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Let's say for the sake of argument that you are completely, 100% right about the difficulty of fundraising and how 'banal' their product is. Even given that, the kind of shady behaviour that the investors tried to pull (groping, conversations with dates attached, etc) is absolutely intolerable and should be dealt with incredibly harshly.

I don't think parent was excusing that behavior. If the author had written the post focusing on those aspects, it would have been a compelling article on the discrimination they faced while fundraising. And like you said, it needs to be dealt with harshly and exposed.

What has happened instead is that the tone seemed to suggest that it is easy for white men* to succeed. This is in a way dismissing the efforts of countless white nerds who have spent their entire youth fiddling with their computer projects. The internet is full of obscure projects that exist purely for the love of hacking. The author misses out the correlation between this and the relatively larger number of successful white men in the industry.

Discrimination is real. But we shouldn't rush to attribute success to being white and male, unless there is a study which tells us: (no of hours white men have spent/successful white men) vs (no of hours X group has spent/successful X group people)

To me, it seems that the way to fix it is to get kids to start programming early irrespective of gender and color.

* I am male, but not white.

I am honestly completely unqualified to comment on how good their product is. I know very little about the 'dating application' space. I did find the comments about finding funding to be somewhat entitled, but I guess most people who go through YC compare themselves to their (very highly successful) peers.

> What has happened instead is that the tone seemed to suggest that it is easy for white men* to succeed.

Having read the article I can say I did not get that impression at all. The article argues it's easier for men to be funded than women and that there are implicit biases at work in the VC-funding-system that unfairly disadvantage women. This sounds perfectly reasonable to me; it's a common and valid criticism made by feminists all the time.

Here's the relevant quote from the article.

> I knew the founders of many other companies pretty closely – their backgrounds, their revenue, their valuations, how much they raised. Sure, it’s comparing apples and oranges, but one company (with a 6’ tall, attractive white, male CEO) that was pre-product and just a few LOIs raised over a million with 3x the valuation. A smaller B2B company that had 10% of our revenue raised the same amount as us, at twice the valuation. Another B2C company, with a quarter of our revenue and much stronger, well-funded competitors, raised 3x what we raised, at twice the valuation. The main difference? They were all run by all male founders.

I don't believe any reasonable person is going to read that and walk away believing the author wasn't implying that white men get funded easier than women.

The question is for what reason. She's making an argument that was the only difference. With support & evidence.

Easier, not easy.

someone needs to read up on their IFF logic tables.

That's right -- the article is saying that white guys (especially tall and handsome ones -- remember that short guys oh wait you already know) have less difficulty than many other people in the funding game. But in this discussion, the claim a few posts above was that the article says that white guys have it easy. Different.

It's like claiming A greater than B means A very large, if we're talking about, say, real numbers. But just because a .5 percent chance is bigger than a .2 percent chance doesn't imply that either of these numbers is very large.

In particular, it's useful to play with numbers because it reminds you that a very small difference in funding rates at the beginning may compound, leading to big differences later. If a few important investors get distracted by the idea of dating you or don't take you seriously because of small biases, that may have a substantial long-term impact.

The tone doesn't seem to reflect 0.2 -> 0.5, more like 0.1 -> "sure thing, impossible not to get funded"

I guess not everybody perceived the tone in the same way. It seemed much more neutral to me.

The term 'easy' is also relative, stop trying to be pedantic.

It's easier for white men* to get funding than white women*.

http://fortune.com/2015/05/06/silicon-valley-asians-report/

A vast majority of men are still discriminated more than white women in Silicon Valley. So you need to specify which group of men, and which group of women.

Since right now, White men > White Women > Hispanic Men > Asian Men > Black Men > Asian Women > Black Women > Hispanic Women

Do you not see that this isn't just a gender problem? This is a racial and cultural problem. White women are one of the least discriminated groups at large in the grand scheme of things.

Sure, discrimination and bias are wrong. But guess what, the world doesn't work in ideals. Learn how the system is run, and do the best you can at the moment given your advantages and disadvantages.

If your a white women, look for other women for mentorship and/or funding. She's gone through it before, she understands the nuances of trying to be successful, and the social prowess needed to get there. You can use your gender to your advantage, or it can be to your detriment.

