
Female Founders - ssclafani
http://paulgraham.com/ff.html
======
Zikes
Judging by the comments on this article, it would appear that once you've been
labeled a sexist it is downright impossible to dispel.

I'm not sure what people expect, exactly. Is pg supposed to give up all his
worldly goals and possessions and live as some sort of equality monk? Should
he know of and contribute to every one of the many groups and organizations
involved in gender equality?

And what exactly is wrong with the "I have black friends" defense? Are you
trying to say that pg is friends with someone in spite of his supposed hateful
nature? That he's somehow looked past the person's "shortcomings"?

It seems to me more people are interested in being internet bullies than
achieving true social justice.

~~~
cynicalkane
This is the shallowness of that kind of P.C. bullying--Paul Graham has done
much more for women in technology than any Internet bully, but he will
continue to be attacked because it is possible to assign uncharitable
interpretations to a few things he said once. When one realizes that this
whole kerfuffle is not about being pro-woman, it's about posturing such that
one appears to be pro-woman, then the attackers' views make more sense.

If you look at the comments below, the anti-PG crowd seems either to a) not
care about YC's contributions to women in tech, or b) adopt a "so what"
attitude. So what that YC has a disproportionate amount of women in high
places and funds a disproportionate amount of female founders? I don't care,
instead I'm gonna pick out some logical flaws in his arguments. (As an aside,
there's few things more tedious than a nerd on the Internet concerned with
"logical flaws" in peoples' "arguments".)

~~~
mcantelon
I'm reminded of Ted Kaczynski's take on P.C. activism:

"Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral
principle, and moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the
oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main
motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of
leftist behavior; so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior
is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists
claim to be trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative
action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative
action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to
take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal
and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action
discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take such an approach
because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people is
not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them to
express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing so they
actually harm black people, because the activists' hostile attitude toward the
white majority tends to intensify race hatred."

[http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/resources/fc/unabe2.html#c...](http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/resources/fc/unabe2.html#c2)

I think the aim of making the tech industry friendlier to women is better
served by continued outreach efforts, rather than making an example out of
individuals arbitrarily.

~~~
cynicalkane
I was referring to a specific subset of leftist behavior which I called "P.C.
bullying."

But good job applying it to all leftist activism. By quoting the Unibomber.
Because the Unibomber has done so much more for the cause of women and blacks
than have left-wing activists.

That is to say, I'm not interested in going all anti-leftist and turning
things into politics. You have me mistaken.

~~~
mcantelon
I'm not saying you're anti-leftist, simply quoting someone's take on the
psychology behind P.C. bullying. Not everything has to involve left/right-wing
tribalism.

~~~
Karunamon
You say as you post a paragraph from a (whoops: not dead) terrorist's tirade
against liberals. I don't think you could have possibly picked a worse example
to hold up as not involving tribalism...

~~~
mcantelon
I don't see how the example is tribalist. Ted Kaczynski, in my understanding,
was a loner that was neither left or right wing. And I'm not sure why the fact
he's a terrorist is relevant to his analysis.

~~~
Karunamon
You don't have to be in the opposite of a group to spew hate against that
group. And I see very little "reasoning" in that quote, just lots of
eloquently-worded polemic which weakly attempts to cast negative aspersions on
an entire political view. Some of it is outright false.

In other words, it's content that wouldn't look at all out of place on a
right-leaning website's "This is why liberals are bad" section.

~~~
nether
That's true, but that's just one quote of his (he's still alive btw). Here's
another:

> The conservatives are fools: They whine about the decay of traditional
> values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and
> economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that you can’t make
> rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a society
> without causing rapid changes in all other aspects of the society as well,
> and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values.

Dr. Kaczynski is an anarchist who opposes virtually all political
establishments.

~~~
Karunamon
Mm. But notice the difference in delivery of those two quotes. This one
concerns itself with a straight true statement (progress is at odds with
tradition). The worst you can say here is that he says conservatives "whine".

Much unlike the other one which implies that leftists are all about power as
opposed to what they say they are.

~~~
mcantelon
If he's an example of tribalism, as you claimed earlier, then he should be
aligned with a tribe. "The conservatives are fools" is a fairly unambiguous
denunciation of that tribe. Regardless of whether you feel he favors one over
the other, he clearly rejects both.

------
mikeleeorg
My main takeaway from reading this article and the comments here is: The
awareness of this problem is still very nascent and more & more solutions are
emerging, as are criticisms of people who are beginning to acknowledge this
problem.

To hopefully steer this in another direction, and because I have a little
girl, what are some resources you all have seen that can help girls become
interested and go into technical disciplines?

Here are a few of which I am aware. I highlight some companies started by
women because they both teach technical skills and can serve as role models.

[http://www.goldieblox.com/](http://www.goldieblox.com/) \- Construction toy
sets aimed at girls.

[http://www.roominatetoy.com/](http://www.roominatetoy.com/) \- Electronic DIY
kit aimed at girls.

[http://littlebits.cc/](http://littlebits.cc/) \- Electronic DIY kit started
by a female entrepreneur.

[https://www.gethopscotch.com/](https://www.gethopscotch.com/) \- An iPad app
to teach kids how to program, started by female entrepeneurs

[http://pbskids.org/scigirls/](http://pbskids.org/scigirls/) \- Various
activities and videos to teach grade school girls about technology and
science.

[http://www.girlswhocode.com/](http://www.girlswhocode.com/) \- Summer school
to teach high school girls how to program.

[http://www.tech-girls.org/](http://www.tech-girls.org/) \- Workshops to teach
high school girls how to program.

[http://www.blackgirlscode.com/](http://www.blackgirlscode.com/) \- Workshops
to teach black grade school to high school girls how to program.

[http://www.hackbrightacademy.com/](http://www.hackbrightacademy.com/) \-
Workshops to teach adult women how to program.

[http://www.girldevelopit.com/](http://www.girldevelopit.com/) \- Workshops to
teach adult women how to program.

There are a few others that I'll add later. Do you know of more too?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Aside: I've looked at that BlackGirlsCode link a bit more and I'm quite
shocked that such segregation is encouraged, lauded even. Now there's some
argument to support educating the sexes separately but if you're an asian girl
living in Brooklyn (say) you can't go? Just because you're Asian ... ???
Really? What if you're half-Asian+half-African, how about your skins black but
you're South American. Damn.

Do people really think you get rid of negative discrimination by doing more of
it; how can such racism be positive?

From their website:

    
    
        "*Sadly, San Francisco’s digital divide falls along the same racial and social fault lines that characterize so many of society’s issues. White households are twice as likely to have home Internet access as African American houses. Bayview Hunters Point, Crocker Amazon, Chinatown, Visitacion Valley, and the Tenderloin have significantly lower rates of home technology use than the rest of the city. Sixty-six percent of Latinos report having a home computer, as opposed to 88 percent of Caucasians.*
    	
        *Through community outreach programs such as workshops and after school programs, we introduce underprivileged girls to basic programming skills in languages like Scratch and Ruby on Rails.*"
    

If the racial divide is so disheartening why add your own. If you want to help
the disadvantaged then help the disadvantaged not "all the disadvantaged with
the right skin colour". Damn.

[redacted]

Edit: I've redacted my over-flamy end comment.

~~~
prayag
The problem is that you don't understand what racism is. Racism isn't just
treating someone differently because she belongs to a different race. Racism
has more to do with power dynamics than with color of a person's skin.

For example, just because a college has different standards of admission for
different races to promote diversity is not racism but to give preferential
treatment to the group of people who have more social and economic power.
That's racism.

BlackGirlsCode is not a racist organization. Actually to the contrary, its
trying to improve the opportunities to the most under-represented group of
people in tech industry. This is a good thing for the tech sector. To focus on
blank girls, this organization can be much more effective in its goal (to make
tech sector more inclusive) than if it was a "PeopleCode" or even a
"GirlsCode" group.

