Here Are The Women of Y Combinator And They Are Awesome

http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/30/ladies-of-y-combinator/

by canistr • 14 years ago

78 74 14 years ago

techcrunch.com

gnok• 14 years ago

What stood out to me immediately, is that 3 of the 4 sets of founders are first generation immigrants.

dmix• 14 years ago

It's Americas secret weapon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK0Y9j_CGgM

sliverstorm4• 14 years ago

*Secret weapon we are trying desperately to get rid of

zitterbewegung• 14 years ago

Aren't they forgetting Jessica Livingston? This should be titled "The Women in the ycombinator batch"

ktothemc8• 14 years ago

"The Women in the Y Combinator Batch" is a less readable, viral headline. I think it's sort of obvious from the first paragraph or two that I'm not talking about partners, just the most recent class.

jl• 14 years ago

I think it is clear that she's writing about female founders in this batch and not YC partners.

She neglected to include the co-founders of Plangrid (Tracy Young) and Medmonk (Somaira Punjwani). They, too, have fascinating backgrounds. (Since presentations were only 2.5 minutes, it was easy to miss some if you had to leave the room.)

vaksel2• 14 years ago

I find it interesting that none of them are technical founders. Were there no women who coded in this batch?

defrost2• 14 years ago

I carefully read the article several times and notice there is no mention of these womens ability to make coffee or sandwiches either.

I'd have to infer that at least some of them can both cook and code, and further that neither fact was significant in of itself in being able to found an internet based business.

Obviously it can save money if you can make your own sandwiches, which many may choose to do.

vaksel2• 14 years ago

one is important...the other is not

alphakappa• 14 years ago

Disclaimer: I am a guy.

I apologize if this comes off as a strange sentiment, but I find stories like this pretty condescending. It's almost like reading a story about some achievement by a kid with special needs and I need to stand up and cheer for these women. These women are amazing for whatever they have done, regardless of gender.

ktothemc8• 14 years ago

Yeah, I understand. That's why I normally hate writing about women in technology. However, I think a lot of would-be founders or applicants to YC are probably put off by its more male-oriented image. So if nothing else, this dispels that stereotype and may encourage more women to consider applying for it -- which in my mind is a universally good thing.

waterlesscloud2• 14 years ago

Really, how is it different from "Minnesotans in YCombinator" or "Indians in YCombinator"? It's someone choosing to highlight and celebrate a subgroup in a particular feature article. I don't see anything condescending about it at all.

AznHisoka• 14 years ago

it's condescending because as a guy, and someone who has worked very very hard, sometimes you ask yourself: but what about me? I deserve some kudos as well.

goldensaucer• 14 years ago

I can understand the feeling. It'd be great to see these women acknowledged on HN separate from the "women in tech" angle, but it's rare to see their female-oriented areas of business highlighted here. Sincere question: would the men of HN upvote a standalone article on 99dresses? If such a thing is a frequent occurrence, I'd be more than happy to see examples and be proven wrong.

For now, I'm okay with these types of lady showcases if only because I get comfort from seeing almost any example of female leadership in this corner of the internet. It's unfortunate that focusing on gender's the most surefire way to get these women on the front page, but stories like this and articles on female struggles in the tech world are mostly the only times I get a sense of female camaraderie around here. It feels less condescending when it's so much more difficult to get acknowledgment in a community of male-dominated interests.

victork26• 14 years ago

Ah I love these moments when I know that I am writing a risky post and I will very likely be downvoted, but here it comes!

How is this fair? Doesn't it qualify as "sexism"? You know the thing that was heavily debated on HN in the last weeks when some people were treated based on their gender? "I mean these people are put forward because they are %s, and if they were not %s they would not even qualify to a full page article. Based on that story %s seem to have an easier time because of their gender" % ( "women", "women", "women"). Sorry for the Pythonic syntax but if you saw "men" instead of "women" you'd have totally different stories and the big S word: sexism.

Plus, the ideas might be good for business but it's very very "girly". If I were a girl I would certainly feel kind of weird that out of the 4 ideas 1 is directed towards women, 2 are directly relevant to "standard" feminine tastes: clothing. Also the journalist is a woman... I want to see women promising us Big Data analysis or the new portal around cars, not some stuff that reinforce stereotypes!

