What's stopping people (who don't meet the criteria for this fund) from hiring a woman of color as their CEO specifically to raise capital from this fund?
You don't have to have an exit if you're a bit more creative with how you extract money out of a corporation you've set up for that purpose. The most ethical is through getting a solid salary paid out to you. Least is outright embezzlement - find a front who doesn't actually have your real name, convince them that the VCs can't know that this is actually your idea so they have to hide your involvement, and disappear with the cash leaving them holding the bag.
If the underlying assumption behind the creation of such a fund is correct, the fact that you'd massively decrease your chance of being funded by capital sources outside this one fund.
The 'person of color' moniker was introduced partly because in the US the adverb 'colored' tended to be used predominantly (if not exclusively) for black people. 'Person of color' was intended to be more inclusive.
From what I understand, how inclusive that term is depends on who you ask and what their goal is in the discourse, but usually it includes all non-white people, where 'white' is used to imply someone of pure 'white' descent (whatever that means). So someone with a 'person of color' in his ancestry (not sure if there is a limit in the number of generations one should include) is a 'person of color' themself.
So Asian women tend to be considered 'women of color', unless that doesn't suit the narrative of the person employing the term.
You can't fight discrimination with discrimination. You fight it with equality. Equal rights and access for everyone. Base it on merit, not the color of skin or the shape of the genitals.
It is not that they have been systematically discriminated against; it is that they are being systematically discriminated against with this very fund. Let's get this straight: You are not cleared of being racist if you are discriminating against a group you deem as "in power". It is simply your careless redefinition of the word racism to apply not to ethnicity or nationality, but to power. This redefinition clears those not in power from being called racist when they explicitly discriminate on racial grounds.
The reason why the majority of funded founders are white men is because white is the majority color in places where there is the most VC money, and men are less risk averse, especially in the more extreme male personality types.
Why is the criteria for determining whether funding is fair centered around a person's sex or ethnicity? Unless the product or service is directed at a relevant demographic, those should be the last considerations on the list.
Is it racist and sexist to use private funds in order to counterbalance what is clearly a long history of racism and sexism in preferring white males in VC capital? You might have a point if the gender/racial makeup of founders were anywhere close to that of the population.
Racism does not depend on history or society, it depends on whether or not there is active racial discrimination. You imply that only the powerful may be racist, and that discrimination towards the racial or gender group "of power" is not only not racist, but a virtuous act.
I don't think that's an argument that it is not sexist and racist. It is expressly so. The argument you are making is that it is justified to be expressly sexist and racist to counterbalance past sexism and racism.
I disagree. To say something is sexist or racist would imply that the intent is to favor these groups due to a belief that they are superior, or due to a hatred toward the other groups rather than as a strategy to counter the effects of historical racism/sexism. You could argue they are discriminatory, though.
I guess we must fundamentally disagree. The decision is based on the sex and race of the founder. That speaks for itself. Justification for it is based on history. All the other dressing up is just an attempt to avoid being labeled a racist/sexist.
> The decision is based on the sex and race of the founder.
What you just described is the definition of discrimination, not racism or sexism. These words have meanings and you can look them up. Saying it's racist and sexist is just a disingenuous way to shore up drama when a more accurate (but less provocative) term is available.
Yes, it is discrimination based on sex and race. I think you are arguing that what matters is the feelings of the person when they discriminate. The intent is the same - choose one over the other because of their sex and race. But if they feel they are righting a past wrong then it is not sexism/racism, whereas if they are doing it because they dislike one group then it is sexism/racism. And that is where the fundamental disagreement lies. I don't subscribe to the feelings argument.
It's not about feelings; it's about intent. The intent is not at all the same, and you know it. There's a huge difference between discrimination designed to suppress a group of people, and discrimination designed to give disadvantaged people a chance that they should have been given in the first place. The former describes 200+ years of American history, and the latter describes a handful of efforts in recent history.
Racism is defined as discrimination based on race or ethnicity.
Sexism is defined as discrimination based on gender or biological sex.
Both are well defined terms in English both in dictionaries and general usage. Stop trying to play games with words and start explaining why you think racism and sexism are ok.
It is really not “racist” and “sexist” in the way that GP is claiming. But you’re either someone who thinks all instances of discrimination are morally equivalent or not.
Yes, this is absolutely racist and sexist. This is explicitly segregating people by gender+race and disallowing people from participating because of their gender or race. Instead of doing this, we should work to ensure that gender and race plays no role in earning VC funding.
If you're a VC fund that discriminates by race and gender in the fight against "racism and sexism", then your definitions of those two terms do not rely on ethnicity or gender at all. The terms "racism and sexism" as used here describe power, first and foremost. Those holding power are necessarily prejudiced, and to discriminate against them cannot be a prejudiced act; by your definition, the minority cannot be prejudiced, and are but victims of prejudice.
The truth is this: To have equality of outcome across race and gender in entrepreneurship is impossible. It's unclear why anyone at all is interested in taking extremely high risk positions as founders of start ups relying on fast growth and with a small amount of burn; to segment that group by racial and gender identity is to shame and belittle the ones deemed "to hold the power". And when they cry out that they are being discriminated against on the basis of race, you are one step ahead of them: Your convenient re-definition of racism to be an act only committed by those of power denies the shamed their rightful defense.
While the goal is laudable, this is surely racist and sexist. The language-control group wants to avoid the label, because then those weaponized words will lose their impact. It remains racist and sexist for a good purpose.
