Female Founders of Y Combinator’s Winter 2013 Class | Hacker News Reader

Female Founders of Y Combinator’s Winter 2013 Class

daniellemorrill.com

44 pointsdmor56 comments

Number of females with an explicit mention of technical expertise: 0.

Taking "technical expertise" to mean "science, technology, engineering, and mathematics", and having nothing to do with art or psychology or anything else that could be dismissed by a certain type of person as "fuzzy":

"Cindy is a transplant from Seattle, where she was previously a Research Scientist and Engineer @UW Bioengineering." --Seems to qualify.

"Kelly was previously at Google as a UX design intern for YouTube and is currently Senior at Carnegie Mellon University double majoring in Human Computer Interaction and Industrial Design." --Borderline. I'm not sure whether UX design includes handling code or not; if so, it would definitely qualify; if not, it could be dismissed.

"Prior to Goldbely Vanessa headed up UX and Visual Design at Blip.tv, and was a Senior Interactive Designer for Gilt Groupe. [...] Vanessa handles UI/UX and all things creative at Goldbely." --Again, if "UI/UX" includes handling code, that would seem to qualify; if not, maybe not.

So it looks like 1 to 3, assuming you mean what I think you mean.

[Edit: not originally included was this: "Iolanthe received her Masters of Engineering, EECS in 2010 from MIT and also holds a B.S., EECS, Physics from MIT." This brings the count up to 2-4 out of 10.]

Fei Deyle is an electrical engineer.

So %50 are technical of the ones who are known.

Two more are still in stealth mode.

As a coder, why would you join one of these companies with non-technical founders instead of just building or co-founding your own product and collecting vastly more equity? I don't see the draw.

75% equity in a company with a product no one knows about, or 30% equity in a company everyone uses?

By the time everyone is using it, it's too late to be a co-founder and 30% equity is certainly out the window.

You're right, and by that point they don't need a technical cofounder, they just hire an engineer as an employee. Getting work with people who can actually reliably acquire customers is as valuable as getting to work with someone who can reliably write code.

http://www.daniellemorrill.com/2010/09/startup-marketing-2nd...

Is it? Of the most highly traffic'd sites, the vast majority have technical founders: Facebook, Google, YouTube, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, Twitter. I'm not saying marketing isn't valuable, but it seems neither necessary nor sufficient.

I'm not saying it's mutually exclusive, and having a CS or other engineering degree is neither necessary nor sufficient to create a company.

I think dmor's implication is that if you start a company with no non-technical cofounders, you'll be much less likely to gain so many users than if you started it with some non-technical cofounders. Feel free to argue about that. I will sit back.

Why wouldn't you want to ride in on the coattails of affirmative action?

> Number of females with an explicit mention of technical expertise: 0.

Ummm

> Iolanthe received her Masters of Engineering, EECS in 2010 from MIT and also holds a B.S., EECS, Physics from MIT.

that's a pretty huge mention of techincal expertise by pretty much anyones definition

That was a curious oversight. She wasn't included in the original lineup.

Sorry about that, I didn't recognize her name as a woman's name and just added her when she let me know.

Looking forward to the meet x male African American and x male Hispanic American Founders of YC.

I'd love to write those posts for you, but I believe it was 0 and 0 for this batch.

Maybe I should join next batch hehe

There have been in previous batches, though (way more Hispanic background than African-American, though)

Again, "male"s, are you kidding me?

But of course, I was expecting no less from the male-fuelled bro-powered testosterone world of HackerNews... Well, sexism won't lead you to more readers!

(PS: Sarcasm.)

You missed me.

I'm sorry Iolanthe, Vu let me know and I am going to update the post as soon as I can (just trying to keep the site up with 2 simultaneous front page stories at the moment). So sorry!

Hey everyone, meet Iolanthe is CEO and cofounder of Swish.com - a YC W13 company that let's you pre-order products from all over the web.

Why are there no female engineers?

There is at least one, if I'm reading it correctly: Cindy Wu.

Fei Deyle (CEO of Lollipuff & my wife) is an EE by training. Before Lollipuff, she was an regional sales director at a company selling electrical power SCADA software / hardware. She quit that job to do Lollipuff. Trust me... she's a hardcore engineer at heart -- she just loves fashion too.

There are plenty out there, but the overwhelming majority of them are doing their job instead of talking about it.

> As is the team’s “Food Wench”

:facepalm:

don’t get all up in arms

Excellent. It's just marketing by using words that would otherwise be pejorative.

They've got a pirate theme going, get a sense of humor!

Perhaps you've missed the sexist issue postings.

Wench = OK, get funded.

Dongle = Problem, lose job.

This is off topic, let's focus on the awesome women fundraising for their companies today at Demo Day.

Are you, like, context-challenged or something?

Yep. Must be. I didn't think people should lose their jobs over "dongle", but apparently there's a lot of trigger finger around.

I'm pretty sure dmor is a woman... as such, unless you are as well, she's probably more tuned into issues around sexism facing women, than you are.

