
Y Combinator to recruit more black entrepreneurs - edw519
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/08/29/y-combinator-diversity-black-entrepreneurs/14743163/
======
aikah
I'm black ,what is this ? affirmative action pt2 ? you dont need to "recruit
more black entrepreneurs" , you need to recruit entrepreneurs wether they are
black,yellow,brown,man,woman,trans without prejudice,based only on their
skills. Or if "Y Combinator to recruit more black entrepreneurs" means they
were discriminated against before, we want a few good negros to look good,
just like a few women here and there ,and build "girls who code" clubs for
PR,so the tech world is not labelled as racist or sexist ?

The tech world is racist,and sexist. The VC world is way beyond racist or
sexist ,it's a culture of nepotism.You cant change that.It's like electing a
black president,you may look good abroad but at home noone is dumb enough to
think anything has changed. It's even worse to consider minorities as "people
that need help".We dont need help we need equality at first place,there is
none.

~~~
jmathai
I'm Indian. I don't believe I face the same difficulties that blacks do. It
also feels weird to respond but I'll give it a go.

> We dont need help we need equality at first place,there is none.

I don't disagree. Don't you believe that making special efforts to get
minority groups into something can do more good than harm? Perhaps it depends
on the details of how it's done but if done correctly I think it can help.

There isn't equality and there won't be equality anytime soon. That's why I
believe deliberate effort has its place. It doesn't have to imply an imbalance
of equality. Instead it can acknowledge the imbalance of perceived equality
and aim to eradicate the false assumptions.

I don't for an instance claim that one race or sex is intrinsically more
intelligent. But I'll admit that I do believe entire groups of people are
marginalized and it creates an unleveled playing field. One which should be
level.

It applies to many groups. People who are poor, black, hispanic, gay, women,
obese, unattractive, etc.

If you fall into these groups you'll have felt some level of discrimination.
Some more than others (i.e. someone who's poor, black and gay will have felt
it more acutely than someone who's just gay).

I don't know. I think it this can be done in a respectful manner with good
intent and without being derogative.

Would you disagree? If so what's the more _realistic_ solution?

------
graeme
A couple comments:

First, Altruism aside, this will likely be a win for ycombinator. There are
always opportunities to be had in targeting subgroups which others neglect.

And the problem with bias is that much of it is subconscious. Unless an
organisation makes a conscious effort, it will likely discriminate.

This means there's an opportunity for YC to get easier access to the cream of
the crop, merely by specifically recruiting. And articles like this are
helpful too, as they'll signal to would be black entrepreneurs that they
should not shy away from YC.

Second, this could be very important for future african-american
entrepreneurs. Reference examples are so, so important. I (white male) did not
become a programmer, despite a love for math and computers. I literally didn't
have a single programmer in my extended family or circle of close friends. I
played around with computers, but I had no idea what a programming language
was until age 25.

(If this sounds incurious, think about what massive blind spots you yourself
had until recently)

If YC can fund an african-american entrepreneur who succeeds massively, then
this will inspire thousands of others.

The same arguments apply to recruiting women, and inspiring women. I applaud
this move, and YC's earlier initiative to recruit women.

~~~
meowface
>And the problem with bias is that much of it is subconscious. Unless an
organisation makes a conscious effort, it will likely discriminate.

Could you elaborate? Here, the article states that 1% of all applicants are
black. How can the demographics of those who apply at all be attributed to
bias on Y Combinator's part, intentional or otherwise?

~~~
graeme
I didn't say YC was biased, specifically. I meant we all our, inasmuch as our
culture produces bias against black people.

Growing up in a biased culture, it would be very, very, very difficult not to
acquire any.

This idea has received some empirical validation from the implicit biases
test. Some details here:

[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090617142120.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090617142120.htm)

Other studies have compared the performance of white vs. black names.

[http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html](http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html)

The evidence suggests that most people are biased, yet think they are not.
Removing this unconscious bias from our society will take time.

So I meant that almost EVERYBODY is likely to discriminate, at least if
current evidence pointing that way is correct.

Therefore, unless an organization takes conscious effort, it will
discriminate. But on the bright side, merely by taking such conscious effort,
an organization can both help itself AND help a disadvantaged group.

And leading the way forward is one mechanism to reduce unconscious bias. I am
sure, for instance, that Obama's presidency has made today's children far less
likely to be biased.

