
A vanishingly small percentage of venture funding has been raised by black women - tobiaswright
https://medium.com/the-digitalundivided/statistically-no-meaning-zero-black-women-have-raised-venture-funding-projectdiane-23c80399910f#.26gy1kpb8
======
mc32
It's the social graph. If the mainstream does not notice, do what countless
immigrant groups have done in countries the world over, group together form
your own interest group and serve your group. You also see this behavior with
industry groups, or worker groups. Content producers group, telecoms group, so
they can advance themselves and self interest.

Why do Nigerians do relatively well, they'll find other Nigerians, help each
other and steadily climb. Or Russians or Chinese immigrants, etc. Help from
the mainstream helps, and it'd be good to get even footing, but lacking that,
create a self interest group. It's not as though there are no rich people who
are minorities who are also interested in investing in startups. Pursue the
issue in a multi pronged fashion. Don't count on anyone in particular.

~~~
tryitnow
That will work with Africans and other groups who have a strong sense of
ongoing ethnic identity. American blacks descended from slaves have a lot of
problems doing that for all sorts of reasons.

My guess is that a lot of African immigrants have raised money, just not via
traditional routes, hence they don't show up in the numbers.

The important thing to recognize is that you can't easily analogize the
experience of people who were enslaved 150 years ago and then faced systematic
oppression after that for at least another 100 years to the experience of
immigrants migrating to make a new start.

My bet is that we will see a lot more success from African immigrants before
we see success from American slave-descended blacks.

Indeed, it's unsurprising the first black president is the son of an immigrant
and not descended from slaves.

~~~
IndianAstronaut
Nigerians and American blacks are worlds apart in terms of emphasis on
education and work ethic. I say this as someone who has lived in Nigeria as
well as in predominantly black neighborhoods in the US.

------
sbierwagen

      Only 12 Black women led startups (yes only 12) have raised 
      $1MM or more in outside funding since 2012. 
    

Twelve is now "zero"?

~~~
acveilleux
12/10000 is noise.

~~~
andrepd
The number of black women is 12, not 0. I don't understand what you wish to
gain by egregiously twisting the numbers. Yes, it's a low percentage. No, it's
not zero.

~~~
aristus
What do _you_ wish to gain by being painfully pedantic? Black women are 5-6%
of the population, but 0.01% of funded founders. That is a rounding error,
effectively zero. Why not focus on the actual point of the post instead?

~~~
CydeWeys
Because the title primed me to expect one thing, and then the post body
rapidly contradicted it by providing twelve vetted examples of the class that
the title claimed should not exist. My mind does not get over being misled and
confused like that easily, especially when the fix to improve it is so trivial
(like saying "virtually none" instead of "statistically zero").

~~~
aristus
OK. So... that's you entire comment? That's it? Problem solved?

~~~
CydeWeys
You asked a question and I answered it. What's your deal?

~~~
aristus
The deal is that targeted pedantry like this completely derail the discussion,
which is not 12 ≠ 0, but how and why black women are being excluded from tech.

------
rambos
Some thoughts and questions here.

Should we in the tech industry feel obligated to spend energy on these social
movements? Are we wrong and selfish to not?

Honestly, I'd rather not. I'd rather get technical things done, and let policy
makers and influencers focus on those issues. If you're in on something with
me, great AWESOME, I honestly don't care who you are. Things like race and
gender don't matter to me as long as you can get work done. However, I do
understand that being able to get work done in this industry is stemmed from a
privileged advantage. -- Yes that sucks and is unfair, but how do we as a
technical industry even change that when we need to focus on getting work
done?

~~~
aristus
It's your choice to ignore it. More precisely, it's your privilege to ignore
it.

"...how do we as a technical industry even change that when we need to
focus..."

The point of startups is not blindly attacking the biggest pile of work at
hand. It's to find blindspots and exploit them. If every single one of your
competitors is systematically undervaluing entire classes of potential
workers, dontcha think that just maybe there's an opportunity to be had there?

But no. For all the talk of merit, getting shit done, hustle, etc, it's mostly
about connections. You can't hold onto the meritocratic myth and ignore
completely obvious evidence to the contrary forever. But damn, so many rich
white guys around here love to try.

~~~
jaksdhkj
> If every single one of your competitors is systematically undervaluing
> entire classes of potential workers, dontcha think that just maybe there's
> an opportunity to be had there?

This is a common line of thought that I find myself having. I suspect it's a
common fallacy, although I've never heard a name for it.

I call it "being too clever again by half". The idea that when others zig, I
should zag. Or that any status quo structure has inefficiencies.

My reality is that zig/zag concept only works in certain situations. It'd be
interesting to think more about the conditions for those situations, because
then I could readily identify them.

In this situation, it's possible that your competitors are undervaluing an
entire class of workers simply because that class of workers does not have
value to them. If there are no technical, talented, black female engineers in
the Valley, maybe the market isn't intentionally ignoring them -- it's just
unable to find them.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but sometimes the status quo is an
efficiency shortcut as well as being efficient.