If your a non-white male, put your face to the grindstone because you have to work that much harder to get to where you want to be. There is no if and or buts, this is how it is. You can try and create social change to the detriment of your career, you can point it out all you want but this is it. This is the environment you are working in at this moment of time. Either embrace the hardship, or become an activist to create change.

>> Even given that, the kind of shady behaviour that the investors tried to pull (groping, conversations with dates attached, etc) is absolutely intolerable and should be dealt with incredibly harshly.

Some of those should not be invited back to YC. Isn't that one of the things YC does, bring in quality investors? What about the drunk at demo day? These are examples of the investors not taking the founders and what they're doing seriously. Has YC passed its peak?

Groping is not OK, but an invitation to a date? How are people going to get together in the future, matchmaking by computer is the only "form" allowed? I suppose that would be good news for her startup...

It's sleazy to invite somebody hoping to date them but giving the impression that you want to invest in them. But the guy mentioned explicitly stated "it's a personal invitation", meaning it would be a date. What is so horrible about that? Can women not even say "no thanks" by email anymore, is that too much of an ordeal (or, if that is too hard, just ignore an email - too hard?)?

Somehow we've gotten to a point in society where it is relatively accepted that me saying to a student, "Come to my office for a... personal meeting..." or "I'd like to have beers with you after class alone -- it's a personal invite. is wrong. This is not offering a date no-strings-attached, simply because of our jobs.

I think that's bullshit. Rich people are not allowed to date anymore? Actually there was recently a study that showed that upward mobility has severely decreased because fewer women are marrying richer men (used to be a major way to become richer). So this is yet another example of feminism harming women.

By "protecting" the supposed victims of powerful men you deprive women of the option to date powerful men. And what if a student is interested in dating a professor?

Running a startup is not such a dire situation that it forces you to become a sex slave.

Edit: in reply to the comment below: The corollary of the statistic is that men don't have a lot of upward mobility. So often the unspoken assumptions that go along with feminism are simply wrong. Being able to marry upwards is a "privilege" of women mostly. It doesn't imply that they can not try other routes like everybody else.

YC doesn't allow me to comment further atm, so good bye.

I think the point of feminism is that women should have upward mobility through their own merit, sorta like men...

The pool of female founders is already incredibly tiny. Asking VCs not to proposition women who are pitching them won't mean they are unable to date.

An investor should not be inviting people actively seeking funding from their VC to a VC backed event as a date. It's unprofessional (it sets up an obvious conflict of interest for both parties) and it's unethical (it sends very mixed signals and it could be viewed as coercive). Asking her out to dinner or a non-corporate event would have been much more appropriate, but frankly even that would have been somewhat questionable.

She wrote "Another never followed up with me after our meeting, but a month later invited me to an event his VC was holding" - it doesn't sound to me as if there was still the option of investing on the table.

Besides, let's be honest - even if it was a private invitation, it was an even by some VC, so presumably lots of VCs would have been present. I'd be very surprised if women would not also routinely get the advantage of being introduced to VCs because they are women, which men don't get. It's dumb to not take advantage of that because of some weird puritan moral that attractiveness is not supposed to exist. She mentions herself that "attractive" male CEOs seem to get more funding.

Edit: reply to comments below - first, do you really think a guy having sex with an investor just to get investment would not be called some unfavorable things behind his back?

And being invited to a party with VC is a net positive option. Ignoring it would merely put her back to the level of men, not below that level. Feeling pressure to go there - really? As I said, it is strictly a positive option, ignore it and you can still do all the things men do to meet investors. And maybe that guy merely thought she would be interested in meeting VCs and proposed that as a date because of that. What's wrong with trying to cater to the interests of your date?

The flip side is that women that behave as you depicted often get labelled with unfunny names, while it does not happen when said behaviour comes from a man. :/

I don't think you are obliged to have sex when you agree to go on a date, or when you are being approached because you are attractive.

And supposing wealthy men would try to take advantage of their wealth (promising money for sex and then not delivering), why wouldn't it be fair game for woman to take advantage of their attractiveness (promising sex for money and then not delivering)?