Stating what's obvious by simple definition is something of a waste of time. Or is there a more nuanced difference between racism/sexism and discrimination on grounds of race/sex? Do you have anything to add beyond a simple statement of fact according to your definition? Perhaps a view on whether or not that's axiomatically always a bad thing?
I think that racists and sexists like those behind this fund have gone too long without being told that their bigotry is unacceptable. I think that in the main they want to do the right thing. They need to be told explicitly that racism and sexism are never ok. I hope that if decent people keep saying this and acting on this all racism and sexism can one day be consigned to history.
It is at the very least racial discrimination, as it discriminates on the basis of race who should receive funding. You could argue that it does make the claim that non-colored men have relative superiority, otherwise it would not be able to justify it's abject racism towards them.
You find racial discrimination acceptable? Or also virtuous? Is it a good goal to strive for in 21st century society? Do you find virtue in breaking people up into racial and gendered groups, and then applying pre-calculated policies to "even them out"?
It’s not a goal, it’s a tool to combat systemic racism.
> Do you find virtue
Here’s what I think:
I think there’s no inherent genetic gender or race component that should impact outcomes in people’s relative success. If you believe there is, you are literally a racist or a sexist, by the very definitions of those terms. Given that, if you can predict a group of people’s outcomes based on their race or gender, there is an inequality of opportunity. I believe that the inequality of opportunity should be tackled.
I believe that tackling this is an urgent issue. I believe that affirmative action — like setting up these funds — is a working solution.
I'll give it a go. I first want to say something about the worldview required to do this sort of racial discrimination.
There is no way of quantifying the relative advantages and disadvantages between identity groups. How much is one group oppressed over another? Suppose that a simple tax would suffice to even things out, exactly how much should that tax be? There is no way of knowing precisely what that tax should be. Our attempts to define oppression are never going to be rigorous. They'll always be vague, which I believe is dangerous, since it will be enforced by some large bureaucracy. We need definition, but there will never be definition accurate enough. Feel free to argue me on this, but I don't see how you can do it.
Second, in separating people into these identity groups, you deny my individuality. Every time I speak, I speak as a member of my group, for my group. My actions are actions of and for my group, as well. With the world view taken here, I cannot speak or act without the presupposition that I'm doing it as a move in a power game between my identity group and other identity groups. Should we accept that a person's ethnicity and gender must always qualify their speech and actions?
I agree that in conversation, one can observe the race and gender of the other person - but the merit of their words is still paramount. You may know that a book author is from Spain or Russia, but that does not affect how you read the book. However, in the worldview in which a racially discriminatory VC fund is socially acceptable, people are defined as members of groups among other groups, constantly vying for power and oppressing one another.
Notice I'm not really going after the racially-discriminatory VC fund itself. I'm explaining the worldview in which the fund was conceived, and in which it is socially acceptable. It boils North America down from a melting pot of ambitious individuals trying to do great things with each other, into identity groups that are constantly holding power over, and suffering under the tyranny of, other identity groups. Obviously, the dominant narrative here is that white males are oppressing women of color founders. But you have no idea about the individual biases of the white males you're decrying. And you also have no idea whether or not they achieved funded status based on their competence. Yet you still assume the system is broken, and you still rob them of their individuality, still knowing nothing of their biases and nothing of their competence.
> Keep in mind that not doing anything doesn't seem to fix these things.
Why must we do something? Where is the evidence that people are not choosing to be founders of their free will? How can you be sure that the lack of founder diversity is evidence of a flaw in the system? I say that the system is operating in a very healthy manner.
Efforts to move power to the disadvantaged that disregard individuality has had tragic, deadly results in history (China, Vietnam, USSR).
> There is no way of quantifying the relative advantages and disadvantages between identity groups
I agree with this idea when you talk about giving a very specific quantity, but I'd argue that gathering some data can tell you that there is some significant disadvantage for some group relative to another. But yes, we will never get to a point where every group is 100% exactly equal. I'm not asking for Communism.
> in separating people into these identity groups, you deny my individuality
Yes, and that definitely sucks. I don't like my individuality being denied either. It's definitely a significant drawback, and again, I'd welcome an alternative solution.
> Yet you still assume the system is broken, and you still rob them of their individuality, still knowing nothing of their biases and nothing of their competence
I don't seek to rob white men (like myself) of individuality or to ignore their/my biases or competence or achievements or anything. I've been programming since I was eight but when looking for scholarships, it was harder for me to find any than it was for friends of mine who were in minority groups but didn't have any experience. I still can notice an issue, see people taking steps to solve it, and then decide that while these steps seem quite morally wrong and put me personally at a disadvantage, doing nothing seems like being complicit in something that was created out of the same kind of moral wrongdoings, and isn't getting any better. I'm not a fan of fighting fire with fire, but I don't see a better alternative.
Speaking of alternatives, I don't see you providing any...
> Where is the evidence that people are not choosing to be founders of their free will? How can you be sure that the lack of founder diversity is evidence of a flaw in the system?
You're right that quantifying these things gets messy, but when I look at these things, I see that the system is skewed in favor of white men. Just look at the number "76%" (the amount of white male Venture Capitalists) and the fact that racism and sexism are definitely present today, and then try to say that the system as it is is fair.
