Agreed and +1. I hope/trust the OP consulted her co-founders before posting this, because I don't think it helps their chances.
It's insulting to Jessica to think that she'd give her "points" for being female. And it's insulting to YC founders to say that we'd somehow dock her for being a woman.
That being said-- both are possible. Spend a few months doing A/B testing, read about priming studies, and you realize just how much of our motivation is powered by our subconscious.
But just because it's possible doesn't mean that it isn't insulting.
I'm a white male, but I like to think that if I was a minority, I'd deal with it be being so fucking good that people couldn't ignore the fact rather than spending one IOTA of energy publicly accusing people of being likely to judge me unfairly...
But just because it's possible doesn't mean that it isn't insulting.
I can understand how people found this discussion insulting, especially when it got blown out of proportion.
It wasn't tianaco's intention.
I saw the application she submitted which she is leading.
She focuses on differentiating herself from typical entrepreneurs, and a lot of that has to do with her unique experiences. She was confident this would play well with the YC team. She was fearful that it would work against her with YC alum. That's why she started this thread.
tianaco is a vocal person who says what she thinks. In some circumstances, this has hurt her. More often than not, it has opened the door to opportunities that don't exist for other people. Regardless, she has made a conscious choice to live her life speaking up. Whether this thread helped her or hurt her is unknown.
"tianaco is a vocal person who says what she thinks."
As a team member, she oughta reign this in a bit. As a company founder, saying what you think can sometimes hurt your company. I think you have a duty to put a buffer between your brain and your mouth, especially around touchy subjects. If you always say what you think around investors and customers, you'll probably have fewer of both. :-)
I think a lot of people (PG included) have remarked that founders are ALWAYS selling (to customers, investors, new hires, reporters, etc). Part of selling is the ability to anticipate a reaction before you say something and to say the things that will elicit the reaction that you want. Or, at very least, speak the truth in such a way that it maximizes the effect that you want and minimizes the damage that it might cause. Example: last night I ate a juicy organic steak vs. last night I ate a muscle tissue sample of a castrated bull (hat tip to Robert Heinlein).
We all make mistakes-- I HOPE she realizes that there's a reasonable chance that she (and her company) might have been better off if she hadn't said what she did or said it in a different way.
I've heard pg make some pretty strong statements. I'm sure they turn people off but I'm not sure he cares about the opinions of those people.
I think it's pretty gratuitous for you to give me a lesson on selling to investors and customers here. Yes my comments may have been polarizing. I don't think you understand the opportunity cost of always saying what you think people want to hear.
I've gotten a lot of opportunities by speaking my mind to and rubbing influential people the wrong way initially. They give me attention they normally would not give, and in debating with me give me more respect in the end than had I just championed the status quo. This isn't something I seek out, but I find that standing my ground almost always serves me well.
It's interesting that when people criticize what you do, you state that it's a forum for opinions. When I express an opinion, you call it gratuitous.
Give what I wrote another read. I wasn't suggesting that you say what people want to hear. I was suggesting that you say what you need to say in the most effective way possible given your goals. Telling people stuff they don't want to hear is a pretty common necessity. Standing your ground is important. I'm telling you that I think you probably did a disservice to your partners by doing what you did the way you did it. As one of the people who could actually review your app, I would think that'd be useful feedback. From the other folks who responded with incredulity, I don't think my opinion is unique, but I guess you can feel free to disregard it.
You should most certainly not be in the judging pool, because you are already biased now. And you know, you may in some way have shown her to be right : she stated something that is only valid from her perspective. I.e, you don't face the same problem. You did not attempt to empathise and think, why would someone in her position want to make this statement in such a public manner? Rather, you attack the statement on the content without any attention to the context.
To judge fairly, context is as important as content. A man who steals because he has nothing to eat and would die is different from a man who steals because he feels like it.
After all this, I am more sympathetic towards her than before. I.e, making this post and being direct about this, shows she has something that I think many lack: balls.
I don't expect points for being female, but it is something that sets me apart in this scenario.
I don't think you, a YC alum, would necessarily dock me for being a woman. I do think that you might not find some of my accomplishments as interesting as you would someone more like you. Is that unfair? Only if I knew YC alums were reading my application after I submitted it. Because I would have tailored it to you in the first place, the YC alum. It would take too long to re-tailor it at this point!
That's ALL I meant with this thread.
I apologize for any misunderstanding or offense taken.
With all due respect, you don't know how you would deal with being a minority until you've been one.
Yaw, that's why I said I'd like to think that's how I'd react. But that was another way of saying that I think it's the BEST way to react (from a business/professional perspective). As someone who HOPES he brings very little prejudices to the table, I still don't particularly like being around people who are hyper-attuned to prejudice (and probably lumping in a lot of innocent behavior-- confirmation bias is a bitch). I'm not saying you're this way, but there have already been a few comments/upvotes that seemed to think you had a chip on your shoulder. That's a bad vibe to give off, whether it's true or not.
It does not take much to be hyper-atuned to prejudice. How many times does a dog have to bite a man before he starts becoming afraid of dogs?
A woman who works in tech will be bitten a lot more times. I don't think it's being hyper atuned, it's more of being wary based of past experience. The people who you know seem like they don't care about prejudice work hard to make it seem that way. It's not the normal way.
The human way is to learn very fast with very few experiences. It takes extra-ordinary people to pretend they have not learned so as to keep people like you comfortable.
It's insulting to Jessica to think that she'd give her "points" for being female. And it's insulting to YC founders to say that we'd somehow dock her for being a woman.
That being said-- both are possible. Spend a few months doing A/B testing, read about priming studies, and you realize just how much of our motivation is powered by our subconscious.
But just because it's possible doesn't mean that it isn't insulting.
I'm a white male, but I like to think that if I was a minority, I'd deal with it be being so fucking good that people couldn't ignore the fact rather than spending one IOTA of energy publicly accusing people of being likely to judge me unfairly...