~~~
meowface
I agree that we all have implicit bias, and I also agree that it's good YC is
broadcasting itself to groups of all kinds, but I doubt bias plays any
significant role in the demographics of past and current YC batches, at least
when looked at directly (choosing which applicants to accept, as opposed to
indirect societal biases possibly causing people not to apply or to choose a
different path).

~~~
cfield
Accepting that we all have implicit bias but saying that it doesn't play a
significant role in who YC accepts seems to suggest that the YC application
review process is able to overcome implicit bias. This may be true to some
degree because of the number of steps and people involved in reviewing
applications. However, I'm skeptical that it's so effective that it makes bias
play an insignificant role.

~~~
meowface
I think it's unfair to assume that bias plays a role simply based on the
truism of "we all have implicit bias". YC is run by a good group of
intelligent people who are very aware of such biases.

------
J_adjip
As a young black entrepreneur that has known about YC for years now and have
followed them and their large portfolio, I think they are making a smart move
toward reaching out to a community where people aren't aware of programs like
YC and the opportunities they provide.

~~~
robg
Can you explain how this happens?

~~~
smtddr
First, let me say that I love how HN has matured to a point where an article
like this can make it to the front-page and not get overrun with insanely long
threads of people debating the definition of "racism" and if it exists or not
in tech.

Believe it or not, the story below is actually the very-shortened version.:

I as a male with Nigerian-born-and-raised parents can tell my story about how
I didn't know a single thing about start-ups or SV/bayarea scene or anything
until 2007. So I went to school in CSU Hayward and got my BSCS __only__
because I wanted to make videogames. All my college friends talked about
becoming videogame betatesters and I wanted to make games. A classmate of mine
got me my first job in AT&T as an analyst. Before this job the only computers
I've been exposed to was my home Win95 computer on dial-up and the unix
terminal on school campus; oh and writing programs in BASIC on AppleII's in
junior highschool and that wasn't even a class. It just happened that there
was a teacher who was a geek and brought his computers to school for kids like
me to play with. I probably owe that teacher a lot. My dad being in a job
involving fortran & punch-cards helped to. When I first saw a bunch of
computers networked together, I had no idea what that meant. Windows SAMBA
mounts and copying files between 2 machines blew my freakin' mind in 2002.
Computers talk to each other?! I had AOL and no idea how the internet worked
until a few weeks after starting at AT&T; then I got AT&T DSL and it was
horrible so I hardly used the internet. AT&T was always putting enterprise
software books in the lobbies so that's all I knew existed; expensive
proprietary tools. It was only one day, after like 5 yrs, I got fed up with
AT&T and tried to leave but couldn't. I used computerjobs.com to attempt
finding another job. Found out that all my skills in writing ABAP programs for
SAP, JCL on OS/2, tools like QuickTest & LoadRunner didn't actually mean
anything when only a few major corps have the money to pay for the licenses of
said softwares. Also, the VB macros I wrote for MSExcel and got me so much
praise at AT&T turned out to not be a high-demand skill. I was floored; I had
no idea. I really thought I was highly skilled and could find a job anytime I
wanted. At one point I thought my email just didn't work, but a few tests
proved that not to be the case. Then one day I got even more frustrated and
tried to get into Pixar. I learned how to use Alias(purchased by Autodesk)
Maya and sent a resume. They called me back, but I didn't get the job because
I didn't know enough of a programming language called "python".(Maya has
python bindings for automation 'n stuff)

Python? What's that? I went to go find all the info I could on this strange
programming language. Tried to apply to Pixar again after learning some but
they never replied me again. Then I searched online to look at resumes of
people who have Pixar on them to see where they worked before ending up at
Pixar. I saw a bunch of companies I have never heard of. Remember, AT&T was my
first job out of school and my internet was unusable. Almost all my coworkers
were old enough to be my parents and 99% of them had no interest in computers
beyond just using them as they were trained 5+ years ago. The only companies
that came up in conversation were corps like Oracle & HP. Looking up all the
companies I saw on these resumes, I eventually stumbled upon the term "start
up". What's a start-up? Oh, a company that just started! That makes sense, I
guess a company has to start from something. So where do I find these start-
ups? OH! They're all around me!!! San Francisco is less than an hour away!
Whoa there's a whole bunch!!!!! Look at these salaries! AT&T was just paying
me $46k! Okay, so what kind of tools do they use? What? Linux? What's that?
Oh, I remember Redhat in school for one of my classes. What's mysql? Why not
Oracle? Nobody likes Windows? What's a Macbook? Why are all these people so
young and happy-looking? They don't have to wear a suit & tie to work?

