if you believe the odds are long against this strategy
succeeding, you _have_ to be taking the position that this isn't a serious
problem in the status quo? And vice versa? I mean, you're not going to give
long odds against gravity or penicillin winning, right? They're going to
ROFLstomp the alternatives. If diversity is not ROFLstomping the alternatives,
then _we did not have a diversity problem_.

~~~
thaumaturgy
I realize that that is the conclusion _if you believe that it is inevitable
that a free market will capitalize on every opportunity_.

I do not believe that this is so. I mentioned a few of the things which might
prolong or even prevent such a thing from being successful even if there is
sufficient opportunity for it.

I might be willing to change my position if there were a much greater number
of people with the resources necessary to launch YC-like companies.

~~~
patio11
So I think we're coming at this in two different ways. It is possible that
we're just philosophically irreconcilable on that.

I am skeptical, but willing to be convinced by evidence, that access to
capital contributes more to success of software companies than talent. If,
hypothetically, companies fail because of lacking access to capital but do not
fail because of lacking access to talent, and the market selected for people
who were fundable instead of people who were talented, I would not come to the
conclusion that the free market has failed. I would come to the conclusion
that the free market had allocated resources correctly to capital and away
from talent (in the dystopian world where talent, apparently, doesn't really
matter).

If you're betting that access to capital and social networks and execution
risk trump diversity in investment outcomes, you're betting that access to
capital and social networks and execution risk matter more than diversity.

~~~
thaumaturgy
I think we are, too. Still, you're forcing me to think more carefully about my
position on this, which I appreciate. I had to go outside and rake the leaves
and think about what you said before replying.

So, I think you carried my argument a little bit further than I would have.
For example, I don't think that access to capital contributes _more_ to
success than talent, nor do I think that talent doesn't really matter.

It's a bit more nuanced than that.

I understand that you're more attracted to data than supposition;
unfortunately, I'm neither a researcher of sociology, nor prepared to locate
data on "unsuccessful but extremely talented people" (which is where this is
going) -- largely because I'm gobsmacked by the very thought of trying to dig
up such data, especially historically.

The only thing that I have to fall back on is a particular series of
reasoning:

\- We assume that there are varying degrees of talent, i.e., "extremely
talented" and, let's say, "normally" (or "moderately") talented.

\- We assume that YC does not restrict itself only to teams of the most
extremely talented. I think I can at least support this with pg's own past
statements; he's far more likely to cite Sam Altman as an example of extreme
talent than any other given YC graduate. I doubt pg would want to say that
anyone in YC _wasn't_ extremely talented, especially publicly, nor am I going
to put those words in his mouth. However, it's clear from his own statements
that YC has funded a range of differing talents, with Sam Altman on one end
and many other people at another end.

\- We assume that some of these YC graduates have been successful by nearly
any measure. If these successful individuals are not Sam Altman, then we have
an example of people who have been successful despite having less talent than
someone else. (Again, I am very very carefully here not implying that they are
not talented, or even that they are not extremely talented. This is not in any
way to be taken as a criticism of anyone involved with YC in any way.)

\- Given those, we have now shown a non-1:1 correspondence between talent and
success.

\- So: talent _alone_ is not a predictor of success.

My position was not that talent doesn't matter, nor that access to capital
matters _more_. My position was that access to capital _matters_. You can have
people with identical levels of talent, and some will be successful, and some
will not, based upon the resources that are available to them and any number
of other semi-random influences.

I will readily agree that a person with an extreme amount of talent has better
odds of succeeding than someone with less talent. They are more likely to
possess the skills necessary to overcome a greater number of more serious
challenges. But, those individuals are terribly rare in society; we would be
trying to draw conclusions about sociology from a 1% of a 1% of a 1% of a 1%.

When discussing the greater general population, I think that environmental
factors -- like access to funding and resources -- can greatly affect
someone's success in life.

> _If you're betting that access to capital and social networks and execution
> risk trump diversity in investment outcomes, you're betting that access to
> capital and social networks and execution risk matter more than diversity._

I think that the original article covered this:

"So, again, racial or gender diversity is not an end in itself. But we have to
ask ourselves: if teams are consistently being put together with homogeneous
demographics, what are the odds that they also will contain a diversity of
perspectives? Shouldn’t we be worried that the same selection process that
produces homogenous results in one area might be accidentally doing the same
in the area that we care about (but that is harder to measure)?"

i.e., this is not about betting so much on a winning strategy, as wondering if
perhaps we're collectively missing out on some opportunities.

~~~
apu
This civilized, well-considered, thought-provoking back-and-forth is one of
the reasons I fucking love this site.

~~~
Mz
Yeah, I scanned some of this conversation solely because I caught that it was
an extremely civilized debate (rather than an emotionally heated argument). So
amen to that. One of HN's finer moments.

------
philwelch
One of the problems with racism in particular is that it has effects on people
from birth. Past racism may have hurt their parents' socioeconomic prospects,
forcing them to be born in an economically depressed ghetto with poor schools
and gang violence. Even if there's no racism past that point, if their parents
were prevented from ascending to the middle class, they won't pass on middle-
class virtues emphasizing the importance of education. No matter how good the
schools are, they don't really work the same without positive parental
involvement.

And there's obstacles to how good the schools are, too--good teachers will be
scared away by the violence and gang activity that's common in those
environments, and district-based taxing, funding, and student allocation
procedures mean that kids in those areas are trapped in bad schools. If the
school system is racist on top of that, that's even another barrier.

If you don't fix something that's that bad when the kid is five years old, by
the time they're eighteen and getting out of high school, let's suppose they
go to college. Okay, the colleges do everything they can not to be racist, but
it's genuinely harder to meet academic standards for admission if you went to
shitty schools your whole life. And even if you get in, you have to compete
with the students who went to better schools and got a better start. That's a
barrier against even getting into difficult academic tracks like STEM. And if
the university system is racist, that's even another barrier.

Okay, the job market for developers is pretty good right now even in startups.
It probably isn't even racist. But even at this point, all the forces I've
already described have thinned out the numbers to the point where a
disproportionately small minority of the genuinely qualified population of
entry-level developers are, well, minorities. But let's say the job market is
racist, too.

Once you're ready to found a startup, it's absolutely true that the pool of
candidates coming to YC and others for funding is genuinely unbalanced. Even
if investors do everything they can to be perfectly non-racist, racism in any
or all of the levels previous to this in the person's life is going to take
them out of the population of qualified startup founders. And no matter what
you do to fix investment, it's not going to restore the proportion of minority
startup founders to the proportion of minorities in the population. You have
to fix these problems at the root, not all the way out here when it's too late
to make any difference.

