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Comment by berg01 | Hacker News Reader

Sometimes, for people like me it's hard to keep track of who's who in tech royalty.

Here's a guide of some of their connections. (My first honest reaction: it does seem fairly incestuous. And then I'm not even getting into.. well, let's say more diversity would be a great thing here. All of the people mentioned here belong to one particular subgroup in the US. It just feels odd to me. Diversity hasn't reached these levels yet, I guess.)

Anne Wojcicki: CEO of 23andMe. Former part-time partner of Y Combinator, back then along with Ben Silbermann, co-founder and CEO of Pinterest; and Joe Gebbia, co-founder and chief product officer of Airbnb: https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/blog/techflash/2015/09/y...

Sergey Brin: co-founder of Google and formerly married to Anne.

Susan Wojcicki: Anne's sister, and CEO of Youtube, owned by Google.

Sam Altman: President of Y Combinator

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All of the people mentioned here belong to one particular subgroup in the US...let's say more diversity would be a great thing here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin

Brin was born in Moscow in the Soviet Union, to Russian Jewish parents,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Wojcicki

Her mother is American and Jewish, and her father is a Polish-born American

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman

He was raised Jewish and is gay.

So, you listed a Russian immigrant, two women and a gay man and you claim it lacks diversity -- because they are all apparently Caucasian and there seems to be a common thread of being Jewish or part Jewish?

(Let's not forget rich. All the rich people are rich and it's terrible. We should have a mix of socioeconomic groups amongst the rich. /s)

Sincere question: What kind of lack of diversity are you talking about? What would meet your definition of diverse?

Maybe a couple South Asian non-Jewish guys from less advantaged backgrounds?

EDIT: And, if you really want to hit it out of the park, who haven't been either married or siblings to Anne at some point.

The interview is between Sam and Anne. I have no clue why the GP listed Anne's sister and ex in their comment and used that as evidence of some kind of lack of diversity. If you listed me, my sister and my ex and some guy who happened to interview me, you could make similar assertions of lack of diversity:

"Look, Doreen is a former military wife whose father was also career military. Her sister had the same father and ended up working for the US government as well, though not as a military member. And the person interviewing Doreen knows her socially because (insert connection). See? See? It's like a club or something!"

As far as I can tell, the list is completely cherry picked and I have no idea what the point of it was. Which is why I asked, which is looking like a mistake.

No, because they're closely related to each other socially, not some token crap.

"But he's gay!"

If gender, nationality of origin, immigrant status and sexual orientation are all irrelevant ...the criticism is that successful people with similar/related careers have met and sometimes worked together?

That's a little like complaining that the president has met senators.

In terms you might like better, it's like Ivanka Trump interviewing Donald at the Trump International while Jeff Sessions films them.

Is Sam Altman a blood relative of Anne's? If so, I missed that detail.

I think I'm not able to go any further than what I already wrote, I'm sorry.

Well, I'm very sorry to hear that because I'm genuinely baffled as to what your point is. As a woman who feels excluded and unable to get traction due to my gender, I was interested in what you were saying, but it fails to parse for me.

> My first honest reaction: it does seem fairly incestuous. And then I'm not even getting into. well, let's say more diversity would be a great thing here.

To play devil's advocate, Marie Curie was worse. She, her husband, her daughter, and her daughter's husband all won Nobel Prizes. Marie even won it twice in two fields.

Both Eli and Peyton won a Super Bowl. Twice.

Both were great at their game, no doubt about it. Both worked hard to get to that level, everyone at that level does. Both acknowledge the role their father played in their success.

Read the wojcicki interview again. I think you’ll notice what is missing.

Indeed when reading Wojcicki I instantly thought of the trouble surrounding Youtube.

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