A vanishingly small percentage of venture funding has been raised by black women

That will work with Africans and other groups who have a strong sense of ongoing ethnic identity. American blacks descended from slaves have a lot of problems doing that for all sorts of reasons.

My guess is that a lot of African immigrants have raised money, just not via traditional routes, hence they don't show up in the numbers.

The important thing to recognize is that you can't easily analogize the experience of people who were enslaved 150 years ago and then faced systematic oppression after that for at least another 100 years to the experience of immigrants migrating to make a new start.

My bet is that we will see a lot more success from African immigrants before we see success from American slave-descended blacks.

Indeed, it's unsurprising the first black president is the son of an immigrant and not descended from slaves.

As we all know, there are lies, damned lies and statistics.

So, translation:

"I'm intentionally trying to deceive you when I say, NO (Meaning Zero) Black Women Have Raised Venture Funding. Definitely zero, not 12...shutup, math is hard, OK?"

12/10000 is noise.

It would have been more accurate to say "virtually no" black women have led startups. Though I guess she gets a pass for saying "statistically". It would have also been nice if a comparison was done as to the race of other startup founders and... I don't know more than a single chart listing the companies and how much they raised each? This isn't a very good statistic to trumpet around if its going to be presented out of context like this.

Are you people high? "Statistically" doesn't mean "12 == 0". It means "Effectively zero"

It's your choice to ignore it. More precisely, it's your privilege to ignore it.

"...how do we as a technical industry even change that when we need to focus..."

The point of startups is not blindly attacking the biggest pile of work at hand. It's to find blindspots and exploit them. If every single one of your competitors is systematically undervaluing entire classes of potential workers, dontcha think that just maybe there's an opportunity to be had there?

But no. For all the talk of merit, getting shit done, hustle, etc, it's mostly about connections. You can't hold onto the meritocratic myth and ignore completely obvious evidence to the contrary forever. But damn, so many rich white guys around here love to try.

One of the communities I'm in has gone to war over its Code of Conduct, I'm largely uninterested, I think a CoC is probably required but the proposed one is terrible (cynical me thinks it looks like a power grab).

It's a tricky balance to get right.

I think this is more important than just diversity in tech (and that is important) - and I'm a relatively recent convert to caring.

We all, even founders, benefit from diversity of founders. If start-ups predominantly get started by similar types of people you're missing out on competition and innovative ideas. I think this applies not only to general business concepts but especially to domain areas. One of the things that infrequently crops up on here is how much money there is to be made in Spanish language Christian apps, as a WASP I'm less likely to have the domain knowledge to break into that market. So it does seem rather odd that VCs might be missing out on being able to profit from a market of ~23m.

Then there are more social good focused start-ups that might emerge. Given all the problems the US has with racism and sexism I'd posit that a black female founder might be a good bet if they had an idea to try and improve things.

I was interviewing a white university student the other day who had managed to get through 2.5 years of a Computing degree before realising she was capable of being just a good developer as a man. Not that she was as good, just that she actually could be a developer, rather than being assumed to be the management / documentation type. I'm nowhere near Jon Skeet on the feminist scale but it really made me think about how under represented groups can be put off.

And that is the point of the article. The top thread on here can be arguing about whether 0.1% is "statistically zero" because what matters is perception. If a potential black female founder perceives an industry as being unwelcoming they're less likely to enter it. There is a massive opportunity cost to get to the point where you look for VC funding, it isn't an experiment you can just run on a whim. It is quite possible that the calibre of black women who could be founders are looking at the startup world and heading in another direction where there are much stronger social signals that they are likely to be accepted.

So true. Tech things can't impact social issues, just like Facebook never did.

Ok, we've used your suggestion. If someone suggests a better (i.e. more accurate and neutral) title, we can change it again.

It would be interesting to see a breakdown by all races and country of origin, I will grant you that.

That would be in addition to this article, not in opposition to it, however. The lack of success of black people and women in tech is PROOF that there isn't diversity, at least not for those groups; it isn't just some narrative. Even if, say, Southeast Asians are doing well, that doesn't change the fact that the groups that the article is talking about aren't.

0.12% for a group that you would expect to have about 6.50% in based on overall population is indicative of a problem.

Second paragraph.

  Only 12 Black women led startups (yes only 12) have raised 
  $1MM or more in outside funding since 2012.

I don't understand why this gets down-voted. Maybe I missed some very subtle tone? I do agree that we need more information.

When I see an article with "statistically" in the title, I want to see some data and some robust analysis, not a PR piece.

You're equating women with non-sentient beings. That's a reductive comparison that doesn't contribute to the discussion.

You should care if you agree there is discrimination in tech. If you are part of a minority and have never faced discrimination in tech, that might give credibility against such a claim.

This is another aspect of survivor bias.

How many of the superb startups that are led by white men would be obviously superb if they hadn't received funding? How many of their founders would have been put off even trying without the role models, with the levels of doubt and likely lack of support that many others are suffering.

Plus if it is wrong you should care, that doesn't mean that you are necessarily in position to help but you can at least try to avoid being part of the problem and you may at some stage be in a position where you can help.