Why is pg engaging with these trolls? Does anyone think they truly care about women succeeding in business or software? No, this is about making a stink and attention whoring. The appropriate response is to flip these weenies the bird.
I mean that ('posture piece') as neutrally, perhaps, as it is possible to mean it.
>come away with the idea that YC is somehow sexist.
And you can say, with a straight face, that YC is not sexist? That it's just the tech environment, and you're on the 'right side'?
Again, this is about your reputation--controlling the narrative.
You seem to be looking at this through a lens of hate. May I ask why?
The rhetorical arc of the piece is public self-exoneration. I don't think you can reasonably argue otherwise.
PG isn't required to give a deposition of his thoughts on the matter. He could remain silent and continue working on what's important to him.
Or more interestingly, he could launch YC initiatives to get girls coding, shift resources towards some meaningful contribution, something more tangible. Possibly he's done that, and combined with aforementioned silence he might be cruising quite comfortably.
Instead he writes a piece designed to keep the 'more moderate people' from thinking YC sexist, a piece that changes nothing (the flame war abounds) except public perception.
See above, "working on what's important to him," with a certain wry taste.
PG's ends, in this case, are his business; he wants to make more money. This piece, seen as a consequentialist act, would be a gambit played to calm a possible negative tide in feminist circles toward YC, that might have resulted in YC getting fewer (qualified!) female applicants... which would be bad for business.
I think your problem might be in assuming PG cares about his personal reputation, rather than about YC's reputation. Only one of those two things will make him money.
In other words: this is part of "working on what's important to him." Playing the politics of business brand-image is just as much a part of "business" as building your product, as far as profitability goes.
>This piece, seen as a consequentialist act, would be a gambit played to calm a possible negative tide in feminist circles toward YC, that might have resulted in YC getting fewer (qualified!) female applicants... which would be bad for business.
Precisely, with a possible qualifier on 'feminist circles'--moderate, maybe even conservative feminist circles.
By which I mean to say, he's pointedly ignoring the feminist concerns outside of the most mainstream: even those that have a point.
Which is why this isn't a conversation! There is no interchange of ideas happening here, only the inevitable flame war spawned by a HN gender topic.
I don't think he could have made that any clearer.
The nature of this kind of discussion is always going to be hyperbolic and emotionally charged, which is why gender discussions here get nuked.
That's what I find so amusing about PG's foray today: PG could write the most innocuous treatise imaginable, and he'd still be getting into trouble, and deservedly so.
Ask yourself: what happens after this? Is YC going to be the shining light that brings sexual equality to the Valley?
Or does YC culture get to pat itself on the back for being less sexist than the other parts of tech culture and continue its general status quo?
This essay doesn't heal any divide; it just stirs the pot a bit more. It's about reputation, not solutions--which is somewhat a shame, because the second half of the essay (which essentially is a restatement of PG's initial comment) is pretty thoughtful and reasonable.
Dude actually wrote: 'by pointing out the degree to which women run things at YC it's closer to saying "I'm not racist! I'm black."'
Comedy gold. You just don't say stuff like that.
I mean, maybe he's got some semblance of a good point in there somewhere, but you can't hear it over the kneejerk outrage.
And maybe that's where I have a problem with this. PG ignores the flamewar unless by touching it he can get something he wants--the appropriate reputation amongst moderates. And he can't (and won't) get away scott free.
Look we get it. You enjoy being some moral arbiter that has impossible standards so you can act like your better than everyone while accomplishing nothing.
:D
Have some guts and stop beating about the bush.
Not entirely sure what the author thinks they are achieving.
Perhaps I am less critical of Paul as much as I am the crude politics of it all--thus critical of Paul by extension.
(Before you think I am directly calling Paul a hypocrite, what I mean is that the toxic flame wars are, by their nature, hypocritical, and it takes care to interact with them without appearing hypocritical yourself--care that I do not think Paul managed.)
This piece does nothing but puff up YC in an effort to distance YC from the tech sector's sexism, which will only work to a point.
The target audience is the section of moderate feminists that are inherently sympathetic to YC; the concerns of those outside that layer, even the valid ones, are simply not important to PG.
To reiterate: this is a posturing move, in the most neutral sense possible.
And once again, they aren't wishing things were different so they could have done it...
This might be the wrong audience to ask a question like that. :-)
(My own answer: no, of course I don't root for my country's athletes at the Olympics or care whether "we" have a shot at a gold medal.)
I suspect a relatively small number are real trolls; the majority are probably just used to the standard media / Internet battle lines and narratives and attempting to reproduce them, without thinking deeply about the issue. Many of those people can be reached with a more nuanced and interesting discussion, but not in the course of, say, an interview, or a short e-mail exchange.
Having been in a surprisingly large number of situations in which people misinterpret what I say because it doesn't fit into the standard box or boxes common to a subject, I empathize with the problem. And I'm not a famous person or someone who gets interviewed about hot-button topics by time-pressed reporters!
That is a very mature approach, I am sure :P