Comment by abalone | Hacker News Reader

Comment by abalone | Hacker News Reader

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What pg said is that

1) the "pool of potential startup founders" is programmers,

2) it's non-discriminatory and self-selecting, and

3) women are underrepresented in this pool because it's hard to get 13 year old girls interested in programming, and

4) rather than encouraging women to become startup founders it would be better to fix that 13 year old girl problem

This debate about whether he was referring to "just programmers" is a complete red herring. Programmers == startup founders, to him.

The really damning quote is this:

If someone was going to be really good at programming they would have found it own their own. Then if you go look at the bios of successful founders this is invariably the case, they were all hacking on computers at age 13. What that means is the problem is 10 years upstream of us. If we really wanted to fix this problem, what we would have to do is not encourage women to start startups now.

Repeat: pg literally said it would be better to discourage women from starting startups now.

Not "these" women. Not "non programmer" women. All women.

......

The problem is not that pg is some huge sexist. It's that he's defensive. He's passing the buck 10 years up the chain, saying that's where the problem lies. In CS curriculum or something.

But in actuality, parents and educators could just as well say that 13 year old girls don't have enough 23 year old female hacker role models to look up to.

So perhaps YC, PyCon and the industry as a whole could be more proactive. For example by spotlighting and giving extra support to the best examples of female hacker role models, and connecting them with girls.

Not by discouraging women from starting startups now.

I really think you are misinterpreting what pg said, and I say that as a card-carrying equal opportunity feminist (you can check my HN comment history for proof). He is not saying that women should be not encouraged, he is saying that encouraging women at ycombinator application time is not the solution, and that the solution needs to be applied earlier, because a prerequisite of an ycombinator founder is that they be a hacker, and a hacker needs ten years experience.

It's like getting upset that there are no 5'2 guys playing in the NBA. Although height is not a job requirement, if you don't have it it is highly unlikely that you will get the job, unless you can demonstrate that you have other skills to make up for height (speed, highly accurate shooting, and a 5' vertical jump for example). To bring the analogy back to ycombinator, I'm pretty confident that a woman that shows up with only 6 months experience hacking, but she already has a decent chunk of her product built, that the ycombinator crew will consider her application very seriously, because she would have already demonstrated that her lack if experience was not a handicap to her hacking.

So women applying to YC is analogous to short people playing in the NBA. Where did you get your feminist card from again?

The problem with pg's statement, which I quoted directly, is that he blames 13 year old girls and middle schools and gives industry a pass. We're already non-discriminating and self-selecting. The problem is getting girls into code, and god knows how to do that.

Parents and teachers might have a response to that. Where are the female hacker role models for the 13 year old girls to look up to?

That's one of the proactive things industry can do. Shine the spotlight on positive role models. Counteract brogrammer culture at conferences and in companies, too. That requires active intervention, not just an open door policy.

And that was the whole question he was responding to -- not just whether we're actively discriminating against women, but whether there's something more proactive we should be doing.

Just pointing his finger up the line and saying "it's their fault" is kind of disappointing.

a. Need there be a cause for blame, at all?

b. I know a certain number of woman who were 13 roughly 10 years ago. None is now working in programming, or that I know looking to start a company. Several are in the technically demanding field of architecture. One is an RN, which requires a good deal of intelligence. All seem reasonably happy with their choices.

c. For it may be hard to see in the world of HN, but programming, let alone programming as founder of a startup, is not the be-all and end-all of vocations.

> It's like getting upset that there are no 5'2 guys playing in the NBA.

This is why I try to avoid reasoning by analogy. Every analogy is flawed, but some end up making the wrong point entirely.

Height is a physical attribute that cannot be influenced (without questionably unethical means) from any age. A better analogy would be someone picking up a basketball for the first time at 25 and expecting to play at an NBA level.

I agree with everything else you said though.

Full quote:

> If we really wanted to fix this problem, what we would have to do is not encourage women to start startups now. It’s already too late. What we should be doing is somehow changing the middle school computer science curriculum or something like that.

I don't think he meant to say that women should be specifically discouraged from starting startups. And that interpretation does not fit with the rest of what he said in the interview.

Splitting hairs over "not encourage" vs. "discourage" is sort of in the same vein as "these women" vs. "women". It's missing the point.

He said it's "too late" for women at this stage, if they haven't been hacking since 13. What part of "too late" suggests that pg thinks there's more proactive stuff we can do?

pg's point is clearly that we're fine and the problem lies 10 years up the line because middle school isn't doing enough to get 13 year old girls interested in hacking, because god knows how the heck you do that. It's passing the buck.

If you aren't coding at 13, then you won't be able to start a company (coding) at 23. That's the point he was and still is trying to make. You, on the other hand, are trying to make an entirely different point, which appears to be that PG said something 'damning'. The only PEOPLE he's discouraging from doing startups are people who haven't been hacking for 10 some-odd years before ASKING FOR HIS MONEY AND DOING A STARTUP WITH IT. It's not his job to get (more) 13 year old girls up and hacking. He is but one person, after all.

FWIW, whatever point you are trying to make was lost the second you started 'literally quoting' PG in your post. As it turns out, changing a few words here and there and putting emphasis where it suits your agenda happens to be an egregious misstep in having empathy for someone's position and being heard yourself. Makes me sorta sad to see this behavior continue well after it's been explained thoroughly.

Your choice though.

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