~~~
billpatrianakos
Exactly! Maybe this is a small minority being extra loud. Thank you for saving
me a lot of typing.

Diversity for the sake of diversity hurts us all. You really do need to fix
the underlying problems. I believe that there really are few qualified
minority candidates for these jobs out there and there would be a lot more if
we could fix some of the poverty and segregation that exists out there.

Black people in this country live in a separate America. They have their own
culture as a result of past racism. So many black youth are living in these
poor neighborhoods where they're learning that the only way to get ahead is to
hussle in the bad sense of the word. Take a look at hip hop and the ideals
being broadcast with that music. Make that money (however you can), trust no
one, the world is against you. And it really is against them. Violence, crime,
gangs, drugs, poverty. This is what a lot of minorities have to deal with
growing up. If they manage to avoid the pitfalls of growing up that way they
then have to adjust to a whole different world in college and beyond. If we
can fix this issue then we'll have a lot more qualified minority candidates.

Look at pro sports. Why are so many star athletes black? Because they had no
other way out. Meanwhile the suburban white kids have the luxury of living in
a safe cul de sac where they can sit quietly and study or save up an allowance
to pay the smart kid I'm the block to take his SAT.

Women are brought up to be these frail creatures and have heavy emphasis on
things that won't help them become the career women we see in movies. There's
a lot of talk about women's rights and equality but it isn't practiced as much
as rhetoric is thrown around about it.

We as white males benefit greatly from White Privilege. It isn't our fault and
we shouldn't feel guilty about it but we should recognize it and try to change
it. The fact of the matter is that our culture and society is heaviily biased
toward helping white men succeed with the ideals we're taught, the
opportunities we're given, and just the way we're generally raised.

If we can extend White Privilege to everyone then we will have more diversity.
There really is just less qualified minorities than whites in this industry
and going out of our way to find a minority isn't helping anything. It just
covers up a problem and leaves behind the greater issue. This needs to be
addressed at the root.

~~~
Anechoic
> _Diversity for the sake of diversity hurts us all_

I agree with this, but at the same time, a _lack_ of diversity might (I stress
_might_ ) indicate a problem with racism or (more likely these days) disparate
impact and it's worth investigating and rectifying if need be. Just chalking
it up to "well, I guess blacks/women/etc just aren't into tech" (not that you
said that, but other posts here reflect that) may be ignoring a problem. If
proper research shows that is the case, then fine, but let's not leap to
assumptions.

> _Black people in this country live in a separate America. They have their
> own culture as a result of past racism._

I see what you're trying to say here, and there are cultural/regional
differences, but saying "[blacks] have their own culture" makes it sound a bit
like an alien society. American black culture is just a subset of _American_
culture - a random black guy from Chicago is going to have a lot more in
common culturally with a white guy from Seattle compared to a black guy in
sub-Saharan Africa.

> _If we can extend White Privilege to everyone then we will have more
> diversity._

I'd rather just get rid of privilege totally, but that's a tall order. I do a
lot of consulting for government agencies and in that world you really do get
work based primarily on who you know. As a result a lot of my colleagues tend
to be white males, not because of any sort of overt racism, but because the
white males who head up government agencies tend to look within their circles
of other white males for recommendations. Making the procurement process
fairer and more reliant on merit will probably increase diversity in my
market, and that's a good thing in terms of increasing opportunities for all.

------
pg
[http://www.google.com/search?q=railsconf+audience&hl=en&...](http://www.google.com/search?q=railsconf+audience&hl=en&safe=off&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei=svvHTs3XHfTJiQKv5KX-
Dw&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1164&bih=927)

~~~
amirnathoo
Eric is not suggesting that the applicant pool is diverse and the selection
process biased. Instead, I think he's suggesting that different selection
processes can result in different applicant pools:

"Imagine that you were a professional musician thinking about which orchestra
to audition for. You have a choice between an all-male orchestra that conducts
interviews out in the open, and a mixed-gender orchestra that conducts
auditions behind a screen. Which would you choose to apply to? Wouldn’t your
answer be different if you were a man or a woman?

I think thought experiments like this are helpful for suggesting an alternate
hypothesis to the pipeline problem: that there are qualified minority
applicants who are choosing – rationally – to invest their time and energy
elsewhere. I am not aware of any scientific study that proves this hypothesis
is correct. But I have seen enough existence proofs to believe it is likely."

~~~
pg
The Railsconf audience images refute that explanation too. Since there is no
screening process at all, potential attendees can't be deterred by biases in
it.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Of course they can, and in fact the article touched on this:

> _Remember, part of the defense against the racism theory is that the
> applicants are already skewed before any selection is done._

> _I once spent time with a promising entrepreneur who was not a white man.
> Because their startup sold a product that a lot of tech entrepreneurs buy,
> many of their customers were graduates of Y Combinator. So I asked if they
> were planning to apply. Their response: “oh, no, it’s a waste of time. Y
> Combinator doesn’t accept people like me.” Where did they get that idea?
> Surely not from YC’s partners, who as far as I can tell are scrupulously
> fair in their dealings with entrepreneurs. Rather, they got that impression
> by inferring that there is probably implicit bias in YC’s admissions
> process, and that they’d be better off spending their time doing something
> else other than applying to YC._

I realize you're talking about Railsconf and not YC, but is it really a leap
of logic to suppose that there might be a similar mechanism at work at
Railsconf, or other social conferences? Is it possible that individuals of
certain minorities in tech -- women or various ethnicities -- are more
sensitive to discriminatory undertones that other people aren't conscious of?
e.g., they feel like they just won't "fit in" there, and are more inclined to
spend their time elsewhere.

I think the article was well-written, thoughtful, and presented solid evidence
as it gradually built its case point-by-point. I think it merits more
consideration than a link to Google Images.

