Why Diversity Is Bad For Startups
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
In other words, this is an example of the pernicious spread of a purely financial-utility-maximizing perspective on decision making within the startup culture which deliberately ignores the necessity of making sure that all of our actions stay within desirable moral parameters. The observation that a smaller percentage of women than men in the current cultural context feel motivated to create and work in startups should not be a justification for ignoring the issue; it is a justification for interrogating our sociocultural organization, and a motivation for directing energy and resources towards making startups a positive force for changing prevailing cultural patterns. Entrepreneurship is about creating value and the reductionist idea that only financial value matters must always be fought vigorously.
Nooo! Reductio ad absurdum means "obtaining two statements that contradict each other", not "obtaining a statement that sounds immoral to me". If the latter were valid reasoning, previous generations could have used it to prove the existence of god, because disbelieving in god was immoral to them. I guess we could call such arguments "reduction to enemy" instead.
Also, you are misusing the term "reducto ad absurdum". Trunk's reasoning merely shows that there is a tradeoff to be made between value creation and diversity (i.e., more diversity -> less value). This is a positive (factual) claim.
The fact that your moral values lead you to believe that startups should choose less value and more diversity does not negate this claim.
Ignore the gender issue for now. Having homogeneous founding team is valuable because it reduces time-wasting arguments. That's really what it boils down to -- I don't think it has anything to do with men vs. women.
A startup could just as easily be founded by two women with shared backgrounds and values, e.g., RentTheRunway, BirchBox, One Kings Lane, etc.
Gilt's founding team included both men and women. Sugar, Inc's founding team included four men and two women.
Homogeneity in values, diversity in skills is what's valuable for a founding team.
I'd think time wasting arguments aren't a symptom of diversity, rather it's a quality of pig headed dogmatists.
Diversity + open mindedness is the way to go!
Perhaps someone should burst a bubble and point out how many startups out there are very well defined, funded, with solid business cases, research and deliverables.
Worthless article.
Small Stuff: Her syntax is poor, repetitive and shows very little organization or proofreading. Case in point, these are her words: <<"You are likely to not move fast enough and therefore run out of money. A startup at the very beginning is about time and money. You need to get time in order to be able to do the company, but if you take too much time, you will run out of money.">> Note: that is just terrible. Sorry.
Big Stuff: She makes exaggerated leaps of logic, as if there are missing paragraphs, and her mix of facts and disjointed statements make for some terrible contradictions, some of which are insulting to the reader, such as (again, her words): A) <<"...the vast majority of women do not want to run startups.">> B) <<"...women care more about their personal life than men do.">> C) <<"... women are likely to bring diversity [of opinion] to a male founding team, and that’s not what founding teams need.">>
She basically broke the article into several disjointed sections, trying to paste it all together with random facts showing "false causality" (look it up) and the end result is very sloppy.
This article is a good example of how not to write. Ever. It's painful to read. I stick by my original, unfortunately ironic, comment.