I wish I could say the same for YC. Kevin's post about why Maciej wasn't accepted was a textbook example of the sort of thinking that leads to the terrible lack of diversity we have in tech. Nothing about this changes that. 20k is relatively little money for both YC and Maciej, it's nice to see it go to what looks like a worthy cause but it doesn't really address the core issue at all.

The arguments about diversity in tech are normally framed in terms of race, gender, sexual orientation etc. But in this case the issue was in diversity of ideas relating to startups. I think Maciej makes some very compelling arguments that the sort of model that YC promotes is seriously flawed, and was basically rejected because of that. I think his arguments are ones that many young entrepreneurs should hear.

If you replace the first couple of sentences of Kevin's post with "The simple answer is that ${the woman | the black person | the gay person} was clearly the best candidate, but just made me feel uncomfortable in the end. It’s touchy feely, I know, but the truth." they could have been successfully sued, and for good reason. Think of the 20k as settling out of court.

I generally agree with Maciej's assessment of the startup world, and it's sad to have one of my major prejudices about it confirmed so clearly. My estimation of YC has definitely sunk even lower after this.

The right thing to do seemed pretty obvious, and it would have been easier to just give it to Pinboard in the first place. The skeptical view here is that they're only fixing things because they were so vocally called out for screwing up.

So yeah, taking responsibility is great, but doing the wrong thing and taking responsibility only you're called out for it, isn't so great. When possible, just do the right thing in the first place.