~~~
pg
I used images of a conference audience because it's the best way I could think
of to get a sample of what the hacker community looks like. If you can think
of a better one, let me know.

(The point of that link, for anyone who didn't get it, is that the lack of
diversity Eric Ries perceives in the output of our filter is also present in
the input, which implies it's not caused by bias in the filter.)

~~~
thaumaturgy
I think there is an error in logic here (and I think Ries touched on it): a
bias in the input of a filter does not preclude a bias in the filter itself.

A bias in the input may exist because of a bias -- _perceived or actual_ \--
in the filter.

~~~
projectileboy
Sure, that's possible, but first we have to look at the skewed input before we
look at any problems with higher selection processes. Hell, I even see this
working shlubbo programming jobs here in Minneapolis - there simply are not
many female programmers, or African-American programmers. Until we look at
problems in K-12 and college, I don't see that it's meaningful to talk about
racism and sexism in the valley.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Hmm. I'm not sure I agree, but I'm still thinking about it. It smells like
this approach presupposes that the problem of diversity in tech -- assuming
that such a problem exists, which isn't universally agreed-upon -- is rooted
in problems in education.

Again, I think one of the points of the article is that post-input selection
problems can _cause_ selection problems in the input.

As a thought experiment, if we imagine a situation in which a particular
minority were to believe that, even if they followed the rules of their
majority peers, they would still be selected against, then we might also
imagine that as a consequence they would actually select against themselves.

(For example: I'm _terrible_ at casual party-like get-togethers, so I tend not
to go to them, which in turn prevents me from getting any better at them; I'm
selecting against myself in this situation because of an expected problem.
Likewise, if I were a woman and an entrepreneur, I might not attend certain
events because I believed in advance that I wouldn't do well there.)

I'm not at all arguing that this is actually the case. But, I don't think that
limiting ourselves to looking at problems in education is taking a complete
enough approach to the overall problem.

------
gruseom
This article read to me like a concern troll (I'm just so concerned about
diversity) overlying a passive-aggressive smear of the "I'm not saying" sort.
As in: I'm not saying they're racist. Not necessarily. At least they _say_
they aren't, and I take them at their word. At least until there's evidence
that they're lying. Of course I _have_ heard racist jokes.

Such language is unimpeachable on the surface and conveys something different
underneath.

------
amirnathoo
One thing that bothered me about this article was the way it called out YC's
selection process implying it is part of the problem. Actually the Valley has
never been more accessible to 'outsiders' because of the rise of YC,
AngelList, and many more angel investors.

~~~
eries
I couldn't agree more. My intention wasn't to call out YC as part of the
problem, but simply to suggest a specific place where I think YC (and the
Valley ecosystem in general) could be improved.

In fact, the only reason I think this argument has any chance of having an
impact is that I think SV is one of the most meritocratic places in the world.

I'm pointing out a bug that we could easily fix if we want to.

------
learc83
Isn't it possible that it has nothing to do with race, but with culture.

From my experience most people who end up working in technology are or were at
one point part of the geek subculture.

You can't just look at Tech fields and say look it's all white and asian. It's
not, it's predominantly a particular subset of white and asian men. That
subset has it's own culture.

Maybe there is some cultural reason that white and and asian men are more
drawn to this subculture than other demographics.

~~~
billpatrianakos
This has everything to do with culture. This becomes a big deal because of
white guilt which is a result of White Privilege.

Fact: there are far fewer minority hires working in our industry

Fiction: the previous fact is a result of racism

If that were the case maybe there's reverse racism in pro sports?

~~~
pjscott
Evidence, please?

------
temphn
This post has many empirical problems, but let's start by looking at the
male/female deck by Terri Oda. The only data in the entire deck is on slide
21, and the caption reads:

    
    
      Two normal distributions that are 0.15 standard deviations  
      apart (i.e d=0.15. This is the approximate magnitude of 
      the gender difference in mathematics performance, 
      averaging across all samples.)
    

In other words, what is plotted there is actually NOT data but simply the
textbook Gaussian curves for two distributions.

So let's take a look at actual data. Here is a significantly more rigorous
analysis:

<http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/math.htm>

This actually uses data from three different tail populations: Female
mathematicians in the NAS, Fields Medalists, and Putnam Competition winners.
Lo and behold, a simple Gaussian model predicts that small differences in
_average_ mathematical ability produce significant sex differences in the
tail[1]. And these predictions tally with reality (e.g. the empirical
proportion of females in the NAS).

Ms. Oda also does not consider two other crucial aspects, which are:

1\. The large difference in spatial ability between men and women:

    
    
      http://goo.gl/SGhDw
    
      On the whole, variation between men and women tends to be 
      smaller than deviations within each sex, but very large 
      differences between the groups do exist–in men’s high 
      level of visual-spatial targeting ability, for one.
    

2\. The large difference in preferences between men and women:

    
    
      http://goo.gl/ccKyj
                         
      A study by Lubinski and Benbow followed the careers of 
      mathematically precocious youth from age 13 to 23. All 
      were in the top 1% of mathematical ability. At age 23 less 
      than 1% of the girls were pursuing doctorates in 
      mathematics, engineering, or physical science, while 
      almost 8% of the boys were. Equal aptitude not 
      withstanding, girls pursued doctorates in biology at more 
      than twice the rate of boys, and in the humanities at 
      almost three times the rate of boys.
    

The asymmetric part of this whole debate is that someone who voices the above
counterarguments in public runs the risk of being browbeaten like Larry
Summers or Michael Arrington.

[1] This is of course assuming that distributions remain Gaussian, though it
is well known that correspondence to Gaussianity drops off considerably as you
move into the tails.

