I would like to see the statistics of the people who applied for VC funding versus those who got it.
Women and minorities just don't apply for VC funding as far as I know. I have many friends who are people of color and women and don't want to learn how to program or IT or anything a VC would want to invest in.
I don't want all VC funding and IT jobs to go to white males, but it seems only white males are the ones who apply for IT jobs and VC funding.
It seems if a woman or minority is not qualified for an IT job they give them blog duty instead. Then write social justice warrior white privilege articles like this one for ratings and mouse clicks.
Number one, I am the author of aforementioned blog. I'm aware that my writing may come across less warm and fuzzy than I am in person, however, I don't consider it to be "white privilege articles" and I especially don't do it for ratings and mouse clicks, although if I didn't hope for the latter, I'd merely journal. Why shouldn't people click? It's an important topic - at least to some. That said, I easily get more clicks to my entertainment blog, and if anything, I write knowing that it can have a detrimental effect on how those endorsing the status quo - who may not be so A16Z-esque towards iconoclasm - perceive me.
There are a number of unpublished posts on that blog on various topics that are cathartic for me to write about. I have published several around tech and diversity because, as a woman of color who has academic credentials in ethnic studies, and who is navigating the tech / SV ecosystem (and documenting the journey), I have a perspective that is underrepresented in Silicon Valley and needs to be voiced. While I don't claim entitlement to much, I emphatically proclaim entitlement to my story and opinions (and thus won't be "shushed").
As Marc Andreesen points out in his recent Bloomberg / Dreamforce talk (at 38:30), there is both a pipeline and an access problem. Women and minorities will not be able to apply if they don't have access - e.g. the "referral from a funded company CEO" preference that many VCs openly require. If women and people of color disproportionately unlikely to have a "good ol' boy network," they don't have access. And there are more complex factors at play (that have been documented) even when women and underrepresented individuals do have "players" in their network. These are related to implicit bias - such as a higher rate of unreturned emails from those capable of making intros - or the fact that both male and female VC are less likely to fund a woman over a man - even if pitching the same idea:
Thank you, you have answered many of my questions.
I've myself tried to acquire VC funding and built my own MVPs, and gotten nowhere. It is not as easy as I thought it was.
I grew up poor in a poor St. Louis neighborhood. All my father could afford was a Commodore 64 and I was laughed at by the IBM PC and Apple 2 crowd. My high school didn't teach computers so I volunteered for the desegregation program to be transferred to a magnet school on math and science that taught on Apple // and IBM PC systems and it was an integrated classroom.
I had a friend at the time I got into an argument with, he claimed computers were a fad, going nowhere, and that I should try to become a sports star instead. He said in ten years that Microsoft and Apple would be out of business so there is no reason to learn computer programming. He went for Football and injured his knee and lost his scholarship but remembered the talk we had about computers so he went into learning computer networking and did better.
Our high school had an anti bullying policy and zero tolerance on racial slurs. The high school before I transfered was full of bullies and they used racial and homophobic slurs. Picked on me for being a nerd and geek.
So yeah it depends on the high school, it also depends on the support of friends. If I had listened to my friend that computers were a fad, I wouldn't have gotten to where I went. It was because of his statements that he influenced others not to study computers because he was popular and I was not popular.
I find that we need more statistics on these subjects to fully understand them better.
But I want to state that white privilege thing, I had a really bad childhood growing up and was picked on and bullied and harassed a lot for being a geek and nerd. Looking for a job was tough as well, I had to do temporary light industrial jobs and work in fast food even with a computer science degree until I was able to earn minimum wage at a computer shop building computers and then it lead to another job as data entry which led to another job in programming. I never had it easy, and even had times I went without a job and looking for whatever I could find.
Diversity is a good thing, and I'll tell you why. People of diverse backgrounds have different ways of observing things and figuring things out and might notice something someone else might not notice. It might be a product or service has a flaw in it that gets noticed before it ships, it might be they make an improvement on it. If a business discriminates against people they are really setting themselves up for failure by hiring all of the same group of a type of people.
But my story, I worked so hard I got a stroke in 2001 and ended up on disability in 2003. Trying to recover from that, but once you are disabled, nobody takes you seriously anymore. I assume my career is over? Nobody seems to be there for us who have a mental illness, esp when we developed it in the line of duty.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 21.3 ms ] threadWomen and minorities just don't apply for VC funding as far as I know. I have many friends who are people of color and women and don't want to learn how to program or IT or anything a VC would want to invest in.
