White, male startup companies get funding for being white and male
geekfeminism.org
geekfeminism.org
Unfortunately though I think he has simply voiced what a lot of people, VC or otherwise, secretly think (or not so secretly, when not in mixed company).
If you're a minority or female, expect to be shut down at every avenue. It's not possible for you to succeed, so we will ensure that you don't.
"...nerds, with no social life who dropped out of Harvard or Stanford"
Is probably the actual important part. For example, I'm white and male. By these criterion, I would not be selected, because I didn't drop out of an Ivy, and have a social life...
He should relax his criterion so that he allows non-male non-white nerds who dropped out of Stanford/Harvard, but I kind of doubt the candidate pool would change much...
Which is what makes what he said all the more perplexing. He could have probably also said "and are shorter than 7' tall and weighless than 500lbs and have not won a Grammy for best new R&B singer".
None of those change the candidate pool much either, yet wouldn't be worth saying. The only reason I can think that he would make the statement he did is because he believes that "white maleness" is an intergral part of the equation and contribute within an order of magnitude of the other things (Ivy league drop out with no life) -- otherwise you wouldn't mention it as it doesnt' change the "complexity".
I think you can only say this when you take in to account the ratio of applicants.
Of course that can be countered with 'they're not applying because they know they won't be accepted' but I don't think that's going to cut it for me.
“That correlates more with any other success factor that I’ve seen in the world’s greatest entrepreneurs. If you look at Bezos, or [Netscape Communications Corp. founder Marc] Andreessen, [Yahoo Inc. co-founder] David Filo, the founders of Google, they all seem to be white, male, nerds who’ve dropped out of Harvard or Stanford and they absolutely have no social life. So when I see that pattern coming in — which was true of Google — it was very easy to decide to invest.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/independentstreet/2008/05/08/why-ventur...
And yes, I did read the 'article' as far as it is worthy of the term.
The fact is, people are prejudiced. Some venture capitalists might have money, but also possess very little investment / business acumen - and so, feel they have to rely on a prejudiced / cookie-cutter 'template' of what makes a successful CEO.
If an investor is not willing to examine a person and situation objectively (and look past superficial details), they're probably not very good at the VC game. In which case most of us would be better off without them anyway.
The way to deal with that is to set up a fund and prove them all wrong by picking out those gems.
While the VCs who hold these views see deviation - from their (prejudiced) template - as a risk - that narrow-mindedness provides an advantage to any investors who are able to assess applicants objectively.
Keep in mind the old joke about the economist who wouldn't pick up a $10 on the sidewalk because, "If a $10 were sitting on the sidewalk, someone would have already picked it up!"
1. There may not be enough capital to fund every "white male start-up."
2. All "white male start-ups" do not consist of Harvard/Stanford drop-outs with no social life and under 30 years old.
3. "White male" is probably not the sole criteria, but if it is a consideration, then a "White male star-up" may make it further in the process before being considered based on its other merits.
4. The Doerr made no reference to a preponderance of "white male start-ups" nor did it suggest that such a preponderance was the basis for his investment preference.
It don't think it would be surprising to suggest that most people have a better understanding of people from a similar cultural and social background and therefore are more comfortable working with such people.
Doerr is not a in a position to fund even a small fraction of the start-ups that apply, neither is YC, nor any other fund that invests in start-ups as far as I know, it's a glut of applicants and a shortage of time and hands to mentor that puts the brakes on.
Capital is not the issue, and it never has been.
> All "white male start-ups" do not consist of Harvard/Stanford drop-outs with no social life and under 30 years old.
No, but those are the large majority of the applicants, typically they are people that believe more in themselves than they believe in working for a boss, and once you cross that line a university education carries an opportunity cost that may be a net loss. So that's why people decide to 'drop out' and pursue their dreams. It removes some of the safety net, but even that is something that you can consciously decide to do. And working without a net is a motivation of sorts (precisely because mistakes will have dire consequences).
> "White male" is probably not the sole criteria, but if it is a consideration, then a "White male star-up" may make it further in the process before being considered based on its other merits.
Typically a VC / incubator fund will look at communication skills, people skills and technical skills long before any personal factors would kick in and if you ever had hard proof (by for instance setting up a false front behind two black females doing all the work) you'd be in a good position to make them look ridiculous. Another option is to set up an all minority fund where you exclusively fund anybody but white males and you outperform the market.
> The Doerr made no reference to a preponderance of "white male start-ups" nor did it suggest that such a preponderance was the basis for his investment preference.
This is a well established fact, I don't need John Doerr to give that information.
There are a lot of applications of people that are essentially without any chance whatsoever in every category, when you remove all of those the number of people left that are a minority of some form or other tend to of exceptional quality.
> It don't think it would be surprising to suggest that most people have a better understanding of people from a similar cultural and social background and therefore are more comfortable working with such people.
That's probably a huge factor right there. The control for that would be to have an investment fund created by wealthy people with a coloured skin and females, we'll see who they end up investing in, people 'like them' or white guys under 30.
What do you think they'll do ?
That's a hypothetical.
It should be "what do you think they'd do?"
I'd expect that they would act in a way likely to attract additional investment from others in the industry.
It is hard enough to pick a winning portfolio of companies. Would anyone really intentionally handicap themselves and not try to pick the best ones? At the expense of their portfolio?
If a green woman walks in with a hockey stick graph, VBM, kicking ass, they will line up to write her a check.
VCs aren't in the business of being fair; they're interested in making as much money as possible. If they find that white males are succeeding more often than other groups, they're going use that to maximize their profit.
Venture capitalists, can and _SHOULD_ invest time in looking beyond superficial details - and ultimately be able to understand each proposal on a deep level.