Has YC ever funded a company with a Black founder?

[prime0196]

I ask this question of out sheer curiosity. Some people may ask "Why does it matter?" Well, it's a well known fact that there are a disproportionate amount of blacks in technology and it gets even worse when it comes to programming. I can imagine the numbers get even more grim when it comes to black programmers in startups. I live in Metro Atlanta and have attended programming meetups, Big Nerd Ranch, attended meetings for companies wanting to join the ATDC (an incubator of sorts) and I'm often the ONLY black guy in the room. Even with PYCON in town, there still aren't a whole lot of people that look like ME. I applied to YC in 2007, WAAAAY before I was ready and was just wondering if anyone that looks like ME has EVER made it.

[EMRo]

I'm black as well. Went to Harvard and when I graduated I worked at the Kauffman Foundation. During that summer I pitched the idea to lawyers for deferred payment on corp formation and found a technical cofounder in August.

We wound up building a pretty miz alpha because I had no clue what I actually wanted to create to solve the problem I had in mind. Got very minimal traction, worked at a quant hedge fund to bootstrap. Learned to program (LAMP + JS) during the nights and weekends, launched a beta, got basic ("this could be interesting") level traction. Pitched angels, got funded, now working on an html5 based mobile website to capture the function our users find most interesting.

In general, I haven't experienced any discrimination or racial issues as yet. To be quite frank, the most helpful people have not been my color. This surprised me quite a bit because in the finance world where I interned all throughout school there's a strong "cultural networking" focus where you are connected with multiple career mentors, some of whom were "diversity" mentors.

With regard to my venture, I took the "open" approach and told everyone my idea in hopes of bouncing it around and making it better. In so doing, I met a lot of really interesting people of all colors who have served as advisors/friends/partners to this day. The startup community seems to be very much merit based and quantitative. If you have skills, traction, etc. you'll get looks but you wont get a handout for any reason unless you hustle for it.

(You should check out black web 2.0, http://blackweb20.com they have an interesting community of people in tech.)

[Aloisius]

Gah why doesn't that site let you post job openings?

I got some great advice from a Berkeley professor about increasing diversity in the workplace. I had issues giving preferential treatment to resumes that came in just because I thought diversity was important and he suggested I post job openings in places that are already heavily black/latino/etc.

I thought it was a great idea, but they aren't easy to find.

[frankdenbow]

I know how you feel. I was one of 2 black students in my graduating CS class at CMU. It has never been a source of pressure/anxiety for me, but I do understand how it may affect other black students to feel like you are on your own.

As far as investors go, I doubt that they have any aversion to supporting entrepreneurs of any background. This is one industry that I would presume is more of a meritocracy than society at large. As I said on my tumblr a while back (http://bit.ly/g7jCAF) investors can see the green inside all of us :-)

There are many discussions going on about women in technology startups. The greater question is not why there aren't more founders, but why there arent more minority/female students in academia. Most of your founders are going to be a subset of those in academia anyway, so why not look at the problem closer to the source?

[eengstrom]

I think the answer isn't just the employment and supporting of people already excelling in the system, it is in changing the distribution of opportunity prior to formal education.

We intend to do this by operating a program within our company, starting with community computer and science lab, promoting to a group work day with interactive collaboration, then eventually fitting a child's interest in a role with a second-seat internship at each employee's desk.

This is all early stage of process, but 20 years of thinking and experimentation. If I'm able to build my current venture out, my next will be promoting these early programs to help expand young people's thinking (and hopefully help them make themselves their own role model) about science and technology.

[tiabasnk]

That's an interestingly familiar situation. Since my freshman year, there were more the 4 black students in my computer science classes. In fact at some point, the African Americans ende up dropping the major whereas the African students kept going. It's not like we had much of a choice really, our parents would have "killed us" for wasting their hard earned money :)

[haploid]

"The greater question is not why there aren't more founders, but why there arent more minority/female students in academia"

http://www.prb.org/Articles/2007/CrossoverinFemaleMaleColleg...

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/2009/section1/indicator11.as...

To wit: Females have dominated academia for a couple decades now.

Also, it should be pointed out that many founders are college dropouts or even high school dropouts, so I'd be interested in some sort of citation of evidence that one can assume most founders will be a subset of academia.