~~~
DaniFong
Mathematical achievement doesn't fit a gaussian, and neither do the gendered
groups of your conception. And if mathematical ability were distributed as a
Gaussian, and genetic, women couldn't be ascending so rapidly.

See for example Lisa Sauermann, the all time best performer in the
international math olympiad:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Sauermann>

As I wrote four years ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=65494>

The thing is that intelligence isn't some kind of nice, statistically normed
quantity. There's more to most variables than a mean and a standard deviation
-- so I don't know why people seem to always think that you can restrict a
discussion of intelligence to such concepts.

...

But intelligence isn't a gene. Researchers have, since the time of Galton,
tried to find a simple, biological basis for genius. You know, memory
capacity, reaction times, brain size, brain structure convolution, etc. They
haven't found anything -- literally everything has turned out to be a false
start, even brain size, which, has been shown, within families does not even
predict g. In the mid ranges, there are greater standard deviations, yes. But
every single normed test is normed on a sample on the order of 1000. They're
designed for regular people. The designer of the Weschler has adamantly
opposed the use of IQ tests for anything other than clinical settings, for
this reason. It's just no good at drawing conclusions on the extremes of
ability. A better guide might be actual performance. The IOI this year had
more girls than ever before -- 11. That's nearly 300% more than last year,
where they had 4, and one medal. They are: Emina Bukva (Bosnia and
Herzegovina) Constanza Contreras (Chile) Anna Currel (Spain) Romina Huenchunao
(Chile) Vaiva Imbrasaite (Lithuania) Taksapaun Kittiakrastien (Thailand)
[Silver] Sepideh Mahabadi (Iran) [Gold!] Radwa Metwali (Egypt) Katie O'Mahony
(Ireland) Phitchaya Phothilimthana (Thailand) [Silver] Ye Wang (USA) [Silver]
Sepideh Mahabadi had one of the best performances of anyone. If you're
familiar with IOI scoring, only the top 1/12 are to get golds, and 2/12 to get
silvers, thus 1 gold and 3 silvers out of 11 implies that they did at least as
good as the boys, and in fact somewhat better. Were the 'standard deviation'
explanation correct they should have, instead, had 0.4 girls earning maybe
0.01 medals. It just doesn't work.

And three years ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=244449>

 _Why is it sexist to say we show up more frequently in science departments
because we have also been designed by evolution to be better at math?_

Because compared with bench-pressing, claims of mathematically ability being
better in men (and partially ordered, to boot) is seriously jumping the gun.
We know what's involved in a bench press. We understand how testosterone
stimulates the production of muscle. We are nowhere close with mathematical
ability. We have no theory of mathematically ability -- we really don't know
what it means, or if the simplest metrics are even useful for higher level
math. We have no experimental results, because we have no controlled
variables. We have few pieces of data, none of which are conclusively
disentangled from cultural and historical influence. In the past two decades,
the number of women scoring highly on the IMO, the IOI, the Putnam, and SMPY
has gone up by roughly a factor of six. Doubtful that the number of girls with
'math talent genes' have sextupled that quickly. Isn't this evidence that we
should hold off on our conclusions?

And four years ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=65524>

"Brain size does not predict general cognitive ability within families"
<http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/97/9/4932> You can't discount that
IOI statistic becuase it's an outlier. Every single participant at the IOI is
an outlier in cognitive ability. Do you know about the theory of outliers?
There's this thing called the central limit theorem. It says that if you have
a lot of small independent variables, randomly assigned some value, then the
mean of all these variables (or, by the same token, the sum of the variables)
is distributed approximately normally. But suppose the variables are not
small, or they're not independent. Then the central limit theorem doesn't
hold, and what you have, almost all of the time, is an outlier -- that's why
there are often many more outliers than you'd predict in a given population,
using a small sample. Now, I'm not saying that g is zero. I said that
psychometrics is a non-science, in the same sense that a lot of the social
sciences are non-sciences (you can find papers which try to show a causal
effect of insurance regulation on premium prices, ignoring profits entirely,
for example). The fact that g is non-zero can be readily explained by the
following simple observation -- most academic subtests, including IQ's, rely
on skills that are either practiced as a group, or on skills that are shared
between subtests. One example is focus, in general. Another is visualisation.
Another is working memory. And so on and so on. Many of these skills are also
practiced in situations, like school, where if one does well in one area, they
do well in another. If you're the teacher's pet, you get more attention. If
you're known as the bad kid, you're immediately discounted (and I've been on
both sides). If you're poisoned against a learning environment, you just won't
put any effort in. So it's no mystery to me that g is non-zero. The point is
that the field of psychometrics is totally absent of content. There's no
objective test for the validity of a test, for example -- the best they have
is g-loading. Over the years, this means that tests have become higher and
higher g-loaded. Now this could mean that the tests are getting better, or it
could be that the subtests only look different, they are becoming more similar
in content. I've been studying these tests, the actual tests, since I was
twelve. It didn't take long before I figured out how poor they were at
answering research questions, or questions of individual ability. If you get
the chance, try to look up the history of the Stanford-Binet, or Terman's
kids, or actually take a look at the scoring method behind most of these
things. They're totally full of crap...

~~~
yummyfajitas
"And if mathematical ability were distributed as a Gaussian, _and genetic_ ,
women couldn't be ascending so rapidly."

This is false. It could be that mathematical ability is genetic and normally
distributed, but some component of women's underrepresentation is caused by
factors other than this (e.g., discrimination, personal preferences).

"It's just no good at drawing conclusions on the extremes of ability. A better
guide might be actual performance. The IOI this year had more girls than ever
before -- 11... Were the 'standard deviation' explanation correct they should
have, instead, had 0.4 girls earning maybe 0.01 medals."

Come on. I know you know better than to draw statistical conclusions from a
single event with a sample size of 11. So why do it?

"The fact that g is non-zero can be readily explained by the following simple
observation -- most academic subtests, including IQ's, rely on skills that are
either practiced as a group, or on skills that are shared between subtests.
One example is focus, in general. Another is visualisation. Another is working
memory. And so on and so on."

You've come up with a plausible theory of what g is. It might be f(focus,
visualization, working memory). This does not make the theory of psychometrics
"totally absent of content", it just means they don't understand everything
yet.

The fact that pressure is non-zero can be readily explained by the following
simple observation -- air is made of particles obeying Newtonian mechanics
which impart a force upon a vessel when they collide with it. Does this make
thermodynamics "totally absent of content"?

The fact of the matter is that a variety of seemingly unrelated tests are
correlated with each other. They are also strongly correlated with various
life outcomes in a manner which more or less corresponds to our intuitive
intuition about the idea of "intelligence". Stuff like this rarely happens by
chance, and it is highly likely there is something behind it.