If you want to argue that we'll never know what's the optimal amount of fair or that we'll never reach 100% exactly fair, then ok - I agree. If you want to argue that this worldview is bad, then ok - I agree. I also agree that it's bad to take away individuality, and to put people in boxes. But I don't see an alternative, and I do see a problem, and I don't see the solution to be much worse than the origins of the problem.
You are the one using a very strange and tortured definition. Neither racism nor sexism involve power structures they both involve discrimination on racial/ethnic/imagined or gender grounds. This is well established English language stop trying to redefine it.
It _is_ a form of racism and sexism, by definition. You can make an argument that some forms of racism/sexism are not harmful, or even beneficial, to society, but let's not re-define words based on your convenience.
And before you reply, I suggest you look up the definitions in an English dictionary; personally I referenced Merriam-Webster, but most accepted English dictionaries will tell you more or less the same thing.
All: this trainwreck of a flamewar is exactly what we don't want on HN. If you feed flames like the below repeatedly, we will eventually ban you. There's no thoughtful discussion in it, it's all repetitive, and smiting enemies is off topic here.
As it becomes easier for women of color to get funding more will apply for funding. Very few people want to play a game that seems rigged against them.
The standard in silicon valley (and by its own admission, also the standard of YC) was that people who looked like Mark Zuckerberg would get funding. Meaning white, male Harvard/Stanford/MIT undergrads. As a result perfectly qualified candidates get rejected because they don't fit this picture.
There is no reason to presume that people from certain races/ethnicities/genders make for better or worse startup founders. However, when certain demographics get basically never funded, then capable, motivated, qualified founders don't even bother to apply. Even when there is no actual discrimination the negative cycle continues. Breaking this cycle is a social good.
It's like Hollywood. For a long time women of color never got offered leading roles. Movie Executives just didn't want to take the gamble. But as more and more movies hit the screen with women of color in leading roles the financial risk is lessened. Which results in more opportunities for WoC. This was never about how talented or motivated the actresses were. Hopefully we'll quickly get to the point where a WoC in a leading role is no longer noteworthy. Same for startups.
This is why I appreciate data and numbers. Otherwise discussions devolve to anecdotes, guessing and hyperbole. Sometimes this is enough, but when there's controversy, data/numbers are ideal place to start.
This is not race trolling, dang. Why do you say it is?
It highlights the absurdity of obsession with race. Colour of skin often doesn't even correlate well with race, and even if it did, it's a ridiculous measure to use as a guide for anything.
To me it was obvious that lizardskull's comment has the same meaning.
It seems other HN readers understood this.
I'm not sure what "race trolling" is but if you think my comment suggests I am racist please delete it. That could not be further from the truth. I don't live in a part of the world that is totally obsessed with race and am sometimes bewildered by how Americans put everything down to race.
I call it race trolling because it doesn't even try to engage with another perspective, it just uses high-activation language to make a point snarkily. There's no place on HN for that.
Regardless of what you think of the OP, there's a long history of people causing other people suffering around skin color and shades of skin color. Given that, playing glibly with this language to make a cheap point is guaranteed to make the discussion polarized and useless. By doing that, you damage this site. You need to clear a minimum bar for substantiveness if you want to post to HN, and that comment didn't come close.
I disagree, and it's okay we disagree. I believe you using high-activation language saying nothing but "race troll" doesn't even try to engage the point OP and I were making.
Please just delete my comment above. It obviously didn't serve its purpose well so there's no point it being there.
Ironically, in the context of this conversation, I’m both a white male in tech and also a minority in the city I live in.
If someone set up a white male VC fund I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole.
I’ve dealt with plenty of racism, on the job and just living my life, but I understand that being a minority means dealing with (often unconscious) biases.
Is this ok? No, people should be better.
But I would never take a handout as contentious as this. The message here, regardless of intention, is that black women cannot compete on merit.
> But I would never take a handout as contentious as this.
That's your choice.
> is that black women cannot compete on merit.
If woman of colour could compete on merit alone, I'm sure we'd see greater numbers in tech, but we don't. Unless you believe that people of colour are inherently incapable of these jobs, which I'm sure you don't :)
As a white male -- presumably the victim of the fund mentioned in the OP -- could you explain to me what is bad about the way this fund is set up? I don't mean ideologically, but empirically what you think are negative consequences of it.
It normalises racism and sexism. If it is OK to discriminate in one way on racial or gender grounds why not another?
Let's get one thing clear. Just because you look like other people you don't get to speak for them. You don't represent all white males any more than the Grand Wizard of the KKK does. Your skin colour or gender have no bearing on this - and should have no bearing on your opinion on this.
I think you may have missed when GP explicitly said
>> I don't mean ideologically, but empirically
That said, I disagree with your base claim that
> It normalizes racism and sexism
Those things are already normalized. The idea that everyone has the same opportunities and is treated the same is nice but not matched by reality.
Pushing things in the direction they're already in makes the divide larger. Pushing things in the opposite direction will make the divide smaller - or at least, that's the hope here
Can you tell me how you would decrease the divide? I assume that for starters, you would not give money to people just because they fall into any specific category. But how would you address the racism that already exists, and that has already led and is still leading to some groups having more money than others (to a significant degree)?
