Class is a problem, but the class issue isn't "poor Black kids from broken homes" (to quote some comments here) vs upper middle class FAANG employees and MIT grads. Being poor and uneducated is a barrier to being an employee in tech, but it's not the only barrier to getting funding. Anyone that can leetcode can get a job in tech. Raising requires a strong network, involves quite a lot of signaling and bias and gut feeling.
You have to be rich for class to be a major advantage when starting a startup, middle class isn't enough unless you're willing to expose yourself to a lot of personal risk. For various reasons middle class Black people with the skills to start a startup are more risk averse than white counterparts. For other reasons those same Black people get less funding than counterparts of other races.
I say this as a Black engineer from a middle class background that has been a founder, worked at FAANG and personally knows many Black founders that tried to bootstrap and failed to raise, even with strong pitches and profitable products. It's possible that these companies are fundamentally worse than all white founded companies that raise, but I rarely see Black people given a chance to fail. Class is not the only issue and it's not the main barrier for most Black people.
A lot of investors aren't actually interested in profitable products. Companies get over funded to the point where it is impossible to make a return by simply offering a product.
> SoftBank also runs the $100 billion Vision Fund, which is headed by Rajeev Misra and invests amounts larger than the entire new fund in startups around the world.
Neither Rajeev Misra nor Masayoshi Son sound like “white” names. I find it fascinating how Asians in general are excluded from the term “people of color”.
Because the term "[free] people of colour" is a direct translation of the French phrase "gens de couleur [libres]" used in the French West Indies during slavery times to refer to free people of mixed African and European ancestry.
Of course its now its just virtue signalling to describe some imagined unified faction of the rest of the planet opposing white people.
IMHO, it will end once American-born Chinese and Indian mothers realise they aren't part of it and that their kids bear the largest brunt of the interventions.
Asians used to face a lot of discrimination in the US and very institutionalized one, not just of the "making fun of them by calling them Ching Chong" variety. There is a long and storied history, but it is never brought up because it provides some rather uncomfortable cognitive dissonances when trying to explain how Asian-Americans today are so much better off but other discriminated-against groups aren't. So you see the common trope where Asian-Americans and Indian-Americans are just passed over when talking about historical injustices because they don't fit the narrative.
The link below has a full history but, one of many points—
In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act—the only United States Iaw to prevent immigration and naturalization on the basis of race—which restricted Chinese immigration for the next sixty years. The "Chinese Must Go" movement was so strong that Chinese immigration to the United States declined from 39,500 in 1882 to only 10 in 1887.
They were pretty abused and stereotypes in the 1800’s. The transcontinental railway was built in large parts by Chinese workers, but if you look at the famous photo when the two lines come together and are joined by the Golden spike, there are not present. Also, there were some pretty racist cartoons about Asians in popular periodicals. Not to mention the interning of Japanese Americans during WWII.
So I think it would be incorrect to say that Asians do not have a historical baggage in the USA.
Limiting initiatives like this based on skin color, implies that the reason for them needing help is their skin color. What about white people that come from low-socioeconomic backgrounds? Broken families? Didn't finish high-school? Abused as a child/teenager? Single parent family? Aren't these the real reasons why people are disadvantaged? People of all colors come from these backgrounds.
I'm sick of the hypocrisy of people saying "Black people aren't more likely/less likely to x, it's their education/family/etc. that affects them" ... and then immediately turning around and giving help to people based on their skin color, rather than these other traits.
EDIT: What about somebody who is black, and comes from (yes, one of the rare unfortunately) a rich family or well off family? While not a majority, many POC work for FAANG companies. Are they eligible for this money purely because of their skin color, but disadvantaged people of any color are not?
> Aren't these the real reasons why people are disadvantaged?
No, or at least, not exclusively. There's tons of social science research in which, for example, two identical fabricated resumes were submitted for a battery of jobs, differing only by, say, a headshot of a black vs. white person, or a stereotypically-African-American name vs. a stereotypically white (or not-obviously-race-signaling) one. In these studies there are huge differences in response rates and callbacks, even when everything else about the resumes (educational attainment, experience, etc.). is identical.
