Hacker News Reader

Comment by ryanelkins | Hacker News Reader

I don't think any of the reasons mentioned here for keeping women out is gender specific. It's more hacker vs "idea person" or how I prefer to think of it, those who can code vs those who can't code.

This is more about "Y Combinator for non coders" than it is about "Y Combinator for women". This is something I see a lot of - people with some experience that want to start a tech startup but want to hire out some developers to build it for them. Not that there is something inherently wrong with that - there just isn't anything gender specific about it either.

The problem, as the author mentioned, is primarily that the number of women taking up coding is disproportionate to the number of men that take up coding. Y Combinator's heavily male population is a reflection of the problem, not a cause.

View on HN

The 35-year old cut-off could be considered gender-specific.

I'm a 30-year old female entrepreneur and software developer. I would love to do Y-combinator or other incubator program. I also want to start a family. If I wait for years to have kids, there is a statistically higher risk of infertility. This isn't the case for men. I think the author is correct that women may be more ready to launch a start-up when they're 40.

"I think the author is correct that women may be more ready to launch a start-up when they're 40" I think this is a valid statement.

However, the argument then becomes, 'Is it a good business strategy to invest and nurture a pool of 40 year old entrepreneurs?'

That is a good question; but as the life expectency of our population increases while the prospect of any of us getting social security decreases, the fact is we may be at a point where retirement doesn't happen until one is at least 70 or even older. A 45-year old entrepreneur with, let's say, 20 years experience in the field who doesn't plan on retiring until 65 or 70 still has at least 20 years to invest in the company; additionally, think of what you at 18 or 20 could have learned from an internship with someone like that. I think our culture is continually redefining what is and isn't "old"; I for one don't think 40 is truly all that old.

Thanks for offering your perspective, it's the best thing I've read in this thread...

Completely agree. I'm only 24; I just finished my CS undergrad and masters' degrees. I'm getting married next year and just took a high-paying job as a software engineer at an established big corporation rather than taking up any of the start-up offers I got from friends. I really wanted to do the start up thing but my fiancée and I want kids; I want them sooner to reduce the risk of infertility as well as mental and health problems that are statistically more prevalent amongst older mothers. Along with that I grew up very poor, so I want to provide for them with a house, steady food and small comforts, things I lacked until I was able to work for myself at 16.

I think that other women may take different choices - if I didn't want to have kids, I would be all over working on a start up, but as it stands, I wouldn't think about it until I am older.

I think that the article has its plusses and minuses but one thing we should all agree on is that the YC model should be adopted for the needs of many different groups. I won't want to do anything risky until my kids are more independent and I've built a solid nest egg. But my fiancée feels the same way as me! So, I don't see why the article needs to be quite so gender-specific. I would like to see this idea come to fruition, with emphasis placed on attracting more women to the field but maybe geared more towards anyone 35-40+ who has a family and responsibilities but would like to take on a start up project.

The 35-year old cut-off could be considered gender-specific.

The problem with this is that there is no 35 year old cutoff. Why does YCombinator have a high percentage of people in their 20s? People in their 20s are just more likely to be willing to try to do something like Y-Combinator. It's a difficult program to do if you're 40, have a well paying job, a family, and a mortgage, regardless of your gender. If you're a 40 year old person I'm sure you are more than welcome to apply to Y Combinator and that your age will not play a part in the selection process. I don't have the numbers, but I'm sure the vast majority of people that apply are in their 20s.

I'm in a startup incubator in Utah called BoomStartup, and while we also have very few women (1 out of ~25 or 30 founders) the average age is probably closer to 40 than to 20.

Agreed. While I wish them luck, I think they're accepting a bunch of terribly flawed premises, about the willingness and ability of women to do the "startup thing".

Maybe that's not what the author of the article wants to do (and I'll be honest, it's not really my thing either; I live a very comfortable life on the East Coast), but I think she overgeneralizes a bit, extending her experience out to general truths about women in general. There's no reason why women shouldn't be equally represented among coders. There's no reason why women shouldn't be as eager to get their hands dirty in a startup when they're in their 20s. There's no reason why women ought to feel that they need to take a disproportionate role in parenting, or even feel pressured to have kids at all, if they don't want to.

There's definitely room for trying to make starting a business easier, for women and men who aren't in their 20s and don't want to move to Silicon Valley. But we should also be trying to figure out where the 20-something women coder/entrepreneurs are, or how we can create more of them.

It's not as though entrepreneurship or staying up all night coding on pizza and Mountain Dew are something where men have a biological advantage; there's no good reason why women shouldn't be equally represented. That they are not is symptomatic of a deep problem in both the tech industry and in the educational system that feeds the industry. Stopgaps are fine, but we need to be looking into the deeper problems at the same time, not just accepting them on premise.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com