~~~
DaniFong
_It could be that mathematical ability is genetic and normally distributed,
but some component of women's underrepresentation is caused by factors other
than this (e.g., discrimination, personal preferences)._

I mean this to be evidence against a genetic explanation of under
representation.

 _Come on. I know you know better than to draw statistical conclusions from a
single event with a sample size of 11. So why do it?_

Performances like this are more the norm now than ever, but the main reason is
that the counterexample is such an extreme outlier that it blows a hole in the
gaussian theory of distribution explanation for female under-representation.

 _They are also strongly correlated with various life outcomes in a manner
which more or less corresponds to our intuitive intuition about the idea of
"intelligence"._

The Terman study of the gifted missed _both_ future Nobel Prize winners in
their sample.

The methods used to 'validate' IQ tests are not at all sufficient for equating
their results with intelligence, or for arguing that it represents an
immutable, genetic, predisposition of groups.

As Cosma Shalazi writes:

<http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/494.html>

 _Q: Would you put on your right-thinking left-liberal educated-in-Berkeley-
and-Madison hat for a moment?

A: I'd find nothing easier. (You left out the dirty hippyprogressive
Montessori school where they taught me Pirandello and Diderot.)

Q: Very good. (It didn't fit the rhythm, and anyway they get the picture.) How
would you react to the idea that a psychological trait, one intimately linked
to the higher mental functions, is highly heritable?

A: With suspicion and unease, naturally.

Q: It's strongly correlated with educational achievement, class and race.

A: Worse and worse.

Q: Basically nothing that happens after early adolescence makes an impact on
it; before that it's also correlated with diet.

A: Do you work at the Heritage Foundation? Such things cannot be.

Q: What if I told you the trait was accent?

A: I'm sorry?_

~~~
yummyfajitas
_I mean this to be evidence against a genetic explanation of under
representation._

It is evidence against such an explanation, but it's very weak evidence. It
shows other factors are involved, which no one disputes, but it does not rule
out genetics as a factor.

Incidentally, your Q&A argument is incomplete. We have data which shows accent
is not genetic - correlation between the accent of genetic parent and child is
gone if you look at adopted children. If there is a twin study on the topic,
I'd give 1/p value of the study odds that identical twins raised apart have
minimal correlation of accent.

In contrast, identical twins raised apart have a 75% correlation in
intelligence and adoptees have a 25% correlation with genetic parents. (I'm
working from memory here since I don't have the book with me. The numbers are
far from zero, but might be 70% and 20% or 80% and 30%.
[http://www.amazon.com/Genome-Autobiography-
Species-23-Chapte...](http://www.amazon.com/Genome-Autobiography-
Species-23-Chapters/dp/0060932902) )

The source you cite is simply being dishonest by leaving this part of the
dialogue out of his conversation with a straw man.

Also, your source has a very different philosophical basis for knowledge than
most people. He believes that aggregate quantities (e.g., pressure,
temperature, possibly g) are statistical myths. See here
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2210600> , which is a response to
<http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/523.html> (which he cites in the
article you link to).

~~~
DaniFong
_It is evidence against such an explanation, but it's very weak evidence. It
shows other factors are involved, which no one disputes, but it does not rule
out genetics as a factor._

The core of my argument is that other factors have been shown to dominate
underrepresentation for some time. While other factors persist and dominate,
it is scientifically incorrect, and ethically irresponsible, to continually
make reference to innate differences and outmoded, procrustean interpretations
of how talent fits a curve.

It is genuinely too early, if not simply too brutal, to claim a group's
intellectual inferiority. The evidence is flimsy, the mathematical framework
naive, the conceptual underpinnings insufficiently examined, the data is
simply not in.

Worse, people use _tiny_ differences in group performance as justification for
wildly unfair stereotypes, as applied to _individuals._ Even if those supposed
group differences withstood criticism at the level of rigor exceeding that
accorded to physics or mathematics, it still would be ethically irresponsible
to make it publicly and commonly known, or the focus of so much discussion.

~~~
yummyfajitas
This statement: _The core of my argument is that other factors have been shown
to dominate underrepresentation for some time..._

Directly contradicts this one: _The evidence is flimsy, the mathematical
framework naive, the conceptual underpinnings insufficiently examined, the
data is simply not in._

You can't have it both ways. Either intellectual inferiority of some groups is
a possibility (i.e., "the data is simply not in"), or else it has been
accurately measured and shown not to be the case. Pick one.

 _Even if those supposed group differences withstood criticism at the level of
rigor exceeding that accorded to physics or mathematics, it still would be
ethically irresponsible to make it publicly and commonly known, or the focus
of so much discussion._

It would be ethically irresponsible to make true facts public? Um, ok.

Have you considered the possibility that you don't actually object to the
data/methodology, but rather you are seeking justification to reject
conclusions that contradict your moral values?

~~~
DaniFong
I am totally confused by your misunderstanding. It is possible there are
intrinsic differences, and anyone insisting that this has been shown through
appeals to science is being insufficiently rigorous, and scientifically
irresponsible.

Where did you get the idea that I was saying it was impossible?

"What is not surrounded by uncertainty cannot be the truth. - Richard
Feynman."

Appeals to a supposed scientific justification of the inferiority of women in
mathematics are extremely weak, and certainly damaging if untrue. The supposed
scientific proof is thus pseudo-science - thinly veiled politics. I'm not
going to spell it out again.

