11-Year-Olds Learn Life Lesson During Startup Weekend
blackweb20.com
blackweb20.com
> What happened next was a hard wake up call for two young entrepreneurs who were
> ready to start working on their startup and something I hope any entrepreneur,
> parent or kid never experiences in their life.
A few years down the road, maybe you'll be chronicling a 15 year old Ben asking Susie to go on a date. Will Susie's rejection be a hard wake-up call that you hope nobody ever experiences in their life?
Instead, pull them aside and offer a little bit of mentorship. Tell them that this is exactly the same thing that white men with MBAs go through when they come up with an idea (it's the next Facebook!) and no hacker joins them either. Show them this site, where we developers mock rich privileged kids who think their ideas are zomg awesome: http://whartoniteseekscodemonkey.tumblr.com/ Teach them that ideas are a dime a dozen and that if they can't code and they still want to prove themselves, then they're going to have to roll up their own sleeves and get to work showing people why they theirs should be taken seriously. Teach them that they're NOT entitled to automatic help because of their age and skin color, but that they need to earn it.
But hoping that they never learn any hard life lessons? Ridiculous.
I can imagine it was truly cringe worthy to watch their little faces slowly realize what is happening. Of course you hope for all children to learn important (and therefore probably hard) life lessons, but your human instinct as a spectator, and more-so as a parent or teacher) is that you somehow wish that it would have gone down differently, that they wouldn't have dropped the ball, or forgotten their lines, or gotten picked last.
I don't see any reason to chastise someone for expressing that wish. Also, give him credit for doing precisely what you say he should have. He gave encouragement, tried to help pick them back up and get them engaged on their real work instead of moping.
Honestly, I never understood the idea of pitching startups at events like these to garner funding or co-founders, with no actual code/product/etc no matter the age, skill, or race of the individual. Always seemed a little quixotic and irrationally exuberant. pg and co seem to not mind however, as they seem to have gotten pitches (and accepted them) for non-existent startups. Wasn't Reddit at 0 when it was pitched and accepted into original YC?
Then again, there's a quote of pg somewhere saying nearly everyone has a product/some code at least now when pitching to YC.
I don't think he's implying that at all. At the end, Sutton just notes that there were few minorities. He never explicitly makes the connection that the kids were actively discriminated against because of their race.
"Two 11-year-old entrepreneurs learned the hard way what it’s like to be a minority in tech during Startup Weekend"
Being on blackweb20.com, I would assume "minority" is referring to race here. Wayne, you may want to update the title here if you want to avoid some confusion.
(Wayne: By the way, I'm in RTP and just noticed your trioutnc site from your profile - looks like a nice tool so far, i'll be trying it).
Is minority here referring to being outliers in the age distribution or "a sociological group that does not make up a politically dominant voting majority of the total population of a given society"[1]?
If it's the former then you should say "in the minority" or something. If it's the latter, and you're not making this an issue of racial discrimination then you need to change the headline to something like "Two 11-year-old entrepreneurs learned the hard way what it’s like to be rejected during Startup Weekend".
You said that wasn't the point you were making: ie. that the point you were making was not that "being a minority" (read: ethnic minority - being young does not constitute being a minority since everyone is young at some point in their lives but not everyone is black, for example) influence the outcome for these two.
Now you're saying that you were making that point - but that you're saying that they were both a minority, and "minors" in that they were so young.
I think you were quite clearly link baiting here using the race card even if you're not admitting it - however the story clearly shows that these two couldn't get serious hackers to work on their ideas because they're 11 years old. I seriously doubt that their ethnic or gender minority status had anything to do with their outcomes at this event.
Also you've described Marci as a woman. She's 11. She's not a woman, she's a girl. You couldn't even describe her as a young woman - she's most definitely a girl.
Comparing age based prejudice to race or gender based prejudice is erroneous anyway. Discrimination based on age (in the case of exclusion of young people from certain activities) is entirely appropriate. Discrimination and exclusion based no race is never appropriate and gender based exclusion is rarely appropriate (I say rarely since exclusion of women from competing against men in, say, professional rugby is a safety issue).
We were all young once, but I've never been black and I've never been female (although I could approximate the latter through surgery if I was keen).
edit: removed "as stated above"
There's this part:
> Out of the 170 or so attendees, I would guess there were about 15 to 20 blacks and maybe 10 of other ethnicities. The majority of participants were white and mostly guys.
If the focus is on their age, why doesn't he mention the age distribution there?
The only time in the entire post that he conflates their age with being a minority is, "...in terms of age and race".
