I did the same thing, then I read his comment on a previous post where he said the same thing and realized my mistake. I wonder if the prior paragraphs where he talks about building his online reputation may have inadvertently primed us to read the sentence that way?
"I wonder if the prior paragraphs where he talks about building his online reputation may have inadvertently primed us to read the sentence that way?"
It's because I wrote this in a hurry so I didn't take as much time to polish the white spacing as I normally would, which makes it more difficult to read. The issue is that there are basically three or four separate ideas that are all chunkified together. I edited that sentence though to at least make it more clear.
Very happy to see this launch. I'm happy staying on the East coast, but if NewME ever launches something in NY I'd love to be a part of it.
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.
Hopefully we'll be able to have a program on the eastcoast too, it makes sense to but we are def trying to crawl before we sprint ;)
Just to clarify NewME isn't an investor. We aren't making financial investment in any of the companies and we aren't taking equity. We are providing the speakers, and mentors, and place to stay for the summer. We're also providing a community of sorts. :)
I think the first two reasons affect everyone pretty equally, but the 3rd rings pretty true in a couple ways.
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.
> This meant there were FAR fewer opportunities to collaborate and learn from a group of similarly-interested people.
I'm going to tread carefully here. =)
Similarly-interested in a small segment of likes. I think it's fair to say that in most careers, their exists a culture, and if you aren't apart of that culture, you miss out. I see this in all sorts of industries, and the type of people involved generally follow a well established stereotype. Their are exceptions, and stereotyping is bad, but I think it's safe to say we all see this and know it exists. It's not on purpose. Us white male programmers just happen to have a lot of similar interests.
> but it still leaves me pretty far behind?
Do you find this a fault with the industry? With those white guys? With you? Or no ones fault and it is what it is?
My own experience is that people who have the same dedicated drive for programming but aren't interested in the same extra-curricular activities as most programmers usually have a lot to offer. Have you found that to be the case personally? Do you feel other people see that in you?
I don't fault myself or anyone else. I think it's just something that happens naturally when a large group of people dominate an industry. If this were a hip hop board, we might be talking about how long it took Far East Movement to make it in a predominantly black industry, but this is HN, so we talk about women and black/latino minorities.
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.
Sucks for me, but I can't find fault with other people for doing what they like. It's not the job of the rest of the world to change to make it convenient for me to network.
My best shot is: because you cannot make cool TV shows about computer scientists
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.
Your experience is not atypical, and it's been a struggle to win over ThinkUp contributers who've been around for awhile to the idea of spending time in IRC because of it.
But just like the larger Internet, it all depends on where you go. There's been sort of an IRC revival in development communities and I've found them largely jerk-free.
I would love to give it another chance then. My biggest regret about how things went down is that I missed a lot of the cool, web-based stuff that was going on all these years (I was 15 back in 2000/2001). I was interested in the web, but I was learning more generalized C++, Java, and working with computer animation tools.
That's unfortunate, but please don't paint all of IRC with the same brush.
IRC is just a protocol, and there are thousands of IRC networks, each with potentially thousands of channels. It's a really great communication mechanism, so please don't let a few racist trouble-makers keep you off of it.
No, because IRC wasn't the only place to seek knowledge. I continued to peruse other parts of the internet that didn't allow such blatant racism to slide. Beyond my C++ classes, I was also on a FIRST Robotics team. I was seen as a person there, and even if some people thought I shouldn't be there, it's harder to call someone the n-word to their face.
I don't follow football, but I do watch the superbowl, and I frequently see teams with black head coaches on the field.
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've received a lot of backhanded compliments in my life (i.e. you're pretty for a dark skinned girl) and they are annoying but I don't think this was one of them. To me it read like, "you're awesome, and the fact that you're succeeding despite the obstacles is even more awesome!"
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.
I've been deliberately avoiding this thread, but I should probably step in and say that I felt no offense at the original comment, and the comment I'm replying to is a great way to explain why.
I did put gender reference in the title — it would garner me more notice since I'm a minority. Therefore, doesn't bother me if someone points out something I was already pointing out. It's feels more ridiculous when people are like, "Shh, don't mention she's female, it'll be construed that you're sexist."
There is a lot of grey area here, but I'm glad the original commenter hasn't been downvoted to oblivion for what seemed a very honest comment.
http://storify.com/devonvsmith/games-for-change-jesse-schell...
P.S. The whole talk is worth listening to when it eventually comes out.