~~~
joyeuse6701
erm, it is a potentially racist organization, here's why: BlackGirlsCode is
specifically geared for one power dynamic, black girls vs white girls. While
they may be attempting to level the playing field between white and black
which is politically and socially acceptable, they are furthering the gap
between black and (pick an underrepresented minority). This exclusivity is
exactly how every power came into power and subjugated the rest. From the very
beginning the set of principles that guide this rationale of pragmatism while
understandable, is hypocritical.

~~~
kaitai
No: Black Girls Code is focusing on

black vs white (dominant paradigm in US)

female vs male

young vs old

It's attempting to do successful intervention & marketing, essentially, by
focusing on a specific demographic. As we all should know, focusing on a
specific demographic is a fine way to produce a product targeted to that
demographic's needs. Young black women have different pain points in tech than
Zuckalikes or male first-born children of Chinese immigrants. It is obvious
that other organizations with mainly white or male constituents are not
effectively serving the market and it's no surprise that something better for
this target group has come along.

The rest of your comment is pure silliness. Every power that came into power,
to repeat your phrasing, did so by claiming they were the best and then
grabbing the money. When I see the black girls of code claiming they are
racially and morally superior to everyone else, and making tons of cash, I'll
consider believing you.

~~~
joyeuse6701
You're right, but I'd say my comparison is at least a subset of what you're
covering.

Yeah, targeting is one thing, exclusion is entirely another. If you're
excluding other races from your product that's well...racist.

>The rest of your comment is pure silliness. Every power that came into power,
to repeat your phrasing, did so by claiming they were the best and then
grabbing the money. When I see the black girls of code claiming they are
racially and morally superior to everyone else, and making tons of cash, I'll
consider believing you.

Well, I said potentially and you said 'claiming' implying an active process of
obtaining power. We are in agreement that black girls are not a powerful force
in the development community, but neither were (pick small exclusionary
group/minority that came to power). Rwanda anyone?

They aren't now, but could be, especially with the principles they are using
that are in place.

------
krstck
I find the outrage over this so disingenuous. It looks to me like it's more
about punishing someone for being a high-profile member of a hated, perceived-
oppressor group than actually caring about women being programmers.

To think that pg actually believes that there are no female programmers was
the least charitable possible interpretation, and the only reason to have
picked that one in particular was to confirm your own bias.

~~~
MrZongle2
Note that there is no similar hand-wringing about the lack of women in the
fields of sanitation, construction, plumbing or cartooning. Likewise, not much
hubbub about the gender imbalance in the fashion industry.

Could it possibly be that men and women _think_ differently, and those minor
differences are reflected in their career preferences? Could it be that these
preferences play a bigger role in gender imbalances in career fields than
sexism in a modern society?

Nah. That's crazy talk.

~~~
derefr
I think a major argument against this, in the field of programming in
particular, is that most of those other field-related imbalances are _culture-
neutral_. You'll find more male sanitation workers, construction workers,
plumbers, etc. everywhere from the US, to Brazil, to China, to Russia, to
Pakistan. (Controlling, of course, for the more general inequities in
employment-by-gender that those cultures face.)

But the "no female programmers" thing is specific to western culture. There
are plenty of female programmers in India, and in Russia. So this is likely
something _about_ western culture, that has caused this difference.

~~~
jdbernard
Do you have any statistics for your claim about female programmers in India? I
have yet to meet a single Indian programmer who was female in the decade and a
half I have been programming. In fact, the only females in tech of Indian
heritage that I know have been US-born.

~~~
erichocean
I don't have statistics, but Apple sent me to India/Infosys in 2009 to train
their programmers, and it seemed about 50/50 to me (I worked with a few
hundred people). I have no idea if that's representative, but I have no reason
to think it isn't.

~~~
kops
For a girl in India, studying computer science is one of the best options.
Jobs are abound, pay relatively well and work environment is thousand times
better and safer when compared to other industries. This I guess, explains
what you observed on your trip.

------
jasallen
I think Paul nails it. And I think there are a lot of really misguided social
engineers in these comments.

Treat people well and fairly, all along and throughout life, and let nature
take it's course. Are things imbalanced right now? Absolutely. Is it because
of unfairness in the past? Absolutely.

Can we speed things to being better by being unfair the other way now?
Absolutely not. We create a Frankenstein of a 'better culture'.

I believe it is analogous (pun) to running pure sound through one equalizer
that distorts it and then through another that tries to bring the sound back
to true by using your ear. It sounds plausible, but it can never work.

~~~
comicjk
> Can we speed things to being better by being unfair the other way now?
> Absolutely not.

Do you have any evidence for this? Because prima facie, reaching out to women
does get some of them into tech fields, and we know that young women who grow
up around women in tech are more likely to become such themselves. Are you
claiming that we can't actually influence the number of women in tech by
discriminating in their favor? Or are you just asserting that we shouldn't?

> I believe it is analogous (pun) to running pure sound through one equalizer
> that distorts it and then through another that tries to bring the sound back
> to true by using your ear. It sounds plausible, but it can never work.

OK, interesting metaphor, but you could say with equal gravity that it's like
veering to the right and then correcting by turning left. The metaphors are a
way to describe the truth we know, not derive it out of nothing.

~~~
msandford
I think the argument is that a society which is constantly discriminating
against people one way or the other for "arbitrary reason X of historical
importance to group Y" isn't the right way for society to work.

You might be able to get the ratio of men-to-women for a particular career
field more even, or get more blacks through college, or whatever goal you feel
is important accomplished. That's absolutely true and I won't argue with that.

But do the ends justify the means? Some people might argue no while I believe
you would argue yes. The person you replied to was arguing no, at least as I
read it.

~~~
jasallen
I wouldn't say it's about ends justifying means.

More that I don't think you _can_ achieve the harmony you seek. The reason I
prefer my metaphor to the left/right driving one is that I intended to allude
to the complex nuance involved. Like the sound metaphor: the more you meddle,
the more you screw things up.

If I really believed the 'ends' that are sought after could be achieved -- hey
sure, whatever means you want, knock yourself out. I guess it's a question of
a broader view of 'ends'. I assume the goal is 'harmony and fairness', but if
the goal is "X/Y ratio of men to women in A,B,C fields", then sure, I guess
you can achieve that.

------
minimaxir
I recently published a statistical analysis of the proportion of female
founders who receive funding from VC firms and accelerators such as Y
Combinator to male founders:
[https://medium.com/p/2613f58e5082](https://medium.com/p/2613f58e5082)

Year over year, the female participation in YC batches has been improving:
[http://i.imgur.com/MCLqUm3.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/MCLqUm3.jpg)

~~~
_random_
Are those coders or other types of founders?

~~~
angersock
Does it matter?

~~~
001sky
YC is generally biased against non-technical founders. So, yes...

~~~
001sky
_" We tend to fund technical founders..."_

From the article, "What stops female founders?"[1].

[1] Citation: [http://www.foundersatwork.com/1/post/2011/01/what-stops-
fema...](http://www.foundersatwork.com/1/post/2011/01/what-stops-female-
founders.html)

------
parfe
I find myself disappointed by this blog post. The second paragraph amounts to
a sexist version of "I'm not racist! I have black friends!" Then he follows up
with statistics comparing YC to the general VC market. Fine, you do better
than most. However, not the worst does not mean not bad.

He comes closest to saying anything of substance with the paragraph: _So how
would you cause there to be more female programmers? The meta-answer is: not
just one thing. People 's abilities and interests by the time they're old
enough to start a startup are the product of their whole lives—indeed, of
their ancestors' lives as well...you probably have to go back to the point
where it starts to become significant._

The fact this post mentions no group currently working towards what pg says
should be done really bothers me. It appears he has done no research. Groups
exist which work towards that very goal of getting girls interested in
programming so they become women involved in tech.

What about Girls Who Code?
([http://www.girlswhocode.com/](http://www.girlswhocode.com/))

What about Black Girls Code?
([http://www.blackgirlscode.com/](http://www.blackgirlscode.com/))

 _How would you get more girls interested in programming? I don 't know much
about girls specifically, but I have some ideas about how to get kids
interested in programming._

This came off similar to how Stephen Colbert jokes that he "doesn't see
color". If you cannot be bothered to understand the very group you hope to
address why even bother? How about addressing the fact that sexism related
stories get flagged off his very own website with surprising speed (either
manually, or by his own automated algorithms)?

I don't think he should have written this post. He put lots of effort into
writing, but seems to have put very little thought or research into the actual
subject. I guess he felt defensive about his character being sullied but I
think he sufficiently addressed that issue already.

~~~
pg
_The second paragraph amounts to a sexist version of "I'm not racist! I have
black friends!"_

Actually by pointing out the degree to which women run things at YC it's
closer to saying "I'm not racist! I'm black." And while it's possible for
women to be sexist too, if you think Jessica, Kirsty, and Carolynn are sexist,
I'd like to see you say it to their faces.

And I do know something about groups working on getting girls and women
interested in programming. In fact we've funded two that are partially focused
on that: Hacker School and one of the nonprofits in the current batch. The
reason I didn't go into detail about it is that I'm not an expert on the
topic. I wasn't going to write about something other people understand so much
better than me just to send the message that I care.

