
Here Are The Women of Y Combinator And They Are Awesome - canistr
http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/30/ladies-of-y-combinator/
======
victork2
Ah I love these moments when I know that I am writing a risky post and I will
very likely be downvoted, but here it comes!

How is this fair? Doesn't it qualify as "sexism"? You know the thing that was
heavily debated on HN in the last weeks when some people were treated based on
their gender? "I mean these people are put forward because they are %s, and if
they were not %s they would not even qualify to a full page article. Based on
that story %s seem to have an easier time because of their gender" % (
"women", "women", "women"). Sorry for the Pythonic syntax but if you saw "men"
instead of "women" you'd have totally different stories and the big S word:
sexism.

Plus, the ideas might be good for business but it's very very "girly". If I
were a girl I would certainly feel kind of weird that out of the 4 ideas 1 is
directed towards women, 2 are directly relevant to "standard" feminine tastes:
clothing. Also the journalist is a woman... I want to see women promising us
Big Data analysis or the new portal around cars, not some stuff that reinforce
stereotypes!

I am sorry but I will say that sexism is gone when EVERY trace of it will have
disappeared, and there won't be any "X women that succeed and they are
awesome" but the title will be "Z ideas that will help you buy clothes" with
guys and girls in the same article.

~~~
naner
_How is this fair?_

Why does it need to be fair? This isn't grade school... (For the record, I
don't think this article is unfair but I don't see why that would matter.)

 _Doesn't it qualify as "sexism"?_

No... How would this be sexism (discrimination based on gender)?

 _if you saw "men" instead of "women" you'd have totally different stories and
the big S word: sexism._

Huh? There's no reason to highlight "The Men of YC". There's nothing
remarkable about a bunch of guys trying to get tech startups off the ground.
Women are typically underrepresented in this group, so this is noteworthy.

 _Plus, the ideas might be good for business but it's very very "girly"._

Websites that cater to women are few and far between, women are typically
willing to spend a lot of money on these types of sites, and it shouldn't be
suprising that women develop businesses that they themselves would want to
use. If you haven't noticed most startups tend to be a bunch of geeky guys
developing geek-related crap that only geeks are really interested in. Same
difference.

 _Also the journalist is a woman..._

And? Isn't that appropriate? I'm sure the article would be fine if a male
journalist wrote it but you shouldn't be suprised that a female journalist was
hilighting sucessful women in tech.

Your weird interpretation of sexism is baffling.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_Huh? There's no reason to highlight "The Men of YC". There's nothing
remarkable about a bunch of guys trying to get tech startups off the ground._

This is true. From an information theoretic perspective, this story more
interesting than the converse would be. However, I've been told many times
that information theory and probability is not a defense against charges of
sexism.

For example, consider the question "do you plan to have children soon?" From
an information theory perspective, it provides useful information when making
a hiring decision. And the information is more notable for a woman than for a
man, since a woman who gives an affirmative answer is far more likely than a
man to vanish from the workforce. Yet it's normally considered sexist to ask
this question, particularly if you ask the question only of women.

How do you reconcile this difference?

------
alphakappa
Disclaimer: I am a guy.

I apologize if this comes off as a strange sentiment, but I find stories like
this pretty condescending. It's almost like reading a story about some
achievement by a kid with special needs and I need to stand up and cheer for
these women. These women are amazing for whatever they have done, regardless
of gender.

~~~
waterlesscloud
Really, how is it different from "Minnesotans in YCombinator" or "Indians in
YCombinator"? It's someone choosing to highlight and celebrate a subgroup in a
particular feature article. I don't see anything condescending about it at
all.

~~~
AznHisoka
it's condescending because as a guy, and someone who has worked very very
hard, sometimes you ask yourself: but what about me? I deserve some kudos as
well.

~~~
jlees
It's also condescending towards the women. It's really hard to shake the
internal feeling that perhaps you only got featured because of your gender,
and not your brilliant idea, as well as the external perception that that may
be the case. I don't think posts like this benefit either audience, in fact.

A hard working guy with a world-changing idea shouldn't be overlooked in
favour of a mediocre woman who is remarkable because she is a woman.

~~~
ktothemc
I also think that Y Combinator's application process and brand is so
meritocratic that it deflects the effect you're talking about.

~~~
jlees
Yes, but Techcrunch choosing to explicitly feature the women from YC, not the
interesting ideas from YC, creates the effect -- that's what I'm referring to.
Mind you, being in YC may minimise the impostor syndrome.

~~~
ktothemc
TC has written a dedicated post to virtually every single YC startup from
every batch for the last several years. We did about a dozen posts on Demo Day
alone this week. So writing _one_ article that points out that YC is more
diverse than it used to be out of the 100 or so we will probably ultimately
write about companies from this class seems reasonable to me.

~~~
jlees
In which case, I'd love to see companion articles on other types of diversity
to remove this debate entirely.

------
jcampbell1
The fact that these businesses are run by women is only tangentially relevant.

Shoptiques is a particularly interesting business. It creates value where none
really existed before. Boutiques can't establish a real web presence, and mid
market girls don't have access to NY/LA/London boutiques. This is an online
business that creates value from thin air. Execution is the key, and the execs
seem to be totally on track.

