
Female Founders of Y Combinator’s Winter 2013 Class - dmor
http://www.daniellemorrill.com/2013/03/meet-the-9-female-founders-of-y-combinators-winter-2013-class/
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whitehat2k9
Number of females with an explicit mention of technical expertise: 0.

~~~
jquery
As a coder, why would you join one of these companies with non-technical
founders instead of just building or co-founding your own product and
collecting vastly more equity? I don't see the draw.

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dmor
75% equity in a company with a product no one knows about, or 30% equity in a
company everyone uses?

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jquery
By the time everyone is using it, it's too late to be a co-founder and 30%
equity is certainly out the window.

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dmor
You're right, and by that point they don't need a technical cofounder, they
just hire an engineer as an employee. Getting work with people who can
actually reliably acquire customers is as valuable as getting to work with
someone who can reliably write code.

[http://www.daniellemorrill.com/2010/09/startup-
marketing-2nd...](http://www.daniellemorrill.com/2010/09/startup-
marketing-2nd-class-citizen-2nd-rate-results/)

~~~
jquery
Is it? Of the most highly traffic'd sites, the vast majority have technical
founders: Facebook, Google, YouTube, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, Twitter.
I'm not saying marketing isn't valuable, but it seems neither necessary nor
sufficient.

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dmor
I'm not saying it's mutually exclusive, and having a CS or other engineering
degree is neither necessary nor sufficient to create a company.

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colmvp
Looking forward to the meet x male African American and x male Hispanic
American Founders of YC.

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dmor
I'd love to write those posts for you, but I believe it was 0 and 0 for this
batch.

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kclay
Maybe I should join next batch hehe

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lanthe
You missed me.

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dmor
I'm sorry Iolanthe, Vu let me know and I am going to update the post as soon
as I can (just trying to keep the site up with 2 simultaneous front page
stories at the moment). So sorry!

Hey everyone, meet Iolanthe is CEO and cofounder of Swish.com - a YC W13
company that let's you pre-order products from all over the web.

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ch4ch4
Why are there no female engineers?

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beambot
Fei Deyle (CEO of Lollipuff & my wife) is an EE by training. Before Lollipuff,
she was an regional sales director at a company selling electrical power SCADA
software / hardware. She quit that job to do Lollipuff. Trust me... she's a
hardcore engineer at heart -- she just loves fashion too.

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jpdoctor
> _As is the team’s “Food Wench”_

:facepalm:

 _don’t get all up in arms_

Excellent. It's just marketing by using words that would otherwise be
pejorative.

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groby_b
It's actually not pejorative. (The term "wenching", however, is. Go English
language! :)

It's not the most fortunate choice of title, but given that they're trying to
create a pirate context - I'm not sure it's worth getting too upset about.

(And please, before somebody wants to throw sexism accusations my way, do
check my posting history :)

Edit: I stand corrected. If urbandictionary is your source of what language
means, it _is_ pejorative. Interesting. I wonder if Vanessa was even aware of
that.

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jpdoctor
_It's actually not pejorative. (The term "wenching", however, is. Go English
language! :)_

I've linked elsewhere: First defn from first hit on google:
<http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wench>

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mbrameld
When I type "define wench" in to Google I get this before the Urban Dictionary
result: Noun A girl or young woman.

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testing12341234
Unfortunately, you stopped short according to [0]

wench (wnch)

n.

1\. _A young woman or girl_ , especially a peasant girl.

2\. A woman servant.

3\. A wanton woman.

intr.v. wenched, wench·ing, wench·es

To consort or engage in sex with wanton women. Used of a man.

[0] <http://www.thefreedictionary.com/wench>

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jack-r-abbit
and <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wench>: a historical British Modern English
colloquial term for a lower class woman and/or promiscuous woman. Also in the
19th and early 20th centuries a term for a black woman, the male counterpart
being "buck", both of which would be considered offensive and derogatory in
modern times.

and <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wench>: a lewd woman :
prostitute

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sliverstorm
"buck" is supposed to be offensive? Damnit, I have been dropping the ball on
getting offended.

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jack-r-abbit
Ya... I'm pretty sure I've dropped the ball on getting offended too. I should
probably be offended at least 3-5 times a day. But as it turns out... I have a
sense of humor. Apparently, with a sense of humor one does not get offended.
Even less so if the offenses are "in theme." Who knew?

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loganfrederick
Typo in: "Grace Garey – Wasti". Should be Watsi.

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benatkin
It appears to have been fixed.

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areyoumental
I don't care if they're female or not.

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caseorganic
Thank you. I'm much more interested in 'people' in tech and interesting
founders. What about the most interesting founders in the class? The most
interesting 'people' in the class? So many people are excited about one kind
of person in tech that they draw attention in the wrong way.

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groby_b
As a woman in tech - the existence of role models is important. They often get
lost in the noise. Having them pointed out in a separate post is nice. It's
not like they're taking away precious bits from male founders :)

And our industry sure could use a bit more diversity, so attracting non-male
(and/or non-white) people to work in it is a good idea.

And I'm not saying that because it'd be nice to have a few more women around,
so things wouldn't be quite as lonely - there's a clear benefit to diversity.
See e.g. [https://infocus.credit-
suisse.com/app/article/index.cfm?fuse...](https://infocus.credit-
suisse.com/app/article/index.cfm?fuseaction=OpenArticle&aoid=360157&lang=EN)

Why it is especially important in areas that require innovation:
[http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/hr_neale_groupdive...](http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/hr_neale_groupdiversity.shtml)

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jami
Judging by the username, you are preaching to the head of the choir on women
belonging in tech. Her point about getting attention for the wrong reasons is
a fair one, as is yours about role models. Who knows what's ideal, besides
continuing to prove we can do this stuff.

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groby_b
I'm curious how my username would trigger that thought?

I also had no idea caseorganic was a woman :)

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jami
Whoops, I meant that judging by c.o.'s username, we're all on Team More Ladies
In Tech Good. I recognized her username because with more time, I would have
liked to use her company's API on a project I worked on.