~~~
zorpner
> And while it's possible for women to be sexist too, if you think Jessica,
> Kirsty, and Carolynn are sexist, I'd like to see you say it to their faces.

That... is not an argument? There's ample evidence to show that members of
underrepresented groups within individual companies/industries experience
unconscious biases in hiring/ranking/etc, even towards groups of which they're
a member.

~~~
mtrimpe
I also still can't reconcile how a month and a half ago pg apparently believed
that Silicon Valley is a near perfect meritocracy
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6795606](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6795606))
and now he's been working hard(er than average) to address systemic
inequalities.

For the record though; I thoroughly applaud his efforts on improving gender
equality and I very much appreciate the first baby steps he's taking here on
behalf of the industry. I really hope though that one day he'll be able to
look back on this essay and realise this was really only just the start of it.

~~~
jkrems
Let's stay with what he said:

> Which it presumably isn't, entirely, but only because nothing is entirely.

He's saying that a useful definition of meritocracy does not mean that
everyone is only judged by his abilities. He's saying _explicitly_ that such a
thing does not exist. Further:

> And if SV is only as much of a meritocracy as math, that's pretty good.

I don't know how you jump from "pretty good" to "near perfect meritocracy".

~~~
mtrimpe
This was on an article about one of Silicon Valley's particular problems with
diversity being that it thought it was more meritocratic than it actually was.

Given that context pg then goes on to use math as a rhetoric device to
illustrate an inherently perfect meritocracy and then states SV is nearly as
good; hence 'near perfect'.

------
pshin45
I posted this in a previous "Ask HN" thread about African American founders in
YC [1], and reposting here because I think it bears repeating.

> For those wondering why this is important, see:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat)

 _" If negative stereotypes are present regarding a specific group, group
members are likely to become anxious about their performance, which may hinder
their ability to perform at their maximum level. For example, stereotype
threat can lower the intellectual performance of African-Americans taking the
SAT reasoning test used for college entrance in the United States, due to the
stereotype that African-Americans are less intelligent than other groups.
Importantly, the individual does not need to subscribe to the stereotype for
it to be activated. Moreover, the specific mechanism through which anxiety
(induced by the activation of the stereotype) decreases performance is by
depleting working memory (especially the phonological aspects of the working
memory system)._

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6966969](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6966969)

~~~
cjbprime
But do note that the same wikipedia page points out that several recent
attempts to replicate the studies that claimed to measure stereotype threat
have failed, putting the whole idea into question.

I'm not saying that out of some attempt to sweep away the general problem of
improving diversity; it's just important to work on solutions that will
actually make a difference.

~~~
theorique
Correct - stereotype threat has been significantly discredited.

------
SloughFeg
It's interesting that neither this article or Paul's related December article
ever address the most basic and seminal question about this in the first
place: why is this a problem? Why is it a big deal if there are less female
founders than male?

It seems like this whole discussion has been nothing but a bunch of posturing
and vague half-solutions about an issue that I'm not sure even exists.

~~~
jlees
Lemma: Women-led companies are desirable.

Vivek Wadhwa is doing a bunch of research into the data. I don't have his
report at my fingertips but fundamentally, not investing in women is not a
rational move. Here's the media headline version:

"Women-led private technology companies are more capital-efficient, achieve 35
percent higher return on investment, and, when venture-backed, bring in 12
percent higher revenue than male-owned tech companies."

Source: [http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-20/women-who-
ru...](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-20/women-who-run-tech-
startups-are-catching-up)

Conclusion: Women earn over 50% of degrees but start fewer than 3% of
companies. If we accept that women-led companies do well, as per the data --
and yes, there are certainly caveats -- then this gap clearly shows there is a
problem, in terms of inefficient use of investment if nothing else.

~~~
FeeTinesAMady
Hypothetically, that could be completely accounted for by women being more
realistic of their chances of success at starting a company. So those who
wouldn't have succeeded never bothered in the first place, skewing those
statistics.

~~~
jlees
Not all women-led companies were started by women, too.

------
JesseAldridge
I remember when I first started programming. I had been drafted into this
tutoring program in high school to help kids pass the big standardized test in
Texas. During a lull one of the teachers there, Mr. Vega, started chatting
with me. He saw that I was messing around with programming on my TI-83. He
said something like, "Oh yeah, there's lots of money in computers. You should
learn more about that." And I mentioned that I had thought about taking a
computer science class, and I had even thought about borrowing a textbook from
the CS teacher to read over the summer. He said, "Oh yeah, you should
definitely do that." And so I did. Looking back on it, it's funny. I somehow
felt like I needed permission to learn programming. But I kind of did. And he
gave it to me. Just a tiny bit of encouragement was enough to get me on the
path.

I guess the problem is ladies never get that tiny bit of encouragement. Which
suggests the problem might be shockingly easy to fix. Just say, "Hey, you. Try
programming. Seriously."

------
protomyth
First, it is a shame Mr. Graham got the business end of a "reporter"[1] trying
to get click-bait in a story, and sadly, it is almost impossible to correct
the story on the second or third or etc. day. The initial "truth" is what
people remember. I've been down that road, and it is a politician's game[2].

I am extremely happy though about this paragraph "First of all, kids need to
be able to program, in both senses of the word: they have to know how to write
a program, and they need access to a computer they can write programs on,
which nowadays probably includes Internet connectivity."

I was lucky and grew up in the 8-bit era where cheap, programmable computers
with magazines teaching programming were the norm. Now, the cost of
programming is much higher and has excluded many. I am happy Mr. Graham is
doing something about this.

1) I have a particular problem with the "edit actual words for clarity" school
of thought among some "reporters"

2) check the inevitable worsening of any number released by the government
(job), initial ok - correction worse

------
johnrob
Another explanation of why girls don't start companies: maybe they are
smarter? The median outcome of a startup is a loss of time and money.

~~~
evincarofautumn
“Smarter” is too blunt a point. Your average young woman is probably more
_risk-averse_ than your average young man.

~~~
MrZongle2
Or perhaps a sizeable number of women simply don't find the idea of starting a
business as interesting as other endeavors.

Less than 10% of nurses in the United States are male.

Why isn't there a hue and cry about this gender imbalance? Is it even a real
_problem_?

And guys, what could the nursing industry do to make it more welcoming to
_you_? Anything? Or are you simply not interested in it?

Could women in technology be the flip side of that coin, when sexism by bosses
and coworkers is eliminated?

~~~
matthewmacleod
_Less than 10% of nurses in the United States are male. Why isn 't there a hue
and cry about this gender imbalance? Is it even a real problem?_

There is, but you're probably not that exposed to it often by dint of
(presumably) not being part of that industry. But if you look into it, there's
concern about the lack of male nurses and a concerted effort to improve
diversity (the same for other professions with traditionally female-skewed
demographics, like teaching).

~~~
thenomad
Really? That's very good news, and I hadn't heard about it at all.

Do you have some links to orgs working to get more men into female-skewed
professions? I'd be very interested to read them.

~~~
sanxiyn
Quick Google search turned up [http://menteach.org/](http://menteach.org/) for
example, founded in 1979 to get more men into teaching.

Frankly, organizations working to get more men into teaching or nursing is so
easy to find by Google, I think people claiming otherwise should be assumed to
have agenda. I am starting to suspect these are intentional trolling.

------
wellboy
Good article.

Key learnings:

1\. Being an above 25y founder was viewed as advantageous and below 25y
founder was viewed a disadvantageous before YC/2005\. YC made being <25y old
founders viewed as advantageous and >25y founders as disadvantegous.

2\. YC making young founders succeed inspires the older founders, plus other
young founders.

3\. They tried the same for female founders. However, acquiring the skills to
do a startup requires decade-long exposure to tech and business of a decade,
sometimes even it requires exposure for a whole generation. For that reason,
it is not as easy to what YC did with women as with young founders

4\. Prgrammers here, stereotypes there, it ALL goes back to getting young
girls to do their own projects in their teens to acquire the business acumen,
hard programming skills and understanding of how to build a product that
people will want. That is the solution and nothing else will help more than
this.

~~~
the_watcher
>>YC made changed that into being a >25y founder disadvantegous.