~~~
owens99
Actually, a company called Andela is going to make hundreds of millions off of
this inefficiency. It's focused on finding Nigerians who have top 2% IQ
globally and teaching them to code. Labor arbitrage. Check them out.

------
Lawtonfogle
>DID found that even the WORST Startups led by white males raise more than the
Best Startups led by Black Women.

This was big and in bold, but I didn't see any links to how they calculated
this. Anyone else see how they found this?

------
CydeWeys
Please change the article title to "A vanishingly small percentage of venture
funding has been raised by black women". That is an accurate way of phrasing
the facts. The current title is breaking my brain.

~~~
dang
Ok, we've used your suggestion. If someone suggests a better (i.e. more
accurate and neutral) title, we can change it again.

~~~
CydeWeys
Thank you. Now if only your editing privileges extended to medium.com ... :)

~~~
dang
That would not be good.

------
colmvp
I know that the narrative is that there isn't diversity in tech, but I'm
curious about the numbers of Asians who managed to get funding for their
startups.

~~~
CydeWeys
It would be interesting to see a breakdown by all races and country of origin,
I will grant you that.

That would be in addition to this article, not in opposition to it, however.
The lack of success of black people and women in tech is PROOF that there
isn't diversity, at least not for those groups; it isn't just some narrative.
Even if, say, Southeast Asians are doing well, that doesn't change the fact
that the groups that the article is talking about aren't.

0.12% for a group that you would expect to have about 6.50% in based on
overall population is indicative of a problem.

~~~
Lawtonfogle
But it would be nice to know where the problem is at. If 6.5% of applicants
were black women and only .12% were accepted, especially if the ideas were
rated as average in a found blind rating... that would indicate a huge
problem.

If .06% of those applying were black women, but .12% of those accepted were,
it would show the problem has nothing to do after the application and is all
about getting people to apply to begin with, which is a different problem with
a different solution needed.

~~~
CydeWeys
Yes, that would be very useful info to have indeed.

------
kelukelugames
I clicked around and couldn't find the actual report. I want to read that
instead of an infographic or blog post. Does anyone have a link to the report?

------
tobiaswright
Here's a little more background on projectdiane for those that are interested:
[https://medium.com/@KathrynFinney/projectdiane-breaking-
tech...](https://medium.com/@KathrynFinney/projectdiane-breaking-tech-s-
diversity-catch-22-d06555ea2e52#.f5oxi85xo)

------
wmeredith
Yes, and? Did any try? If so, what happened? If not, why not? I need more
information for this to be interesting.

~~~
sbierwagen
Second paragraph.

    
    
      Only 12 Black women led startups (yes only 12) have raised 
      $1MM or more in outside funding since 2012.

~~~
pluma
Out of how many? When were they founded? When did they raise the money? What's
the trend (founded/total, funded/total and funded/founded)?

It's nonsense to talk about this kind of thing without the correct frame of
reference. At least if you're trying to argue that not enough black women led
startups get funded (which seems to be what the headline is getting at).

Also, what about other ethnicities? What about black men? What about white
women? What about social backgrounds? Was their ethnicity the distinguishing
factor at that point or were they preselected prior to becoming entrepreneurs?

The first step to finding out how to solve the problem is to find out where
the problem actually stems from. The 5 Whys apply to social problems as much
as to technical ones.

------
timwaagh
statistically zero rabbit-founded companies ever received funding. stop
discrimination against rabbits now.

~~~
lchski
You're equating women with non-sentient beings. That's a reductive comparison
that doesn't contribute to the discussion.

~~~
noondip
It's generally believed and accepted all animals are sentient.

------
andrepd
I don't think that is a problem with venture funding in itself, more a symptom
of deeper underlying problems.

------
sharemywin
it's not what you know, but who you know. or as they say in SV it's no the
idea but execution.

------
omonra
I guess I'm supposed to care? I'm afraid I don't. Nope - don't care.

If the author instead showed how there were all these superb startups led by
black women that failed to get funding - I would.

I guess the difference stems from the unshared assumption that if black women
represent 6% of US population, they should get 6% of VC funding.

~~~
owens99
You should care if you agree there is discrimination in tech. If you are part
of a minority and have never faced discrimination in tech, that might give
credibility against such a claim.

~~~
omonra
I don't agree because I fail to see examples of said discrimination. Maybe
it's there - what evidence points to it?

How many black women got 5 on AP CS test?

~~~
rmxt
Is the AP CS test supposed to be some sort of impartial arbiter of talent and
ability? What does the AP test have to do with anything?

~~~
omonra
Yes it is - it's a measure of interest in computers and drive/intelligence.

If you don't like AP CS test - pick some other parameter that indicates that
this population that should (absent discrimination on part of money-bag
holders) produce a number of startup founders.

~~~
rhallie15
Most schools don't even offer AP CS. Especially not public schools that
primarily serve low-income students (which black people are disproportionately
more likely to be). The course/exam is not equally accessible to people across
racial demographics, and is, therefore, not a logical metric to measure
potential (unless you're maybe looking at percentage of people getting 5s out
of the total number of people of that demographic taking it).

