
Ask YC: Are there any black or latino founded startups? - wumi
Came across a great post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=104728<p>Although I think the more we focus on race, the worst we are (i.e. instead of referring to Dungy as a coach who won the superbowl, he's the "first black head coach" to win a superbowl), I'm going to break my own rule for the purpose of discussion:<p>How many founders in web/mobile/desktop applications have been Black or Latino in the last decade or so?<p>(Or even Y C applicants for that matter)
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merrick33
It's interesting that there are 7 points here, yet only one comment so far. I
am Mexican, I run my own startup without any outside funding and my ethnicity
has not been an issue, the value our startup adds is all that matters in our
success or failure.

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pius
I'm black and I run a technology startup. It's really shocking how many
conferences in the Web 2.0 space are incredibly, well, white. Moving forward,
I'm going to attend more conferences and workshops, if only to do my little
part to make sure that questions like the one posed in this Ask YC title
become ridiculous. Speaking of which, I'm going to SXSW Film and Interactive
and the Cannes Film Festival, so anyone who'd like to meet up should let me
know if they're going!

~~~
wumi
shoot me an email david.adeyalo at gmail

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gscott
The Internet is color blind. If anyone has a chance to make it it would be on
the Internet.

I was watching the "Big Idea" with Donnie Deutsch some months ago and a 10
year old had a great eBay business and relationships with wholesellers. His
age was not a limiting factor because he did everything online.

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kobs
Hopefully in the next year or two :-]. If you want to dig even further, there
aren't many of us in CS departments either. (I'm aware that not every
potential startup-type studies CS)

(I'm making a generalization based on my school's CS population. I'm assuming
it's similar at other institutions.)

~~~
manvsmachine
I'd suggest that a large part of the reason is the issue of prestige. In
America, intelligent black people will tend to choose high prestige, low-risk
career paths more often than not. A lot of it is about the uncertainty of
failure; In black communities, a lot is expected of the really smart kids.
They're seen as not just representing themselves, but also their communities
and, to an extent, their race. It sucks, but it's the truth. So a lot of them
choose to be doctors, lawyers, etc, because you're viewed differently by
society. If we ever get to the point that being a software engineer is viewed
in the same light as the aforementioned occupations, I'm sure there would be a
sizable increase.

~~~
aswanson
Heh, I used to think that being an engineer was prestigious.

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hhm
If there are any? There are plenty of them...

I'm from Argentina, and here, as in many other latin countries, there are a
real lot of local tech startups. Some important companies which started like
startups here are Mercado Libre (MELI in Nasdaq), Core Technologies, and
Wanako Games (a company in Chile, by Argentinians, recently sold to Vivendi
for US$ 10 million).

Actually there are lots of incubators for entrepreneurs here, and there are
local VCs, and there are many people working on Web 2.0 and general tech
stuff. Recently, there was a local Barcamp here in Buenos Aires too.

There are many, many local startups here, and of course we are all latino
here. So I'm not sure the question makes a lot of sense...

~~~
merrick33
hhm please contact me at:

uclawins at gmail dot com

-Merrick

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daniel-cussen
The guys who did Mercado Libre (like eBay, but for Latin America) were
Hispanic. They did very well, to my knowledge.

~~~
hhm
Yes. The people who started Mercado Libre are from Argentina, and ML is in
Nasdaq ("MELI"), so sure it's successful.

------
pchristensen
Reg Braithwaite is a developer at startup Mobile Commons (weblog.raganwald.com
www.mcommons.com)

Hank Williams is working on an unannounced startup
(<http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/> ).

They're from Toronto and NYC. Maybe it's a coincidence of demographics - many
startups and most of startup culture are in Silicon Valley, most people there
are white or Asian.

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wumi
the reason I started this thread was after reading the article about NASCAR
and the lack of minorities, I was sorta wondering:

Is there a high-barrier to entry that is restricting blacks or latinos from
founding startups? (real or imagined) -- the same thing we see in high end
sports such as NASCAR, hockey, or lacrosse that take lots of cash to
participate in.

~~~
merrick33
The question posed in the original thread is much different than the one you
pose now. No matter what ethnic background you come from you have to ignore
the stats and act as if.

Now that you clarified the intention of your initial question, it seems you
want to know if the percentage of founders of startups correlates with each
ethnicities percentage of population.

While I don't know the ethnic breakdown of tech startups founders, I know that
disparities do exist and they vary by culture, social economic strata and in
this case by geographic location.

Until recently, the stats for U.S. broadband adoption showed that income and
ethnicity were strong indicators.

After I finished up my economics degree at UCLA I took a few sociology
courses. I recall that in the first half of the 20th century Asian immigrants
had a higher percentage of entrepreneurship relatively because of the lack of
employment opportunities and discrimination. In the second half of the 20th
century that percentage declined.

While it's interesting to study the plight of some ethnic groups, it's much
more interesting to study how public policy can improve the situation.

The wonderful thing for everyone is that the access to information is a great
equalizer, and that our parents socio-economic level is less of a predictor of
our future than it was when our parents were kids.