Disagree with this point, unless you mean relative to pre-2005. I'd argue that
it brought the age range of founders closer to the optimal spread, rather than
bias against founders above 25. It just made investors admit that there's not
an age at which you suddenly become "founder" material.

------
loumf
In a footnote, PG says the poor need hardware to program. I work with poor
kids (and volunteer to teach technology to them). Hardware is relatively easy
to come by (there are cheap options and donations), but access to the Internet
is not.

~~~
zachlatta
How have you been working to overcome the lack of access to the internet? This
is something I've been giving a lot of thought lately.

~~~
loumf
They just have to go to central places (cafes, libraries). It's not easy.
Also, not everything we do needs internet -- we tear apart and rebuild
desktops -- that's actually a fairly easy thing to teach even a young kid.

~~~
marquis
Can you source a router and teach them to build their own internet over
private LAN? There is a huge range of basic to one-day advanced things they
could do with socket programming and building basic client/servers to have fun
with. Then source some donations and build a neighbourhood mesh network.

Note: I'm a woman and started this way teaching myself C when young.
Client/server tutorials were one of the most fun, I recall.

~~~
loumf
I'm not part of an organization -- it's mostly 1:1 with people I find through
other volunteering (Big Brothers, talking at middle schools, etc). We wing it
based on their interest.

I posted because PG said a YC non-profit was looking at this and wanted to say
that if you want a kid to program at home, the issue is that they need access
to the Internet (to get to a client/server tutorial, for example). His
statement seemed to say that access to hardware was the problem, which in my
experience, is not the case.

In my 1:1 cases, I can manage.

EDIT to add the footnote text from the article

 _Many kids now have computers with Internet access, but kids from poor
families often don 't. So to get them interested in programming you also have
to solve the problem of hardware somehow. That is among the problems being
attacked by one of the nonprofits in the current YC batch._

The problem of not having a "computer with Internet access" is not a "problem
of hardware", it's the Internet part.

------
Mikeb85
The comments here are ridiculous. Should PG fund women/minorities just because
they're part of X group?

Affirmative action isn't good for anyone, because it encourages lower
standards and hurts deserving people.

Equality isn't about having an equal proportion of men/women in every
occupation, it's about treating everyone fairly as an individual, regardless
of sex/race/age/etc...

No one complains that women are under-represented in the garbage collection
field... Or that labourers on construction sites are overwhelmingly men. Or
that most of the dangerous and undesirable occupations in our society are done
by men...

------
moocowduckquack
I don't know about female founders, but I always thought that given the
readership, pseudocode problems placed as job adverts in some of the puzzle
magazines would get a lot of interesting candidates, many of them middle aged
women who have been solving a variety of logic puzzles daily for decades,
entirely for their own amusement. I bet some of them could code like demons,
if given the impetus.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Like Lindsay -
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2534733/Victorias-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2534733/Victorias-
Secret-model-day-computer-programmer-night-How-29-year-old-Lyndsey-Scott-
maintains-double-life-runway.html)

~~~
moocowduckquack
Is there an alternative source? I have an allergy.

~~~
mdda
How about : [http://www.businessinsider.com/lyndsey-scott-model-and-
coder...](http://www.businessinsider.com/lyndsey-scott-model-and-coder-2014-1)

~~~
moocowduckquack
Thanks :)

------
michaelkariv
My wife is a founder and a programmer. I help her all I can, as a hacker.
Watching it from up close I am more pessimistic about quick leveling of the
playing field near term.

Yet here is what we can do that pg did not mention. I shall tech my daughters.
Thank you code.org.

Unlike me most of the crowd here don't have kids yet, I guess. But day will
come and you will. Half will be girls. They'll see you from up close. They
will hear your battle stories. There will be no better role model than you.

Yes one generation is a lot in internet years. But status quo never changes
quickly. At least we can personally can see to it that it does change

------
znowi
I'm sorry, but this is a ridiculous continuation of a ridiculous drama that
came out of a ridiculous out of context treatment.

We've become overly sensitive and prone to offense over trivial matters.
Accusation of sexism or racism or what else is almost on par with being a
terrorist now and all it takes is an unfortunately put word or two. The
accused party is commonly terrified, as if he committed the worst possible
crime, and tries hard to defend what's left of his honor and reputation.

This is nuts. This is the article that shouldn't have been.

~~~
skylan_q
This article shouldn't have been? I think the one previous to this one was
going to far. ("What I didn't say") It's not PG's fault people lie and have
reading comprehension problems. By writing even more on this he's just giving
more to feed SJW trolls.

------
detcader
"It's hard to argue I'm biased against female founders when I have a female
cofounder myself."

No matter how the rest of the essay is, this honestly doesn't mean jack and
insults the intelligence of his critics, no matter how off-the-mark they were.
He goes on to note other, more meaningful statistics, which is great, but this
sentence alone is kind of laughable.

~~~
enraged_camel
I agree. Isn't Jessica his wife?

edit: the downvote was predictable, although still disappointing. I was simply
pointing out that picking your wife as a cofounder should not be used as proof
that you are not biased against women. Honestly, PG's argument would be
stronger as a whole if he removed that line from the essay.

~~~
loumf
She was an investment banker, I believe (or some equivalent) at the time YC
was formed. I seriously doubt PG would take on a cofounder that couldn't pull
her weight, even if he were in love with her.

------
raldi
From the essay's footnotes:

 _> The 13% number is from a study we did ourselves_

What 13% number? I don't see the number 13 mentioned anywhere else on the
page. I suppose it's related to this line:

 _> In the current YC batch, 16 out of 68 companies, or 24%, have female
founders. That's almost twice the rate at which VCs fund such companies_

...but if so, it could be stated more explicitly.

~~~
pg
Oops, I'll fix that.

------
tomasien
Also, I must say I apologize for my Gatekeeper comments
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6986872](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6986872)).
I didn't have YC's female founder numbers at the time, but being 2x the
average VC's portfolio in terms of female founders is pretty darn good
evidence that you aren't biased. You weren't attempting to make the point
eloquently in your "The Information" piece and you didn't, but you do here.

I'm still glad I brought it up - the discussion (not from PG but from others)
was revealing, but your head is screwed on straight about how to think about
whether or not YC is allowing the institutional biases of others cloud its own
judgement, and that's great news.

~~~
tomasien
Side note: if anyone knows who said "instead of being a gatekeeper, we should
be a gateway" I'd love to see it. It's similar to what I said except way, way
better and I'd love to see the context.

------
tatianajosephy
PG's main - and strongest - point is this:

YC's MO is to spot value where other VCs don't. When YC started, it invested
in young founders. PG is saying that YC now sees female founders in the same
light: as marginalized (aka, undervalued), therefore presenting a great
investment opportunity.

If the valley's smartest VCs are becoming "Bullish on Women", to use Warren
Buffett's phrase [1]), PG's essay is big news for women.

[1] [http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/02/leadership/warren-buffett-
wo...](http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/02/leadership/warren-buffett-
women.pr.fortune/)

------
zaroth
I wish I could contribute to conversations on sexism in tech, but I'm always
too afraid of being burned at the stake for saying something the Internet
doesn't like.

~~~
hrkristian
I wish more people did not write out knee-jerk responses every time this topic
shows up on HN. When people are typing out a dissertation in a matter of
minutes, quality takes the full force of the blow.

There are currently more comments than there are upvotes, it's ridiculous.
Yes, I see the irony of myself posting ;)

------
ivan_ah
I've been conducting an informal survey amongst coder friends testing the
hypothesis:

    
    
       Childhood experience playing with LEGO blocks is a predictor
       of a person's affinity towards programming as an adult.
       

I think "building things with code" is very similar to "building things with
LEGOs" so I wonder to what extent other people see programming the same way
and whether "LEGO experience" could be a factor in the developer gender gap.

Perhaps some of the female coders on HN could comment. Did you grow up playing
LEGO?

~~~
Crake
I actually hate Lego. The only Lego thing I ever wanted was Mindstorm.

I did have a crazy amount of K'nex, though, and built all sorts of race cars,
roller coasters, bridges I could put between two chairs and make an adult sit
on, etc. I still like K'nex a lot more than Lego--you can do many more things,
and with far fewer pieces.

------
wilg
After reading this article, and many of these comments, it is pretty clear
that someone needs to figure out a better way of managing discourse on the
internet.

Comments are broken, especially for political debates.

------
krsmith35
"So if we want to get more girls to become programmers, we should give them
more examples. Ideally in person..."