It's true that many black people suffer structural disadvantages because of systemic lack of access to resources, etc. But they also suffer disadvantages because they're black.
I have a question, just because I don't know if there is data on this.
I've seen a bunch of studies on things like "stereotypically-african-american-name" vs "stereotypically-white-name", which are good evidence as to why a good hiring process should remove personally-identifying details from resumes.
Not just the name of the applicant, either -- school names and locations can also introduce unfair biases. Company names are unavoidable, I think: there are only so many companies that fit the description of "Social Network, Global, >10k employees, uses lots of Javascript" or "Privatized Intelligence Service, Global, >100k employees, uses lots of Go".
Buuuuuuut... is there research on what happens when you expand the number of dimensions?
E.g., add in a mix of broad cultural backgrounds (Pan-European, Latin, Arab, Chinese, African, etc.), test different raraties ("Smith" is common, "Chaucer" is rare, both are Anglo)
Does "Victoria Henderson" garner a statistically different response to "Vitalija Herrera" (Anglo vs Lithuanian)? What about "Nyala Aregawi" vs "Nadya Ahane" (Mixed Russian-Japanese)?
What happens when we mix in popular fictional names?
Solid bet there are boys out there named "Thor" and "Bilbo" by parents that are fans of Star Wars.
No idea what actual outcomes might be, the data could yield interesting results on hiring biases.
But primarily, right? Bias plays a role, so everything else being equal, a black applicant will receive fewer callbacks than a white or asian one, but (and that's a big but) the primary issue is that usually not all other things are equal.
The average black person comes from a different socioeconomic background than the average white or asian person, so they'll usually not have the same level of education, but less so because of being discriminated against because of their race, but because of their class. More single-parent households, lower household income, their parents can't simply afford to hire tutors and put them through college etc etc.
That's what makes these things somewhat weird. Yeah, sure, a black guy from a rich family that attended MIT will have a harder time finding funding than his white or asian friends from the same background ... but he'll have a much easier time than some white kid from a broken home.
I believe two things to be true: class is the primary factor, not race. And it's more convenient to focus on race because it's much easier and feels less threatening to the (usually upper middle class and beyond) proponents. "We (as white people) need to share more" puts them in a group with (for the US) 60% of the population and is pretty abstract. Great for virtue signalling, terrible for concrete actions. "We (as rich people) need to share more" puts them in a much, much smaller group and suggests they could actually do something besides yelling at people to check their privilege: share some of the money they inherit. Great for doing something, terrible for virtue signalling because "well, put your money where your mouth is" is so obvious.
> I'm sick of the hypocrisy of people saying "Black people aren't more likely/less likely to x, it's their education/family/etc. that affects them" ... and then immediately turning around and giving help to people based on their skin color, rather than these other traits.
In your imaginary world we should stop considering race all together. Logically that'd be "fair" right? But what about the million of POC who have been denied jobs, education, houses, etc who exist NOW today and have been set back from centuries of disenfranchisement. Is it fair to them? We don't get to turn back time, so initiatives like this at least attempt to help a group of people who've sorely been needed from the evolution of startups. This is a GOOD thing. More diverse folks means change. If you feel like it's "taking away" from your opportunity, maybe you should examine that a bit.
> While not a majority, many POC work for FAANG companies. Are they eligible for this money purely because of their skin color, but disadvantaged people of any color are not?
oh no, you found an edge case - better throw in the towel. If it can't be simplified into a single test then the whole thing shouldn't exist right? /s
Consider how hard you have to work to justify your line of thinking. Maybe the simplest answer is that you're wrong.
I personally hate these initiatives because they don't deal with problem at the core.
They should have policies that address every fund they manage, not some 100m, which is peanuts for them.
I really like how YC does it. Yes, there are problems with YC, but their main program is really good at taking people from different economic/social/racial backgrounds.
Have tonnes of friends from disadvantaged backgrounds and developing countries that got in. I don't understand why every fund can't do it.