You also seem to assume that men are incapable of being genuinely interested in a woman. What if the guy really was interested in the woman and merely wants a date to get to know her better?

People get called unfunny names regardless they actually have sex with someone.

And no, I'm not assuming that men are incapable of being genuinely interested in a woman. To the contrary, I have no reason to think otherwise. It's just that a funding meeting is not really the appropriate venue to express such interest, just like it's better to wait until one has reached the toilet before expelling fluids in excess.

She reported receiving an email a month after a conversation about investing, not a funding meetup. I think a lot of fantasy tends to play into discussions of this topic. Women are not being called sluts just for flirting or being attractive, men are not treating women as prostitutes just because they have money.

Even between men I think "attraction" or getting along well would play a role in deciding to fund somebody. Just because somebody is interested in a woman doesn't imply they just want her body.

What if it's attractive to an investor if a woman is also moving in the same world as she is. So that maybe they have something to talk about at the dinner table?

Who would it be OK for an investor to date?

Again, I never assumed that because somebody is interested in a woman they just want her body. To the contrary, I have no reason to believe it, and I assume we're discussion honest interest here.

> Who would it be OK for an investor to date?

Anyone who's not asking them an investment, which I guess still leaves plenty of options. It's a conflict of interest issue: the entrepreneur will likely consider the possible consequences on the investment outcome of their response. I would really avoid asking someone out for a data when I'm in a position of power in their regard, as I'd prefer that whoever I'm asking out is free to decide without fear of consequences.

I'm not saying that nobody can ask someone out from a position of power: I'm saying that it requires a lot of extra care, as I guess it would only be ok after you get to know each other really well and there have been multiple blatant signs of interest from the other party.

Even if you assume that investment is completely off the table so there is no conflict of interest, creating a situation in which a founder might feel pressured to go on a date with someone they are not attracted to in order to get in the room with people who can fund them is fundamentally not ideal. The investor should have been more thoughtful and asked her out to another venue at the very least.

There is a huge level jump between "unfairly giving someone investment because they are attractive", and " pretending to want to give someone investment because they are attractive".

But the guy didn't pretend to want to give investment. He clearly said it is about dating, not investment.

Reply to your edit:

>And being invited to a party with VC is a net positive option. Ignoring it would merely put her back to the level of men, not below that level. Feeling pressure to go there - really?

Let's say she that she theoretically agrees to his proposition and goes to the event even though she doesn't like the guy much. She has a very productive and enjoyable time speaking with investors. Her date mentions that his VC will be holding future events which he would like to bring her to as his date. He also mentions that he would like to have sex with her. What will she do? If she declines she might not be invited to these future events and may miss out on funding opportunities.

This type of scenario is one reason why I said that the arrangement was unethical. Whether intentional or not, it sets up the basis for a very unequal relationship.

So what - as I said, being a founder is not such an emergency situation that you are forced to sell your body. She can still decline to have sex and be merely reset to the status that is normal for men (which is not to be invited to the parties). It's still a net win. Or she could dangle the promise of sex in front of the guy, go to all the parties but never give the guy what he wants.

You could also ask who is the person being cheated - the guy getting sex only for his money, or the woman getting money only for sex.

Also, surely people never partner up because it suits their life plans. It's all just romantic love in the real world. You might walk down the street and fall in love with a hobo - nothing you can do about the will of the heart.

Fundraising is hard, for sure. You know what's harder? Having investors want to meet with you, and taking your meeting, not because they see value in your business, but because they want to fuck you.

Can you imagine how infuriating that must be as an entrepreneur? Imagine that there's a 50/50 shot that, every time you have a meeting with someone, they're just stringing you along so that they have the opportunity to fuck you and have zero interest in actually investing. You'd be outraged not only on the creep-factor, but also just the complete waste of time. Moreover, these same people trying to fuck you are also investing in actively shittier companies than you run.

As people are trying to "focus on growth" every single one of these meeting invites for investors could be a huge waste of time, and that alone is cause for outrage. Take the sex out of it -- imagine that for every investor you pitched, 50% of the time the investor stood you up. That's the baseline of what's happening here: the investor isn't showing; in his place is also a dirtbag. That's a really hard fundraising environment.