My internet was so bad and AT&T couldn't fix it after multiple calls, so I
switched to Comcast because I needed to start downloading all kinds of stuff.
I bought a laptop at this time as well. This way I now had 2 computers in my
house _(yes, a house. I got it in 2003 when they were just giving houses to
anyone who walked in off the street)_ and I could learn more about what an IP
address is and how 2 computers talk to each other.

This was in 2006, so by 2007 I fully discovered the world of Linux and open-
source in general. Found out that Windows the OS isn't not the same thing as
the computer. That I could delete & reformat the Harddrive with Linux without
physically destroying the computer. Fully comprehended what open-source meant
to my career. Free software meant that my skills followed me to any company I
went to. Knowing how to use JMeter instead of LoadRunner, Selenium instead of
Quicktest, mysql instead of Oracle - I've increased my skillset and I didn't
have to rely on anyone to buy some $80k license before my skills became
usable. Learned some more skills that were hot at the time and started
applying. This is when I learned that start-ups liked Craigslist so that was
the only place I used for my job-search. One memorable phone-interview was
with babycenter.com. The lady interviewing me used all kinds of profanity on
the phone. While I personally don't use profanity, I found it amazing that
start-ups were so care-free that they can just F-bomb people during an
interview like it's nothing. Eventually I ended up in a start-up with about 8
people. My family was freaking out that I was about to leave a huge company
like AT&T to work with 8 people in San Francisco.... but I did it anyway and
from there it's all roses, rainbows and puppies. My career goals have changed
though so I don't seek Pixar like I use to.

The overall idea here is that it's totally possible to grow up right in this
bay area, even get a BSCS, and not know about any of the tech scene going on
right under your nose if you're not around those kinds of people. My family
wasn't rich but way better off than the inner-city, low income kids. If I
didn't know about the BayArea tech-scene until 2007, it's easy for me to
imagine them not having a clue even today.

NOTE: That house I got in 2003? I totally should have been one of the people
that got foreclosed on; but the extreme jump in my salary after leaving AT&T
saved me.

~~~
michaelchisari
Well put. The biggest win won't be in giving the 1% of YCombinator applicants
some kind of "unfair advantage" (something I disagree is even possible), but
in growing that 1%. And that starts by letting potential entrepreneurs know
the startup scene is even an option for them.

------
bellerocky
This is awesome. A diversity of people will bring a diversity of ideas. You
can find highly intelligent, driven people from all walks of life, it's a
shame that there's a process broken in self-selection for software engineering
and bay area startups. Although it's probably not just diverse self-selection
that needs work, I imagine there's probably forms of discrimination and
roadblocks that privileged classes of the majority don't even recognize.

~~~
gordjw
So, as someone who is a privileged class of the majority (white, male, 25-49),
what are the roadblocks?

If there's discrimination, isn't that purely the fault of the Y Combinator
organisers (in this instance), and is this article then an admission that
they've discriminated in the past?

~~~
viiralvx
Black male here, aged 18-25, Computer Science and Design student in my final
semester of University. The roadblocks from a racial perspective is lack of
resources and education, there is a fair amount of poverty within black
America. Did you have access to a computer growing up? Maybe you had one or
two in your house? Then you may have been able to learn more about programming
from a younger age, or maybe you had a computer lab in your school...On the
other hand, maybe you are also assumed to be inadequate by society because of
your skintone, you are automatically stereotyped to be unintelligent or a
subpar developer. Those are the roadblocks we have to face, whether it stems
from society or socioeconomic status, we have to work twice as hard to prove
ourselves in America.

~~~
coffeemug
I'm a white startup founder in SV.