Not only do they not deal with the problem at the core, these types of well meaning but misguided ideas often end up perpetuating the very problem they are meant to address.
So much of the policies from the left on race are examples of the shirky principle in action:
I suspect because it means acknowledging that there isn't particularly special about one's little in-group, and that talent also lies outside of how one identifies. For example, I've heard that good candidates are impossible to find outside of 'good universities', those being the ivy league, etc.
I agree that there should be more funds that support all kinds of backgrounds so that we can increase the diversity of people in the VC space. This reminds me a lot of the discussions about affirmative action in the US, which is divisive on both sides, and I do see a strong argument for using class as the main determinant. However, black founders often mention that they are declined funding because they don't look similar to the investors, and while most entrepreneurs need to go through a lot of investors, its often hard to tell if you're getting rejected because of your idea or the color of your skin.
Just because it would be ideal to have programs for all disadvantaged backgrounds doesn't make one specifically for POC bad imo.
> Limiting initiatives like this based on skin color, implies that the reason for them needing help is their skin color.
Systematic racism is very much real in the United States, putting minorities at a disadvantage exactly because of the color of their skin - socioeconomic background and upbringing aside. Affirmative action, and presumably this effort by SoftBank, is intended to address that.
As far as I can see, this doesn't exist in the tech world (any more). Most Fortune 500 companies go out of their way to hire minorities, even if they are less qualified. Colleges do the same. Minorities are not disadvantaged purely for their skin color in the tech world. They are disadvantaged because of their worse financial/education situation. And my point is that these traits that effect people in tech are not limited to PoC.
Intentions sound good, sure: we want to address inequality.
But is the solution “we will only consider people of specific racial backgrounds. We will reject you on the sole basis of your race”? Affirmative action has been firmly grounded in policies for decades. At what point do we do away with it, or decide that it needs to be rebalanced for groups that had potential reduced because of the results of affirmative actions good intentions? It’s made getting into college and many positions as an Asian American pure hell, despite being minorities and many coming from poverty.
This is slight variation on the theme of the Black Lives Matter vs All Lives Matter argument, and it's been addressed adequately on social media.
The fund isn't pointing out that "Only Black Founders Matter", it's saying that that group of people require attention at this point in time, and we're going to focus on them now and correct the systemic problems that have given them a disadvantage until this point in time.
We'll get to everyone else next. The principle of using the water wagon to save the house that's currently burning applies. The people starting this fund have decided that focusing on this group is a good start, other groups will come later after the problem is clear enough.
This is akin to the reservation system in India, which was amended to cater to this very problem by identifying "creamy layer"[1] who are higher income group coming from backward castes and they are not eligible for govt benefits.
The purpose of such initiatives is to counter the prevalent social bias. If two similarly educated and otherwise skilled FAANG employees pitch same idea to different VCs, the success ratio is tilted against POC.
Rest of the causes need to be looked upon at various stages of life and via various support measures, this particular caters to racial bias.
Aren't these the real reasons why people are disadvantaged?
Not when it comes to raising VC money, no. Typically people who manage to raise a round come from good backgrounds, middle-class families and have a high level of education. There are exceptions but that's a good general heuristic for a founder who has successfully raised money. If you're from a broken home, didn't finish school, or you were abused as a child you're much less likely to be raising money from a VC fund for a litany of reasons that all need to be addressed by society as a whole.
However, even though practically all the people who pitch to VCs are well-educated, relatively wealthy, middle-class people regardless of what color they are, it's still the case that more than 3/4 of deals go to white men[1]. It's extremely hard to raise, and even harder if you're in a minority group. VCs are systemically averse of doing deals outside of their comfort zone.
For Softbank to ring fence the equivalent of 0.1% of their Vision Fund as "this money is only for minorities" that's fine. To be honest it's not really enough.
I don't look at this news as a VC company going 'positive discrimination' but more as a VC company realising that it has a problem turning down deals that could make them money, eg minority-led startups, and doing something to fix that.