[gregschlom]

Courtland Allen, co-founder of Taskforce (YC W11)

And he is the technical guy of the pair.

[sgentle]

Strange. This is an actual and useful answer to the question but for some reason it's placed halfway down the page.

[rweba]

Michael Sherrill of Addmired seems to be another one.

[Lukeas14]

As a black programmer with about 5 years of professional experience, I've always asked myself the same question. Throughout all the job interviews, conferences and meetups I've been to I've met no more than 3 other black programmers. One is my dad while the other is a friend and his dad. I still haven't come up with an answer but I do have two theories:

Role Models: There is no black Bill Gates. Not everyone is a trailblazer and for the rest of us role models play a huge "role" when choosing a career path. This is especially true for the black community. It becomes much easier to convince yourself, and your parents, that your passion is a valid career choice if you can point to an existing success story.

Access to technology: When I was a kid growing up I was the only one of my friends whose family owned a computer thanks to my dad being a programmer. Kinda hard to develop a passion for programming without one of those. Before tech skills became a requirement for any decent job computers were seen as expensive and unnecessary so everyone else was told "we'll get you one when you get to high school / college."

However, as I apply these these theories to today, Obama is president and just about every kid, rich or poor, has daily access to a computer. I'm guessing in 5 years time, when the next generation begins their careers, the number of black programmers will increase drastically all on its own.

That said I do know a good number of black network engineers and sys admins so I'm completely lost as to why programming is the only IT profession with such a huge discrepancy. Any theories?

[dasil003]

What about peer pressure? I'm not black, but I went to a public high school, fairly diverse, let's say 15%/20%/10%/55% black/asian/latino/white. My experience with black classmates was that in individual classes they were pretty typical in the mix of other students, reasonably friendly and participatory in class, etc. But then out in the hallways it was a whole different story. It just was not cool to be studious in any way. I saw black kids get made fun of by their peers just for carrying books. Kids who I was very friendly with in class would not even look at me in the commons, I'm presuming because associating with a white nerd would be social suicide.

[codenerdz]

Umm, I dont think Bill Gates at the height of his prime was ever a Role Model :) Even for Nerds..

[Udo]

> I'm often the ONLY black guy in the room

It's probably my European naiveté talking here, but I seriously wonder if and why that matters to you. Most of us belong to some kind of "minority" in some fashion, sometimes it's visible from the outside, sometimes not. Are things in the USA really so bad that it matters what color your skin is? Isn't tech a business of ideas anyway?

[_delirium]

It definitely matters in Europe, possibly moreso than in the USA, at least in the circles I've been in (I'm white myself, so this is mostly from observation and friends). In Denmark at least, there is a lot of awkwardness around race, and it certainly isn't the case that non-white people generally feel comfortable in groups where they're the only non-white person (even worse if everyone else is not only white, but specifically of Scandinavian ethnic heritage, which emphasizes the not-like-me-ness even more). I'm not sure of the exact reasons, or how much is actual racism, but there is definitely a vague sense of weirdness/discomfort.

[eengstrom]

I am almost 40. I have been in the IT world actively since 1984 here in Berkeley/San Francisco/Silicon Valley. I have worked in big corporate, nationally and internationally.

I have worked with fewer than 10 black men and women in a technical role in my entire career; spanning hundreds of teams and nearly a hundred customers and employers.

It matters because opportunity and outcomes aren't equal. The problem isn't purely the IT scene, but one of the greatest challenges the United States faces.

[true_religion]

> Are things in the USA really so bad that it matters what color your skin is? Isn't tech a business of ideas anyway?

Yes, things are so bad.

And it must be more than "European" naiveté if you don't believe that people naturally discriminate for people who look like them, or believe the same things as they do.

Its the nature of the human beast to not be rational.

> Isn't tech a business of ideas anyway?

Ah, but now that you mention it... most of us are hiding our faces (and ethnicities) behind our websites copy. So even a B2C company on the internet doesn't have to worry about stereotypes harming their first impressions.

Look at Justin.tv, just how many of Michael Seibel's[1] customers and clients do you think know that he is black?

[1] http://www.blackenterprise.com/2010/08/28/40-next-michael-se...