I am sorry but I will say that sexism is gone when EVERY trace of it will have disappeared, and there won't be any "X women that succeed and they are awesome" but the title will be "Z ideas that will help you buy clothes" with guys and girls in the same article.

euroclydon3• 14 years ago

I didn't even know that there were that many women in YC. It's only been in the past month that I've stumbled onto women founders commenting on HN. I'm thrilled to find this article. I believe that women are underserved by software because the field has been dominated by men, too often making software targeted at other men.

It's great that the ideas are girly. They know what they want better than we do. If more women are going into YC now than before, than I'll bet PG and the gang can hardly wipe the grins off their faces thinking about all the money they're going to make.

marquis2• 14 years ago

Women technical founders are here. We just don't broadcast it, you generally make the assumption when reading a comment that it is from a guy unless specified otherwise. Try reading the next comment post assuming each comment is from a woman and see if that changes how you read it. Probably not?

ktothemc8• 14 years ago

This is push-and-pull. It's step-by-step. We don't get to the magical destination you're talking about immediately. If this generation of female entrepreneurs happens to be more focused on female target markets, that's fine by me if it means women in the next generation look up to them and realize that they can be founders too.

victork26• 14 years ago

I agree, but it always bugs when I see articles that speak about a gender or a group of people.

I believe it's part of a broader problem in the US. I come from another culture in Europe and that puts me in a position where I am able to analyze things from very close but still with a great deal of distance. Also forgive me for my english mistakes it is hard to develop long thoughts in a language which is not your mother language!

In the US there is a culture of the celebration of differences. It's true at every level in every aspect of the organization of the society here (I live in the US). I can take a very simple example: schools. In the US the "different" students which happen to be defined by the school administrations as the smartest students have it very easy: they are put aside from the rest, put in special classes, get incredible scholarship. The "normal"(again, by the definition of the administration) students are ignored.

Now take the example of the Finnish schools. In these schools the rule is: everybody should be at the same level: equal. [http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-ame...]. They have no standardized test to set the "normal" and "different" kids apart, they are very little homework.

Guess what happens next ? US pupils are just killed in the tests and Finnish students are far ahead.

This example can be extended to the case of women and to many more. By celebrating the excellence of some you only reinforce the sexism because of very complex externalities, that are not fully understood from the point of view of social sciences. I truly believe that creating role models is a curse, not a cure for the problem of women absence in technologies. This subject would merit a bigger post than mine but that's my thoughts put simply.

Sorry for the digression, thank you if you read until here :).

ajross2• 14 years ago

I am sorry but I will say that sexism is gone when EVERY trace of it will have disappear

Amen. But given that we aren't there yet, why are you complaining about an article which has women in it instead of the four hundred that don't?

victork26• 14 years ago

To be honest I haven't read the others (I am totally apathetic about the Y combinator startup thing). But I'd have to the premises if they were "10 men who are awesome", trust me I would smite it as strongly as here. If none of the articles mentioned any of the women shown there this is also a problem but I truly believe it won't be solved by countering with a gender specific article (I wrote a longer post on that when I answered ktothemc ).

naner• 14 years ago

How is this fair?

Why does it need to be fair? This isn't grade school... (For the record, I don't think this article is unfair but I don't see why that would matter.)

Doesn't it qualify as "sexism"?

No... How would this be sexism (discrimination based on gender)?

if you saw "men" instead of "women" you'd have totally different stories and the big S word: sexism.

Huh? There's no reason to highlight "The Men of YC". There's nothing remarkable about a bunch of guys trying to get tech startups off the ground. Women are typically underrepresented in this group, so this is noteworthy.

Plus, the ideas might be good for business but it's very very "girly".

Websites that cater to women are few and far between, women are typically willing to spend a lot of money on these types of sites, and it shouldn't be suprising that women develop businesses that they themselves would want to use. If you haven't noticed most startups tend to be a bunch of geeky guys developing geek-related crap that only geeks are really interested in. Same difference.

Also the journalist is a woman...

