OasisG's comments

http://storify.com/devonvsmith/games-for-change-jesse-schell...

P.S. The whole talk is worth listening to when it eventually comes out.

Other than that, enlightening post.

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.

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 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.

Note: I'm an Afro-Latina woman.

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 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 think he meant that it was easy. I think he meant the exact opposite, which is why it's so impressive.

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 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.

That is, if I have to sit quietly, look pretty, and clean house, what am I getting in return? Not much these days.

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.

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.