Also, the accelerator program he's running doesn't exactly appear to be geared towards kids -- although, to be fair, it's hard to tell for sure, since the founders' ages aren't included in the bios of the companies they're working with. So, when he says, "Numbers like this is just another reason why we’re launching the NewME Accelerator to help other minorities launch their startup," I don't think he means age there, either.
This really bugs me. If the focus is on ethnicity and gender, I think that could become an extremely pernicious idea in this industry, because any bets on the future successes of an idea should rest solely on the quality of the idea, and any bets on the future successes of founders should rest solely on the founders' personalities and their determination to make their business successful. Ethnicity and gender should not be playing any role in any of that; to give extra attention to a startup because of the gender or ethnicity of the founders is to do a disservice not only to them -- because they will still need to compete in a market which is far less interested in their ethnicity or gender -- but also to other startups competing for resources.
Oh, and then there was this part:
> Marci and Ben experienced what it’s like to be a minority in tech. You can have great ideas, and people can and will say it’s a good idea but at the end of the day you may be own your own with little support.
No, they experienced what it's like to be people in tech.
I wish someone had pointed them to AppInventor for Android. I think App Inventor is directly targeted to young people like them. While I was in high school their was an organization that would help kids start a little business like this and get it off the ground. Most successful ideas like selling tshirt. It would be interesting to see it applied to ideas like these kids had.
The kids were serious in pitching and people voted for them but I don't think everyone who voted for them took them serious and wanted to join their team.
I see you run an accelerator for minorities. Why not run them through your program?
The vague tinge of racism being alleged here (and yes, the author is crafty enough here to set out the components of the charge without setting it out, because it would sound ridiculous were it directly stated) is distasteful.
Don't get me wrong, I think that there are certainly serious barriers within the start-up world for women and minorities. I'm not sure this is an example of that bias playing out, though.
Why the lack of support? I suspect it might be because other participants are looking to build a network rather than work on the next Facebook.
Also the idea person becomes the effective leader of the team. I'm not sure how well a kid would manage a motley troop of developers+business people+designers. From my experience, most adults would have trouble with this task :-p
they have domain expertise and unique perspectives, plus they are media darlings
a savvy businessman should scoop these kids up
Age IMO should not matter when it comes to the tech or startup world. A meritocracy has been the norm for awhile now, regardless of age. I think these two young kids ought to be applauded for their work so far (hell, I had no clue what a startup was when I was 11, much less had a captive audience to pitch one to) and be encouraged in their endeavors with guidance and mentoring. They seem really driven and have great potential to succeed in whatever they aim for in life. The barriers to entry on the high perilous seas of online and mobile startups are lower than ever and with the right encouragement, they can go far in realizing their dreams. Good luck to them.
If an 11 year old black child pitches me an incredible startup idea, I would not join their team. Calling me racist for that is racist in itself. I don't think an 11 year old is competent to run a company or manage a product.
This article is a rarity in being such a clear example of reverse racism. Get over yourselves. The fucking president of the United States is black. Do you think attendees of startup weekend are more racist than your average American who voted for Obama?
If a competent black adult pitched a startup, they would have had no more of a problem assembling a team than a white or asian.
This sort of self-important racism by people fixated on the past is exactly what holds black culture back.
Subprime mortgage rates are nearly double for black and hispanic households: http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/webfeatures_snap...
Black males are 10 times more likely to be incarcerated for drug offences than whites: http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/us0309web_1.p...
Black sounding names are less likely to get a callback, despite identical resumes: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/29/national/main57568...
This is not an issue that is solved by a single election, or by making it sound like a "moral" failure on the part of blacks or whites. It is complex, systemic, and we all have our internal biases that are difficult to recognize, let alone root out.
My main point is that presuming racism where there is none is as bad as racism itself - because it IS racism and it perpetuates racism. If you say I'm racist because I'm white and I don't think an 11 year old black child is fit to be my team leader, then you are the racist.
These kids are minorities at this event mostly because they are minors. That'll fix itself in time and I commend the author for trying to help keep their spirits up so that this was a positive experience for them instead of a let-down.
There is also something interesting to say here about the psychology of voting without commitment. If the voting at this event was your true ranking of which team you wanted to join (i.e. you rank all ideas and join the top one that makes the cut), then no one would have picked these kids. When there was nothing on the line, no one wanted the kids to feel bad so they got some 'mercy votes' or maybe 'cute kids, nice try' votes, but when it got down to voting with your feet, no one thought their ideas or abilities were attractive enough over the alternatives.
I think it's pretty clear "minority" here means black. By indicating the audience made their decision based on race, the author is implicitly calling them racists.