Systematic discrimination due to unequal access to infrastructure really,
really sucks for the black community as a whole, but if you managed to
overcome it as an individual there are multiple interrelated reasons why you
have a massive advantage in startups/tech that you probably aren't aware of
yet.

Firstly, the market is ruthless. You can't lie to yourself or others in a
startup -- the thing you're doing _really_ has to work, so the decisions
you're making have to be _right_. You're white, had a great education, and a
well-padded resume? If you don't make precisely the right choices, the market
couldn't care less, your company will die. Now, white well educated people
with well-padded resumes will probably have easier access to venture capital,
but that brings me to my next point.

In my (totally unscientific) experience, skin color, education, and experience
has no correlation whatsoever with fluid intelligence (essentially, how well
you make decisions without knowledge). In a big company, fluid intelligence
doesn't really matter all that much -- the culture is well established, you
aren't that important, and if you can just play ball the way everyone else
does, you'll do ok. Not so in a startup. In a startup you're dealing with
completely new territory, so you have to figure things out from scratch, all
the time. You might as well take your knowledge, and your experience, and your
education, and throw it all away because it will make a zilch of difference.
Fluid intelligence is everything because you have to figure everything out
from scratch.

All the white, well-educated, experienced young men who have relatively easy
access to VC capital? Without fluid intelligence and wits about them, they'll
just burn through it and be left with nothing at the end. The market is
ruthless -- it doesn't care. So you're on equal footing.

Finally, the space is hyper-competitive and even in a recession there is too
much capital chasing too few good ideas. All those white, traditional, middle
aged male VC partnerships _really_ need a win. And I mean _really_ , because
if they don't get one they won't raise the next fund, and if they don't raise
the next fund they won't be able to pay property taxes and their kids's
private school tuitions, and they really, really don't want to end up there.
Don't like black people? Have unacknowledged bias? Too bad -- your kids are
going to public school next year. So if you come in with a killer idea and the
seeds of a working business, you bet they'll invest. The pressure's too high
not to. They might care what you look like, but the market doesn't care about
them. The market is ruthless and indifferent, and forces them to act ruthless
and indifferent, because if they act on their prejudices their fund will die.

This is getting a bit long, so here's my TL;DR: if you've been discriminated
against your whole life and want to start a company, don't get discouraged.
The market is ruthless and indifferent -- it doesn't care about you, or me, or
anyone. For you, that's an advantage. Build something people want and you
_will_ be rewarded.

~~~
sheri
> Now, white well educated people with well-padded resumes will probably have
> easier access to venture capital, but that brings me to my next point.

Isn't this really the key here? I agree with your other arguments about
ultimately needing to have fluid intelligence etc. But assuming two people
(one white, one black) have the same amount of intelligence, smarts etc, but
one raises $10 million from Sequoia and the other doesn't. That pretty much
makes the difference between succeeding and failing. There are ideas which are
so world-changing or brilliant that the market and VC's just can't ignore
their eventual prominence (Google maybe?). There are other ideas which need
lots of capital and talent injection in order to nurture them to the point
where they are big.

~~~
coffeemug
Of course! But in the startup world you get to pick your market, your product,
your idea -- everything. If you don't have access to capital, don't pick an
idea that requires a large capital injection before product/market fit because
that's where you have the biggest advantage. You get to pick your battlefield
here, and if you're smart you'll pick one where _you_ have the advantage.

Once you get to product/market fit, you'll get capital no matter who you are
or where you come from. The market pressure is too strong for people not to
invest.

------
edw519
One of the things I love so much about being in the high tech world is its
natural tendency for a (more) level playing field.

It shouldn't (and often doesn't) matter what you look like, where you came
from, or who you are. What really matters is the value produced for others by
_what you do_.

This sounds like a great step in promoting that property to those who may not
have experienced it before. I have a feeling it may work out real well for
lots of people.

~~~
Stefanrio
> It shouldn't (and often doesn't) matter what you look like

So why exactly do they need to recruit more black people? Instead of like,
everyone?

~~~
dethstar
Because "like, everyone" (aka people in the demographic they have supported as
of now) often have had more chances/advantages in their lives. Listening to
some ideas from people with different backgrounds couldn't hurt.

~~~
Cakez0r
Black is not a background, though.

------
sama
to be very clear, we do just try to recruit the best people regardless of
race, gender, etc.

you have to cast a wide net to do that.