That's a valid stance. But reflect on why it matters to you. So what if someone is giving special opportunities to someone based on their skin color, or their gender? There are plenty of special opportunities to go around for all of us.
I think you'll get a lot of flak for this sentiment. But I used to feel the same way as you. What helped me change my mind was to realize that no one is taking away opportunities from me by giving them to someone else. "Opportunity" isn't a fixed pie. If we believe that wealth isn't a fixed pie, why not apply that same logic to opportunities and initiatives like this? It's worth thinking about, and deeply reflecting on.
And, you know, if someone was giving out special opportunities to certain people while denying them to us, that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Parents have been doing that for their own children since people were people. It's their money; they can put it toward whatever causes they want.
> So what if someone is giving special opportunities to someone based on their skin color, or their gender? There are plenty of special opportunities to go around for all of us.
I think this was the stance of the segregationists in the Jim Crow South. They called it “separate but equal”
“So what if someone is getting to drink from a certain water fountain based on their skin color, or their gender? There are plenty of water fountains to go around for all of us.”
If you look at tech and most startups, an overwhelming amount of founders come from a similar background: white, male. I don’t have the data on this but you could for example make inferences from the YC summer and winter showcases.
I would expect that what this helps to do is encourage participation from ethnic minorities in the US.
And to your point on white people from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. Sure it is good to lift all people up in society, but they certainly don’t have to face racial discrimination in the workplace or admissions pipeline. Failing to acknowledge that race is a factor in many people’s lives experiences is a failure to acknowledge systemic racism. This is an attempt to recognize that and correct that. And as other commentators have said, this by no means implies that other initiatives have to be mutually exclusive l.
People in all countries get measles. Should we help every country equally? If, gasp, there's a rich kid in Pakistan who may get a free measles vaccine, is that evidence to stop fighting measles in Pakistan?
White families have ten times the average wealth versus black families. Putting aside the significant mountain of evidence racial bias in hiring, in tech, in basically every facet of life, that single statistic should be evidence enough that more funding is necessary for minorities.
And what hypocrisy? You can say that black people are not inherently different but face different circumstances due to societal problems. That's not hypocrisy. That's simply acknowledging that race plays a factor in nurture but maybe not nature.
It would be more appropriate to have on a economy basis. Recently the Indian Government took this step to provide 10% additional reservation based on for the general category (forward caste people). There was huge outcry in the country from people belonging to the backward castes, but most of it came from political quarters. I think in general all people want is not to be left out rather than deny other people's rights.
I think you can have different initiatives targeting different issues. Like many have said, being a minority itself is a disadvantage. Cristian Cooper (Harvard grad) is an example.
But I also understand what you mean about people ignoring socioeconomic status or other issues when they are not at the center of the spotlight. I think it's quite clear most companies doing this just for PR. BLM movement has been going on for years, yet these companies never care to actively support it, until now that they've seen "oh shit, people actually care - better get on it now." Let's see whether this is truly a wake-up call for people to address injustices of all kind, starting with racial problem, or simply a 'trend'.
“This system of helping people does not help all people who need help, therefore it is bad.”
No. This comment is similar to responding to “black lives matter” with “all lives matter”.
Helping a subset of those who need help is acceptable too.
Put aside your hardwired, human-as-social-animal unfairness alert criticism, and recognize that this is a good thing, and it is better that this exists than the case where it does not.
Affirmative action isn’t fair either, but it is still a good thing that it exists.
Once everyone in society is treated equally and has equal opportunities, then and only then can we start criticizing equality improvement efforts on fairness.
There is no requirement that helping people who need help be done so fairly or evenly. Abandon that concept.
With these questions is often a matter of scale. Let's take a minority person and a non-minority person applying for the same apartment. The landlord doesn't care about their background. He just thinks the non-minority person is less likeable and gives the apt to the minority person. Fine. However, if you this 100x or 1000x, the minority people will most probably lose out because of racism.
