A new $100M fund for women founders of color

[beardicus]

Ugh. Almost every comment on this article is gross. What is wrong with you all?

Targeted support of a minority population to correct for an unjust imbalance is a good thing.

[yetanother1980]

I detest racism and sexism even when done by well meaning people. If this is a character flaw then I want more flaws.

I am glad I got a chance to let you know that not everyone agrees with bigotry.

[TheAdamAndChe]

There are many people who disagree. Historically, the government and its institutions had a goal to create a color-blind nation. Heck, even Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of a day that people would someday be judged by "the content of their character" rather than "the color of their skins"[1].

Funds who judge people on the color of their skin or their sex, gender, or national origin is the opposite of color-blind, thus goes against the mentality that many of us grew up with. It is fundamentally a culture-clash that likely won't ever be reconciled between those with differing opinions. I personally don't think that two wrongs make a right, and I don't think that fighting racism and discrimination with racism and discrimination will make the country be better or come together in the end.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness_(race)

[stillsut]

There are currently two competing narratives about what is racist: On one side, it's considered racist to make decisions based on race. On the other side, it's considered racist to make decisions without considering race, and the history of power and oppression that comes with it.

One side sees a productive way to move forward by not repeating the mistakes of the past. The other side sees a way to make the future better by correcting the mistakes of the past. It's one of the most difficult we face as both as a society and as individuals: often in literature a character will be driven to avenge a past injustice and at the height of narrative arc, will be forced to consider his motivations and the consequences of his goal. The YA novel A Long Way Down and the movie Blue Ruin both explore this concept poignantly, without ever giving us easy or generalizable answers.

Because racial politics can be so mentally poisoning, a far more neutral thought experiment is to consider a fund reserved exclusively for funding military veterans. That's a kind of situation where almost everyone can see both sides to the issue: how can you deny their contribution and sacrifices? And yet how can you fail to see the unintended but inevitable consequences that creates?

[grosjona]

I understand the intent of this fund but I think that it's both racist and sexist.

Why doesn't someone create a VC fund for people with disabilities instead? Or maybe a fund for ugly people? Or a fund for socially awkward people? Or a fund for people who have a lisp? Or a fund for people who have bad posture? Or simply a fund for the underprivileged? Those would be a lot more fair.

Life isn't fair to everyone. Some people just have to work much harder than others to get the same results. There is nothing that can be done about this.

Trying to do something about this equates to discrimination based on arbitrary superficial features.

[anonthrow2018]

I wonder if this applies to Asian women too? Or is it only for "underrepresented" women founders of color?

[Freak_NL]

The 'person of color' moniker was introduced partly because in the US the adverb 'colored' tended to be used predominantly (if not exclusively) for black people. 'Person of color' was intended to be more inclusive.

From what I understand, how inclusive that term is depends on who you ask and what their goal is in the discourse, but usually it includes all non-white people, where 'white' is used to imply someone of pure 'white' descent (whatever that means). So someone with a 'person of color' in his ancestry (not sure if there is a limit in the number of generations one should include) is a 'person of color' themself.

So Asian women tend to be considered 'women of color', unless that doesn't suit the narrative of the person employing the term.

[gizmo]

Asian women are very much underrepresented in leadership roles in silicon valley.

[radiantswirl]

R O A S T E D

Lol, your point is so good that it hurts.

[judofyr]

Folks, can you please open a dictionary before you start complaining?

> racism: prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.

It’s very clear that this fund is not created in the spirit of claiming women founders of color are superior to white men.

You can call it “discrimination” or “unfair”; you can argue that it’s not good long term for either parts; you can claim that such an incentive doesn’t create the best products/companies. But please, make an argument, don’t just shout out “racism!!!!”

[jamescostian]

Linguistic prescriptivism adds no substance to an argument, it just wastes time on the fact that different people have different definitions. Try descriptivism out - instead of telling people what a word means, understand what they mean when they say a word (ignoring the fact that you disagree with their usage of that word), and argue against the substance of their message

[slavak]

From the same dictionary:

sexism : Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.

Of course, referencing other (arguably more authoritative) dictionaries, one of the definitions for racism is also simply "discrimination based on race."

Oops...

[zerostar07]

if that were the definition of racism today, 99% of the articles written about it in the past 10 years is false. Racism today is defined by actions, not beliefs.

[anonlady54321]

Wow, this comment thread went WAY PAST the intent of "sharing a link" as an information resource. TechCrunch (yes, TechCrunch) wrote an article about a venture capital fund available to women of color who want to become entrepreneurs. Period. No need to evaluate if it's racist or discriminatory. No need to make "you said" or "you reacted" comments. Read the article, learn more if the subject matter is of interest to you, and move on.

[grew-grew-grew]

Ironically, in the context of this conversation, I’m both a white male in tech and also a minority in the city I live in.

