A lot of debate has been raging whether or not the Valley has racial undertones that inhibits minorities from succeeding.
This post is purely my opinion on this topic, coming from my perspective as both a business person and entrepreneur of middle eastern descent.
Before I jump into my personal opinions, I wanted to give you some background about me. I started a company in college and sold it to Chegg in 2006. I worked in various roles from product marketing manager to my current roles as VP of Marketing for Kno and have either had discussions, worked on projects with or interacted with a number of Venture Capitalists and entrepreneurs throughout my last 5 years in the valley. Meanwhile, despite some success I also have been rejected from YC twice and have failed to raise money for some of my projects for a number of reasons, none of which I believe had to do with the race card.
Here is what I learned from the valley:
1. It's much less about racism, but rather more of an issue of pattern recognition. Investors are looking for people that follow a particular pattern. For example, did the entrepreneur go to Harvard, did they work for Google, are they an active member of Hacker news, etc. This is not because they are racists, but rather because this is cognitive instinct, its what they believe works since it's what they are most familiar with. It's the same patterns that sport scouts use to find raw talent. There are also a lot of examples where world class founders broke stereotypical patterns of what makes a great founder and the rule of any great vc is their willingness to break any rule.
2. The valley isn't a meritocracy but rather a referal-tocracy. The valley breathes with referrals. Every meeting I had, every opportunity I got was a result of a referral, rather than the work I achieved- great work is expected. Nobody gave a shit that my name was Ousama, it's how do you rate this guy in terms of quality, intelligence and determination and his idea. And if they were skiddish for any reason, which I don't believe so, then open their fucking eyes, by proving your not what they expected!!!!
3. Educate people about your culture. It's amazing how often people have misconceptions about things, if they do exist, it's not because they are inherently racist but because they simply have had limited interactions with a certain type of of person. Whether it's their culture, religion or academic background, don't be afraid to open conversations about your identity with the people you work with, investors or other entrepreneurs. The valley is one of the most open societies i have seen, and trust me I grew up in a small redneck town in Wisconsin, this place is like heaven.