Sounds like a good idea, but it doesn't address what I'm looking for. You said "Racism is inherently wrong" and currently what we have seems to be a mix of racism and systemic racism. The vast majority of VC funding goes towards white males, very little goes to females, and even less goes towards black females. Notice that 76% of venture capitalists are white males[0]. Unless you'd like to argue that there's some inherent reason why that's just how it is and always will be, I think we can all agree that clearly there is some artificially created imbalance at play. Sure, black women aren't the majority of the population, but they are 6%, and they are funded 0.2%[1]
How do you fix this artificial imbalance? Because all I hear time and time again is either "Throw money at the problem to tip the scales in the other direction" or "Ignore the problem". If you're gonna say "ignore it" and not provide any reason beyond, then you're leaving the world in its already racist state. Even if nobody says anything racist, the scales are unbalanced and somehow they ought to get tipped a little to fix that. You can't tip those scales without doing something you'd call racist, but not doing anything leaves you in a racist society, so are you just saying that allowing racism is ok but adding racism to diminish other racism is not? Sounds like we'll never really improve with that mindset
When addressing issues in society I prefer taking a universal approach.
So if we look at imbalances in outcomes, there is a lot of it for gender and race. Prison rates, life expectancy, health, work profession, suicide rates, homelessness, wealth, children, social support network and more. There is no inherent reason why that's just how it is and always will be, so what can we do to fix this artificial imbalance overall in society?
Throwing money at it don't work. If one correlate how much money a state is spending on the problem and the result, you get a paradox. The more spending the more imbalanced society tend to get. Recently it also seem to increase polarization which had its own long list of issues. Ignoring the problem is also unlikely to do anything, so it lead me to only a single conclusion and that is look for a solution that has shown positive result. Happily there exist such thing but it has sadly also been mostly abandoned by the political platforms that seeks equality.
That is to say; to eliminate categorization based on gender and race and find commonalities rather than focus on differences. A popular tactic around the 70s, but now mostly abandoned. Its not the same as ignoring since you have to active focus on what is common, and its not the same as current methods with throwing money at specific issues since those focus on what is different based on category of groups. By working to eliminate categorization in people minds you tip the scale without doing anything racist, while still being active in addressing the issue.
I'm not sure where you got the impression I was speaking for other white males, as I don't think I was speaking about anything at all in my post.
"It normalises racism and sexism" still seems pretty deep in the territory of thought experiment, so I'm still having trouble seeing exactly what are the human consequences of this -- could you give me explicit examples of how this fund negatively impacts individual people (whether or not they are the targeted beneficiaries of the fund)?
Secondly, that detail was mentioned because, as I am neither a woman or a POC, my original question was less likely to be coming from a place of personal bias (“talking my book”, so to speak).
There's something of "In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges" in your victimhood concept. Or updating the concept to current times, forbidding those who can couch surf indefinitely with friends in a dozen cities and the friendless from sleeping in their car.
In aggregate, the white people I know do have more couch surfing opportunities than women of color. And more VC access. But individually, some do not, through no fault of their own, only the circumstances they were born into. To take an extreme example: Elizabeth Holmes, who is also a "victim" of this fund, is never actually going to need this fund; her father has a direct line of communication to Henry Kissinger and was able to raise 10x this funds entire capital. What I'm trying to say is this kind of concept actually doesn't victimize the most privileged like Holmes, and maybe you (?) but it does exclude some who exist on the margins of startup space.
Empirically, what this could mean if this concept becomes a trend, is that people with good ideas and the ability to execute may be less likely to do a startup, considering it a rich person's game. A little like saying just move to Brooklyn and become an artist. We're still very far away from that but I don't think it's absurd to imagine us ending up there; if you talk to people outside the US, there's a strong belief that only the "right kind" of people can raise capital.
You did considerably more than anyone else to turn this thread into a wretched flamewar. Since it doesn't look like you've done it before with this account, I'm not going to ban it, but if you do this again we will.
Ideological battle is not welcome here. All your comments in this thread were ideological battle. And that's just the start of the problems.
It isn't necessary for people to agree on divisive topics. That's by definition impossible. But it is necessary for people to remain thoughtful and respectful. That's why the site guidelines say that "Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
You used name-calling in the sense the guidelines ask you not to do, for example weaponizing "racist" and "sexist" and "bigotry" in a way that you must know perfectly well is divisive and provocative. By "weaponizing" I mean using words not to communicate information, but to bash something or someone verbally. That's flamewar.
You reacted everywhere in this reductionist way, breaking the guideline that asks you to "respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." That rule applies to articles and people in articles as well as to to people here. Why? Because discussion gets dumb without it.
You crossed into personal attack and incvility in ways that can only inflame people and shut down meaningful conversation ("By being racist you are..."). You did that even when people responded to you gently and thoughtfully—which, amazingly, several did. You threw in things like the KKK for gratituous flamebait. And you extremely overposted to this thread, which spread the flames everywhere.
There are still plenty of civil, substantive things people can say to each other when they have strongly different identifications about the issues touched on by a post like this. But that becomes impossible when even one person's reactions are so strong that they can't contain themselves, vandalize the thread, and degrade this community into a ruin that nobody would want to spend time in. On this occasion, you were that person. Please don't be that person again. Instead, please (re-)read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use this site as intended from now on.
I will always call out discrimination in any context even by well meaning people. I do hope that arguing against racism and sexism is acceptable on this forum.
Since this is continuing exactly what I asked you to stop, I've banned this account until we get some indication that you want to use the site as intended.
Arguing is generally acceptable on this site when there is an actual, logical argument. You didn't argue anything, just expressed your opinion that it is bad without explaining yourself.