I am volunteering with a local "Code Club" to teach programming to 8-14 year
olds. We have just tried to be open and gender neutral, ending up with between
10-25% female depending on the week. Purely subjective opinion, but Jessica
Yuen from the Khan Academy ([https://www.khanacademy.org/talks-and-
interviews/other-featu...](https://www.khanacademy.org/talks-and-
interviews/other-features/v/interview-with-jessica-yuen)) tutorials has been a
huge example for these children (boys and girls).

I'd love to profile more examples in our code club sessions. Does anyone know
of a central source for people willing to volunteer as "examples" for young
computer scientists? If not, maybe we can start a google doc or something?

~~~
jlees
The SWE K-12 outreach ([http://aspire.swe.org/](http://aspire.swe.org/)) is
probably close to what you're thinking of, though if you meant more of a peer-
to-peer "dial a mentor" service I don't think I've seen one. Not that it
couldn't exist.

Some other great organizations helping set examples and mentor high schoolers:

She++: [http://sheplusplus.stanford.edu/](http://sheplusplus.stanford.edu/)

MentorNet: [http://www.mentornet.net/](http://www.mentornet.net/)

MentorSET: [http://www.mentorset.org.uk/](http://www.mentorset.org.uk/)

Technovation: [http://iridescentlearning.org/programs/technovation-
challeng...](http://iridescentlearning.org/programs/technovation-challenge/)

MIT: [http://swe.mit.edu/outreach/](http://swe.mit.edu/outreach/)

There are also several great organizations for women working in computing, who
you could reach out to for mentors. PyLadies, DevChix, Systers, Anita Borg,
etc... And local tech companies, at Google there were several folks working
with local high schools who would put out internal calls for people to go and
speak about the cool stuff they worked on.

Speaking of which, Google's Women Techmakers is also shaping up to be a great
collection of women doing cool stuff in tech:
[https://developers.google.com/women-
techmakers](https://developers.google.com/women-techmakers) and
[https://plus.google.com/communities/100202454944694552166](https://plus.google.com/communities/100202454944694552166)

~~~
krsmith35
Wow these are all great resources! Thank you. My club is in the Phoenix AZ
suburbs, but thank goodness for webcam. I've patched in colleagues from my
company (in MA) before. Of course the kids all wanted to know what video games
they have made, and how much money programmers get paid :)

------
Grae
At Thinkful we recently dug into our enrollment and performance numbers to see
what we could learn about people towards the beginning of their careers as
developers [1].

Turns out that women enroll in our courses at about the same proportion
they're currently represented in engineering, which is disappointing, but that
there's no difference between their performance once they enroll.

Of particular relevance is the rate at which incoming students report their
motivation for taking the course is to "found a startup". 16% of men, but only
5% of women, gave that reason.

[1] [http://blog.thinkful.com/post/72670499078/gender-
differences...](http://blog.thinkful.com/post/72670499078/gender-differences-
in-coding-courses-looking-at-the)

Edit for grammar.

------
vijucat
The whole affair reminds of how Larry Summers was taken down. Basically, there
is a type of gender activist that takes pleasure from dragging down males,
especially White males, in positions of power because they have been
indoctrinated to believe that White male privilege is the source of all evil.

Thus, if one considers the whole Game, the White male is the Evil Boss : if
you take him down, you get, like, a bajillion points. There is immense
psychological satisfaction in witch hunts for this type of neurotic persona.

If this were not the case, any normal person would be red-faced with
embarrassment and profusely apologetic when they discover that they previous
rant was due to the misinterpretation of a quote out of context. Anyone
interested in being truthful, that is.

------
darrellsilver
We just went through the entire 2013 performance for female and male students
here at Thinkful ([http://www.thinkful.com/](http://www.thinkful.com/)).

The results are very revealing for this debate: Once enrolled in our courses,
women perform exactly as well as men in every dimension. However, enrollment
among women is significantly behind their male peers, but sadly on par with
what other coding schools are seeing.

Here's the data: [http://blog.thinkful.com/post/72670499078/gender-
differences...](http://blog.thinkful.com/post/72670499078/gender-differences-
in-coding-courses-looking-at-the)

------
melindajb
The post was just put here 42 minutes ago, I think it's hard to have any
serious rebuttal without some thought. PG took a long time to think this
through and write it, it deserves the consideration it was given in its
response.

------
frik
It's related to his earlier post "What I Didn't Say":
[http://paulgraham.com/wids.html](http://paulgraham.com/wids.html)

And the related discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6986797](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6986797)

------
xenophanes
PG isn't a worm. He's done good things, not bad things, and he knows it and
won't say otherwise. He tries to clarify (implying his accusers are mistaken),
rather than apologize. Some people don't like anything great; they weren't
tearing him down due to misunderstanding but malice. They don't like his
attitude and accomplishments, and clarifying that his views are reasonable
won't satisfy them. This is an explanatory passage from Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn
Rand:

"My sister. My dear sister. Oh, she'll think she's great, won't she?"

"You dislike your sister, Mr. Taggart?" He made the same sound; its meaning
was so eloquent that she needed no other answer. "Why?" she asked.

"Because she thinks she's so good. What right has she to think it? What right
has anybody to think he's good? Nobody's any good."

"You don't mean it, Mr. Taggart."

"I mean, we're only human beings—and what's a human being? A weak, ugly,
sinful creature, born that way, rotten in his bones—so humility is the one
virtue he ought to practice. He ought to spend his life on his knees, begging
to be forgiven for his dirty existence. When a man thinks he's good—that's
when he's rotten. Pride is the worst of all sins, no matter what he's done."

"But if a man knows that what he's done is good?"

"Then he ought to apologize for it."

"To whom?"

"To those who haven't done it."

------
kushti
I can't even understand american sexism. Why do you divide coders, founders
etc by gender? Why do you count gender statistics and want to change it? It's
like Soviet Union in late 1920s but even more strange.

------
m1117
Hope these people stop criticize Paul and continue working on their stuff to
make the world better. Just useless waste of energy.

~~~
michaelfdeberry
I haven't really been keeping up, so I don't know if the criticism is valid or
not. However, I think the topic of sexism, and discrimination in general, is
something that needs to be talked about more openly.

Hopefully something good will come from all of this, so if Paul, or anyone
else, has to take a hit at least it will assist in initiating some these
conversations.

------
markhelo
Lesser men would have gone into a shell and "put this behind them" by letting
people forget. I commend what PG is doing here. Taking this head on and not
worrying about people picking apart sentences in isolation and ultimately
still talking to folks who matter - female founders.

------
shawnee_
The tone of this article is pretty defensive and borders on hostile.
Understandably? Yeah, it sucks when people misinterpret a sentiment or take
something out of context, but if you really want an open discussion about why
there aren't more female founders, acknowledge your part. There's a dearth of
female founders because YC and angels and VCs are just _not as willing to fund
females._ Until 1974 -- when the Equal Credit Opportunity Act was passed --
they weren't even willing to give women a credit card in her own name.

    
    
      source:  http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/6500-1200.html
    

The issue here isn't about Legos vs Barbies. It _isn 't_ entirely about lack
of CS majors or women in STEM; nor is because women don't know code.
Successful founders make wise choices with capital, investing in people /
ideas / things that have likelihood to build long-term value. This should be
the only criteria for deciding who to fund, but VCs don't see it that way.

We were not angry that the application I (early 30's F) and my cofounder
(early 20's F) submitted was rejected from the last YC application process.
But we were pretty confused. It's an emerging green-tech niche in an industry
_beyond_ primed for some technical disruption. Maybe I don't have CS degree,
but I did earn a master's in a male dominated field. Over these last 10 years
or so have learned enough to write all the code for our prototype. My
cofounder went to Cornell. With just a tiny bit of help, we could have built
something great. But instead she's interning at a newspaper, making $10 an
hour, and I'm getting "it's just not a great fit" rejection emails.

We decided that we were about 95 percent certain that if it had been 2 guys
applying with this idea, YC would have at least given us an interview. The
fact of the matter is that Silicon Valley treats us very badly. If we can't
put our talent and ideas to work "for the man", why is it so hard for us to
put our ideas to work for ourselves?

~~~
apsec112
Wha? Y Combinator and random Silicon Valley angels are somehow responsible for
something big banks did _over forty years ago_? Before many of them were even
born?