------
bmaier
You said it yourself... why does this even matter? Brains are all the same
color (well for the most part anyway).

~~~
curi
I think it matters because it's a sign of a problem in black and latino
cultures, if they create startups at a much lower rate.

~~~
axod
Is that necessarily a problem? There are more black basketball players than
white. Does that mean there is a problem in white cultures?

People do what they want to do, and what they're good at.

~~~
curi
I think startups are a good thing, and cultures which highly value being
productive are better.

Also, what do you mean about people doing what they're good at? That seems to
imply white people are genetically inferior at some sports, and black people
genetically inferior at startups?

~~~
axod
You're saying white people _can_ jump? ;)

I was just saying I don't think it's a worthwhile idea to try and make
everyone the same. We're not. Why aren't there as many women founders? Why
should there necessarily be. Why aren't there as many male midwives as
women... is that a problem?

Sure if someone is actively preventing someone from doing something based on
their race/gender/etc, then of course it should be solved if possible.

I think the main thing is for people to grow up with self belief that they can
do whatever they want to.

~~~
curi
There are less woman founders because our culture treats men and women
differently. And in particular, it is more repressive of females, and cripples
their ability to think more, especially in business and technical areas.

This is definitely a big problem, and the lack of woman founders is a good
signal to get us to look at the area and wonder what is being done to women to
prevent them from being founders.

~~~
axod
That's terribly wrong IMHO. Very wrong. I used to think similar thoughts until
I had kids. Girls and boys are just into different things. From a very early
age. They have vastly different interests. Their brains work differently. They
have different strengths. The key thing is that it's not just due to
surroundings/culture. It's due to how they are wired.

The fact is, the probability that a male will 'do a startup' is going to be
greater than the probability that a female will. Why try to blame that on
society? Why try and change that?

~~~
curi
I'm not _trying_ to blame anyone, but I believe the _truth of the matter_ is
that it is caused by culture. I believe the truth is that boys are girls are
not wired differently, and their brains do not work differently.

One reason to question the notion of specialized hardware (brains) for boys
and girls is the concept of universality. The easiest, by far, way to be able
to do many computations, is to create a computer that can do _all_
computations. Similarly, the easiest way by far to create a system capable of
creating a variety of kinds of knowledge, is to create one capable of creating
_any_ knowledge.

One reason to believe culture would be behind these kinds of differences is we
know that our culture transmits vast quantities of knowledge to children. Far
more information than is in DNA, just in terms of bits. But also in terms of
importance. We also know our culture believes boys and girls are different,
and treats people different for many reasons.

~~~
axod
"I believe the truth is that boys are girls are not wired differently, and
their brains do not work differently."

Do you have children? A girl and a boy? I do. I can tell you categorically
that they most definitely without a doubt are 'wired' differently. Regardless
of what you do. Treat them absolutely identically. Even before they have
outside influences. Before they start nursery/school. Before society/friends
influence them. They act very differently indeed. I didn't get that before I
had kids. I thought girls liked dolls because people give girls dolls. They
don't. It's a reflex. It's how they're built. Just like boys love cars and
doing outside stuff.

I seriously don't know what else to say here if you think men and womens
brains are identical and work the same.

~~~
curi
Authority of experience, based on anecdotal evidence, is not a valid way to
argue scientific issues.

Further, you have not addressed well known exceptions to your claims, such as
tomboys and males who do not love to be outdoors.

~~~
Tichy
However, all you provide is your belief, which frankly to me seems to be
driven by your wishful thinking. I personally don't know if men and women are
wired differently or not, but I can't understand your concept of belief. Give
us some scientific evidence, and I will mentally assign your claim a
probability. But I won't believe it.

~~~
curi
I have provided some arguments (for example, about universality). I have also
provided some (as yet unanswered) criticism of the other view. If you don't
understand my comments, and wish to, you could ask questions, and I will be
happy to explain further.

Evidence would not be the right thing to provide, because I am not predicting
different human behavior than the mainstream theory, I am simply explaining
the same evidence in a different way. So evidence can't resolve this dispute.
(Setting aside evidence from analysis of brains which is beyond our present
technology.)

~~~
Tichy
Well the universality thing is really a very weak argument. The brain is quite
universal, but it still is specialized, for example for image processing. It
is a finite resource, you only have so many neurons in a brain, and only can
train them on so many tasks. So it probably makes sense to devote more neurons
to some tasks than to another.

Of course you may ask, when is it decided what specialization is chosen,
genetically or by nurturing. Clearly we can learn and specialize on things
through nurturing, but some things we are also born with, for example a
language instinct. So I don't think your argument is an argument at all.

