Updates to Y Combinator Diversity Stats?

5 points

12 years ago

A Kapor Center for Social Justice post from about a year ago stated that Y Combinator has had no Black female founder alumni (neither did Techstars, an org with a founder whom I greatly admire). I'm wondering if this has changed? I saw this really insightful article by Sam, but I didn't come across any diversity stats elsewhere - and none on ethnic diversity.

http://tech.co/y-combinator-sam-altman-sexism-2014-07

I also saw this somewhat scathing critique citing the same challenge: http://valleywag.gawker.com/everything-thats-wrong-with-y-combinators-sexism-in-tec-1610990450

I must admit, I think the emphasis on "Tech Founders" and "Technical Co-Founders" in the age of massive offshoring, outsourcing, and open source technology is part of the pipeline problem. I'm a woman of African descent who started coding in college but found it was a slow and tedious option compared to other solutions for building out business solutions on the web.

While I still dabble when necessary and have successfully built out my own products, I find it exclusive in terms of network and cultural associations (especially when funders proclaim to want cozy relationships between founders) to place the "coder-builder" burden on competent entrepreneurs who should be resourceful enough to work around limits to their own technical skill sets (even techies - generalists and specialists alike have them) - especially with funding and the ability to hire / offshore a team. So long as IP and rights are address from the start, why further limit innovation?

I appreciate any answers regarding ethnic diversity in YC and thoughts on the diversity in tech topic. Ethnic studies was one of my minors at Cal and I think one of the biggest problems is a lack of solution-oriented dialogue. I found it so encouraging and refreshing during TechCrunch to see moderators willing to be uncomfortable and discuss it. Although they skirted around the topic a bit, I saw it as a sign of progress.