It's nice that they're doing this, but I think they could increase their funding for minorities. We've seen them have bigger funds for vaporware that didn't really pan out
I think we all know that all lives matter, but the point is that black lives are in danger thats why were saying black lives matter
Ignoring specific subsets of systematic issues are synonymous with tone deafness
This initiative isn't about the BLM movement (though probably inspired by it given recent events). It's about closing the gap in terms of business opportunity. And my point is that there are many people of all colors who are disadvantaged because of educational background, family situation etc. I never see VCs or Fortune 500s doing much for them. Doesn't have the same clout in terms of social justice points. Using minorities to boost their shitty reputation after the WeWork saga is pathetic.
There should be programs that endeavor to compensate for the inequities between socioeconomic background, family situations, etc. And indeed there are such programs. That’s not mutually exclusive with the need for programs like this one. They should all exist.
Based on past threads, I think that a majority of HN views startup funding as competitive, and acknowledges the risks from a lack of funding - some from first hand experience, and that adversity is not evenly distributed among non-minorities, and that for technology product adoption nobody looks at the team just the usefulness, so anything other than a level playing field will be frowned upon here.
I am an immigrant where I live, so i will take the liberty to ask:
- Do the behaviors we have been seeing on television from law enforcement in the US extend to offline business relationships in the US in more subtle ways? For example would a minority with a new product be given a lower preference to demo their stuff at a technology meetup? Would they be passed up for a promotion at work because the boss preferred someone who looked like him?
- Is there a systemic variation in the quality and accessability of human relationships for some groups? (vital for recruiting, selling, partnering, fund raising, launching, ecosystem and user community building). For example would it be harder to sign up beta users for an enterprise product?
Those are the core issues they could face, and they are very real in some places in the UK.
If this is a case, perhaps it is warranted or you will have capable people unable to contribute.
This is a good idea; it makes sense to test for opportunities to profit from racism and pick up high-value entrepreneurs of colour.
The HN title should be changed though, it says 'minorities' while the original article says 'people of colour'. I assumed it would be targeting Asians from the HN title.
I like it. Very clever. If there are founders out there who are capable but underserved sorely because they're not in the right social circles then this is a good attempt at capitalizing on that.
I love watching the market in action. Wonder if it will pay off.
Well, the theory is that they think YC’s selection process drops capable people for whatever reason (insufficient room, poor selection criteria, etc.). It’s definitely worth a tiny bet.
Readit News
You have to be rich for class to be a major advantage when starting a startup, middle class isn't enough unless you're willing to expose yourself to a lot of personal risk. For various reasons middle class Black people with the skills to start a startup are more risk averse than white counterparts. For other reasons those same Black people get less funding than counterparts of other races.
I say this as a Black engineer from a middle class background that has been a founder, worked at FAANG and personally knows many Black founders that tried to bootstrap and failed to raise, even with strong pitches and profitable products. It's possible that these companies are fundamentally worse than all white founded companies that raise, but I rarely see Black people given a chance to fail. Class is not the only issue and it's not the main barrier for most Black people.
Neither Rajeev Misra nor Masayoshi Son sound like “white” names. I find it fascinating how Asians in general are excluded from the term “people of color”.
Of course its now its just virtue signalling to describe some imagined unified faction of the rest of the planet opposing white people.
IMHO, it will end once American-born Chinese and Indian mothers realise they aren't part of it and that their kids bear the largest brunt of the interventions.
> Named the “Opportunity Growth Fund” and focused on African Americans and Latinos in the U.S. it is, SoftBank says, the largest fund of its kind.
Kind of implied there.
Asians used to face a lot of discrimination in the US and very institutionalized one, not just of the "making fun of them by calling them Ching Chong" variety. There is a long and storied history, but it is never brought up because it provides some rather uncomfortable cognitive dissonances when trying to explain how Asian-Americans today are so much better off but other discriminated-against groups aren't. So you see the common trope where Asian-Americans and Indian-Americans are just passed over when talking about historical injustices because they don't fit the narrative.
