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Apple Entrepreneur Camp

developer.apple.com

25 pointsdfabulich30 comments

Why is Apple burying the lede here?

Call it what it is: Apple Women Entrepreneur Camp. Seems very strange to not include any mention of gender in the title of the program but to have the program be entirely about gender.

Over thanksgiving I had a bite of a sausage stick, or so I thought, turns out it was a vegan sausage stick made with figs and other spices. I was so expecting to bite a nice meaty sausage that the fig bite was extremely offputting. After I realized what was going on I found I quite liked the taste.

I feel it's worth saying that most sausages are mostly filler.

Delicious juicy filler ;)

Funny, had it been called that it probably wouldn't of irked me in the first place.

They mention that pretty clearly in the tagline/subtitle on the website. It is a bit awkward because subtitles and taglines perhaps doesn't fit well with the format of submissions on hackernews.

just use a colon ':' and put the subtitle/tagline after it

It seems that the HN community responds interestingly to topics of discrimination in tech (or, "lack of diversity"). It seems that there is a bit of denial in this community that there is indeed a discrimination issue. This is merely my observation, it could be skewed or entirely incorrect. Just keep in mind, that discrimination occurs whether you notice it or not. Further, you might be less likely to notice it if you are part of a group that suffers less from discriminatory practices.

Nonetheless, data and personal testimonies suggest that women and minorities have a harder time being interviewed and hired for positions at tech companies. Women and minority founders typically have a more difficult time securing funding and/or resources that will help them build a successful company. This isn't an issue that is unique to tech at all, rather this problem exists in organizations of all types.

The HN community isn't of one mind on this. Rather, it's deeply divided, just like society at large—and just like most large population samples are on most divisive topics.

I suspect the HN community isn't as blinkered as you may think, and perhaps being of an analytical mindset aren't as easily fooled by the 'diversity theatre' that corporations are performing at present. Perhaps they are more likely to look at systemic causes and solutions than ill considered treatments of the symptoms.

But what the hell do I know :)

> Women and minority founders typically have a more difficult time securing funding and/or resources that will help them build a successful company.

Well, but isn't it that normal ? is like saying that if you buy less lottery tickets you have it harder to win than those who buy more.

I think the issue is impossible to resolve, because we make groups based on attributes, so you can always make groups that share attributes that are less common among the total. Then those groups that are minority will always have less chance, unless you discriminate in favor them.

I'm open minded and I can accept that ok, gender is like very important attribute and we'll consider only that one, and we'll discriminate for some time until things are balanced. But, then we might need to change the constitution, and make discrimination by gender allowed temporarily, right ?

I think that a big component of that, and I could be wrong, is that a large part of the community isn't based in SF or even the US where these issues are more top of mind. Looking in from the outside, I'm sure it looks like those of us in the Bay Area might be focusing on perplexing things, which to many of us appear totally appropriate.

If there are less applications from some specific group of people, but the rejection rate is high in general, the rejection rate of the minority will tend to be very high. But that has nothing to do with discrimination.

I'm a man who was brought up in a home where I didn't gain any career advantages from my family or any connections they may have had. I've seen most of my peers at university gain entrance into their first career or internship based on such advantages, either directly or through their education at home.

There are many men who receive these advantages. There are certainly many women who receive them too. It might be the case that these advantages are chanelled more toward male children due to the prejudices of their parents, but I don't know. Nevertheless, anyone like this will have an easy time starting their career even without making use of a camp like this.

I have the feeling that camps like the one in this post will mostly be taken advantage of by the already advantaged few, and unfortunately most of its possible benefits won't be realised.

These programs are to help wealthy family's get their relatives in, with some plausible deniability by allowing a token lower class woman.

It was never for the lower classes, so don't feel too bad.

Interesting initiative.

Women, in my opinion (this may sound dumb, as I am a man), have sometimes a different rhythm than men, bring different interests and pay attention to different problems. So an environment more atuned to their way of thinking/being might yield great results.

I completely agree, worth a shot at least!

In what sense? The real enviroment will eventually be the real world. Nothing is stopping women from starting their own business, and yet there aren't many female entrepreneurs. So this camp should be some kind of confidence boost?

> That’s why we created Apple Entrepreneur Camp, for organizations founded and led by women.*

I had no idea what that asterisk could imply, since the statement seemed legally innocuous.

> * Apple believes that gender expression is a fundamental right. We welcome all women to apply to this program.

There is a veiled threat implied in the structure and semantics of the second sentence.

Where do you see a threat? I see it as being explicitly inclusive of trans women.

I believe he fears the pandering of extreme SJW-type ideas.

I think this is great!

Such an efficient way to boost flagging iphone revenues. Get other people to do the work and rent seek through your walled garden.

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