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Comment by nofeels | Hacker News Reader

Lets be real here. Given how obviously unsustainable this is given the other comments in here, this company exists in the YC portfolio so they can say, 'hey look how much diversity we have!'

Aftrostream creators, I'm sure you're all great people and doing something great, but you've gotten funding to be the diversity pawn.

Good luck on your ventures and enslavement mates.

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Hey, I am Ludovic, cofounder and CTO of Afrostream. And I am black too, and French :) (yes I certainly have many other flaws too)

To answer to your question : Yes absolutely, we are here in part of diversity. I thought 1à secondes about why I am here, and that certainly played a part,

But the second thought I have was this : even if am here because I am "from diversity", that's ok. I know who I am by myself. I want Afrostream to be big, that's my only goal. And I am at Y Combinator, is that not the place to be big ?

I was one of the YC partners who interviewed and funded Afrostream. We made the call to fund because we fundamentally believe in this team and market. We accept companies not because they are flawless. No companies are, and none of the startups that succeed have been. They all have specific challenges. But we ask ourselves, is this a talented team, and is this something people want? Is there a path for this to be a big business? In both cases, yes.

Congratulations Ludovic! I just want to echo that this is absolutely an underserved market. Yes there are definitely challenges, but also great opportunities. African content is just really beginning to emerge; Nollywood and the like are just scratching the surface and yet to unearth the richness of 1000's of years of heritage. Kudos also to YC buying in :)

Interesting racism on display here. You've assumed Afrostream is "obviously unsustainable", even though many people in the comments disagree. And because it's run by black people, you've assumed they couldn't have possibly gotten into YC on their own merit.

Had it been helmed by an Indian person, I doubt you'd have cast any aspersions about their talent or being a "diversity pawn".

"Given how obviously unsustainable this is given the other comments in here"

Huh... I didn't realize HN comments dictated the sustainability of a startup. Who knew we had such power!

Funny thing is, many of the comments pointed out that a streaming service specialized in one culture / genre can be successful (crunchyroll).

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