The only thing I can critique this woman on is why she's not more upset, and why she's not publishing a list of names.

I'm sorry, but to suggest that it's 50/50 whether potential investors are only meeting you to bone you is just ludicrous. I find that quite insulting.

You come across as sexist, and with a chip on your shoulder that big (and an ego to match), I certainly wouldn't want to invest in you.

You're right, it is just ludicrous.

What do you base your assessment on?

I base this 'assessment' on the fact that not all men are unprofessional, drooling apes.

But you are a man and so you don't get to see the vast amounts of sexist unprofessional behaviour that women have to put up with.

Regardless of my gender, I also know that not every man is a sexist bastard hell-bent on shagging every woman he meets.

I really do find it ridiculous and offensive (slanderous, even) to suggest that all men (or 50% of men; it's not clear it the OP meant 50% of people or 50% of men) are like that.

just wanted to let you know that I agree. and I'm also sick of being blamed for a small minority of other men's actions.

cheers, mate

I wouldn't want to invest in them eitger, mostly because of the massive victim complex they have.

> they're just stringing you along

How is it worse than people meeting you so they can steal technical details about your product? Of course, it is a difficult environment. The question is what can we do to make it better for everyone and not just for women?

Of course, there will always be people out there trying to waste your time. I just don't get what the product's plan is for a hockey stick growth. I need to understand that in about thirty seconds. I couldn't by looking at the website.

> How is it worse than people meeting you so they can steal technical details about your product?

It's not. It's in addition to.

Being attractive must be very hard. Men (especially the ones in IT) are so lucky that few of them will ever have to experience that affliction.

Yes, this. You wrote what I tried to write in another comment and you wrote it better. Thank you.

As for other replies suggesting that 50/50 is an outrageous estimate, I think it can easily be even worse than that -- the fraction of investors potentially interested in making a deal with your business is very small (5%? 1%?), so it doesn't take many folks pretending to be interested to swing the balance, and those folks will also have a tendency to gravitate toward you at fundraising events, since they can clearly identify their target by appearance alone (i.e. "oh there's a pretty young woman, I should go say hello").

And yes, each of those interactions is perfectly legal (we'd all be condemning in chorus if there were groping or assault involved), and perfectly fine in isolation, but en masse they create a lot of extra work for the entrepreneur. Put in other words, at the micro level, these interactions are fine -- one or two people inviting you for a date could be lovely, or at least tolerable; but at the macro level, the combination of a large number of these isolated interactions creates an onerous and hostile environment.

Yeah, but I read her story and got the complete opposite view. Do you think it's acceptable the guys hitting on her and her colleagues? I think there is a boat load of evidence there that she's been treated really badly and I can see the dating space for this blurring lines more than other spaces.

You can just jump in and shout sour grapes if you like but I think you would say the same thing if that shit was happening to you over a sustained period; there are lots of shit companies getting investment too, why not hers?

The market may be tough, but when the investors seem to be more interested in hooking up with you or your cofounders, or just outright groping, that points to something else than just "wrong market" being the issue.

Maybe my different perspective, but "from the outside" to me it looks like a lot of macho older men who don't take someone seriously if they are female.

I couldn't agree more. Another thing to keep in mind is that it can be really hard to continue pulling off the confidence game you need when you're being groped and propositioned.

What I'm wondering about most though is how YC is handling these issues. If I'm not correct they once issued a warning to investors that bad behavior like this would mean they're out.

Did the groping during Demo Day get reported? And is that investor now indeed no longer welcome to YC? And what about YC-related investors proposing dates with founders... are they still in?

May be so, but if someone shows more interest in you rather than in your product or idea, you've kind of gotten your answer.

It might be hard for men to ignore any sexual aspect in interaction, which in many situations (like pitching at funding events) is definitely inappropriate and unpleasant; you are right to call that out. I'm not excusing bad behaviour. But for better or worse, no matter how unfair it might feel or how much insult it adds to injury, you've gotten an answer.

I would find it hard to believe someone goes to a fundraiser to ignore a genuinely great idea/product just because they feel a bit horny. I doubt you'd want a person with such lack of focus involved with your company.