The link below has a full history but, one of many points—
In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act—the only United States Iaw to prevent immigration and naturalization on the basis of race—which restricted Chinese immigration for the next sixty years. The "Chinese Must Go" movement was so strong that Chinese immigration to the United States declined from 39,500 in 1882 to only 10 in 1887.
https://asiasociety.org/education/asian-americans-then-and-n...
They were pretty abused and stereotypes in the 1800’s. The transcontinental railway was built in large parts by Chinese workers, but if you look at the famous photo when the two lines come together and are joined by the Golden spike, there are not present. Also, there were some pretty racist cartoons about Asians in popular periodicals. Not to mention the interning of Japanese Americans during WWII.
So I think it would be incorrect to say that Asians do not have a historical baggage in the USA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...
This is simply not true. Though we associate lynchings with blacks, the first mass lynchings in the US was of asians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_massacre_of_1871
The first non-native pogrom was of asians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Springs_massacre
> Do they face similar racism/bias in general (ignore temporary surge like now by Corona)?
They were denied citizenship and the right to own land.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Alien_Land_Law_of_1...
They were banned from immigrating to the US - the first and only national and racial group to have ever been banned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924
Dumped into concentration camps - once again the first and only ethnic/racial group to have been put into concentration camps in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...
All non-whites faced racial abuse and discrimination. Even white people faced racial abuse and discrimination.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_14,_1891_New_Orleans_lyn...
I'm sick of the hypocrisy of people saying "Black people aren't more likely/less likely to x, it's their education/family/etc. that affects them" ... and then immediately turning around and giving help to people based on their skin color, rather than these other traits.
EDIT: What about somebody who is black, and comes from (yes, one of the rare unfortunately) a rich family or well off family? While not a majority, many POC work for FAANG companies. Are they eligible for this money purely because of their skin color, but disadvantaged people of any color are not?
No, or at least, not exclusively. There's tons of social science research in which, for example, two identical fabricated resumes were submitted for a battery of jobs, differing only by, say, a headshot of a black vs. white person, or a stereotypically-African-American name vs. a stereotypically white (or not-obviously-race-signaling) one. In these studies there are huge differences in response rates and callbacks, even when everything else about the resumes (educational attainment, experience, etc.). is identical.
It's true that many black people suffer structural disadvantages because of systemic lack of access to resources, etc. But they also suffer disadvantages because they're black.
I've seen a bunch of studies on things like "stereotypically-african-american-name" vs "stereotypically-white-name", which are good evidence as to why a good hiring process should remove personally-identifying details from resumes.
Not just the name of the applicant, either -- school names and locations can also introduce unfair biases. Company names are unavoidable, I think: there are only so many companies that fit the description of "Social Network, Global, >10k employees, uses lots of Javascript" or "Privatized Intelligence Service, Global, >100k employees, uses lots of Go".
Buuuuuuut... is there research on what happens when you expand the number of dimensions?
E.g., add in a mix of broad cultural backgrounds (Pan-European, Latin, Arab, Chinese, African, etc.), test different raraties ("Smith" is common, "Chaucer" is rare, both are Anglo)
Does "Victoria Henderson" garner a statistically different response to "Vitalija Herrera" (Anglo vs Lithuanian)? What about "Nyala Aregawi" vs "Nadya Ahane" (Mixed Russian-Japanese)?
What happens when we mix in popular fictional names?
Solid bet there are boys out there named "Thor" and "Bilbo" by parents that are fans of Star Wars.
No idea what actual outcomes might be, the data could yield interesting results on hiring biases.
But primarily, right? Bias plays a role, so everything else being equal, a black applicant will receive fewer callbacks than a white or asian one, but (and that's a big but) the primary issue is that usually not all other things are equal.
The average black person comes from a different socioeconomic background than the average white or asian person, so they'll usually not have the same level of education, but less so because of being discriminated against because of their race, but because of their class. More single-parent households, lower household income, their parents can't simply afford to hire tutors and put them through college etc etc.
That's what makes these things somewhat weird. Yeah, sure, a black guy from a rich family that attended MIT will have a harder time finding funding than his white or asian friends from the same background ... but he'll have a much easier time than some white kid from a broken home.