~~~
thaumaturgy
The article doesn't say what you're doing to recruit more minorities. Are you
making a PR effort, or developing different business contacts, or starting a
new program, or...?

Just curious. (And glad you're making the effort.)

~~~
cdmoyer
The 3rd or 4th paragraph discusses the strategy. (No hard details.)

> It's adding black colleges to its recruiting swing this > fall, as well as
> reaching out to groups with strong ties > to the black community to increase
> the pool of applicants, > Altman said.

------
whudz
Just figured I should take this opportunity to say, I'm black (and female!)
and an entrepreneur. Right now my cofounder (also black) and I are building 20
software products in 20 weeks. You can read about it at
[http://www.munocreative.com/blog](http://www.munocreative.com/blog).
#shamelessplug

We previously wouldn't have applied to Y combinator because of remarks like
these:

"I can be tricked by anyone who looks like Mark Zuckerberg. There was a guy
once who we funded who was terrible. I said: ‘How could he be bad? He looks
like Zuckerberg!’”

\--Paul Graham, New York Times
([http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/magazine/y-combinator-
sili...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/magazine/y-combinator-silicon-
valleys-start-up-machine.html?pagewanted=all))

Seeing as not even a Stanford degree and overpriced American Apparel hoodie
can make us look like Mark Zuckerberg.

...but hey---this move by Sam actually seems like a good sign!

------
newaccountfool
Surely Y Combinator should just recruit people that do the job the best,
whether they are white,black..etc

~~~
rewind
I'm pretty sure that "recruit", in this context, means "expose to Y Combinator
and encourage to apply if they have a good idea", not "give them a higher
chance of being accepted because they are black".

~~~
Jun8
The distinction you describe is exactly the case, I think, yet the word
"recruit" may lead to confusion.

------
Quizz
YC is tech specific; it's self selecting, so any tech entrepreneur regardless
of color will apply to YC. Are there other tech accelerators with higher black
applicants? Maybe the pipe starts in elementary school and not age 22. YC's
efforts would be more effective inspiring inner city black children in nearby
communities to take an interest in tech.

------
known
Google "Map Shows Most Racist People On Earth".
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15/a-fascinating-
map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-racially-tolerant-countries/)

------
kyro
Does being Egyptian qualify me for this? I am technically an African American.
I'm half-serious.

------
fwn
Such a statement will probably result in good press.

It may be racist to regard skin color in recruiting decisions but I think this
will not end up being used against YC since most people don't care as long as
whites are not favoured. I guess it's regular csr marketing.

------
jedanbik
I'd rather Y Combinator make an effort to recruit more black entrepreneurs
than make an effort to not recruit more black entrepreneurs.

------
sssilver
Something about this headline feels wrong.

~~~
ramigb
I agree, but them down voters don't agree.

------
antonioevans
bullshit. we got a YC interview for summer 2014. We had almost 200k in revenue
and outpaced it (2 months later) almost 400k. I am black spanish guy and
cofounder female latin. Only people in our interview who look like us (or in
the whole place). Not being angry at all just saying this is a publicity in my
opinion. Our model didn't fit into what they were investing on at the time. We
didn't need money but wanted to be part of YC. But i will tell you no one
looked like us.

~~~
livelybc
It used to be that looking like Mark Zuckerberg would increase your chances of
getting in. I think that speaks a lot to the kinds of bias that may exist.

~~~
antonioevans
I didn't feel bias at all. The bias is towards companies that fit a model they
like and if they can find entrepreneurs who can execute on that model. Has
nothing to do with race. But one thing yes the "startup" system isn't really
built to accelerate certain communities. the biggest thing is access. It's
same in lots of industries and YC/startups aren't the only ones that deal with
it.

------
infoseckid
I hate it when someone says we'd like to fund more from a "minority" such as
women or black people or XXX like YC has done in the past. What does this do?

1\. For the minority this makes them feel like they "need help" and they are
"not good enough" unless they are given an unfair advantage

2\. For the majority, it makes them feel sidelined and at an unfair
disadvantage when applying

YC needs to just promote entrepreneurship and not colour. For the record, I am
a coloured man, unfortunately not black to be able to take advantage of this
latest "minority giveaway"

