Comment by rpm4321 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rpm4321 | Hacker News Reader

What a phony little post. The author appears to be willfully conflating the act of hiring with the act of investing, which are held to completely different legal standards.

Betteridge's Law of Headlines applies here - but also to pretty much every sentence in the last two paragraphs ending in a question mark.

Edit: Completely forgot to mention the fact that PG has made it abundantly clear that his statements revolve around "the ability to communicate", not some sweeping bias against immigrants - which is absurd in itself, considering how diverse YC funded founders are. I think it's really unfortunate that people seem to want to exploit his candor, when he's essentially giving helpful advice to immigrant founders that it would be well worth their time and effort to improve their communication skills.

Had the author spent even a few minutes researching this, he could have easily discovered the full context of PG's quotes, PG's clarifications, and the fallacy of his investor == employer logic, which really makes it look like he's trying to deliberately mislead readers.

Maybe it's time for PG to update his "What you can't say" essay:

http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

which are held to completely different legal standards

So it's OK to discriminate when investing because it's inside a legal loophole?

So you're saying Investors should be forced to invest money into something because the person pitching them is in a protected class?

Clarification: Discrimination based on race, ethnicity, etc is bad. But employers need to be able to hire based on the ability to do one's job. If a large part of one's job is to communicate... things start to get murky.

Forced? Of course not, don't be hyperbolic. No-one is "forced" to hire because of the Civil Rights Act, they are simply prevented from using race as a reason to not hire.

I was simply pointing out that the OP's reason for being able to disregard the Civil Rights Act is because it's in a legal loophole, not because there are substantial differences that mean it shouldn't be applied.

I think there is a difference though. Any individual could discriminate in buying stocks because they don't like the head of the organization for whatever reason regardless of the moral implication. I don't think anybody would say this would be a violation of the civil rights law.

YC is slightly different because the relationship is closer, sure, but it is still an investor/investee relationship. I think its still a case like the former. I'm not sure I'd agree entirely that its a loophole.

> No-one is "forced" to hire because of the Civil Rights Act, they are simply prevented from using race as a reason to not hire.

Investors are in the business of gauging likelihood of success.

As an extreme example, consider the following scenario: You are an investor during WWII. The Japanese are discriminated against by the general public, and you're considering investing in a company with Japanese founders. You're aware that the company will face significant difficulties because of their race in this climate.

It's not unreasonable to forgo investing. The company's chances of success are significantly lower than they would be if the founders were white (in the climate of WWII).

Were you required by law not to discriminate, you would be forced to invest in a company you didn't expect to succeed.

Of course, you could argue that this isn't discrimination because the actual reason is based on likelihood of success rather than prejudice, which is the case for YC. PG argues that strong accents, which are difficult to decipher, are indicative of sub-par communication skills, and are therefore relevant to the success of the company.

Investors are in the business of gauging likelihood of success.

But aren't employers in the business of gauging likelihood of success in prospective employees? In everything you've just written, how is investment substantially different from hiring?

Who says it's a 'loophole'? What does that even mean?

Yes, just like its apparently fine to shamelessly misinterpret what people are saying.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com