Ask HN: Any Black Founders/Co-Founders?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1795487

by curtisspope • 16 years ago

25 42 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Please Stand Up

_pius• 16 years ago

Here.

mahmud• 16 years ago

Ditto.

metysj• 16 years ago

Same

chriswesallen3• 16 years ago

haha...thats great, Here as well;

I've never felt like race was a big issue in my local startup community. There are plenty of black, brown, olive, tan, yellow, and peach individuals sprinkled throughout in most events I attend here in Houston.

Sometimes it would be nice to connect with them just we share that kind of commonality, but I always felt that creating a "black startup" meeting group would be extremely cheesy and too inclusive.

I don't care what color they are as long as they come up with good ideas and do what they say they will do.

That being said...markets are markets and if you have some cultural or ethnic insight into an opportunity for a business or a way to help your specific community; you should count yourself lucky for being born whatever you are and try to capitalize on it.

Theres no reason the team you build has to be racially ?inclusive/exclusive?, and actually the aforementioned diversity actually helps strengthen teams in my opinion by providing those different cultural or ethnic perspectives.

bilbo0s• 16 years ago

I don't know what part of Houston you are in, but I know there are a lot of REALLY bright guys that get together over at the G's and Z's on Alameda in the Third Ward. I live down Sunset by Rice Village but I was in that coffee shop one night when they got together. I have to confess that I was shocked actually at how bright those guys were.

They felt pretty inclusive too... I mean hey, they let me sit in. So I don't think it is necessarily, a "black" group.

Only issue was that I only met one of them who was into software/web startups. Most were in energy modeling or global scale logistics. Think Houston Halliburton, not San Fran Twitter.

The one I met in web startups made children's iPad games. Math if I remember correctly. Pretty cool guy though, he spoke a lot of languages. I'm looking up a couple of contact emails for those guys and I will direct them to this thread...maybe you can drop in next time they get together.

chriswesallen3• 16 years ago

Thats cool....I grew up in that neighborhood and never knew. I'll start checking it out and see if I can meet them. You seem cool as well, hit me up on twitter we can hang as well...

Equal opportunity for friends over here

curtisspope4• 16 years ago

I totally agree. Sometimes when we put the "Black" in front of what we do, it kind of limits it. Ideas are colorless

yummyfajitas2• 16 years ago

...the aforementioned diversity actually helps strengthen teams in my opinion by providing those different cultural or ethnic perspectives.

I don't really agree with this. My company (currently 3 people) was ethnically homogeneous before I came onboard. Diversity of thought did not increase much when I was hired, even though I am ethnically different. (I studied computational science in college instead of computer science, talk about diversity). We may hire a 4'th person - a business guy who would bring a LOT of new ideas and skills to us. Ethnically he is the same as everyone else here.

Diversity of ethnicity != diversity of thought. It's a fallacy to equate the two.

chriswesallen3• 16 years ago

LOL....good response...but I disagree with your disagreement.

We as humans generate ideas that often feel spontaneous, but are actually the result of a lifetime of experience mixed with innate problem solving ability and our present state. theres a ton of research on creativity i can send you

I know your life experiences are different than mine, without having a hint as to your race. Race comes into the picture because having a different race often means you have different cultural aspects thats formed you as the person you are today.

Sure a group of programmers are going to come up with different solutions to a problem vs a group of designers.

Diversity of ethnicity just ensures that prior to chosen profession, each individual grew up with a cultural background that does influence the ideas they come up with

timmy_k• 16 years ago

It has strengthened our team for sure... chriswesallen and I are co-founders

ashitvora• 16 years ago

Does it even matter whether you are Black, White, Brown or Pink, Red, Yellow, Green or whatever as far as the person is smart, dedicated and hardworking.

tptacek• 16 years ago

Yes. Demographics are interesting. Don't project drama onto an innocent question.

tiffani2• 16 years ago

That's true, but it's nice to know who's out there. If you only read TechCrunch, you'd think MCHammer and Chamillionaire are the only black folks to ever touch a computer. Nothing against them, but yeah.

char• 16 years ago

Yes it matters, but not for success. When you're the minority in a field, it feels good when you discover there are others from the same background who have chosen the same path as you and have been successful.

curtisspope4• 16 years ago

Well yes and no. I just wanted to know if there were people that look like me doing the same things. Similar to a Developer who seeks out devs that code in the same language. No Offense. Sorry it irked you so much

curtisspope4• 16 years ago

I have also seen similar queries in HN (Women,Single,Gay). FYI

kyro• 16 years ago

Any particular reason you left Fuchsia out of that list?

pessimizer• 16 years ago

I'm so glad you didn't mention purple. Everybody always says purple. I think it has to do with the people eater.

tiffani2• 16 years ago

Here!

lmai• 16 years ago

http://www.proclivitysystems.com/ The founder is

kellishaver• 16 years ago

I'm not, but I know a handful who are.

Actually, of the founders I know personally, it's pretty much an even split.

f1gm3nt• 16 years ago

Investors only see the color green. Are there any Green Founders/Co-Founders?

trustfundbaby• 16 years ago

I am.

Don't believe me?

Check out my user name.

knuckle_cake• 16 years ago

My co-founder is black.

wh-uws2• 16 years ago

please let this be a reference to the Young Jeezy song... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9sABRosdNg

OoTheNigerian• 16 years ago

I wrote about it a while ago

http://oonwoye.com/2010/04/05/black-founders/

justin• 16 years ago

That's my cofounder!

maxklein• 16 years ago

The real question you should have researched more is why there is a high-rate of black people not showing their faces on twitter icons or "hiding" as you describe it. Do some interviews, I believe that will be a more interesting topic.

sedachv2• 16 years ago

Hank Williams (http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/) founded ClickRadio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickradio) in 1999, and is now doing http://kloudshare.com/

I did some contracting for Kloudshare. Hank is a pretty impressive guy.

sedachv2• 16 years ago

I forgot to mention something else that I thought was really cool: in the late 80s Hank wrote an organizer application called Daymaker for the Mac, which won a bunch of awards, and which he turned into a pretty successful business for a number of years. So he's been doing this for a long time.

wh-uws2• 16 years ago

My co-founder and I are.

http://upscalews.com

Shaft• 16 years ago

Another question: What programming language you ever programmed in was invented by a black guy ?

curtisspope4• 16 years ago

lol. interesting

amccloud• 16 years ago

I'm standing. Now what?

kobs• 16 years ago

Potentially.

Ask HN: Any Black Founders/Co-Founders?

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