I believe two things to be true: class is the primary factor, not race. And it's more convenient to focus on race because it's much easier and feels less threatening to the (usually upper middle class and beyond) proponents. "We (as white people) need to share more" puts them in a group with (for the US) 60% of the population and is pretty abstract. Great for virtue signalling, terrible for concrete actions. "We (as rich people) need to share more" puts them in a much, much smaller group and suggests they could actually do something besides yelling at people to check their privilege: share some of the money they inherit. Great for doing something, terrible for virtue signalling because "well, put your money where your mouth is" is so obvious.
In your imaginary world we should stop considering race all together. Logically that'd be "fair" right? But what about the million of POC who have been denied jobs, education, houses, etc who exist NOW today and have been set back from centuries of disenfranchisement. Is it fair to them? We don't get to turn back time, so initiatives like this at least attempt to help a group of people who've sorely been needed from the evolution of startups. This is a GOOD thing. More diverse folks means change. If you feel like it's "taking away" from your opportunity, maybe you should examine that a bit.
> While not a majority, many POC work for FAANG companies. Are they eligible for this money purely because of their skin color, but disadvantaged people of any color are not?
oh no, you found an edge case - better throw in the towel. If it can't be simplified into a single test then the whole thing shouldn't exist right? /s
Consider how hard you have to work to justify your line of thinking. Maybe the simplest answer is that you're wrong.
They should have policies that address every fund they manage, not some 100m, which is peanuts for them.
I really like how YC does it. Yes, there are problems with YC, but their main program is really good at taking people from different economic/social/racial backgrounds.
Have tonnes of friends from disadvantaged backgrounds and developing countries that got in. I don't understand why every fund can't do it.
So much of the policies from the left on race are examples of the shirky principle in action:
https://kk.org/thetechnium/the-shirky-prin/
“Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.” — Clay Shirky
This is a great article from Shelby Steele, an African-American senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institute on the issue:
http://archive.is/EXl8N#selection-1951.267-1955.491
Dead Comment
Just because it would be ideal to have programs for all disadvantaged backgrounds doesn't make one specifically for POC bad imo.
And what happens when a black-founder VC fund underperforms an Asian-founder VC fund?
Will we need another level of VC funds to fix that?
Systematic racism is very much real in the United States, putting minorities at a disadvantage exactly because of the color of their skin - socioeconomic background and upbringing aside. Affirmative action, and presumably this effort by SoftBank, is intended to address that.
But is the solution “we will only consider people of specific racial backgrounds. We will reject you on the sole basis of your race”? Affirmative action has been firmly grounded in policies for decades. At what point do we do away with it, or decide that it needs to be rebalanced for groups that had potential reduced because of the results of affirmative actions good intentions? It’s made getting into college and many positions as an Asian American pure hell, despite being minorities and many coming from poverty.
The fund isn't pointing out that "Only Black Founders Matter", it's saying that that group of people require attention at this point in time, and we're going to focus on them now and correct the systemic problems that have given them a disadvantage until this point in time.
We'll get to everyone else next. The principle of using the water wagon to save the house that's currently burning applies. The people starting this fund have decided that focusing on this group is a good start, other groups will come later after the problem is clear enough.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creamy_layer
Rest of the causes need to be looked upon at various stages of life and via various support measures, this particular caters to racial bias.
Not when it comes to raising VC money, no. Typically people who manage to raise a round come from good backgrounds, middle-class families and have a high level of education. There are exceptions but that's a good general heuristic for a founder who has successfully raised money. If you're from a broken home, didn't finish school, or you were abused as a child you're much less likely to be raising money from a VC fund for a litany of reasons that all need to be addressed by society as a whole.
However, even though practically all the people who pitch to VCs are well-educated, relatively wealthy, middle-class people regardless of what color they are, it's still the case that more than 3/4 of deals go to white men[1]. It's extremely hard to raise, and even harder if you're in a minority group. VCs are systemically averse of doing deals outside of their comfort zone.