There are many people who disagree. Historically, the government and its institutions had a goal to create a color-blind nation. Heck, even Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of a day that people would someday be judged by "the content of their character" rather than "the color of their skins"[1].
Funds who judge people on the color of their skin or their sex, gender, or national origin is the opposite of color-blind, thus goes against the mentality that many of us grew up with. It is fundamentally a culture-clash that likely won't ever be reconciled between those with differing opinions. I personally don't think that two wrongs make a right, and I don't think that fighting racism and discrimination with racism and discrimination will make the country be better or come together in the end.
Folks, can you please open a dictionary before you start complaining?
> racism: prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.
It’s very clear that this fund is not created in the spirit of claiming women founders of color are superior to white men.
You can call it “discrimination” or “unfair”; you can argue that it’s not good long term for either parts; you can claim that such an incentive doesn’t create the best products/companies. But please, make an argument, don’t just shout out “racism!!!!”
sexism : Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.
Of course, referencing other (arguably more authoritative) dictionaries, one of the definitions for racism is also simply "discrimination based on race."
Linguistic prescriptivism adds no substance to an argument, it just wastes time on the fact that different people have different definitions. Try descriptivism out - instead of telling people what a word means, understand what they mean when they say a word (ignoring the fact that you disagree with their usage of that word), and argue against the substance of their message
Substance of their message? I’m sorry, but when people comment nothing more than “That’s racist”, there’s not much substance. My comment was an attempt at encouraging people to post actual arguments, and not just shout out their feelings.
I agree that when people say "that's racist" there isn't much substance, if any. I also support this fund and am having trouble finding any real arguments against it in this whole thread - indeed, a lot of people just say "that's racist" and move on.
I applaud asking for actual arguments, I just really hate all the arguments that are about what the words racism, racist, sexism, sexist, etc. mean.
Yeah, and I do see that my comment ends up being yet another comment that's not about the article. I guess I could've focused less on the "using 'racism' incorrectly" and more on the "come on, what are the actual disadvantages to this fund".
if that were the definition of racism today, 99% of the articles written about it in the past 10 years is false. Racism today is defined by actions, not beliefs.
VC's always talk about "pattern matching" meaning they look for founders that look like other successful founders - that immediately biases them toward young White men.
Wow, this comment thread went WAY PAST the intent of "sharing a link" as an information resource. TechCrunch (yes, TechCrunch) wrote an article about a venture capital fund available to women of color who want to become entrepreneurs. Period. No need to evaluate if it's racist or discriminatory. No need to make "you said" or "you reacted" comments. Read the article, learn more if the subject matter is of interest to you, and move on.
There are currently two competing narratives about what is racist: On one side, it's considered racist to make decisions based on race. On the other side, it's considered racist to make decisions without considering race, and the history of power and oppression that comes with it.
One side sees a productive way to move forward by not repeating the mistakes of the past. The other side sees a way to make the future better by correcting the mistakes of the past. It's one of the most difficult we face as both as a society and as individuals: often in literature a character will be driven to avenge a past injustice and at the height of narrative arc, will be forced to consider his motivations and the consequences of his goal. The YA novel A Long Way Down and the movie Blue Ruin both explore this concept poignantly, without ever giving us easy or generalizable answers.
Because racial politics can be so mentally poisoning, a far more neutral thought experiment is to consider a fund reserved exclusively for funding military veterans. That's a kind of situation where almost everyone can see both sides to the issue: how can you deny their contribution and sacrifices? And yet how can you fail to see the unintended but inevitable consequences that creates?
I understand the intent of this fund but I think that it's both racist and sexist.
Why doesn't someone create a VC fund for people with disabilities instead? Or maybe a fund for ugly people? Or a fund for socially awkward people? Or a fund for people who have a lisp? Or a fund for people who have bad posture? Or simply a fund for the underprivileged? Those would be a lot more fair.
Life isn't fair to everyone. Some people just have to work much harder than others to get the same results. There is nothing that can be done about this.
Trying to do something about this equates to discrimination based on arbitrary superficial features.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 227 ms ] threadi don't have high hopes for VC funds like this.. seems more like a charitable grant than venture funding..1
If minorities have a hard time to get such a job, you probably don't nees that much.
Lol, your point is so good that it hurts.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
From what I understand, how inclusive that term is depends on who you ask and what their goal is in the discourse, but usually it includes all non-white people, where 'white' is used to imply someone of pure 'white' descent (whatever that means). So someone with a 'person of color' in his ancestry (not sure if there is a limit in the number of generations one should include) is a 'person of color' themself.
So Asian women tend to be considered 'women of color', unless that doesn't suit the narrative of the person employing the term.
I have an idea, let's keep everyone separated by skin tone, gender, and sexual preference. I'm sure this will end well /s.
The reason why the majority of funded founders are white men is because white is the majority color in places where there is the most VC money, and men are less risk averse, especially in the more extreme male personality types.
A prevalence if race X in some area is not the evidence of discrimination.
This is an ironic comment in this post.
What you just described is the definition of discrimination, not racism or sexism. These words have meanings and you can look them up. Saying it's racist and sexist is just a disingenuous way to shore up drama when a more accurate (but less provocative) term is available.
> sexism > noun sex·ism \ ˈsek-ˌsi-zəm \ > 1 : prejudice or discrimination based on sex; especially : discrimination against women
> racism > noun rac·ism \ ˈrā-ˌsi-zəm also -ˌshi- \ > 3 : racial prejudice or discrimination
Sexism is defined as discrimination based on gender or biological sex.