------
Estragon
He claims that the difference between men's and women's interest in tech
startups is not skewed enough to explain the skewed male/female ratio in the
tech startup world. ("...all of the research I am aware of suggests that these
differences are extremely small – not nearly big enough to explain what we’re
observing in places like Y Combinator.")

It would have been nice if he'd cited the reseach which supports this claim.

------
jnordell
Fascinating discussion. In fact, the reasons people do or don't rock certain
fields are (like people themselves) incredibly complex. The blind orchestra
auditions to which Eric refers are just one drop in a sea of quantitative data
about the effects of unconscious bias.

There's Robert Rosenthal's study that showed that others' belief that you are
"gifted" actually results in an IQ increase. There's the famous "McKay" study,
in which test subjects evaluated identical academic papers by "John" and
"Joan" McKay. And on and on.

What's really interesting is the experience of post-op transsexuals, like
biologist Ben Barres (who was Barbara Barres until he was in his 40s). These
folks are the true secret shoppers of gender-- and the ultimate control group
in terms of understanding how gender affects one's experience of the world. It
would be really interesting to find a comparable race test case (an updated
"Black Like Me").

A few years ago I wrote about this phenomenon in Slate-- I looked at women and
ambition in general. Check out the piece if you're interested in a more
generalized analysis:
[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_gist/200...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_gist/2006/11/positions_of_power.single.html)

~~~
neilk
Self-Made Man is a tale similar to Black Like Me, where it was a writer's
experiment, rather than a transgender exercise.

[http://www.amazon.com/Self-Made-Man-Womans-Journey-
Manhood/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Self-Made-Man-Womans-Journey-
Manhood/dp/0670034665)

There are also a lot of interesting works by transgender people, but the
perspective there is different, since they usually report that they never felt
comfortable in their birth gender.

~~~
jnordell
I liked Self-Made Man-- really interesting exploration of masculinity and the
culture of "manhood" in general. It would have been especially interesting if
somehow Vincent could have stayed in her old sort of rarefied world and
experienced life there, rather than having to leave that world and join
bowling leagues so she wouldn't be recognized.

Ben Barres (formerly Barbara Barres) wrote a great piece in Nature ("Does
Gender Matter?") after the Larry Summers debacle. There's an interview with
him here:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/18/science/18conv.html?pagewa...](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/18/science/18conv.html?pagewanted=all)

Pretty convincing stuff on the role gender plays in our interactions with each
other. To me, what's so fascinating about the experience of transsexuals is
that they literally have controlled experiments going on-- they're the only
people who can experience life in two different bodies. What a useful
perspective to have-- I'll never know what life is like as someone of another
gender/race/ethnicity, but I imagine it would be incredibly mind-expanding if
I could.

------
leeoniya
there might be an inherent gender imbalance simply because men can afford to
settle down and start a family much later in life than women. founding and
managing a startup takes an incredible amount of time and dedication solely to
work, which can easily turn into a multi-year workaholic wormhole that leads
nowhere. perhaps the majority of women would rather put 5-10 years into a
guaranteed, fulfilling family than uncertain stress and a large paycheck. if i
was a woman and wanted to have children before i was 30, it would definitely
change my outlook for embarking on the entrepreneurial path.

------
Ant11
In the article: "When we see extremely skewed demographics, we have very good
reason to suspect that something is wrong with our selection process"

In my chess club have the same kind of female/male ratio: 12 females on 220
members. Leaving out the youth members it is 8 out of 180 or about 4% ;-)
Something must be wrong with our non-existent selection process.

~~~
merkat
The problem is not in the admission process, but (amongst other things) in
each individual's perception about it. A mostly male club with only 4% women
will naturally attract more male population, making the group even more
unbalanced over time.

------
silentscope
1\. Minorities, in general, are less economically privileged. It's not
causation, it's correlation. Nevertheless, this translates to worse schools,
worse education, worse qualifications, worse job prospects. So before
minorities are even able to apply, they're being selected against
economically. For no fault of their own, they have worse chances than a non-
minority.

2\. When giving money, Eric Ries is right, you don't just go off empirical
data. I want to give money to someone I relate to and feel comfortable
evaluating. Someone I can understand. When doing that, I'm probably going to
choose someone who's like me. If I'm a VC or angel, that probably means a
white male. That goes, without saying, for founders. I want someone who has my
back, not someone who feels like more of a wild card--I'm taking enough
chances as it is starting the company.

So is it Racisim? Hell yes. Are these people Racist? No. It's not as if these
words are sticky bombs that implicate anyone who gets near them with an
indelible smear. The world is not a fair place--rain falls and the just and
unjust alike. Let's call it like we see it.

Silicon Valley, just like anywhere in the world, is not a 100% meritocracy
(that I think we can all agree on). What percent meritocracy is it? That's
completely subjective. However, trying to convince yourself otherwise is an
attempt to wash your hands of the problem while doing nothing to correct it.

What has to happen to solve this is, thankfully, what SV does best--take
risks. That means hiring someone who isn't your ideal and seeing how they pan
out. That means giving a second look at people that you normally would pass
over--if only to keep your lifeblood fresh.

It doesn't mean ruining your company in a futile attempt to change the entire
world--but it does mean doing things different, ie, hard.

Enough with the outrage. There is racisim/sexism in the world guys (yes,
guys). It doesn't mean you're a racist. Let's man up to it.

------
jphackworth
At my company, we're hiring mobile developers. We have received over 100
resumes. 2 of them were from women. I wish we could hire a more diverse group,
but it's pretty obvious that changing our selection process isn't enough.

~~~
marquis
I have the same problem, and I'm female running a tech company. But I have a
solution: I teach a group of kids to program, equal gender. Maybe in 10 years
I'll be hiring some of them. You know what interests the girls most? I tell
them about my lifestyle, my freedom to travel and to live how and where I
want, the long lunch breaks I can take if I want (after working hard enough to
get employees). By teaching these kids lifestyle options they stay engaged.
It's early days yet, I've only just started the classes but I'm enjoying the
process.

We're looking forward to the new Stanford CS101 online class, hopefully I can
base my teaching on this which should spin off into the kids taking other
online classes of their own volition.

