
Startup52, a “diversity-focused accelerator” - alehul
http://www.bizjournals.com/newyork/news/2016/03/28/startup52-chief-too-many-vcs-dont-see-diversity-as.html
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cocktailpeanuts
One thing I am very irritated about is how 100% of these diversity advocates
(read "opportunists trying to capitalize on the trend") use some research that
says how diverse companies performed better than non-diverse.

There are so many things wrong about this I don't even know where to start.

First of all "diverse company had higher returns than the median" is such a
bullshit. This is called a "correlation". There is absolutely NO causality
between the two factors and yet these people say "diverse company => higher
returns". Stuff like this where there can be so many variables is not
something you should draw an easy conclusion on.

Second, "higher than median" is NOT something investors are looking for. They
are looking for the Googles and the Facebooks. A lot of these outlier
companies were actually far from diverse when they were startups.

Third, these are interpretations with agenda. And everyone with the same
agenda uses these results to "scientifically" back up their claims. It's
equivalent to cigarette companies funding research to prove that cigarettes
are not bad for health.

I DO believe that diverse team is SOMETIMES good (but not always), but I just
don't like how these opportunists are manipulating the narrative in the name
of "science", just so they can profit from it.

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alehul
From their website, [http://startup52.com/](http://startup52.com/)

>Because we are founder-centric, we place huge emphasis on the capabilities of
the founding team and then the diversity profile. For accepted non-diverse
teams, we work with you to help you diversify your team with your next hires.

This seems like the most blatant disregard of meritocracy in the tech world
yet, and particularly as they're not just employing for a position in which a
slight better performance by a less diverse candidate would hardly affect the
success of the company, but instead it's an accelerator which is betting
entirely on a small number of individuals to have the skill-set necessary to
build a billion dollar company.

~~~
smt88
You assume:

1) Merit is an understood and measurable trait

2) Merit is measurable to a fairly fine degree

3) Diversity does not, in and of itself, increase chances of success

For #3, there's research showing you're assumption is wrong. You can also make
an analogy to any other kind of investing, where if you do the same thing as
everyone else, your results will be average.

~~~
alehul
1) You're somewhat right; 'displayed capability' would likely be better.

2) It doesn't have to be perfectly or flawlessly measurable to be worth
measuring and net a positive result.

3) There's definitely more measurable, tested validity behind typical
'meritocratic' factors used by employers for recruiting than there is for
diversity. For example, does the average Stanford student vs NYU student have
less differentiation than a Black vs White Stanford student?

You're arguing against the 'measurability' and 'increased chance of success'
of these factors (education, work experience) in favor of race or gender or
sexual orientation.

If you truly want diversity, you'd find much more of it from ten individuals
of the same race who all originated from different countries with different
cultures. The difference between Americans of different races, by comparison,
is much, much smaller.