>I would find it hard to believe someone goes to a fundraiser to ignore a genuinely great idea/product just because they feel a bit horny.

Why? Humans pass up great opportunities due to various predispositions, why not a sexual attraction bias? I fear that you're overlooking decades of documented sexual harassment in this field. It is clearly very hard for some people to take women seriously at all in a professional setting.

>decades of documented sexual harassment in this field

In the past four or five years the bringing to light of discrimination, sexism and misogyny in this field has increased (and that's a good thing) and I don't doubt that women have faced discrimination in the past. But this is the first I've heard of decades of documented cases - anecdotal evidence maybe, but not concrete documented issues over the course of years. Can you share some of them?

What are you asking for, here? Documented cases...but not anecdotal evidence? Aren't documented cases all individually anecdotes?

> Can you share some of them?

Do you really want the parent to start listing cases of sexual harassment?

From what I understand, benihana rightfully has a problem with my specification of cases from within the field of software (see my reply). I do agree with you and stand by my usage of "documented" as unavoidably synonymous with "individually anecdotal".

That's a fallacy if I've ever seen one.

Documented sexual harassment is not the same claim that was being made above, specifically, that men will do things like forgo investing at an investment event purely because the woman is attractive.

And honestly, not even common sense bears that out, you would expect the man to invest unnecessarily in an effort to gain her attention.

It isn't about forgoing investment, it is about clouding the judgmentused to evaluate the investment opportunity.

Imagine a goofy woman in torn clothing approached tmyou at a conference, with a business idea. Would you seriously consider its merits? Now consider someone whose sexual frustration hurts his ability to tell the difference between confident women in business attire from a seductress in party clothes.

Lest you think this is extreme, women report his behavior constantly. Compare even just a dorky tech guy wearing a silly tie, to a cute lady wearing a hot pink scarf that falls on her breasts. Note: for women, breasts are not optional attire.

> It isn't about forgoing investment

Ok, great! That means you agree with the previous person who stated they didn't think that was well documented.

I started scrambling for sources but found that you are correct. From what I could find, There aren't detailed historical records of sexual harassment in Silicon Valley. I found a few vague leads through Google Scholar, but nothing too relevant. I think you'd agree that my point is applicable for working women in general, but empirical evidence becomes much more sparse for a relatively new industry such as software.

I'll leave my statement as-is, but I'm sorry to disappoint and to have spoken so reactively and groundlessly.

> I would find it hard to believe someone goes to a fundraiser to ignore a genuinely great idea/product just because they feel a bit horny.

How many times have I heard on these fora that it's the team that matters as much as the idea? That the VCs faith in the the founders' abilities that drives funding at least as much as the specifics of their nascent business model?

Perhaps the problem is that the "sexual aspect" seems to be interfering with these VCs founder-evaluation capabilities. And thus they're being judged solely on their current business model (which is bound to be wanting at this stage no matter who the founders are) rather than being given the benefit of intuition that male founders are.

> I would find it hard to believe someone goes to a fundraiser to ignore a genuinely great idea/product just because they feel a bit horny.

I don't find that hard to believe. Being male myself and having many male friends, interactions with a (pretty) woman can be strongly influenced by 'sexual/romantic' urges. And it takes effort, sometimes quite a bit of it, to turn that off sometimes.

Now I don't mean that in any way as a justification. It's just what I experience and see happening. Acting on those urges/instinct/whatever is what makes it sleazy.

And yet, it's quite possible that such a 'sleazy' investor, unencumbered by gender-prompted urges, might be quite alright.

Please dont add ageism into this.

These kind of responses are exactly the reason behind her first paragraph.

"I have struggled with writing this blog post for months. Unless I have an absolutely perfect, bulletproof business (which I do not), I'm easily written off as someone blaming my failures on my gender."

It is a genuine problem that she is trying to raise awareness for. Why she struggles writing it is because she knows that she'll get your kind of response. She knows it will make her look weak, she knows it might label her a trouble maker not worth investing in.

The really frustrating thing is that you're in a similar position, so you should know that women have a harder time than you. You're the first one that should be jumping up and down and jumping to her defense. You should be outraged at the things that happened.

