The Power of Attraction: How Beauty Influences Startup Investments
unisg.ch
unisg.ch
It is what it is I guess. But I also wouldn't want to work for such shallow people either. Note, the person was found on the HN who's hiring, so it's not just random people but also what I'd consider more thoughtful people who should know better as well.
The tech industry has a lot of unaccountable poor behavior, in interviews, and in general.
I don't know how we can solve it. For one reason, the bread&butter of some of our most desirable employers is underhanded exploitation, so we can't expect the environment to be a paragon of decency. For another reason, a lot of the other employers are money-losing investment scams, and a lot of what they do, at various levels, is theatre, not having to optimize collaboration towards successful business.
To the extent that companies care about poor behavior, AFAICT, at established companies, it's usually about "compliance" appearances, suppressing legal liabiltiies, and sometimes about morale.
That a person can walk into an interview and sense insta-disapproval from the interviewer, before it's even started (or poor behavior during) usually isn't a high priority, since there will be more candidates. It's not even a morale problem, since the person isn't hired.
(For example, to hear one former Google hiring expert's talk, that company even knows they have problems like this. Yet the snooty frat rituals, with pretense of relevance and objectivity, and unchecked poor individual behavior and biases you'd expect to accompany that, remain. And that's a relatively nice company.)
Thankfully, there's a lot of people who recognize the BS. But even they have constant learning and improvement to do. And it's harder when there's so much bad examples around and thriving. And there's constant new graduates, who are still assuming they're supposed to aspire to and emulate the hotbeds of bad behavior.
All I can think of here is "act locally", try to avoid the jerks, and try to do better in our small circles of influence.
Other ideas, other than fleeing whatever field is attracting the big money weasels that decade?
I'd say the market should decide, eventually, but this article actually proves the opposite, and it's at every level.
Won't the VCs' thinking be that the same cortisol-boosting effects on them will also apply to other people with whom the founders interact, increasing likelihood of startup success?
If they need to sell to other men, that's fine, but if they need to sell to other women (which is actually quite likely), then not so much.
All else being equal I'd definitely prefer to work with a more attractive coworker regardless of sex.
more seriously, is it even possible to have discussions on race without devolving into talking points?
This is the same thing.
A lot of VCs aren’t incentivized to see their portfolio company ipo. They are incentivized to see their portfolio company get a higher valuation and raise more.
So it would seem that attractiveness leading to a higher chance of fundraising is aligned with their interest.
However, scores of physical attractiveness are going to be strongly influenced by the character & charisma of the speaker. And I think it’s undeniable that a highly charismatic and compelling speaker should have a better chance of success in leadership, public relations, and sales.
I would prefer to see independent readings of attractiveness based on photographs alone, so that the attractiveness score is purely visual. Still visual attractiveness may count for something in later success but I would agree with the authors that in an ideal world, we’d be blind to someone’s physical characteristics because that is something you’re born with.
It's a mixture of beauty bias (even the smart YC evaluators are not immune), the fact that more attractive people are more willing to take risks because they have a higher chance of ending up on their feet in the event of failure, and the eugenic "smart thus rich/high status dad/mom can marry hotter spouse" effect compounding over generations. Often YC founders come from privilege and physical appearance is certainly a correlate.
If the decider doesnt have many data points, they're going to find points to support their hunch. This person works out super hard, the did a marathon, super good at chess, being hot will open some doors, anything goes.
The reality is most of the deals are made through friendly intros, and vet you for a certain lingo and overall fitness to be fundable.
Good luck correcting this culture. Are you going to evaluate the deals you missed, and go "eh to be fair the guy was a slob and came from a no name school, and we under estimated grit / timing"?. It's not like the data that shows youre bad at data driven evaluation is going to sway someone who isn't data minded.
you discriminate against them and expect them to die for your country
how can any individual remain loyal to a country that hates them and constantly sabotages and oppresses them using other groups?
A word just like nig*er is to Black people.
Why do you hate South Asians/Indians so much if you’re interested in talking about East Asian rights and challenges?
What objective measure of female beauty have they used? I thought it was a basic axiom of progressive thought that no such thing exists.
However, Hollywood wouldn’t be what it is if subjective measures of beauty were completely random.
Basically, if you take the axiom that physical appearance and genetic qualities should not matter at all, then we need to minimise its' influence.
But you could also easily make the argument that beauty is a proxy for a lot of things that we _do_ want to maximise. It makes sense to reward those that are beautiful, fertile, strong, etc.
Just not above all else. You wouldn't pick a romantic partner, or a friend, or a colleague _solely_ on those qualities, but to not incorporate them at all seems odd.
I mean, on a basic level, you have to be able to get on with your colleagues. A lot of people would find it difficult to get on with someone who's ugly, doesn't shower, has no social skills, etc, even if their code is great and their stock picks too. It's not arbitrary.
In a business context: Why?
A monkey could literally confirm this idea. So it fails at the very value proposition you're offering. It's at very least an unremarkable study, right?
Perhaps you could help everyone out by writing down what’s obvious to you so we know not to try to verify them by, you know, actual truth discovery. Bofadeez’ intuitive vibes are totally sufficient henceforth.