------
thaumaturgy
I am racist.

And sexist.

I subconsciously attribute certain qualities to men and women, and to various
ethnicities. Underneath all of the various common jokes -- "Asians are good at
math", etc. -- there is an undercurrent of discussion where other people are
admitting their biases, too.

When I get on the phone with technical support and hear a thick East Asian
accent, the first thing that happens is I grit my teeth. I feel frustrated
that I am having to try to resolve a technical issue with someone that I have
to actively concentrate on in order to understand clearly; I feel annoyed in
expectation of their overstated politeness; I am immediately resigned to not
getting the problem resolved at all, as they are probably going to ask me to
troubleshoot a networking problem by rebooting a computer.

These are biases that have been built up over a period of many years of
similar experiences, one little bias at a time. And, when the call actually
resolves the issue quickly and without any frustration at all, I find myself
thinking, "That went better than expected."

I recognize this about myself. So, when I notice these things happening, I
consciously moderate my tone, and try to consciously manage my opinions and
feelings and statements. But, that doesn't change the fact that the bias is
there, affecting my subconscious.

Likewise, for women in tech. I _know_ there are amazing women in technology,
and in other male-dominated fields. I'm occasionally fortunate enough to work
with some of them, covering a wide range of other demographics. Still, when it
comes time to hire again (someday soon, I hope), applications from women will
first be met with biases built up one-by-one from a lifetime of experiences:
all the various women friends that need help "fixing their computers", or of a
past applicant who we hired, presented with an easy starting project and clear
instructions -- "no coding necessary, just do some nice-looking Photoshop
mockups" -- and who called, the next day, saying that she had cried all night
and talked to her mom because she didn't think she could do the work because
we used iframes in an ajax-y way.

Or, when I hear about a black entrepreneur. The first thing that bubbles up
from my subconscious is, "Wow, they're succeeding in spite of modern black
culture." I have to beat that thought down and consciously regard them as an
individual.

These are uncomfortable admissions to make. I would be loathe to admit them in
more polite company. Terms like "racism" and "sexism" themselves carry strong
biases -- that the only forms of "racism" are "white superiority" and the only
forms of "sexism" are blatant misogyny and creepy sexual undertones.

But, racism and sexism and other -isms are a part of who we are, a part of our
psychology that dates back to our tribal and "us versus them" cultural
influences. I think that trying to pretend that they don't exist is only going
to prolong their effects.

Knowing that they exist can help us make better decisions.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_Underneath all of the various common jokes -- "Asians are good at math", etc.
-- there is an undercurrent of discussion where other people are admitting
their biases, too._

That's not a bias, it's simple fact. Asians have SAT math scores 72 points
higher than average, TIMSS scores 74 points higher than average, and are
disproportionately represented in professions requiring significant
mathematical background.

<http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0883611.html>

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trends_in_International_Mathema...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trends_in_International_Mathematics_and_Science_Study#United_States_2007)

Further, the top 5 nations on the math component of TIMSS have been the 5
first world countries in Asia (Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and
Taiwan) in all years since 1995 (in 1995, Taiwan was not included, and Belgium
was #5).

~~~
kenjackson
And worldwide Asians are underrepresented as Field's medalists. And Turning
Award winners. And Nobel prizes in math intesive fields like Econ and Physics.

~~~
Rastafarian
Give them a few more years.

There is a group with even higher SAT and IQ scores - the Jews. And they are
way overrepresented in Field's, Turing, Nobel awards.

------
maxklein
I really fail to see how anyone can see racism in this. The current people
trying to make it big in silicon valley now did not start the process now,
they started 10 or 15 years ago when they started fiddling around with
computers or learning to code or reading business books. And it's at that
stage that the current audience was created, and not right now. The people
applying and the selection is just a result of that process.

And clearly, many african-americans and many women were not doing the steps
needed to be talented enough to be able to make it big now. The most likely
reason they did not do that, is probably because it just did not occur to
them.

And in any case, there is this theory: if you pick any group of people at all,
there are going to be a few people who are simply more able to do many things.
Let's say these people are more talented and more intelligent. These people
tend to work on what is currently 'intellectually trendy'. For example, a
while back they would have been painters, another while back, they would have
been writers, another while they would have been physicists, now they are
technologists. These people search out a trendy intellectual effort and then
spend their time developing their abilities there. This 'trend' is different
for different groups, depending on the media that they are exposed to, and
what the people around them are talking about.

Groups in America are pretty segregated, and there is a form of intellectual
segregation betwen men and women. It leads to gender specific roles. It also
leads to the effect observed above: Smart black guys did not start fiddling
with computers 15 years ago, so they are not currently active in the tech
industry.

~~~
raganwald
_And clearly, many african-americans and many women were not doing the steps
needed to be talented enough to be able to make it big now. The most likely
reason they did not do that, is probably because it just did not occur to
them._

You use words like "clearly" and "probably" but provide neither explanation
nor evidence to back up your suppositions. Clearly, you expect your audience
thinks exactly the way you do and will probably confirm your bias.

~~~
maxklein
The "clearly" comes out of logic. If you assume that my "result" statement is
correct, then the reason would also have to be correct.

Do you think African American students, 15 years ago, were spending time
studying how to use computers? I think it's rather likely because:

\- I've never heard of this

\- Such playing-with-computers is something that was confined to the somewhat
richer and educated people in American society, which the african-americans
were not, 15 years ago.

I doubt that my audience thinks the exact way I do, and I doubt I have any
bias that needs to be confirmed.

~~~
_pius
_Do you think African American students, 15 years ago, were spending time
studying how to use computers? I've never heard of this_

I was, as were all of the other black computer science students who graduated
with me at MIT. Do we get to question your bias now?

~~~
maxklein
I'm not talking of an individual, I'm speaking of a general trend. And by the
way, "graduating from MIT" means nothing to me. I went to a university, you
did too, the university you went to does not mean much (to me).

~~~
_pius
_And by the way, "graduating from MIT" means nothing to me. I went to a
university, you did too, the university you went to does not mean much (to
me)._

Good for you.

When you say you've "never heard of" black people learning how to use
computers, it behooves me to refute you with the fact that not only are there
are plenty of black people who know how to use computers, but there are plenty
of black people graduating from the best computer science programs in the
world.