[elliottcarlson]

Sadly, it's more a case of opportunity. With the states being such a wide spectrum of financial statuses, employment rates and educational opportunities, there are wide disconnects on areas where the chance of being properly introduced and educated with technology exist. It really comes down to where you are growing up and the way that local government and community are perceived - and sadly most of the time so called minority groups are not extended the same chances as other groups.

That does not mean there aren't black developers (I've worked with and known quite a few) - but the counts are a lot lower than other races.

[malux85]

I agree .. it doesn't matter what color your skin is, or whatever minority group you are from, what matters are your choices, specifically how you spend your precious, precious time.

I'm gay, and am bootstrapping my own startup. I have never wondered how many other startup founders are gay .. because that's not what it's about!

Focus man

[galactus]

> "are things in the USA really so bad that it matters what color your skin is

Gees, do you really believe race does not matter in europe?

[prime0196]

It really doesn't matter to me. I just wish more blacks would realize the power of programming and the opportunities it could potentially provide.

[wcchandler]

Black people only make up 13% of the population. [1] Most people forget this fact when judging race in a population.

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Stat...

[_delirium]

I don't think that particular statistic by itself explains much of it; YC has funded over 200 founders, so if indeed the relevant population were 13% Black, that would imply an expectation of around 25 Black founders. I don't think anyone's asking why there aren't 50% Black founders, by why there aren't closer to 13%. (There may well be good explanations, but they have to be something other than the 13% total population number.)

[prime0196]

Asians and those from the Middle East have an even smaller percentage but appear to be well represented in startups.

[seanmccann]

African Americans make up nearly 13% of the US, but only 6.2% of California. At UC Berkeley about 4% of undergrads are African American. Computer Science may be even less. You could maybe assume that YC alum are between 4-5% black.

[usertm]

I just realized I'm not asian, but rather white. :/

"In the US Census, people who originate from the original peoples of the East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia are classified as part of the Asian race; while peoples from Siberia, Central Asia, and Western Asia are classified as "White".

Thanks for the link, though.

[webwright]

25% of black people live in poverty and about half have a household income of less than $50k.

I would say, in general, very few tech founders come out of poverty. I'd also say that relatively few come out of <$50k households (plenty of exceptions, here, of course). Most of the American founders I know come from pretty flush backgrounds.

Of course, I also read that the majority of funded startups are founded by people born outside of the states.

[revorad]

It would help to know how many black founders apply in the first place.

[BoppreH]

I think the question is not about racism during the funding process, but how much of a minority black people are in this situations.

[nostromo]

Michael Seibel CEO of Justin.tv comes to mind.

[aaronsw]

Pretty sure Seibel joined after it got funding.

[gabrielleydon]

A Co Founder of Addmired Inc. (YC W08) is black. So at least one.

[Gaussian]

It's all about access. YC can only fund the best applications it gets. Those often come from, I'm guessing, people whose creative sides have been nurtured while also getting some kind of constructive exposure to programming. Just like anything else, the socio-economically disadvantaged often don't get the access or education they need to wield or understand the power of programming. I do think that is changing, as evinced by the programs and organizations that have sprouted up to address the issue. But it's a slog.

[naithemilkman]

I really don't think YC cares about ethnicity. I also don't quite get the point of this post.

[JonnieCache]

I don't think anybody is accusing YC of racism or any other discrimination. The causal relationships are higher order ones than that, but no less important for it.

[bradleyland]

Race is a difficult subject to address, but it doesn't have to be. Increased openness in the discussion is always better. In the context of relationships, you'll often hear someone say that a person is "guarded". This usually means that they don't open themselves to being hurt by averting feelings of affection from others. In other words, if they never become "close" with another person, they can't feel the pain of loss.

With regard to racism, if we avoid the discussion altogether, we are simply avoid the pain of being reminded that it exists. The appropriate response is not to shy away from the conversation, but to open yourself to it. Answer the question based on the facts, but address the question of "why" separately. There may very well be good reasons why. There may not. We should strive to understand the difference.

I try to fight the urge to set up defenses to conversations I think may be going a certain direction. By putting up our defenses early, we only strengthen the divide rather than break it down.