Both are well defined terms in English both in dictionaries and general usage. Stop trying to play games with words and start explaining why you think racism and sexism are ok.
The truth is this: To have equality of outcome across race and gender in entrepreneurship is impossible. It's unclear why anyone at all is interested in taking extremely high risk positions as founders of start ups relying on fast growth and with a small amount of burn; to segment that group by racial and gender identity is to shame and belittle the ones deemed "to hold the power". And when they cry out that they are being discriminated against on the basis of race, you are one step ahead of them: Your convenient re-definition of racism to be an act only committed by those of power denies the shamed their rightful defense.
Clearly.
> Is it a good goal etc
It’s not a goal, it’s a tool to combat systemic racism.
> Do you find virtue
Here’s what I think:
I think there’s no inherent genetic gender or race component that should impact outcomes in people’s relative success. If you believe there is, you are literally a racist or a sexist, by the very definitions of those terms. Given that, if you can predict a group of people’s outcomes based on their race or gender, there is an inequality of opportunity. I believe that the inequality of opportunity should be tackled.
I believe that tackling this is an urgent issue. I believe that affirmative action — like setting up these funds — is a working solution.
I'd be interested in alternative solutions - what would you suggest? Keep in mind that not doing anything doesn't seem to fix these things.
I'll give it a go. I first want to say something about the worldview required to do this sort of racial discrimination.
There is no way of quantifying the relative advantages and disadvantages between identity groups. How much is one group oppressed over another? Suppose that a simple tax would suffice to even things out, exactly how much should that tax be? There is no way of knowing precisely what that tax should be. Our attempts to define oppression are never going to be rigorous. They'll always be vague, which I believe is dangerous, since it will be enforced by some large bureaucracy. We need definition, but there will never be definition accurate enough. Feel free to argue me on this, but I don't see how you can do it.
Second, in separating people into these identity groups, you deny my individuality. Every time I speak, I speak as a member of my group, for my group. My actions are actions of and for my group, as well. With the world view taken here, I cannot speak or act without the presupposition that I'm doing it as a move in a power game between my identity group and other identity groups. Should we accept that a person's ethnicity and gender must always qualify their speech and actions?
I agree that in conversation, one can observe the race and gender of the other person - but the merit of their words is still paramount. You may know that a book author is from Spain or Russia, but that does not affect how you read the book. However, in the worldview in which a racially discriminatory VC fund is socially acceptable, people are defined as members of groups among other groups, constantly vying for power and oppressing one another.
Notice I'm not really going after the racially-discriminatory VC fund itself. I'm explaining the worldview in which the fund was conceived, and in which it is socially acceptable. It boils North America down from a melting pot of ambitious individuals trying to do great things with each other, into identity groups that are constantly holding power over, and suffering under the tyranny of, other identity groups. Obviously, the dominant narrative here is that white males are oppressing women of color founders. But you have no idea about the individual biases of the white males you're decrying. And you also have no idea whether or not they achieved funded status based on their competence. Yet you still assume the system is broken, and you still rob them of their individuality, still knowing nothing of their biases and nothing of their competence.
> Keep in mind that not doing anything doesn't seem to fix these things.
Why must we do something? Where is the evidence that people are not choosing to be founders of their free will? How can you be sure that the lack of founder diversity is evidence of a flaw in the system? I say that the system is operating in a very healthy manner.
Efforts to move power to the disadvantaged that disregard individuality has had tragic, deadly results in history (China, Vietnam, USSR).
I agree with this idea when you talk about giving a very specific quantity, but I'd argue that gathering some data can tell you that there is some significant disadvantage for some group relative to another. But yes, we will never get to a point where every group is 100% exactly equal. I'm not asking for Communism.
> in separating people into these identity groups, you deny my individuality
Yes, and that definitely sucks. I don't like my individuality being denied either. It's definitely a significant drawback, and again, I'd welcome an alternative solution.
> Yet you still assume the system is broken, and you still rob them of their individuality, still knowing nothing of their biases and nothing of their competence
I don't seek to rob white men (like myself) of individuality or to ignore their/my biases or competence or achievements or anything. I've been programming since I was eight but when looking for scholarships, it was harder for me to find any than it was for friends of mine who were in minority groups but didn't have any experience. I still can notice an issue, see people taking steps to solve it, and then decide that while these steps seem quite morally wrong and put me personally at a disadvantage, doing nothing seems like being complicit in something that was created out of the same kind of moral wrongdoings, and isn't getting any better. I'm not a fan of fighting fire with fire, but I don't see a better alternative.
Speaking of alternatives, I don't see you providing any...
> Where is the evidence that people are not choosing to be founders of their free will? How can you be sure that the lack of founder diversity is evidence of a flaw in the system?
http://fortune.com/2018/01/31/female-founders-venture-capita...
https://www.fastcompany.com/40473294/one-reason-black-entrep...
https://www.fastcompany.com/3060169/one-of-the-biggest-chall...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesnonprofitcouncil/2018/02/...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidteten/2014/04/29/why-are-v...
You're right that quantifying these things gets messy, but when I look at these things, I see that the system is skewed in favor of white men. Just look at the number "76%" (the amount of white male Venture Capitalists) and the fact that racism and sexism are definitely present today, and then try to say that the system as it is is fair.