For Softbank to ring fence the equivalent of 0.1% of their Vision Fund as "this money is only for minorities" that's fine. To be honest it's not really enough.
I don't look at this news as a VC company going 'positive discrimination' but more as a VC company realising that it has a problem turning down deals that could make them money, eg minority-led startups, and doing something to fix that.
[1] https://news.crunchbase.com/news/untapped-opportunity-minori...
I think you'll get a lot of flak for this sentiment. But I used to feel the same way as you. What helped me change my mind was to realize that no one is taking away opportunities from me by giving them to someone else. "Opportunity" isn't a fixed pie. If we believe that wealth isn't a fixed pie, why not apply that same logic to opportunities and initiatives like this? It's worth thinking about, and deeply reflecting on.
And, you know, if someone was giving out special opportunities to certain people while denying them to us, that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Parents have been doing that for their own children since people were people. It's their money; they can put it toward whatever causes they want.
I think this was the stance of the segregationists in the Jim Crow South. They called it “separate but equal”
“So what if someone is getting to drink from a certain water fountain based on their skin color, or their gender? There are plenty of water fountains to go around for all of us.”
I find both statements morally reprehensible.
Because it’s racist.
By definition this isn't true.
Dead Comment
I would expect that what this helps to do is encourage participation from ethnic minorities in the US.
And to your point on white people from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. Sure it is good to lift all people up in society, but they certainly don’t have to face racial discrimination in the workplace or admissions pipeline. Failing to acknowledge that race is a factor in many people’s lives experiences is a failure to acknowledge systemic racism. This is an attempt to recognize that and correct that. And as other commentators have said, this by no means implies that other initiatives have to be mutually exclusive l.
White families have ten times the average wealth versus black families. Putting aside the significant mountain of evidence racial bias in hiring, in tech, in basically every facet of life, that single statistic should be evidence enough that more funding is necessary for minorities.
And what hypocrisy? You can say that black people are not inherently different but face different circumstances due to societal problems. That's not hypocrisy. That's simply acknowledging that race plays a factor in nurture but maybe not nature.
But I also understand what you mean about people ignoring socioeconomic status or other issues when they are not at the center of the spotlight. I think it's quite clear most companies doing this just for PR. BLM movement has been going on for years, yet these companies never care to actively support it, until now that they've seen "oh shit, people actually care - better get on it now." Let's see whether this is truly a wake-up call for people to address injustices of all kind, starting with racial problem, or simply a 'trend'.
No. This comment is similar to responding to “black lives matter” with “all lives matter”.
Helping a subset of those who need help is acceptable too.
Put aside your hardwired, human-as-social-animal unfairness alert criticism, and recognize that this is a good thing, and it is better that this exists than the case where it does not.
Affirmative action isn’t fair either, but it is still a good thing that it exists.
Once everyone in society is treated equally and has equal opportunities, then and only then can we start criticizing equality improvement efforts on fairness.
There is no requirement that helping people who need help be done so fairly or evenly. Abandon that concept.
I think we all know that all lives matter, but the point is that black lives are in danger thats why were saying black lives matter
Ignoring specific subsets of systematic issues are synonymous with tone deafness
I am an immigrant where I live, so i will take the liberty to ask:
- Do the behaviors we have been seeing on television from law enforcement in the US extend to offline business relationships in the US in more subtle ways? For example would a minority with a new product be given a lower preference to demo their stuff at a technology meetup? Would they be passed up for a promotion at work because the boss preferred someone who looked like him?
- Is there a systemic variation in the quality and accessability of human relationships for some groups? (vital for recruiting, selling, partnering, fund raising, launching, ecosystem and user community building). For example would it be harder to sign up beta users for an enterprise product?
Those are the core issues they could face, and they are very real in some places in the UK.
If this is a case, perhaps it is warranted or you will have capable people unable to contribute.
The HN title should be changed though, it says 'minorities' while the original article says 'people of colour'. I assumed it would be targeting Asians from the HN title.
I love watching the market in action. Wonder if it will pay off.