I don't know if you are a woman or a man, but one thing I notice is that women
can always tell me what everybody else is talking about in a cafe. I can only
concentrate on the woman I am talking to, and blank out all the other people
in the room. Maybe it is a personal deficit of mine (bad hearing or whatever),
but I could imagine it is a women thing (broader attention). Just an example.

~~~
curi
Apes do image processing too; that is from a time before intelligence.

The meaning of one's mind being born specialized is that either it's incapable
of some functions (not universal), or it's pre-loaded with enough complexity
to make some functions easier and others harder. And further, the claim has to
go on to say that we don't put layers of abstraction over this and do whatever
we want anyway, low level complexity be damned. Do you have an argument this
is the case?

You give language instinct as an example. So, do you have any argument that
our DNA contains knowledge to facilitate language in particular? But perhaps
more importantly, an argument that this is done differently for different
people, in such a way as to cause differences in adult personalities?

~~~
Tichy
As far as I know it has always been the case that people developed a language.
For example there are cases where children had been raised in total isolation
from society, and they developed their own language (I think even single
children). So it seems to me it is fairly certain that something in the brain
makes it develop a language.

Your "image processing is not intelligence" again refutes itself: so you admit
that there are some things in which brains might differ. Surely, even if some
parts of the brain are universal, the ultimate development must depend on the
inputs available. For example, no humans have ultrasonic "vision" like bats,
because they lack the respective organs. It follows that it is possible for
brains to be different, depending on the body that provides the sensory
inputs.

Also, it is not clear in my opinion that apes are not intelligent.

Btw. I am still not claiming that women can not be good at maths - of course
they can be, there are many examples.

I guess I am not even claiming that the difference between men and women with
respect to founding startups is not cultural. But I am claiming that the
culture is not arbitrary, but has evolved because of the biological
preconditions. Not arbitrary means it can not simply be explained by
"repression through men".

~~~
curi
_As far as I know it has always been the case that people developed a
language. For example there are cases where children had been raised in total
isolation from society, and they developed their own language (I think even
single children). So it seems to me it is fairly certain that something in the
brain makes it develop a language._

That does not follow. For example, maybe they developed language because it's
very useful.

@image processing: There are things inside brains which can/do differ, the
issue is what effect this has on adult _minds_. And personality in particular.
For example, how does the difference survive layers of being interpreted to
remain a difference in adults personalities?

@ "repression through men" -- My position is that culture is largely
transmitted, _unintentionally_ , through behavior of _parents_. Further,
mothers appear to have more influence over children than fathers. And female
friends appear to influence young females more than their male friends. And I
think the same sorts of things are done to both male and female children, just
differently.

~~~
Tichy
"And female friends appear to influence young females more than their male
friends. "

Well if you believe that, then you admit that there is a difference between
men and women (within your kind of logic).

Of course nurturing has an effect, but the fact remains that men and women are
different and have to face different challenges in life. It is not only the 9
months of pregnancy - yes, men could stay at home after pregnancy (now that we
have breast pumps for the milk). But there are still several other
differences, as I explained elsewhere, not the least the problem of finding a
mate to begin with. It is a completely different challenge for men and for
women, simply because women can only have a few children, whereas men can have
thousands of children in theory. So women have to be more selective etc. Again
just one example, but in the sum things like that end up evoking behavioral
differences.

If all behavioral differences were only the result of nurturing, then why are
there no more random variations? Why are there not more societies where all
boys behave like girls in our western world, and vice versa? If boys and girls
really were equal except for the nurturing and their visible difference, then
we should see such variations, because if a society with our boy/girl pattern
is stable then the reverse would be equally stable.

Edit: I think you yourself mentioned tomboys, so there are people with
reversed roles. Therefore, all else being equal, whole islands of societies
should develop where roles are mirrored (because apparently the reverse
strategy is being evaluated on a regular basis - so if it would be equally
successful, it should from time to time become dominant). But they apparently
don't develop.

~~~
curi
I said from the outset that our culture treats men and women differently. That
includes, among many other things, what gender of friends they are encouraged
to have as young children.

Why aren't there more variations in culture on Earth? First, there is a lot of
shared culture across a lot of the Earth, like Abrahamic religions. Second,
perhaps the logic of the situation (e.g. men being stronger) lent itself to
certain simple gender roles. If so, that isn't why they still exist today in
any form. Third, the general logic of memes can create common points across
cultures. Fourth, Earth is a small sample size.

~~~
Tichy
You yourself mentioned the tomboys. Therefore nature is obviously capable of
still evaluating new strategies, even under the tyranny of culture. Therefore
it needs explaining why none of those strategies ever reached a significant
mass, if their efficiency is the same as the existing ones.

~~~
curi
Why are you assuming tomboys have anything to do with nature?

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webwright
Out of curiosity, why don't you care about Asian founded startups? Or south-
Asian (Indian, Pakastani, etc)? Or Middle-Eastern?

To answer your actual question, I have met exactly one (am currently a YC
founder and was VERY active in the Seattle startup scene, FWIW).

~~~
wumi
I was going for the uncommon social groups, and East Asian, and South Asian
founded is definitely not an uncommon breeding ground for startups.

As far as middle-eastern, sure, throw them in there, but it was more reference
to minority groups in the US -- Black and Latino are pretty prevalent as fars
% of US population, and it does not correlate with startups

------
paul
<http://www.ooyala.com/management>