"Sometimes the kafkatrap is presented in less direct forms. A common variant,
which I’ll call the Model C, is to assert something like this: “Even if you do
not feel yourself to be guilty of {sin,racism,sexism, homophobia,oppression…},
you are guilty because you have benefited from the
{sinful,racist,sexist,homophobic,oppressive,…} behavior of others in the
system.” The aim of the Model C is to induce the subject to self-condemnation
not on the basis of anything the individual subject has actually done, but on
the basis of choices by others which the subject typically had no power to
affect. The subject must at all costs be prevented from noticing that it is
not ultimately possible to be responsible for the behavior of other free human
beings." \- [http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2122](http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2122)

I'm sorry to hear you got rejected from YC, but:

\- there's a good bit of randomness in the process; no one could possibly have
a 95% chance of getting an interview, even if they were young Elon Musk;

\- as pg and co. will be the first to tell you, they make mistakes and don't
fund promising groups all the time;

\- simply getting a degree from any school (even Harvard) isn't a strong
predictor of whether someone has all the skills to succeed at a startup
([http://paulgraham.com/colleges.html](http://paulgraham.com/colleges.html)),
because colleges and YC are looking for somewhat different types of skillsets

------
onmydesk
Positive discrimination is still discrimination. Why should the split be
50/50? Is the same proportion of brown eyed people present in a YC batch as is
in the rest of the population? Perhaps too the intake should include the
'right' proportion of those who do not possess the skills to succeed in a
start up? Otherwise thats competencyist right? What a ridiculous fuss over
nothing.

A low number of women does not automatically mean prejudice. Men and Women are
different. I know, I've seen pictures. Brains differ between the sexes also.
Perhaps the relative number of men and women is more indicative of those
inherent sex based predispositions than anything else. In fact it would be
more surprising if the balance was 50/50 would it not?

Stop being silly.

------
Zenst
Simplest example I'm sure many males have encountered is hold a door open for
a women. You intention is mearly being polite and the fact they are a women is
not relavant as to why you are holding the door open for somebody just behind
you - your just being friendly and polite and civil. Yet I can bet many have
done this and a women has labasted you as a sexist or even worse said nothing
and now things your a sexist thinking them uncapable of opening a simple door.
I've experienced this and as I have said I'm sure many other men have as well,
it wears you do and leads to you becomeing a selish person and bitter over
time though this and other such situations when you are labeled against
intention.

There are then also times when you can laugh and joke about such things,
though again to external parties they can be seen badly. I was on the phone
many years ago with a girlfriend and a friend was in the background joking and
my girlfriend said - that mike (my friend) sounds likea right sexist pig (he
ain't) and I replied - well I've never met a wrong one ( was was joking) and
we all laughed. Reason we could all laugh is that we all knew non of us were
sexist and more still we were joking about it. Now for external parties
reading this they can see the worst and fixate upon that, indeed why had my
girlffriend felt the need to say and ask if my friend was sexist, well it was
how it was said and the prior conversations and that she knew mike well enough
to know he was not and therefore was joking herself when saying it.

On the plus side, people who prejudge and do not listern or allow a defence
and are easy to prejudge without appeal are the types of people I do not wish
to have any dealings with in life, be they man or women as I'm sure many
others feel that a closed mindset is bad and wrong. I do wonder though and I'm
probably starting kicking a hornets nest by even thinking this but I do wonder
how much of this biasing and labeling is historicaly due to religion and does
religion as a whole predispose people to a mindset of labeling without appeal
or by even asking that question am I myself labeling when it is just a
question and that is the only label being applied!

------
jacquesm
In Dutch we have tons of hard to translate proverbs, 'High trees catch a lot
of wind' comes to mind in this case.

------
rlt
The people who were quickest to criticize pg after the Valleywag article have
been extremely quiet about this post, which is odd because it's about
something they are generally extremely passionate about.

------
mudil
What amazes me is that in this whole conversation no one even mentions the
differences between men and women, as these differences were shaped by
evolutionary forces. In all our attempts to make women and men "equal", not
just in this country, but across the world, women and men still go into
different professions and do have different interests, and are good in their
gender-specific things. There is a reason for that: men and women are
different.

Surely, there will be women in tech and men in nursing. But the differences
are there and they go back hundreds of millions of years, and they've been
shaped by real evolutionary forces, and they play out every day in myriads of
ways.

For all the scorn that Harvard University President Lawrence Summers got in
2005 for bringing out these issues, he was coming from a serious
scientifically-based view on differences of sexes.

For those who want to understand how evolution shaped women and men, I
recommend to start with Dawkins' books (The Greatest Show on Earth, The Blind
Watchmaker, The Selfish Gene), and then to read "The Red Queen: Sex and the
Evolution of Human Nature" by Matt Ridley, and "The Mating Mind: How Sexual
Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature" by Geoffrey Miller.

And, hey, I am talking to the audience here, since it is mostly composed of
men (there is a reason for it): understanding the evolution of sex will make
you better at picking up women!

~~~
PagingCraig
Did you really just type out all this BS?

------
static332
If you didn't say anything wrong, don't give any clarification. Because people
who think you did wrong, won't believe you either way.

If you did anything wrong, be brave and own it.

------
codegeek
I really want to ask pg why he even thinks there is a need to defend himself
on these sensitive topics ? Is he really worried about his reputation that
much ? I mean everyone knows what pg is known for: startups and innovations.
Who cares about a misinterpretation of what he said or meant ? Honestly, every
time he has to write a blog on what he meant, it kinda fuels the trolls and
haters to counter argue. Why not just focus on what you do best i.e. help
create startups.

~~~
krstck
I'd say it's not so much about defending his reputation as it is about trying
to make sure that female founders don't avoid applying to YC because of this
drama.

------
elleferrer
"People's abilities and interests by the time they're old enough to start a
startup are the product of their whole lives..." regardless of their gender.

------
ghshephard
The one thing that caught my attention in this essay as I read over it a
couple times, was PG's emphasis on the being a computer programmer, as opposed
to computer hacker. My sense (and someone feel free to correct me), is that
YCombinator does have a pretty significant (and, I believe, appropriate) bias
towards hackers.

Someone can become a computer programmer in a fairly straightforward fashion -
just take a dozen or so computing science classes - and, voila - if you pass
them you are a computer programmer.

But becoming a hacker doesn't just require that skill, it also requires a
desire, passion, and focus that goes beyond just understanding the mechanics
and syntax of computer programming.

It's likely that having more female computer programmers will result in more
hackers, but I thought it was strange that in an Essay of Female Founders in
the context of YCombinator, that PG didn't mention the nuance between
"Computer Programmer" and "Computer Hacker" even once. The closest he comes
is, "avid programmers" \- and I'm wondering if he was writing this essay for a
broader audience, and explicitly avoiding the word, "hacker."

~~~
hayksaakian
Maybe because he correctly described the problem:

Think about it like a funnel

1) Some % of people are women

2) Some % of women are programmers

3) Some % of programmers who are women are hackers

PG posits that the biggest "bounce rate" is woman -> programmer rather than
woman programmer -> woman hacker

Empirically, I recall the article claiming around 1/5 founding teams having 1
woman, (notably this is not a % of founders but founding teams).

Anecdotally I claim that the % of women programmers is less than this number.

I could get more and more concrete, but I think you get the idea.

~~~
ghshephard
The point I was trying to make is that he never once mentioned the word
"hacker" in his essay. Didn't try and dive into it's connotations, and
implications. Didn't want to even take a paragraph to capture the essence of
being a computer hacker.

I'm guessing that it might have been in an earlier draft, when he decided that
it was distracting from the actual point he was trying to make, which was
relatively straightforward.