If someone set up a white male VC fund I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole.

I’ve dealt with plenty of racism, on the job and just living my life, but I understand that being a minority means dealing with (often unconscious) biases.

Is this ok? No, people should be better.

But I would never take a handout as contentious as this. The message here, regardless of intention, is that black women cannot compete on merit.

[iovrthoughtthis]

> The message here, regardless of intention, is that black women cannot compete on merit.

You might infer that if you assume that everyone assesses merits without bias.

I would argue that this is not the case and that black women’s merits are not assesses without bias.

[amaccuish]

> But I would never take a handout as contentious as this.

That's your choice.

> is that black women cannot compete on merit.

If woman of colour could compete on merit alone, I'm sure we'd see greater numbers in tech, but we don't. Unless you believe that people of colour are inherently incapable of these jobs, which I'm sure you don't :)

[didibus]

What city is that?

[RobertRoberts]

When it comes to controversial subjects, I appreciate numbers.

How many women of _all_ races (including white) are even looking for funding?

What if there are 10 white women, 1 black woman and 30 asian women and no other race at all? (Just as a fake dataset to make a point...)

This kind of targeted funding could abjectly affect perfectly qualified candidates just on the basis of race alone.

Isn't that the very definition of racism? Even if it's supposed to fix a past injustice, when does two wrongs make a right?

[gizmo]

As it becomes easier for women of color to get funding more will apply for funding. Very few people want to play a game that seems rigged against them.

The standard in silicon valley (and by its own admission, also the standard of YC) was that people who looked like Mark Zuckerberg would get funding. Meaning white, male Harvard/Stanford/MIT undergrads. As a result perfectly qualified candidates get rejected because they don't fit this picture.

There is no reason to presume that people from certain races/ethnicities/genders make for better or worse startup founders. However, when certain demographics get basically never funded, then capable, motivated, qualified founders don't even bother to apply. Even when there is no actual discrimination the negative cycle continues. Breaking this cycle is a social good.

It's like Hollywood. For a long time women of color never got offered leading roles. Movie Executives just didn't want to take the gamble. But as more and more movies hit the screen with women of color in leading roles the financial risk is lessened. Which results in more opportunities for WoC. This was never about how talented or motivated the actresses were. Hopefully we'll quickly get to the point where a WoC in a leading role is no longer noteworthy. Same for startups.

[JAdamMoore]

Sounds racist AND sexist while managing to also be entirely hypocritical of the exact behaviors of what they are "fixing."

[ryanx435]

What's stopping people (who don't meet the criteria for this fund) from hiring a woman of color as their CEO specifically to raise capital from this fund?

[danieltillett]

Fronting is a very common approach to win government contracts so I can’t see why it won't be used here as well.

[detaro]

If the underlying assumption behind the creation of such a fund is correct, the fact that you'd massively decrease your chance of being funded by capital sources outside this one fund.

[MagnitudeFC]

presumably because you'd need to give up a lot of equity to this woman of color you hire to be the front...

i don't have high hopes for VC funds like this.. seems more like a charitable grant than venture funding..1

[anonthrow2018]

I guess the question is if it's easier to get capital from this fund or to get it from the old boys network.

[jazoom]

Why not just self-identify as one of us? Who judges this anyway?

[romanovcode]

What makes you think hiring to fill a certain minority-quota already does not happening for years?

[chippy]

This will be flag killed, and most people flagging wont read the article.

[yetanother1980]

This is expressly racist and sexist.

[dang]

All: this trainwreck of a flamewar is exactly what we don't want on HN. If you feed flames like the below repeatedly, we will eventually ban you. There's no thoughtful discussion in it, it's all repetitive, and smiting enemies is off topic here.

[p49k]

Is it racist and sexist to use private funds in order to counterbalance what is clearly a long history of racism and sexism in preferring white males in VC capital? You might have a point if the gender/racial makeup of founders were anywhere close to that of the population.

[psergeant]

It is neither racist or sexist, as it makes no comment at all on relative superiority of race or gender.

[iovrthoughtthis]

What is “unjust” about this?

Descrimination in and of it’s self isn’t racist / sexist. Unjust descrimination is certainly racist / sexist.

[EliRivers]

Stating what's obvious by simple definition is something of a waste of time. Or is there a more nuanced difference between racism/sexism and discrimination on grounds of race/sex? Do you have anything to add beyond a simple statement of fact according to your definition? Perhaps a view on whether or not that's axiomatically always a bad thing?

[dang]

Race trolling will get you banned here. Please don't do this again.

[dang]

Please don't post flamebait to Hacker News.

[scarface74]

VC's always talk about "pattern matching" meaning they look for founders that look like other successful founders - that immediately biases them toward young White men.