The point isn't even the lack of investment which is is what you're focussing on. The point is that to get that investment she has to accept: groping, comments on looks, date requests.

>You're the first one that should be jumping up and down and jumping to her defense. You should be outraged at the things that happened.

No. Telling someone how they should feel and act about a situation is complete and utter bullshit. Who do you think you are tell a stranger what their reaction to something should be?

why should I jump up and down in her defense? I'm literally competing with her for the same vc dollars. I'm not going to help my competitors, that's insane.

The two comparisons with Zoosk and Tinder were a bit off the mark too. Zoosk was founded in 2007 and has been around since forever. And Tinder is not quite a ... dating app. Dating app to Tinder is Slack to Snapchat. They might look superficially similar with some overlapping use case, but by far and large, they're different things.

Using both tinder and okc, people use both apps in the same exact way. Tinder may have a reputation as a "hook up app", but most people are not using it that way.

"but the dating space is not as guaranteed as you think"

Below is from http://caseysoftware.com/blog/working-for-a-dating-website

"Let’s think about their model again:

If someone joins the site and is unsuccessful, the site loses one customer.

If someone joins the site and is successful, the site loses two customers.

Wait, what?

That’s right. Making you successful can be bad for them. Now obviously, they need success stories to promote and recruit new customers but too many success stories and.. they lose."

Note however the distiction between relationship websites like eharmony, and dating websites like tinder and TDR. And why you see different models. On relationship websites, you tend to pay cash money and exit either satisfied or unhappy.

On dating websites, it is a subscription model that enjoy keep playing and meeting more people.

Daters want to meet a lot of people over time. Relationshippers want to meet one quickly, and won't be patient paying a subscription fee for nothing.

Totally agree about #3. Furthermore, after reading the post, I checked out the website to understand how their business model and core value proposition is different from the other dating sites out there (tinder, okcupid, match, plenty of fish) and it's plainly obvious while it's not an investable idea in its current form. Their core value proposition is that they can provide better matches than automated systems by using skilled people to do the matching. If the skill required is a commodity (like driving or cleaning homes), then there is a potentially scaleable business model, but when it relies on specialized and uncommon skills, it's basically a consulting firm.

The only examples of a successful "consulting firm" that I can think of off the top of my head that has seen any sizable investment is Palantir. Their market may be very small, but each contract is worth so much that there is a huge opportunity. How big is the addressable market of $800/month dating consulting and dating life management? Seems more like a solid lifestyle business than the unicorns that most SV investors are chasing.

The mantra "do things that don't scale" really is about getting traction and growth to get the party started and multiply effectiveness. However, even those things that you initially do that don't scale should eventually be scaleable or else you have a permanent cost center that scales with the business. When your business model doesn't scale you need to rethink the business model.

Are there highly profitable businesses that are consulting firms? Totally. McKinsey, Bain, Booz Allen, Accenture, etc. are all large companies that are profitable and provide consulting services. However, the people investing in those types of business models are not the investors in Silicon Valley. Investors in SV understand software/hardware and using them to increase productivity, providing more value at a lower cost. Unless there is an alternative narrative they are telling investors about how they plan to pivot to something else, I can't help but wonder how such a business model scales to a high valuation in the time scales most venture capital funds have until they need to divest.

Lastly, who on the founding team has professional experience as an engineer? Only the CTO (who has a CompSci degree) has done any software engineering in a professional setting and that was as an intern for 3 months in 2007. Solid personal projects count too, but the CTO has only one repo on github that isn't a fork and it's a basic html/css/js github.io page. I'm not saying that you need to have a strong, experienced technical co-founder to found a successful company, but it's a huge strike against a startup for being investible if there isn't one.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiebambino https://www.linkedin.com/pub/emma-tessler/66/b43/39a?trk=pub... https://www.linkedin.com/pub/lauren-kay/13/777/392 https://github.com/kbambz?tab=repositories

Mansplained.

edit: more info for the downvoters: The condescending tone of 'Look, ... fundraising is hard ok?' and lots of assumptions that OP doesn't know _anything_ despite obvious years of experience.

his thoughts and opinions aren't valid simply because he is a man?

who is sexist now?