Very happy to see this launch. I'm happy staying on the East coast, but if NewME ever launches something in NY I'd love to be a part of it.
My only quibble is with this:
"Without successful exits from minority-led start-ups we forgo creating new angle investors, venture capitalist, mentors, role models, and more start-ups."
NewME is an investor, so I get the need for returns, but it wouldn't hurt to have a few minority-led companies with a 37signals-like philosophy toward business and promotions.
I don't fault myself or anyone else. I think it's just something that happens naturally when a large group of people dominate an industry. If this were a hip hop board, we might be talking about how long it took Far East Movement to make it in a predominantly black industry, but this is HN, so we talk about women and black/latino minorities.
That said, just because something happens "naturally" doesn't mean it can't have negative consequences. It's important to be aware of the issues that arise when there is a clear in-group so we can find ways to mitigate their effects.
Also, I shouldn't have said people are more accepting of differences now that I'm older. It's more that people are more willing to see the differences and make a bit more effort to bring that "different" person into the fold. That sensitivity is something that comes with age and affects a variety of industries, not just tech.
I think the first two reasons affect everyone pretty equally, but the 3rd rings pretty true in a couple ways.
I was lucky enough to attend several city schools with serious technology programs/curricula. This included C++ for all 4 years of HS provided you were on the advanced track.
That said, I still had troubles fitting into the tech world and even left it for a time. There's a variety of reasons for this, but one of them was that I never really felt any sense of camaraderie with the other people who were into this stuff. Outside of computers, I often had very little in common with my white, male peers.
They liked metal and rock, I mostly liked JPOP and Electronic music at the time. They were worried about getting girls to like them and annoyed at the athletes who seemed to get all of them. I was usually dating those same athletes. Even my gaming interests seemed to diverge from theirs. I'm a console gamer, but the guys were busy playing Counterstrike.
This meant there were FAR fewer opportunities to collaborate and learn from a group of similarly-interested people. Thankfully, people are a LOT more open to differences now that I'm older, but it still leaves me pretty far behind.
My best shot is: because you cannot make cool TV shows about computer scientists
It's not that you CAN'T make shows like this, it's that producers/writers project their own stereotypes into figuring out what shows will work or not. Thus, the cycle continues. It's sad when hackers can't even imagine ways to make it look cool though..
Japanese Dramas can be cheesy by American standards but I liked this one as an example:
http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Bloody_Monday
After a biological terrorist attack kills off the population of a Russian town; Japan's Public Safety Special Third unit, code name THIRD-i, believes that the terrorist organization responsible plans to unleash the same virus known as Bloody X into Tokyo. Subsequently, THIRD-i recruits the help of genius hacker Takagi Fujimaru to find out what happened in the Russia. However, as Fujimaru becomes involved, he soon finds out that he is in over his head and that the terrorist groups influence reaches not only his school but even the police. Fujimaru must now rely on his skill as a hacker to unravel the organizations sinister plot and find out the truth behind "Bloody Monday."
I would love to give it another chance then. My biggest regret about how things went down is that I missed a lot of the cool, web-based stuff that was going on all these years (I was 15 back in 2000/2001). I was interested in the web, but I was learning more generalized C++, Java, and working with computer animation tools.
No, because IRC wasn't the only place to seek knowledge. I continued to peruse other parts of the internet that didn't allow such blatant racism to slide. Beyond my C++ classes, I was also on a FIRST Robotics team. I was seen as a person there, and even if some people thought I shouldn't be there, it's harder to call someone the n-word to their face.
I had my first experience with IRC at 15. I'd recently discovered fansubbing and wanted to find subbed copies of the yet-un-aired in America episodes of Sailormoon. Some of the guys in my C++ class were avid IRC users and suggested I get on to see if they were available.
Unfortunately, one of the first things I noticed was the rampant use of the N-word. Not especially inviting to a young black girl. I asked the guys what that was about and they suggested I just ignore it. I had enough to deal with at 15. I never went back.
I don't follow football, but I do watch the superbowl, and I frequently see teams with black head coaches on the field.
It's easy to pretend there are no barriers, or that the barriers are related to talent, but whether YC is biased or not (I don't think it is), this says a lot about how much we lose as a society when talent goes untapped for no good reason.
I've received a lot of backhanded compliments in my life (i.e. you're pretty for a dark skinned girl) and they are annoying but I don't think this was one of them. To me it read like, "you're awesome, and the fact that you're succeeding despite the obstacles is even more awesome!"
I know the goal is equality, but I don't think there's anything equal about having to ignore parts of your identity in order to be respected and valued. We can acknowledge that the OP is a woman without losing sight of that goal.
If stealth means spending over a year and a boatload of cash developing a product without ever getting any feedback from any potential customers, then yeah, that's likely a dead end.
If stealth, however, means meeting quietly with a small (but representative) group of potential customers while you work the kinks out of your project before launch, then I think that is a smart strategy. There's nothing wrong with giving yourself as much of a head start as possible.
As a general rule, I don't talk about my ideas/project with other developers. I especially don't discuss it with industry people who may be my future competitors. What I might discuss are things like the overarching problem I'm attempting to solve. I may even describe some of the very basic mechanisms, or ask questions that hint at the philosophy behind my approach.
I know HN can be fiercely against the notion that ideas matter at all, but most successful businesses have their "secret sauce" and it's not smart to just give it away before you're primed to leverage it to your benefit. I mean, front page today is an article about Coke's secret recipe; sometimes, the what really does matter as much as the how.
You are missing my point. The comment isn't about me. It's about men who have these old-fashioned expectations of women, but don't reciprocate by fulfilling the traditional role for a man.
That is, if I have to sit quietly, look pretty, and clean house, what am I getting in return? Not much these days.
Someone should point back to this article every time there is a discussion about the lack of women/blacks/latinos in tech. I don't generally go into a situation thinking people are looking to exclude me, but I've experienced instances of many of the institutional biases throughout my life.
I've always tried to be open to all sorts of people and situations, but it can be very hard to be surrounded by people who simply assume their way of being is the norm. I've been in situations where everyone except me is talking about the concert they went to. Why? Because no one thought to invite me since it wasn't a rap/r&b concert.
It makes me nostalgic for my high school years where there were so many kids of so many different ethnicities, incomes, and interests that we always had to take special care to understand each other.
You're right, women DON'T have to feel like prostitutes because the options for women have greatly expanded. We no longer have to be confined to the "traditional" roles that encourage us to be passive doormats content to be totally dependent on our spouses.
My point, anyway, is that the men in the WSJ article cheering this drivel on are often the same guys who don't want to assume the traditional provider role for men. They don't want a wife, they want a maid that "puts out".
ETA: With the growing number of men who refuse to pick up every check, plan every date/event, act as sole provider for the family, purchase gifts regularly for their other half, etc. for fear of marrying a woman who is too focused on money... I'm really beginning to wonder what women are getting out of this marriage deal anymore.
http://storify.com/devonvsmith/games-for-change-jesse-schell...
P.S. The whole talk is worth listening to when it eventually comes out.