"She also tweeted that Y Combinator had disinvited an investor who was trying to replace a female chief executive with a white male"
Should it be the best person for the job, male or female alike?
I dug up the original tweet:
"Last month another investor asked a female founder/CEO to search for a white male to replace her as CEO. Also uninvited."[1]
You can say this for just about any organization which has power. This is why transparency is often a good check for power. In cases where transparency isn't practical, then there is the larger granularity of the market. Where this breaks down is in very acute concentrations of power. The realist view acknowledges that power is contextual, and that contextual abuses will happen. Sometimes the world is imperfect and you're going to have to leave for more peaceful pastures.
Throughout all of the above, you can recognize "the good" in their magnanimity and their protection of the dignity and rights of individuals -- even extending this to the accused. I forget who said it, but the true test of character is not in how someone treats those they need, it's how they treat those they don't need.
I would just push back on the idea that it's somehow out of bounds for them to have lists of potential business partners they won't want to work with in the future. Businesses do this all the time. All YC has done here is actually told us about one of those lists.
Yeah, that's not how it works.