If you want to argue that we'll never know what's the optimal amount of fair or that we'll never reach 100% exactly fair, then ok - I agree. If you want to argue that this worldview is bad, then ok - I agree. I also agree that it's bad to take away individuality, and to put people in boxes. But I don't see an alternative, and I do see a problem, and I don't see the solution to be much worse than the origins of the problem.
And before you reply, I suggest you look up the definitions in an English dictionary; personally I referenced Merriam-Webster, but most accepted English dictionaries will tell you more or less the same thing.
> sexism | 1 : prejudice or discrimination based on sex; especially : discrimination against women
> racism | 3 : racial prejudice or discrimination
Descrimination in and of it’s self isn’t racist / sexist. Unjust descrimination is certainly racist / sexist.
How many women of _all_ races (including white) are even looking for funding?
What if there are 10 white women, 1 black woman and 30 asian women and no other race at all? (Just as a fake dataset to make a point...)
This kind of targeted funding could abjectly affect perfectly qualified candidates just on the basis of race alone.
Isn't that the very definition of racism? Even if it's supposed to fix a past injustice, when does two wrongs make a right?
The standard in silicon valley (and by its own admission, also the standard of YC) was that people who looked like Mark Zuckerberg would get funding. Meaning white, male Harvard/Stanford/MIT undergrads. As a result perfectly qualified candidates get rejected because they don't fit this picture.
There is no reason to presume that people from certain races/ethnicities/genders make for better or worse startup founders. However, when certain demographics get basically never funded, then capable, motivated, qualified founders don't even bother to apply. Even when there is no actual discrimination the negative cycle continues. Breaking this cycle is a social good.
It's like Hollywood. For a long time women of color never got offered leading roles. Movie Executives just didn't want to take the gamble. But as more and more movies hit the screen with women of color in leading roles the financial risk is lessened. Which results in more opportunities for WoC. This was never about how talented or motivated the actresses were. Hopefully we'll quickly get to the point where a WoC in a leading role is no longer noteworthy. Same for startups.
It highlights the absurdity of obsession with race. Colour of skin often doesn't even correlate well with race, and even if it did, it's a ridiculous measure to use as a guide for anything.
To me it was obvious that lizardskull's comment has the same meaning.
It seems other HN readers understood this.
I'm not sure what "race trolling" is but if you think my comment suggests I am racist please delete it. That could not be further from the truth. I don't live in a part of the world that is totally obsessed with race and am sometimes bewildered by how Americans put everything down to race.
Regardless of what you think of the OP, there's a long history of people causing other people suffering around skin color and shades of skin color. Given that, playing glibly with this language to make a cheap point is guaranteed to make the discussion polarized and useless. By doing that, you damage this site. You need to clear a minimum bar for substantiveness if you want to post to HN, and that comment didn't come close.
Please just delete my comment above. It obviously didn't serve its purpose well so there's no point it being there.
If someone set up a white male VC fund I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole.
I’ve dealt with plenty of racism, on the job and just living my life, but I understand that being a minority means dealing with (often unconscious) biases.
Is this ok? No, people should be better.
But I would never take a handout as contentious as this. The message here, regardless of intention, is that black women cannot compete on merit.
You might infer that if you assume that everyone assesses merits without bias.
I would argue that this is not the case and that black women’s merits are not assesses without bias.
That's your choice.
> is that black women cannot compete on merit.
If woman of colour could compete on merit alone, I'm sure we'd see greater numbers in tech, but we don't. Unless you believe that people of colour are inherently incapable of these jobs, which I'm sure you don't :)
Targeted support of a minority population to correct for an unjust imbalance is a good thing.
I am glad I got a chance to let you know that not everyone agrees with bigotry.
Let's get one thing clear. Just because you look like other people you don't get to speak for them. You don't represent all white males any more than the Grand Wizard of the KKK does. Your skin colour or gender have no bearing on this - and should have no bearing on your opinion on this.
>> I don't mean ideologically, but empirically
That said, I disagree with your base claim that
> It normalizes racism and sexism
Those things are already normalized. The idea that everyone has the same opportunities and is treated the same is nice but not matched by reality.
Pushing things in the direction they're already in makes the divide larger. Pushing things in the opposite direction will make the divide smaller - or at least, that's the hope here
Racism is inherently wrong. By being racist you are empirically making the world a worse place.
By being racist you are increasing the divide.
How do you fix this artificial imbalance? Because all I hear time and time again is either "Throw money at the problem to tip the scales in the other direction" or "Ignore the problem". If you're gonna say "ignore it" and not provide any reason beyond, then you're leaving the world in its already racist state. Even if nobody says anything racist, the scales are unbalanced and somehow they ought to get tipped a little to fix that. You can't tip those scales without doing something you'd call racist, but not doing anything leaves you in a racist society, so are you just saying that allowing racism is ok but adding racism to diminish other racism is not? Sounds like we'll never really improve with that mindset
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidteten/2014/04/29/why-are-v...
[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/3060169/one-of-the-biggest-chall...
So if we look at imbalances in outcomes, there is a lot of it for gender and race. Prison rates, life expectancy, health, work profession, suicide rates, homelessness, wealth, children, social support network and more. There is no inherent reason why that's just how it is and always will be, so what can we do to fix this artificial imbalance overall in society?
Throwing money at it don't work. If one correlate how much money a state is spending on the problem and the result, you get a paradox. The more spending the more imbalanced society tend to get. Recently it also seem to increase polarization which had its own long list of issues. Ignoring the problem is also unlikely to do anything, so it lead me to only a single conclusion and that is look for a solution that has shown positive result. Happily there exist such thing but it has sadly also been mostly abandoned by the political platforms that seeks equality.