[raganwald]

I don't see the question or the discussion so far as meeting the standard for "An interesting new phenomena." It looks like something that would be better served over on Quora than on HN. It's a reasonable question, but just as many subjects--explicitly including politics--are of interest to HN's readerships but still not HN-worthy, it doesn't appear to meet the standards in the FAQ for the front page.

Discussions of minority participation in technology and entrepreneurship goes on ad nauseaum elsewhere. If it is to come up here out of the blue, we ought to have some interesting angle to YCombinator funding. For example, if we know that YCombinator funds double the proportion of the rest of the industry, that would be interesting and new.

If we have no evidence of anything interesting or new, the question hardly seems like Hacker News. If it's a simple question, an email to Paul Graham would probably obtain a simple answer.

[ascendant]

It sounds like a reasonable question to me. He's just wondering.

[prime0196]

The point of the post? Being able to smile from ear to ear when I found out about Michael Seibel.

[nocko]

Good Question. It would be interesting to hear about the experiences minority programmers have had in the startup scene (in our out of YC).

[tom_b]

Can't speak to YC's experience, but I attended a historically black college/university (referred to as HBCUs) and knew a number of top-notch African-American CS students/hackers while I was there.

At one point, out of 7 or 8 undergrads in a research group I was with, more than half had completed PhDs and I think the rest of us (I was the lone white student in the group) had picked up MS degrees.

A number of the higher-quality students from this institution were heavily recruited by big corps with eyes on increasing minority hires and diversity rates.

What I mostly know is that successful CS students from this institution had their choice of top-notch careers or academic research opportunities. As a school (and my general region), not much emphasis was placed on entrepreneurship. Maybe both facts come into play with startup culture today.

[citricsquid]

As a black person why do you think this is?

[prime0196]

Not many black programming role models. Sad to say but many black youth still see sports and entertainment and the only way to achieve a high level of success in America. My primary goal in life is to try to change that perception by becoming a successful programmer.

[chegra]

If you watch the slide show: http://ycombinator.com/ long enough, a black guy will show(< 3 mins in).

[jcromartie]

I'm 27 and I've only met one black programmer. That is rather strange.

[tiabasnk]

It's possible that very few black people seem to care enough to give it a shot. Being black has never stopped me from trying anything. So long as I know that I can pull it off. At the very least there may be a slight prejudice simple because of the scarcity of motivated black individuals. In the end, if one can show what one's got, I do not see why that person should get a fair chance. That's my 2 cents on the matter.

[ido]

Not really on topic, but I'm in Atlanta too at the moment and when I went to the game developers meetup about 5 of the 20 people who showed up were black & other game development events I've been to in Georgia Tech had a few black people in them too (less than their proportion of the population, but still a good 1/4-1/5 the attendants).

Don't know what that might say about the games industry, if at all, just putting it out there.

[Qykno]

Kalimah Priforce (Qykno | Career Matchmaking 4 Kids)

There have been several discussions about this topic, including my own: "Startup America Should Look Like America" http://bit.ly/fuqcBB.

There are groups that are forming to address the need for diversity in the tech world.

The "Black Founders" Kickoff Launch Event is on Thursday, March 24th, 2011 at www.meetup.com/BlackFounders/events/16882191/ The Plancast event details are here: http://plancast.com/p/4cq2

We've recently launched four "Building While Brown" groups on facebook: Bay Area: http://on.fb.me/hyJJhM, NYC http://on.fb.me/fF2lXW, DC|VA http://on.fb.me/gf4beu and the RTP http://on.fb.me/dZCrnj

[AngelaBenton]

I think this is a good question, I'd like to piggyback on it and ask of the people who have applied did they apply as a team or as a single co-founders? Were they technical? etc.

I only ask these questions because I think they are important. I applied to YC and just had a conversation w/ someone who applied also however at the time of application we were both single founders.

I consider myself technical but I'm sure not as technical as many of you since I've only dealt in front-end web development. YC does have super specific criteria for applying, they are looking for a certain type of founder (or team of co-founders) so it would be helpful to this discussion to know.

I think it also depends on the idea/start-up submitted. Part of the review process does seem like they are looking at the entrepreneur but it also seems like they are looking at the entrepreneur (or team) and their ability to execute on the idea.

Just my thoughts...