And? Isn't that appropriate? I'm sure the article would be fine if a male journalist wrote it but you shouldn't be suprised that a female journalist was hilighting sucessful women in tech.

Your weird interpretation of sexism is baffling.

redthrowaway• 14 years ago

I think you've hit the nail on the head. Sure, it'd be nice to live in a world where the genders of the founders didn't matter, but we don't. Almost half the Internet population is female, yet there are very few sites catering to them. This is dogfooding, plain and simple. I would never dream of launching a site to connect consumers with the perfect pair of high heel shoes, but there's probably a massive market for such a service.

Women will get attention because they're the minority, and because they pursue business opportunities that don't occur to male geeks. If we had Eskimos launching sites, they'd get covered too.

There's a massive market out there that isn't getting served by the rank and file tech entrepreneur. More power to whoever finds a way to exploit it. Crying 'reverse sexism' strikes me as simply pathetic.

yummyfajitas2• 14 years ago

Huh? There's no reason to highlight "The Men of YC". There's nothing remarkable about a bunch of guys trying to get tech startups off the ground.

This is true. From an information theoretic perspective, this story more interesting than the converse would be. However, I've been told many times that information theory and probability is not a defense against charges of sexism.

For example, consider the question "do you plan to have children soon?" From an information theory perspective, it provides useful information when making a hiring decision. And the information is more notable for a woman than for a man, since a woman who gives an affirmative answer is far more likely than a man to vanish from the workforce. Yet it's normally considered sexist to ask this question, particularly if you ask the question only of women.

How do you reconcile this difference?

sliverstorm4• 14 years ago

the ideas might be good for business but it's very very "girly"

This is one thing that jumped out at me too at first blush, but thinking on it more, while it may be the case I don't know that it's actually objectionable. Some of the more "girly" opportunities are still untapped by the mostly-male founder base, and if women choose to tap them, isn't that just good business sense on their part?

BadCookie• 14 years ago

I am a woman who just applied to Y Combinator with a "girly" idea. I admit to feeling a little odd about it. I almost wished that I were applying with a more gender-neutral idea. On the other hand, I'm convinced that the idea is worthwhile, and it's not the sort of idea that I can envision a group of 20-something men pursuing. I think it's only natural to ask yourself what you might understand better than your competition. (In fact, that's a question on the Y Combinator application!) I suppose I'm trying to argue that sliverstorm is right here.

Of course, some of it is just that women are more likely to be interested in girly things, and people in general tend to want to start companies that they are personally interested in. I don't see why that's a problem.

wulczer• 14 years ago

I'm really sorry, but this ticked off my code-review OCD and I couldn't help myself.

You could use "Bla bla bla {0}, because {0} and {0}".format("women") to avoid using a tuple of "women". Or, if you're stuck with old Python, just use %(noun)s three times and format with {"noun": "women"}.

victork26• 14 years ago

That made me laugh!

I was hoping the compiler inside everybody's brain would be able to detect this minor inefficiencies and correct them on the fly. And yes, I was using Python2.7, I wanted to use 3.0 but the sexist libraries haven't been updated. (Just joking).

But thanks for pointing that out!

wilfra• 14 years ago

It's a fair a point but baby steps are required. A group of women founders doing women-y things is far better than no women founders. These will open the door for others in the future.

jwr• 14 years ago

My thoughts were similar. If you want equality between the sexes, just stop exposing the inequalities. Treat everyone the same. An article about "women in tech" makes no sense, it just promotes thinking about "men in tech" and "women in tech". If I were a woman running a company, I would prefer not to be featured in an article like that.

I think these kinds of contradictions are more common in the U.S. than elsewhere. I have always wondered: if race plays no role, why does it figure as a question in the census and in most college applications?

hackinthebochs3• 14 years ago

>My thoughts were similar. If you want equality between the sexes, just stop exposing the inequalities

Pretending inequalities don't exist doesn't get rid of them. The only people who benefit from this line of thinking are those that are in privileged positions to begin with.

>If I were a woman running a company, I would prefer not to be featured in an article like that.

There goes that line again... I'm sure women can speak for themselves on this matter.

hackinthebochs3• 14 years ago

> If I were a girl I would certainly feel kind of weird...

