Ask YC: Have any girls applied to YC? Any get in?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=60507

by shadowplay • 19 years ago

20 30 19 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

There must be some Caterina Fakes and Sandy Lerners in there, right?

davidw2• 19 years ago

Have any boys? Generally, I thought that applicants were done with college.

shadowplay2• 19 years ago

"Girl" isn't a pejorative unless you're determined to take it that way. It has nothing to do with age; it's part of an informal nomenclature, as in "girls and guys". I know many women who refer to themselves as "girls" -- including those in their fifties and sixties -- and/or use "grrl" in their online names, and there are even groups like LinuxChix which use "chicks" in a hip sense rather than a belittling one. "Girls' night out" is another example. I would even observe there's an inflection point where women above a certain age prefer the term and consider it a compliment to be referred to as such, as youth and vitality are desirable connotations.

And groups of women do refer to wanting to find more "boys" -- the terms "men" and "women" both seem to connote some kind of stodginess, probably because most people's models for what men and women are, growing up, is parents, teachers, and other authority figures, all of whom are tragically unhip.

bls2• 19 years ago

Have you ever had a serious job with female coworkers? I'm going to guess "no," since your entire post is nonsense.

First, you are referring to informal situations. But, this is (supposed to be) a professional setting, and the rules are much different in a professional setting. Generally, you want to refer to the femininity of women as little as possible in a professional setting, and when you do have to refer to their femininity, you must be extra formal.

Here is the rule I go by: never call a woman a girl in a situation where it would be inappropriate to call her a bitch (she better be a good friend). And, never call a black man a boy because it is almost as bad as "nigger."

If you don't understand the reasoning behind these rules then you should find a good friend to explain them to you very carefully.

davidw2• 19 years ago

I didn't post that just to be PC, I posted it because I felt that in that context, "women" would have been a preferable, more respectful term, even though I wholeheartedly agree that English is a bit lacking in that it forces you to choose between "girl" and "woman", neither one of which is ideal. I would have erred on the side of respect, though.

Italian has ragazzo/a, which can be used both formally, and informally, for anyone from their teens to early thirties. It's far superior to the dichotomy that English forces upon us, but be that as it may, "girls" is probably left to women to use amongst themselves as they see fit.

alaskamiller• 19 years ago

jamglue.com has a girl founder: http://www.jamglue.com/people/divya

don't remember anyone else though. maybe shoutfit had a girl founder too.

jkush2• 19 years ago

I know it's off topic but I feel like an idiot now. I posted a link to this a while back: http://micropledge.com/projects/music-mash without knowing that this had already been done by a YC startup. On one hand, I'm really glad to see that someone has done this idea. On the other, I'm upset that it wasn't me.

At the risk of sounding desperate, I often wonder if I will ever get it right!

jkush2• 19 years ago

I don't care about karma, but to the person who downvoted my comment above, seriously?

bls2• 19 years ago

You usually shouldn't call them girls in a professional forum unless they are younger than 16. Using a noun as an adjective is also bad form.

/ the more you know

gustaf• 19 years ago

Good question! This is a pretty bad problem.

Marie from heysan! was the only girl in the winter program 2007

jl• 19 years ago

There have been 5 female cofounders. Marie from Heysan, Divya from Jamglue, and Michelle (with a company from last summer that hasn't launched yet) are the women still involved with their startups.

I hope more women will apply for funding this fall!

jamiequint• 19 years ago

"never attribute to malice what can be explained by math" -pg

people usually found companies with their friends peoples friends are usually of the same sex less women in technology thus the number of founders will be around that small percentage squared

I forget what PG essay this is from, anyone?

juanpablo• 19 years ago

"Ideas for Startups" (http://paulgraham.com/ideas.html)

jsjenkins1682• 19 years ago

We have a female co-founder, but she's not really a hacker. Where she lacks in programming skill she more than makes up for it in other areas though, which is why she's on the team. Don't be fooled, she runs much of the show..

mynameishere• 19 years ago

she more than makes up for it in other areas though

Hey, I just resisted the urge to say something crude.

jsjenkins1682• 19 years ago

Yeah... I probably could have worded that better. My intent was obviously to emphasize her product design, marketing, and business relations skills. She reads this forum btw.

jdavid• 19 years ago

I hate to say it because i only wish that it was not true, but women seem to question authority a lot less.

Maybe a YC for women would work better to attract female founders.

Another difference I find is that women tend to gather more information before making a decision on something, maybe a YC that was better focused on this would help women cross the gap?

adnam• 19 years ago

I hate to say it because i only wish that it was not true, but my girlfriend is always questioning my authority.

sjf2• 19 years ago

Close, but no cigar.

Women take less risks than men, and are less motivated by money and status.

mariorz2• 19 years ago

"are less motivated by money and status."

you need to go out and meet some women

liz• 19 years ago

Coming from a family of entrepreneurs, I have no problem with taking risks. Perhaps I was lucky to be raised in an environment that encouraged independent and unique approaches to business, but I know many women who aren't afraid to accept risks in order to achieve their goals. I agree, you should go out and meet more women.

dfranke• 19 years ago

I'm skeptical and I'd like to see some data to back this up, but in the mean time, modded up for saying What You Can't Say -- which brings this comment up to -1. Stop the kneejerk downmods.

plusbryan• 19 years ago

We had a female hacker employee over the summer that came to a couple of the YC dinners. First thing out of every guy hacker's mouth - so, are you likebetter's graphic designer?

I'm sure we all have the best intentions, but face it, we're a bunch of chauvinistic bastards. I hope more women apply and serve as counter examples to an outdated stereotype.

imsteve2• 19 years ago

Ok, so what have the girls done? Certainly women have different tendencies than guys.

Help us correct our stereotypes.

imsteve2• 19 years ago

ok that's what I thought then.

oditogre• 19 years ago

Hah, I'd forgotten about likebetter. Just burned up about 20min. on it - the brain's gotten pretty good, hehe.

SwellJoe• 19 years ago

I've encouraged my girlfriend to apply (she's smart, has a couple of good business ideas, has done a lot of design work and has a college degree in art, and has great work experience at Google among other places...she has the skills she needs to be valuable to a startup), but startups are just not her thing. I don't know if it's endemic to being a woman...risk aversion is definitely more important to her than me, but that may just be different personalities, not related to sex.

It would almost certainly be a positive thing to have a well-qualified woman involved early in a startups life, as there are definitely some differences in the sexes, and some balance would probably be valuable. But, as someone else pointed out, the number of women in the hard sciences is very low, and probably lowest in computer science. Design is better represented, but even in that, there is a much lower number of women involved than men.

I suspect the goal should be (if there is a goal to be found in all of this) to get more girls interested in the hard sciences early. Being equipped to build a technology business is something that starts young.

divya• 19 years ago

I wrote a blog post about this awhile back: http://divyab.livejournal.com/5855.html

the post is somewhat rough, preachy, and jumps around a little bit. I would probably write it differently now after a year of start-up-ing. Also, feel free to make fun of me for using LiveJournal.

Ask YC: Have any girls applied to YC? Any get in?

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