------
brandonhsiao
One thing that happens in American public schools is that because they're so
worried about catching the average student up, exceptional students feel
bored. Male here; question for females: is something similar happening now?
That is, is it the case that so many programs are catered to stereotypically
feminine girls that girls who just want to, independent of their gender, learn
how to code, are feeling unaccounted for?

~~~
fikhma
There are no female readers on HN. And there are no male readers on Jezebel.

This is the truth.

------
primitivesuave
Fun fact: the first programmer was female.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace)

------
jaldoretta
Despite how politically charged this topic is, as a female founder myself, I'm
glad PG wrote this.

"[...]YC has slightly over 3x the venture industry average." Yes, 3 out of 12
female partners may be great compared to the industry average, but I'm
disappointed that this is the first argument he makes for why he's not sexist.
I'm not saying that PG _is_ sexist, but all this argument proves is that
gender discrepancies are still a problem (even if YC is above industry
averages). 28% of US businesses are women-owned.

Everyone has biases (including myself)...it's a fact of human nature. It's no
wonder VCs are somewhat biased considering in the past, the "successful"
founders were almost always white males. I think PG so defensively saying that
he and YC are NOT biased is problematic in itself. I wish he would have
accepted that he (like every other human) is likely biased. It would have been
nice to come away from reading this feeling that PG, personally, has a growth
mindset.

It's great that PG and YC are trying to do more for female founders, but I'm a
bit disappointed in the way his arguments were conveyed.

------
sieva
The biggest problem is from the age of 2-13. The world's culture is still
"coding isn't cool for girls". Look at the difference between the ways boys
play in a room vs girls. Girls are encouraged to play princess and
house...yes...still!! Boys on the other hand are more likely to invent games,
or build things. My sister is 13 and laughs at the idea of learning
programming as a girl. She's a super smart girl, but the social pressures are
too much to overcome. By this age most of you successful programmers already
had some sort of "builders" mindset.

I say we need to address the problem at it's roots. Mentorship, and shining
the spotlight of success on women like Adora could potentially be the most
important part of our battle here. GO ADORA!!

------
kirtijthorat
Too Long; But Read (i.e. TL;BR which is exactly opposite of standard TL;DR). I
gotta admit this is an excellent read. If this was not from "Paul Graham" I
would not have read even the half of it. One thing is for sure that, I don't
care what media and others (haters) think. Paul has done so much for the tech
start-up world. Just see the "Thanks" section at the bottom of the page and
you will see the names of women entrepreneurs names and do a Google search on
them and you will see their start-up venture. Some of them have been aqua-
hired by notch firms. That's matters. Period.

------
greatdox
I just found this blog on the myth of females not being allowed in STEM:
[http://blastar.in/gossipgirl/?p=24](http://blastar.in/gossipgirl/?p=24)

I think it addresses the issues better as being of education, certification,
professionalism, skills, talents, and abilities that one needs to get started
in STEM roles regardless of gender, et al. I really think GG hits the nail on
the head with that post. Don't let a few jerks or douchebags who are not
99.9999% of the industry make you think that all of the industry are just like
them.

------
smoyer
Only 42% of those who reviewed drafts of this article are men - a pretty clear
case of bias. We're going to need an article about how to fix an industry
that's dominated by women (and don't get me started about those manicure
shops!)

I think those of us who have watched PG over time already knew this, but isn't
it easy to target someone successful when you have a cause? And how dare they
not change?

P.S. It would be interesting to see whether YC is picking winners among the
female founders they select ... their formula (as I understand it) seems
pretty gender neutral.

------
brianmcdonough
Napoleon Bonaparte believed there was a star in the sky that was dedicated to
him.

Men seem to have a higher opinion of themselves and are more willing to invest
in their sometimes farfetched ideas. Some of those farfetched ideas have
turned out to be valuable and have harvested a bounty.

Awareness of bounty results in more people taking more risks and chasing after
their hairbrained ideas, a few of which are share a wide appeal.

The California gold rush is a good example, a time when many San Francisco
merchants became rich.

Only a madman would pursue a dream that reaped no harvest and many do.

We need more mad women.

------
bsirkia
I don't get why pg felt the need to write this post and don't think he should
have. The last post clarifying his out of context comments was enough, but
continually emphasizing "I am not a sexist" (when the majority of people don't
believe it anyway) makes him seem self conscious and actually dignifies the
argument that genus a sexist.

I think he should have written that last post, then released a post about how
he expects 2014 to be for VCs or something and changed the conversation from
this ycomb sexism foolishness.

------
Jd
I'm glad it that he doesn't go into depth about the core and controversial
statement re: why 13 year old girls don't flock to programming in the way that
nerdy 13 year old boys do.

I'm also glad YC is being proactive here. It's always clear that certain
biases exist, and the only way to overcome them is by addressing them
specifically. Deep cognitive biases (against young people for example) can
only be overcome by amazing success stories.

~~~
the_watcher
He never made that statement. He just said that the best founder-hackers start
hacking around age 13, and that admitting female founders who did not do that
wouldn't address what he sees as the biggest bottleneck to female founder-
hackers.

------
rajacombinator
I understand you have an image to protect, but I really wish you would stop
dignifying this politicization and "tech journalism" garbage with responses.
You're doing a disservice to yourself and the tech community, which should be
lauded as one of the most meritocratic sectors of the world economy.

The real message should be: if you're a downtrodden member of group XYZ, quit
whining and do something about it.

------
sye19
To the girls of Hacker News: I am a female founder who codes. Here's a blog
post I wrote reflecting on PG's essay (guess I had too much to say for the
comments section):

[http://susieye.com/2014/01/20/to-the-girls-of-hackernews-
i-a...](http://susieye.com/2014/01/20/to-the-girls-of-hackernews-i-am-a-
female-founder-who-codes/)

------
sanj
Most YC companies have at least two founders. Many have three.

PG's language here:

 _In the current YC batch, 16 out of 68 companies, or 24%, have female
founders._

is ambiguous.

If we assume for the moment that the average YC company has 2.5 founders, this
statement could vary between the 24% number quoted (when all of the cofounders
are women) and 9% (where only one of the cofounders is a woman).

It'd be helpful to have that clarified.

~~~
nicklovescode
It sounds to me like the latter(9%) but does that matter much? The point seems
to be that it is roughly twice their calculated industry average, which
presumably uses the same metrics.

------
git-pull

      Like mediocre people in any field, they're fighting
      the last war, and the last war was won by Mark Zuckerberg.
    

My curiosity has been piqued. Does the author have point of view previously
stated on Zuckerberg?

Where does Zuckerberg stand merit wise? I see him in the news headlines often
with his smiling picture. What makes him more clever than the rest of you.

~~~
temuze
Because he destroyed the idea that young whippersnappers need "adult
supervision".

~~~
git-pull
To cut to the point, how many leg ups did Zuckerberg get between luck and
connections? What part of his success was environment, what part was his own
will and power?

Where does he stand as an engineer, at founding and then? Is he just a face, a
legend, or does is he a real decision maker?

~~~
the_watcher
He controls 57% of the Facebook voting stock (may be less after his secondary
offering). He's one of the most powerful founder CEO's in the world. Zuck
definitely got some advantage in connections and upbringing, but there have
been countless other founders with the same advantage who didn't win the war
PG is talking about.

------
caval
If you give up an inch of weakness, they will take a mile. He should have
never dignified the sexism complaints with a response.

------
aceperry
I saw the title and thought, "Uh oh."

------
kudu
I'm a bit disappointed by the fact that this blog post gives perhaps the most
obvious and common "politically correct" answers to the question of female
representation in the software industry, without actually tackling any
controversial subjects like reduced training costs for women.

~~~
skylan_q
It's unpalatable. PG says nothing more in this post than he did in last one
where he really didn't need to explain himself anyways. The more he writes
about this, the more he'll have to write about this to defend himself.

------
baldurrdash
If anyone is interested in a creative response to the issues raised in this
article (including the notion of cognitive bias), feel free to visit here:
[http://wishforyouand.me/2014/01/11/day-8/](http://wishforyouand.me/2014/01/11/day-8/).

------
etler
How to get more female programmers? Parents need to stop giving their girls
dolls and start giving them legos.

------
ialex
Another interesting fact is that the more successful female founders are, they
will later have the money to fund other startups as it happened whit the young
founders, now a huge portion of successful founders invest money in other's
young founders ideas so it will happen whit the females.

------
vegashacker
I read this a few times and couldn't understand what pg meant here:

 _If your numbers go up steeply enough for long enough, you could have
eyeballs on stalks and investors will fund you._

What are these "stalks"?

~~~
allenbrunson
pg is making a joke. aliens in science fiction films are often depicted as
having their eyes positioned at the end of long eyestalks.

------
elwell
Not just "Female Founders", female co-founders as well:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8qgehH3kEQ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8qgehH3kEQ)

------
FD3SA
And now for something completely different:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w__PJ8ymliw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w__PJ8ymliw)

Debate class is in session.

------
poolpool
"It's hard to argue I'm biased against female founders when I have a female
cofounder myself."

He's going with the "black friend" defense?

~~~
gfodor
Maybe you should read the rest of the essay.

------
neuro
Sex Sensitive Admissions, Race Sensitive Admissions, etc.

------
heterogenic
You know what I'd love to see the next time one of these inflammatory gender-
related posts comes up?

One thread that only women are allowed to post to. No men to challenge them,
play devil's advocate or otherwise defend their privilege. Just one place for
us to say our piece without being downvoted into oblivion, where our voice can
be heard (in all its glorious heterogeneity).

Because that's what's missing in this conversation about women in tech. Women.

Carry on mansplaining your way through it boys... I'll be over here building
things.