I don't want all VC funding and IT jobs to go to white males, but it seems only white males are the ones who apply for IT jobs and VC funding.
It seems if a woman or minority is not qualified for an IT job they give them blog duty instead. Then write social justice warrior white privilege articles like this one for ratings and mouse clicks.
There are a number of unpublished posts on that blog on various topics that are cathartic for me to write about. I have published several around tech and diversity because, as a woman of color who has academic credentials in ethnic studies, and who is navigating the tech / SV ecosystem (and documenting the journey), I have a perspective that is underrepresented in Silicon Valley and needs to be voiced. While I don't claim entitlement to much, I emphatically proclaim entitlement to my story and opinions (and thus won't be "shushed").
“There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you.” — @MayaAngelou, from: http://therouse.com/the-power-of-your-story/
Science Shows Something Surprising About People Who Love to Write http://mic.com/articles/98348/science-shows-writers-have-a-s...
Now, as to your more salient points:
1). "I would like to see the statistics of the people who applied for VC funding versus those who got it."
As would I.
2) "Women and minorities just don't apply for VC funding as far as I know"
Let's not make assumptions. However, YC states that about 1% of applicants are Black - likely far less Black women. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8374198
As Marc Andreesen points out in his recent Bloomberg / Dreamforce talk (at 38:30), there is both a pipeline and an access problem. Women and minorities will not be able to apply if they don't have access - e.g. the "referral from a funded company CEO" preference that many VCs openly require. If women and people of color disproportionately unlikely to have a "good ol' boy network," they don't have access. And there are more complex factors at play (that have been documented) even when women and underrepresented individuals do have "players" in their network. These are related to implicit bias - such as a higher rate of unreturned emails from those capable of making intros - or the fact that both male and female VC are less likely to fund a woman over a man - even if pitching the same idea:
Harvard Business School Study: http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/Brooks%20Huan...
Marc Andreessen on Apple Pay, Bitcoin, and Airbnb http://www.bloomberg.com/video/marc-andreessen-s-fireside-ch...
And tell me, if founders are told to focus on product (and not attend conferences)
and whereas underrepresented individuals outside of their existing network may not meet them otherwise...
and whereas, even if they succeed in meeting them, fail to secure an opportunity to "bond" or earn a referral...
How many underrepresented individuals are likely to gain access to VCs in order to pitch? Everyt...
I've myself tried to acquire VC funding and built my own MVPs, and gotten nowhere. It is not as easy as I thought it was.
I grew up poor in a poor St. Louis neighborhood. All my father could afford was a Commodore 64 and I was laughed at by the IBM PC and Apple 2 crowd. My high school didn't teach computers so I volunteered for the desegregation program to be transferred to a magnet school on math and science that taught on Apple // and IBM PC systems and it was an integrated classroom.
I had a friend at the time I got into an argument with, he claimed computers were a fad, going nowhere, and that I should try to become a sports star instead. He said in ten years that Microsoft and Apple would be out of business so there is no reason to learn computer programming. He went for Football and injured his knee and lost his scholarship but remembered the talk we had about computers so he went into learning computer networking and did better.
Our high school had an anti bullying policy and zero tolerance on racial slurs. The high school before I transfered was full of bullies and they used racial and homophobic slurs. Picked on me for being a nerd and geek.
So yeah it depends on the high school, it also depends on the support of friends. If I had listened to my friend that computers were a fad, I wouldn't have gotten to where I went. It was because of his statements that he influenced others not to study computers because he was popular and I was not popular.
I find that we need more statistics on these subjects to fully understand them better.
But I want to state that white privilege thing, I had a really bad childhood growing up and was picked on and bullied and harassed a lot for being a geek and nerd. Looking for a job was tough as well, I had to do temporary light industrial jobs and work in fast food even with a computer science degree until I was able to earn minimum wage at a computer shop building computers and then it lead to another job as data entry which led to another job in programming. I never had it easy, and even had times I went without a job and looking for whatever I could find.
Diversity is a good thing, and I'll tell you why. People of diverse backgrounds have different ways of observing things and figuring things out and might notice something someone else might not notice. It might be a product or service has a flaw in it that gets noticed before it ships, it might be they make an improvement on it. If a business discriminates against people they are really setting themselves up for failure by hiring all of the same group of a type of people.
But my story, I worked so hard I got a stroke in 2001 and ended up on disability in 2003. Trying to recover from that, but once you are disabled, nobody takes you seriously anymore. I assume my career is over? Nobody seems to be there for us who have a mental illness, esp when we developed it in the line of duty.