And remember, not every reference to gender is automatically sexist. "Wench" is a word which is completely archaic in the modern world and almost never used in any context other than some reference to pirates / medieval times. To me, it seems like quite a stretch to try and paint this as sexism.

But I'm a guy, so what do I know?

> "Wench" is a word which is completely archaic in the modern world and almost never used in any context other than some reference to pirates / medieval times.

Let's not whitewash, that's only half right: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wench

I'm not sure Food Wench (servant) is in the same category as Marco Polo (worldwide trader), Dos Equis Guy(most interesting man in the world), and Jesse Pinkman (master cook).

It's actually not pejorative. (The term "wenching", however, is. Go English language! :)

It's not the most fortunate choice of title, but given that they're trying to create a pirate context - I'm not sure it's worth getting too upset about.

(And please, before somebody wants to throw sexism accusations my way, do check my posting history :)

Edit: I stand corrected. If urbandictionary is your source of what language means, it is pejorative. Interesting. I wonder if Vanessa was even aware of that.

It's actually not pejorative. (The term "wenching", however, is. Go English language! :)

I've linked elsewhere: First defn from first hit on google: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wench

When I type "define wench" in to Google I get this before the Urban Dictionary result: Noun A girl or young woman.

Unfortunately, you stopped short according to [0]

wench (wnch)

1. A young woman or girl, especially a peasant girl.

2. A woman servant.

3. A wanton woman.

intr.v. wenched, wench·ing, wench·es

To consort or engage in sex with wanton women. Used of a man.

[0] http://www.thefreedictionary.com/wench

and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wench: a historical British Modern English colloquial term for a lower class woman and/or promiscuous woman. Also in the 19th and early 20th centuries a term for a black woman, the male counterpart being "buck", both of which would be considered offensive and derogatory in modern times.

and http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wench: a lewd woman : prostitute

"buck" is supposed to be offensive? Damnit, I have been dropping the ball on getting offended.

Ya... I'm pretty sure I've dropped the ball on getting offended too. I should probably be offended at least 3-5 times a day. But as it turns out... I have a sense of humor. Apparently, with a sense of humor one does not get offended. Even less so if the offenses are "in theme." Who knew?

Historically it was a slur against African-Americans. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Buck

Typo in: "Grace Garey – Wasti". Should be Watsi.

It appears to have been fixed.

I don't care if they're female or not.

I long for a day when this can be the worldview of most everybody... when we don't even have to care about gender differences, because we believe (rightly) that every individual is afford equal opportunity to do/be/build/dream/create as they see fit, without gender (or race, or religion or skin color, etc.) even entering into the equation.

That said, we aren't in that world yet, so celebrating the accomplishments of female founders, and hoping they will serve as role models (or at least inspiration) for others who may feel disadvantaged or inhibited in some way, is probably a good thing.

I was thinking of a way to say it without hurting any feelings and you did that perfectly.

In Kuwait, people went through what the technology industry is going through now. People were so up in arms about women not being treated fairly that the women have been compensated so much people are complaining the other way around now. A man was running against a woman for a government position and his slogan against her was "Was she elected despite being a woman or because she is a woman?" That struck a chord with a lot of people and he annihilated her at the polls.

I was in Kuwait for the 09 elections when women were first elected to the parliament. What was the incident you talk about?

Additionally, high castes in India frequently complain about the government mandated reservations for low castes and other minorities (example, at the IIT [1]). I remember there was a year when the low caste positions went vacant just because they were reserved for them, while qualified high caste students were rejected.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_policy_in_Indian_In...

Thank you. I'm much more interested in 'people' in tech and interesting founders. What about the most interesting founders in the class? The most interesting 'people' in the class? So many people are excited about one kind of person in tech that they draw attention in the wrong way.

As a woman in tech - the existence of role models is important. They often get lost in the noise. Having them pointed out in a separate post is nice. It's not like they're taking away precious bits from male founders :)

And our industry sure could use a bit more diversity, so attracting non-male (and/or non-white) people to work in it is a good idea.

And I'm not saying that because it'd be nice to have a few more women around, so things wouldn't be quite as lonely - there's a clear benefit to diversity. See e.g. https://infocus.credit-suisse.com/app/article/index.cfm?fuse...

Why it is especially important in areas that require innovation: http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/hr_neale_groupdive...

Judging by the username, you are preaching to the head of the choir on women belonging in tech. Her point about getting attention for the wrong reasons is a fair one, as is yours about role models. Who knows what's ideal, besides continuing to prove we can do this stuff.

I'm curious how my username would trigger that thought?

I also had no idea caseorganic was a woman :)

Whoops, I meant that judging by c.o.'s username, we're all on Team More Ladies In Tech Good. I recognized her username because with more time, I would have liked to use her company's API on a project I worked on.

I don't care that they're female.

I care that they're not male.

This type of thinking marginalizes women by constantly comparing them to men. It sets the equality for women in tech cause back by subtly ingraining the idea that we should be focusing on the males rather than the females.

If you are in favor of more women in tech then say exactly that. Unless you're actually just against men in the tech field, in which case you should just carry on doing what you're doing.

Citation needed.

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