~~~
Gigablah
"mansplaining"? "boys"? Are you serious?

~~~
heterogenic
Totally serious.

Try to imagine reading this as a female developer/founder. It's not that it's
all crazy/insulting/aaargh, but enough is. And it's happening without our
input.

So. Frustrating.

~~~
Crake
There are women in YC, as seen in comments above. Nice of you to declare their
input absolutely worthless.

You'll be more successful if you don't hallucinate sexism where there isn't
any. Plenty of women in the tech field manage to do this. There's no reason
you can't, too. I hope you come to feel more comfortable with your place in
tech in the future, because the "all men are out to get us" mindset espoused
by modern mainstream feminism has a very severe and debilitating effect on
women's careers.

------
mudil
On the differences between sexes (from Sex Money Kiss by Gene Simmons
[http://www.amazon.com/SEX-MONEY-KISS-Gene-Simmons-
ebook/dp/B...](http://www.amazon.com/SEX-MONEY-KISS-Gene-Simmons-
ebook/dp/B001DBPYEW))

The Perfect Day for HER!

8:15 a.m. Wake up to hugs & kisses 8:30 a.m. Weight in five pounds lighter
than yesterday 8:45 a.m. Breakfast in bed, fresh squeezed orange juice and
croissants. Open presents: expensive jewelry chosen by thoughtful partner 9:15
a.m. Soothing hot bath with grangipani bath oil. 10:00 a.m. Light workout at
club with handsome, funny personal trainer. 10:30 a.m. Facial, manicure,
shampoo, and comb out. 12:00 a.m. Lunch with best friend at an outdoor cafe.
12:45 p.m. Notice ex-boyfriend's wife, she has gained 30 lbs.. 1:00 p.m.
Shopping with friends. 3:00 p.m. Nap. 4:00 p.m. A dozen roses delivered by
florist. Card is from a secret admirer. 4:15 p.m. Light workout at club
followed by a gentle massage 5:30 p.m. Pick outfit for dinner. Primp before
mirror. 7:30 p.m. Candlelight dinner for two followed by dancing. 10:00 p.m.
Hot shower. Alone. 10:30 p.m. Make love. 11:00 p.m. Pillow talk, light
touching and cuddling. 11:15 p.m. Fall asleep in his big, strong arms.

The Perfect Day for HIM!

6:00 a.m. Alarm. 6:15 a.m. Blow-job. 6:30 a.m. Massive dump while reading the
sports section. 7:00 a.m. Breakfast. Filet Mignon, eggs, toast and coffee.
7:30 a.m. Limo arrives. 7:45 a.m. Bloody Mary en route to airport. 8:15 a.m.
Private jet to Augusta, Georgia. 9:30 a.m. Limo to Augusta National Golf Club.
9:45 a.m. Play front nine at Augusta, finish 2 under par. 11:45 a.m. Lunch. 2
dozen oysters on the half shell. 3 Heinekens. 12:15 p.m. Blow-job. 12:30 p.m.
Play back nine holes of golf course, four under 2:15 p.m. Limo back to
airport. Drink 2 Bombay martinis. 2:30 p.m. Private jet to Nassau, Bahamas.
Nap. 3:15 p.m. Late afternoon fishing excursion with topless female crew, all
nude, who frequently bend over a lot displaying growlers. 4:30 p.m. Catch
world record light tackle marlin-1249 lbs. 5:00 p.m. Jet back home. En route,
get massage from naked supermodel (bending over naturally) 7:00 p.m. Watch CNN
Newsflash. Bush resigns. Porn Legalized. 7:30 p.m. Dinner. Lobster appetizers,
1963 Dom Perignon, 20 Oz. New York strip. For dessert: ice cream served on a
big pair of tits. 9:00 p.m. Relax after dinner with 1789 Augler Cognac and
Cohiba Cuban cigar. 10:00 p.m. Massage and Jacuzzi with tasty pizza snacks
cleansing ale. 11:00 p.m. Sex with 3 women, all with lesbian tendencies ...
some bending over. 11:30 p.m. Nightcap Blow-job. 11:45 p.m. Go to bed alone.
11:50 p.m. A twenty two second fart that changes notes four times & forces dog
to leave the room.

------
a8da6b0c91d
Why is pg engaging with these trolls? Does anyone think they truly care about
women succeeding in business or software? No, this is about making a stink and
attention whoring. The appropriate response is to flip these weenies the bird.

~~~
pg
It's not the trolls I care about so much as more moderate people who may have
seen the fight from a distance and come away with the idea that YC is somehow
sexist. Particularly women, because I want them to apply.

~~~
Helianthus
In other words, this is a posture piece: it's about your reputation, and only
about the issue at hand insomuch as it is important to give that issue its
due.

I mean that ('posture piece') as neutrally, perhaps, as it is possible to mean
it.

>come away with the idea that YC is somehow sexist.

And you can say, with a straight face, that YC is _not_ sexist? That it's just
the tech environment, and you're on the 'right side'?

Again, this is about your reputation--controlling the narrative.

~~~
angersock
What are you driving at?

Have some guts and stop beating about the bush.

~~~
nl
Apparently Helianthus think's PG should have both said nothing at all (eg,
_Because by engaging the toxic, he 's cementing his role in the toxic._) and
said something radical ( _the section of moderate feminists that are
inherently sympathetic to YC; the concerns of those outside that layer, even
the valid ones, are simply not important to PG_ )

Not entirely sure what the author thinks they are achieving.

~~~
Helianthus
Not both; either of those would have been more interesting and less prone to
hypocrisy.

Perhaps I am less critical of Paul as much as I am the crude politics of it
all--thus critical of Paul by extension.

(Before you think I am directly calling Paul a hypocrite, what I mean is that
the toxic flame wars are, by their nature, hypocritical, and it takes care to
interact with them without _appearing_ hypocritical yourself--care that I do
not think Paul managed.)

------
michaelochurch
I really despise the way HN is moderated-- there are childish vendettas,
there's filtering of inconvenient truths to the VCs and the startup world--
but I never thought PG was sexist or racist. In fact, I hate the fact that,
despite being more progressive than most VCs (and willing to discuss these
issues rather than equivocating) he's become a lightning rod. What _The
Information_ did to PG was almost criminal.

 _The people who caricature us as being only interested in funding young
hotshots forget that when we started, in 2005, young founders were not a
privileged group but a marginalized one. VCs didn 't want to fund them, and
when they did they often as not tried to replace them with "adult
supervision." The fact that young founders seem a privileged group now is
partly due to our efforts._

That's half-true, but I'd debate that point. From 1995 to 2005, VCs still
liked to fund young founders-- but specifically because they were so clueless.
They took advantage, worked them to the extreme, diluted their equity
severely, and then often handed their companies off to their (usually middle-
aged) friends. After 2005, the chickenhawking dynamic (see:
[http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/12/14/vc-
istan-6-th...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/12/14/vc-istan-6-the-
isms-of-venture-funded-technology/)) has evolved and the new one is much
kinder to young founders. I don't know if it's related to YC. But YC
definitely gave young founders an edge that they didn't have before; now they
have a backer who knows, through having seen so many companies evolve, how to
avoid being scammed in the ways that young founders in the '90s were.

It seems like YC's actual effect has been to replace a chickenhawking culture
that was attracted to, but screwed, young founders with a chickenhawking
culture that gives young founders a better chance of coming out on top. That's
an improvement, objectively, but it also makes YC appear to own the
transformed chickenhawking culture. It's like picking up some litter on the
road and being held responsible for the nearby pieces that weren't cleaned up.

~~~
pchristensen
"...childish vendettas..."

Michael, you have a lot of insightful comments, but you of all people should
never, ever point out someone else's childish vendetta.

------
mortyseinfeld
Once again we have leftists commenting on how dividing people into groups is a
good thing because of historical racism, segregation, etc..

It's like 1984 newspeak and clear that's it's a sick ideology.

~~~
skylan_q
It's never been about equality of opportunity. It's always been about equality
of outcome which in itself is a very un-capitalist view.

I understand: Maybe we can give women a shot at this and see if they can do
really well. It might work, or it might not. It's a market that's un-tapped
and we might end up with great results. Let's try this out.

I don't understand: More women need to do this because.