That is to say; to eliminate categorization based on gender and race and find commonalities rather than focus on differences. A popular tactic around the 70s, but now mostly abandoned. Its not the same as ignoring since you have to active focus on what is common, and its not the same as current methods with throwing money at specific issues since those focus on what is different based on category of groups. By working to eliminate categorization in people minds you tip the scale without doing anything racist, while still being active in addressing the issue.
"It normalises racism and sexism" still seems pretty deep in the territory of thought experiment, so I'm still having trouble seeing exactly what are the human consequences of this -- could you give me explicit examples of how this fund negatively impacts individual people (whether or not they are the targeted beneficiaries of the fund)?
If these characteristics are not important to your argument why raise them.
Secondly, that detail was mentioned because, as I am neither a woman or a POC, my original question was less likely to be coming from a place of personal bias (“talking my book”, so to speak).
In aggregate, the white people I know do have more couch surfing opportunities than women of color. And more VC access. But individually, some do not, through no fault of their own, only the circumstances they were born into. To take an extreme example: Elizabeth Holmes, who is also a "victim" of this fund, is never actually going to need this fund; her father has a direct line of communication to Henry Kissinger and was able to raise 10x this funds entire capital. What I'm trying to say is this kind of concept actually doesn't victimize the most privileged like Holmes, and maybe you (?) but it does exclude some who exist on the margins of startup space.
Empirically, what this could mean if this concept becomes a trend, is that people with good ideas and the ability to execute may be less likely to do a startup, considering it a rich person's game. A little like saying just move to Brooklyn and become an artist. We're still very far away from that but I don't think it's absurd to imagine us ending up there; if you talk to people outside the US, there's a strong belief that only the "right kind" of people can raise capital.
Ideological battle is not welcome here. All your comments in this thread were ideological battle. And that's just the start of the problems.
It isn't necessary for people to agree on divisive topics. That's by definition impossible. But it is necessary for people to remain thoughtful and respectful. That's why the site guidelines say that "Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
You used name-calling in the sense the guidelines ask you not to do, for example weaponizing "racist" and "sexist" and "bigotry" in a way that you must know perfectly well is divisive and provocative. By "weaponizing" I mean using words not to communicate information, but to bash something or someone verbally. That's flamewar.
You reacted everywhere in this reductionist way, breaking the guideline that asks you to "respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." That rule applies to articles and people in articles as well as to to people here. Why? Because discussion gets dumb without it.
You crossed into personal attack and incvility in ways that can only inflame people and shut down meaningful conversation ("By being racist you are..."). You did that even when people responded to you gently and thoughtfully—which, amazingly, several did. You threw in things like the KKK for gratituous flamebait. And you extremely overposted to this thread, which spread the flames everywhere.
There are still plenty of civil, substantive things people can say to each other when they have strongly different identifications about the issues touched on by a post like this. But that becomes impossible when even one person's reactions are so strong that they can't contain themselves, vandalize the thread, and degrade this community into a ruin that nobody would want to spend time in. On this occasion, you were that person. Please don't be that person again. Instead, please (re-)read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use this site as intended from now on.
Funds who judge people on the color of their skin or their sex, gender, or national origin is the opposite of color-blind, thus goes against the mentality that many of us grew up with. It is fundamentally a culture-clash that likely won't ever be reconciled between those with differing opinions. I personally don't think that two wrongs make a right, and I don't think that fighting racism and discrimination with racism and discrimination will make the country be better or come together in the end.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness_(race)
> racism: prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.
It’s very clear that this fund is not created in the spirit of claiming women founders of color are superior to white men.
You can call it “discrimination” or “unfair”; you can argue that it’s not good long term for either parts; you can claim that such an incentive doesn’t create the best products/companies. But please, make an argument, don’t just shout out “racism!!!!”
sexism : Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.
Of course, referencing other (arguably more authoritative) dictionaries, one of the definitions for racism is also simply "discrimination based on race."
Oops...
I applaud asking for actual arguments, I just really hate all the arguments that are about what the words racism, racist, sexism, sexist, etc. mean.
One side sees a productive way to move forward by not repeating the mistakes of the past. The other side sees a way to make the future better by correcting the mistakes of the past. It's one of the most difficult we face as both as a society and as individuals: often in literature a character will be driven to avenge a past injustice and at the height of narrative arc, will be forced to consider his motivations and the consequences of his goal. The YA novel A Long Way Down and the movie Blue Ruin both explore this concept poignantly, without ever giving us easy or generalizable answers.
Because racial politics can be so mentally poisoning, a far more neutral thought experiment is to consider a fund reserved exclusively for funding military veterans. That's a kind of situation where almost everyone can see both sides to the issue: how can you deny their contribution and sacrifices? And yet how can you fail to see the unintended but inevitable consequences that creates?
Why doesn't someone create a VC fund for people with disabilities instead? Or maybe a fund for ugly people? Or a fund for socially awkward people? Or a fund for people who have a lisp? Or a fund for people who have bad posture? Or simply a fund for the underprivileged? Those would be a lot more fair.
Life isn't fair to everyone. Some people just have to work much harder than others to get the same results. There is nothing that can be done about this.
Trying to do something about this equates to discrimination based on arbitrary superficial features.