99 dresses is a potential home run but like all marketplace businesses it is
tough. My favorite thing is that they are so low class. I love the idea that
chicks are swapping dresses from F21. It is just so real and honest. I want
them to be a major success just to spite the people behind renttherunway.

The daily muse looks like a newspaper to me, so I don't get the business.
Hireart seems like a gimmick.

Women or no women, I'll be an ass and say what I think.

~~~
daemon13
> Women or no women, I'll be an ass and say what I think.

Excellent point. I think the key to true equality is to disregard the
differences (gender, race, religion, citizenship, etc) and just look at simple
things, such as performance, execution, success, value creation.

------
gnok
What stood out to me immediately, is that 3 of the 4 sets of founders are
first generation immigrants.

~~~
dmix
It's Americas secret weapon <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK0Y9j_CGgM>

~~~
sliverstorm
*Secret weapon we are trying desperately to get rid of

------
vaksel
I find it interesting that none of them are technical founders. Were there no
women who coded in this batch?

~~~
defrost
I carefully read the article several times and notice there is no mention of
these womens ability to make coffee or sandwiches either.

I'd have to infer that at least some of them can both cook and code, and
further that neither fact was significant in of itself in being able to found
an internet based business.

Obviously it can save money if you can make your own sandwiches, which many
may choose to do.

~~~
vaksel
one is important...the other is not

~~~
defrost
Never underestimate the business value of being able to make a good sandwich,
appreciate a good meal, and to make people comfortable.

As the comment I replied to remarked about the tech ability of the founders
I'd have to say that I'm willing to bet that the young Australian woman that
started a trading site with her younger brother very probably has a good grip
on the mechanics of web site building and operation. Further she appears to
have had the good sense to outsource for the tech when scaling up for the
American market.

I've been involved in a number of businesses that have gone from small to
international, nearly half with women founders and nearly half with tech
founders (with some overlap). In almost all cases the telling important
factors weren't gender or tech ability but that elusive EQ ... the ability of
the founders to rally a team and have them hold the faith while deals were
formed and products deployed.

------
rdl
How did the author overlook the female construction engineer of PlanGrid (one
of my favorite YC startups this batch), or the domain expert (pharmacist) at
MedMonk (which is one of the more likely to save lives of the YC batch)?

------
mhartl
_Blah blah gender blah blah sexism_ , etc., etc. We may have reached the
Seymour Skinner point here at HN: "I don't have any opinions anymore. All I
know is that no one is better than anyone else and everyone is the best at
everything." (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girls_Just_Want_to_Have_Sums>)

------
ekalvi
Sexism exists in technology and especially the startup world. I've seen it
over-and-over again in my experience.

My wife and I co-founded a successful web company together. We have pretty
much the exact same background: Engineering grads from same program at the
same school, same age within 10 days of each other, we both worked in SV as
software engineers before launching our startup. We even both played
competitive soccer.

However, over the years it is has been a common occurrence that with an
introduction to a new tech/startup person, there's an assumption that I'm the
technical person. I get spoken to in that way, and my wife is assumed to be
non-(or less)-technical than I am. In one such a meeting, we were asked who is
the CEO (from a veteran entrepreneur), she responded that she was, and the guy
chuckled. We asked him why what was so funny about that? He mumbled and
tripped over his words without explanation.

When we work together, thoughts of gender don't even come to mind. We're too
damn busy trying to build something that someone gives a sh __about.

------
barry-cotter
Hirealert is interesting independently of the founding team but once they get
any real traction they've got a target a mile wide on them for implicit
discrimination lawsuits in the USA for any videos that make it possible to
distinguish ethnicity. This effects voice explanations as well.

Also this

 _We really try to work with data to understand which questions work the best.
You can think about it like designing the SATs for different jobs_

is for all practical purposes illegal in the USA due to Griggs v. Duke Power
Company[0] and the misbegotten offspring of legal reasoning uncontaminated by
any knowledge of statistics that is the 80% rule[1].

But who knows they might survive and thrive and hiring is a ridiculously huge
market. Good luck to them.

[0]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Company>

[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_impact#The_80.25_rule>

------
OpenAmazing
"Vidisheva isn’t just a pretty face..."

What's up with that?

~~~
waterlesscloud
Ordinarily, I'd agree with that criticism. But the preceding paragraphs talk
about her modeling experience (which is valid because it's a fashion-related
startup). So to me it seems fair to play off that.

~~~
sliverstorm
Yeah, that just sounds like journalistic flair to me. You could easily see the
same from the other direction, "Mr. Schwarzenegger isn't just a bundle of
muscles..."

------
citizenkeys
Funding female founders arises from the same basic logic of funding minority
founders: it's just good business.

For every demographic that you consciously or unconsciously ignore as an
investor or business owner, you're depriving yourself of all the potential
business that demographic attracts.

------
zitterbewegung
Aren't they forgetting Jessica Livingston? This should be titled "The Women in
the ycombinator batch"

~~~
jl
I think it is clear that she's writing about female founders in this batch and
not YC partners.

She neglected to include the co-founders of Plangrid (Tracy Young) and Medmonk
(Somaira Punjwani). They, too, have fascinating backgrounds. (Since
presentations were only 2.5 minutes, it was easy to miss some if you had to
leave the room.)

