
What I Didn't Say (2013) - lisper
http://www.paulgraham.com/wids.html
======
wand3r
PG seems like a good guy and there doesn't seem to be evidence or allegations.
He co-founded YC with a woman who he attributes a lot of the companies success
to. YC did a lot for ALL founders during his stead.

The point is, in a climate which was less politically charged He, a person who
has no track record, is still painted as someone who is part of the problem.

Some ramifications:

\- people find these stories less credible

\- alienation of allys either directly or indirectly

\- undue backlash

\- distrust of media (interviewer and audience)

\- lowers bar for being a "bad person" and creates noise. E.g. PGs quote vs.
McClure's actions potentially grouped into the same convo.

It's so hard to see both sides of things now in a climate much more intense
and does less due diligence.

Tldr: Agenda first journalism is causing more problems than it solves.

~~~
malandrew
> Agenda first journalism is causing more problems than it solves.

That's not journalism. That's activism and advocacy masquerading as
journalism. In other words, it's propaganda. Things were better, when pieces
that were clearly opinionated were in the Opinions section of the newspaper.
Now entire newspapers are opinions.

To be fair, pure objectivity is impossible unless you only present facts and
avoid selective omission, but it doesn't mean we can't strive to try and be as
objective as possible. Saying that it's impossible to be objective, so we
shouldn't even bother trying is at the root of our current problems.

~~~
meowface
It's very disheartening. Almost every news source has become like this. (Or
maybe it was this way for a long time and I never really noticed? Who knows.)

I know inflammatory editorial injections into headlines and articles can
increase the amount of clicks and ad revenue, but I wonder how much of this is
a marketing tactic and how much is a genuine shift towards heightened
polarization among newspaper staff.

~~~
malandrew
I think it's increasingly polarization and a desire to be a participant in the
story. The media doesn't just want to report the story. They want to
manipulate stories into something they can milk for weeks and months.

------
jon_richards
Not completely on topic, but one thing I've noticed in having my name attached
to an online account is that I often start to make a comment, realize it could
be considered vaguely political, and delete it.

In my mind, all my political beliefs are perfectly rational and I have nothing
to gain by putting them out there for others to demonize ("give me six lines"
and all that). Which of course leads to me never having my beliefs challenged
and potentially having to change them.

~~~
autokad
whats worse, is a specific comment you make can be an eternal judgement about
you, as if you could not change your mind since then. i say things that i
might change my mind on the very same day. i say things i dont even agree with
when i said them.

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coziestSoup
It always pleasantly surprises me how well PG is able to put his thoughts into
words. I feel like I have had many of the same insights as him, but would
never for the life of me be able to explain it to someone else or put it down
as an essay for everyone to see.

~~~
DenisM
Start writing, and remember to go back and improve your earlier work. Lucidity
comes with experience.

------
tnecniv
Reminds me of an old Mad Magazine bit (I'm sure it didn't originate there)
where someone gives a scathing review of a movie and the PR guy hacks a
positive one together through creative use of ellipses.

~~~
slyall
A good version of this here:

[https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2015/sep/09/legend...](https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2015/sep/09/legend-
review-movie-marketing-false-advertising)

plus some general stuff about the practice

------
austenallred
I also feel this applies to Google. It's really difficult to hire female
engineers right now because there aren't enough of them.

That doesn't mean they aren't capable or able or interested, it just means if
you look st, for example, the graduating classes of CS majors, they're
disproportionately male. It's hard for a company (or an accelerator) to fix
that.

~~~
Jach
I don't really think it'd be that hard, you just have to be willing to do
introductory training like companies used to do. Bemoaning the pipeline is
lazy. My alma mater
([https://www.digipen.edu/about/history/](https://www.digipen.edu/about/history/))
started as a simulation and animation company, but lacking a talent pool to
hire from, they created their own by having a training program and then
founding a school with Nintendo for the purpose of growing the video game
programmer and 3D animation pools.

So instead of whiteboard hazing, companies like Google could open up some
positions to anyone interested (not just those with relevant degrees or
experience), filter with a quick IQ test (or
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderlic_test](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderlic_test)),
and if the person passes a threshold, welcome them aboard and start training.
There's no pipeline issues now, the only thing that could account for a
non-50% split of male and female applicants is an average difference of
interest, wherever that comes from.

~~~
malandrew
Even if you start a program to train people because the current pipeline is
inadequate, how do you do you achieve a specific ratio of men to women without
being willfully discriminatory.

Admission criteria should be blind to protected characteristics like gender
and race.

------
leifaffles
Not much has changed, unfortunately. =/

------
abefetterman
I think journalists are snakes in general, but I don't see PG's argument that
his statement is not sexist. His expanded argument seems to be:

1\. A hacker ethos from a decade of programming is required to start a company
like Facebook.

2\. There are few women who have the hacker ethos already

3\. YC can objectively determine who has a hacker ethos

4\. YC cannot teach the hacker ethos in 3 months

5\. This is the main reason YC does not accept many women

I think that there are a number of problems with this series of arguments,
some of which are rooted in systemic sexism:

1\. There are many great companies started by non-programmers. What PG calls a
"hacker ethos" and his decision that it is necessary are both based on
observing the output of a biased system that favors white males.

2\. This doesn't seem to line up to me. >20% of CS grads are female yet <10%
of YC founders are female (lower rate in early classes).

3\. We know this is not true, as we all have cognitive biases. Some adjustment
for this bias should be implemented if we want to have a fair system.

4\. Maybe. But why not even try?

5\. See #2. Maybe there is another reason, but this doesn't explain the very
small number of female founders on its own.

~~~
askafriend
You completely and utterly misrepresented what he was saying in this post
which makes me question whether you read it in the first place.

Let me roughly refute your points (I don't have time to go more in depth right
now, sorry):

1\. He never said a hacker ethos is _required_.

2\. He's saying _he believes_ that development of a hacker ethos takes
significant time and that _may explain_ why there are few women at the time of
his statement who seem to have it. Point being that cultivating it en masse is
generational.

3\. He never makes this claim, you seem to be extrapolating it heavily.

4\. This point is accurate but you stripped the context.

5\. He's saying the skewed funnel doesn't allow for YC to have a higher ratio
of women. Phrasing matters, and I think yours is inaccurate. You also injected
the phrase "main reason" which he never claims.

~~~
abefetterman
From The Information interview:

You can tell what the pool of potential startup founders looks like. There's a
bunch of ways you can do it. You can go on Google and search for audience
photos of PyCon, for example, which is this big Python conference.

That's a self-selected group of people. Anybody who wants to apply can go to
that thing. They're not discriminating for or against anyone. If you want to
see what a cross section of programmers looks like, just go look at that or
any other conference, doesn't have to be PyCon specifically.