The moment this or a similar statement is about to come out of your mouth, just stop yourself. There is no possible way a sentence that starts out like this will be anything but close-minded and/or self-serving. If women have a problem with women owned businesses being about "woman" things, they can say so. Do not presume to speak for other women from your place of privilege.

OpenAmazing• 14 years ago

"Vidisheva isn’t just a pretty face..."

What's up with that?

waterlesscloud2• 14 years ago

Ordinarily, I'd agree with that criticism. But the preceding paragraphs talk about her modeling experience (which is valid because it's a fashion-related startup). So to me it seems fair to play off that.

sliverstorm4• 14 years ago

Yeah, that just sounds like journalistic flair to me. You could easily see the same from the other direction, "Mr. Schwarzenegger isn't just a bundle of muscles..."

narag• 14 years ago

Maybe the writer felt the need to say she has a pretty face, but didn't know how to say it directly.

jcampbell1• 14 years ago

The fact that these businesses are run by women is only tangentially relevant.

Shoptiques is a particularly interesting business. It creates value where none really existed before. Boutiques can't establish a real web presence, and mid market girls don't have access to NY/LA/London boutiques. This is an online business that creates value from thin air. Execution is the key, and the execs seem to be totally on track.

99 dresses is a potential home run but like all marketplace businesses it is tough. My favorite thing is that they are so low class. I love the idea that chicks are swapping dresses from F21. It is just so real and honest. I want them to be a major success just to spite the people behind renttherunway.

The daily muse looks like a newspaper to me, so I don't get the business. Hireart seems like a gimmick.

Women or no women, I'll be an ass and say what I think.

daemon13• 14 years ago

> Women or no women, I'll be an ass and say what I think.

Excellent point. I think the key to true equality is to disregard the differences (gender, race, religion, citizenship, etc) and just look at simple things, such as performance, execution, success, value creation.

citizenkeys• 14 years ago

Funding female founders arises from the same basic logic of funding minority founders: it's just good business.

For every demographic that you consciously or unconsciously ignore as an investor or business owner, you're depriving yourself of all the potential business that demographic attracts.

mhartl• 14 years ago

Blah blah gender blah blah sexism, etc., etc. We may have reached the Seymour Skinner point here at HN: "I don't have any opinions anymore. All I know is that no one is better than anyone else and everyone is the best at everything." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girls_Just_Want_to_Have_Sums)

barry-cotter• 14 years ago

Hirealert is interesting independently of the founding team but once they get any real traction they've got a target a mile wide on them for implicit discrimination lawsuits in the USA for any videos that make it possible to distinguish ethnicity. This effects voice explanations as well.

Also this

We really try to work with data to understand which questions work the best. You can think about it like designing the SATs for different jobs

is for all practical purposes illegal in the USA due to Griggs v. Duke Power Company[0] and the misbegotten offspring of legal reasoning uncontaminated by any knowledge of statistics that is the 80% rule[1].

But who knows they might survive and thrive and hiring is a ridiculously huge market. Good luck to them.

[0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Company

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_impact#The_80.25_rule

rdl• 14 years ago

How did the author overlook the female construction engineer of PlanGrid (one of my favorite YC startups this batch), or the domain expert (pharmacist) at MedMonk (which is one of the more likely to save lives of the YC batch)?

ekalvi• 14 years ago

Sexism exists in technology and especially the startup world. I've seen it over-and-over again in my experience.

My wife and I co-founded a successful web company together. We have pretty much the exact same background: Engineering grads from same program at the same school, same age within 10 days of each other, we both worked in SV as software engineers before launching our startup. We even both played competitive soccer.

However, over the years it is has been a common occurrence that with an introduction to a new tech/startup person, there's an assumption that I'm the technical person. I get spoken to in that way, and my wife is assumed to be non-(or less)-technical than I am. In one such a meeting, we were asked who is the CEO (from a veteran entrepreneur), she responded that she was, and the guy chuckled. We asked him why what was so funny about that? He mumbled and tripped over his words without explanation.

When we work together, thoughts of gender don't even come to mind. We're too damn busy trying to build something that someone gives a sh about.

Here Are The Women of Y Combinator And They Are Awesome

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