~~~
olalonde
So do you disagree that African Americans are underrepresented in tech？

~~~
_pius
African Americans are underrepresented in tech, but far more underrepresented
in accelerators and VC portfolios.

------
kyebosh
Good piece, this discussion is needed. It's about disability too. May I
briefly weigh in with an anecdote - please take it only for what it's worth:

I am a quadriplegic due to a diving accident when I was 13. I know my
limitations better than any recruiter or HR department ever could, & while I
have some personal concerns with meritocracies in general (especially as
social policy), I only ever apply for positions in which I can be sure I meet
the inherent requirements of the job. Again, I am a good worker with good
skills, but I will not apply for positions in which I can't bring proper,
uninhibited value.

So no problem, right? I should be awarded consideration in line with my
meritocratic value. That's how the world works... Rubbish.

Regardless of council regulations mandating otherwise, I cannot access most
(yes, most) workplaces due to physical barriers (poor parking, doorways,
stairs etc). I'm sure some places in the world are better, but here I am. In
fact I've been knocked back for not being able to access an interview room
upstairs (in a semi-govt. owned office, mind you) - the actual workplace for
the job was on ground level. That's not even to mention the stereotype I'm
perceived as by a frightening majority of interviewees.

No, I don't have a chip on my shoulder, far from it. I'm just saying it's hard
to ignore the greetings of (half-speed) "HELLO BUDDY! ARE YOU GOOD TODAY?"
from people who have administered & approved your intellectual aptitude tests.
Unfortunately I'm not exaggerating.

Meritocracies are not dependent on a passive HR stance. Get active about it.
Educate your staff, ensure equality of access, or at least have the guts to be
honest about what attributes you're looking for.

------
danbmil99
One second-order effect not mentioned in the article is as follows. Investors
know that to be successful, their investees are going to need to succeed at
social skills like marketing, business development, hiring, management of
larger teams, etc. I suspect an inner dialogue that works against diversity
may occur, such as "I am egalitarian enough to ignore this person's otherness,
but will his vendors/customers/employees/future potential investors be this
way too?"

I am reminded of something I heard about a distant relative of mine who was
involved in breaking the color barrier in Opera back in the 50's. People told
her it was silly to "waste" an opportunity on a talented singer of color,
because they (of course) would never be accepted by the public.

These kinds of biases can be deeply ingrained in a culture, even when
individuals in said culture are honestly free of first-order bias themselves.

------
Rastafarian
Here is my view on the subject (in the unlikely case anyone cares):

1\. Men and women are different, hundreds of millions of years of evolution
made them so. Men are more aggressive. Women are better at communication (talk
a lot more, learn foreign languages faster, etc.). Men are better at geometry.
Women are better at working with sets and groups.

IQ scores of men are more widely distributed than women's. Women's average IQ
is a little bit higher. Most of the stupidest people (IQ under 70) and
smartest people (over 140) are man.

2\. Different races and ethnic groups have different physical and mental
abilities, including IQ. As an example look at the different Olympic sports.
I'm quite sure different races dominating different disciplines is in big part
due to genetics.

All the inter-racial IQ scores I've seen published in peer reviewed journals
show the following picture: Black < White < Asian < Jewish.

------
edouard1234567
Great article! Racism Disrupted by Eric! Coming from Europe, more specifically
France, I find the law in the US to be very protective against discrimination.
For example, compare the typical resume in France to the one in the US. In the
french version you often find the following information : color picture, age
(not the date of birth, the actual age...), nationality, marital status,
number of kids and gender. I never saw any of this in resumes here. An example
I got by googling "exemple de cv en Francais" (ironically CV stands for resume
in french :) ) <http://tinyurl.com/6t7p3o2> In my opinion the United States is
one the of the most innovative countries when it comes to fighting
discrimination. Having people like Eric Ries getting involved can only augment
this tradition.

------
MaysonL
When thinking about this, imagine what would have to happen for a child born
to a black, single, crackhead mother to have a fighting chance in life.

And then take a look at what the Harlem Children's Zone has been doing lately:
[http://www.hcz.org/books/HCZ%202011%20Biennial/files/assets/...](http://www.hcz.org/books/HCZ%202011%20Biennial/files/assets/downloads/publication.pdf)

And send them a few bucks, so they can do some more of it.

------
jsnk
Diverse demographic =/= Diverse skills and expertise

I am disappointed by underlying presumption of the article that you must have
diverse demographic correlates with diverse skill sets because it doesn't.

If we continue to think that superficial physical qualities such as skin color
or having a certain genitalia defines who we are as _individuals_ , then we do
indeed live in a racist and sexist society where people are judged based on
race and sex.

------
over40guy4
YC application asks for age. Ageism?

------
Alex3917
The main problem with this article that meritocracies are a mythological
construct and not something that empirically exist. This probably shouldn't be
much of a surprise, considering that merit is literally a religious concept.

Try replacing every instance of the word merit with the word Jesus, and you'll
see there is essentially no loss of meaning.

Figuring out how to reduce bias in startup funding is important, but really
it's only a small part of the larger problem of identifying talent in general.

~~~
yummyfajitas
"I attempt to hire based on merit in order to increase the probability that my
startup will succeed and make me rich."

"I attempt to hire based on Jesus in order to increase the probability that my
startup will succeed and make me rich." <\- Huh?

"The guy I hired based on merit has certainly brought my startup closer to
success - he's built several useful apps, caught plenty of bugs, and has kept
our India operation running smoothly in my absence."

"The guy I hired based on Jesus has certainly brought my startup closer to
success - he's built several useful apps, caught plenty of bugs, and has kept
our India operation running smoothly in my absence." <\- Doesn't make so much
sense. What does Jesus have to do with building useful apps, fixing bugs and
keeping our worker's pipelines full?

~~~
Alex3917
"Doesn't make so much sense."

That's the point.

