The tone of this article is pretty defensive and borders on hostile. Understandably? Yeah, it sucks when people misinterpret a sentiment or take something out of context, but if you really want an open discussion about why there aren't more female founders, acknowledge your part. There's a dearth of female founders because YC and angels and VCs are just not as willing to fund females. Until 1974 -- when the Equal Credit Opportunity Act was passed -- they weren't even willing to give women a credit card in her own name.
The issue here isn't about Legos vs Barbies. It isn't entirely about lack of CS majors or women in STEM; nor is because women don't know code. Successful founders make wise choices with capital, investing in people / ideas / things that have likelihood to build long-term value. This should be the only criteria for deciding who to fund, but VCs don't see it that way.
We were not angry that the application I (early 30's F) and my cofounder (early 20's F) submitted was rejected from the last YC application process. But we were pretty confused. It's an emerging green-tech niche in an industry beyond primed for some technical disruption. Maybe I don't have CS degree, but I did earn a master's in a male dominated field. Over these last 10 years or so have learned enough to write all the code for our prototype. My cofounder went to Cornell. With just a tiny bit of help, we could have built something great. But instead she's interning at a newspaper, making $10 an hour, and I'm getting "it's just not a great fit" rejection emails.
We decided that we were about 95 percent certain that if it had been 2 guys applying with this idea, YC would have at least given us an interview. The fact of the matter is that Silicon Valley treats us very badly. If we can't put our talent and ideas to work "for the man", why is it so hard for us to put our ideas to work for ourselves?
Wha? Y Combinator and random Silicon Valley angels are somehow responsible for something big banks did over forty years ago? Before many of them were even born?
"Sometimes the kafkatrap is presented in less direct forms. A common variant, which I’ll call the Model C, is to assert something like this: “Even if you do not feel yourself to be guilty of {sin,racism,sexism, homophobia,oppression…}, you are guilty because you have benefited from the {sinful,racist,sexist,homophobic,oppressive,…} behavior of others in the system.” The aim of the Model C is to induce the subject to self-condemnation not on the basis of anything the individual subject has actually done, but on the basis of choices by others which the subject typically had no power to affect. The subject must at all costs be prevented from noticing that it is not ultimately possible to be responsible for the behavior of other free human beings." - http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2122
I'm sorry to hear you got rejected from YC, but:
- there's a good bit of randomness in the process; no one could possibly have a 95% chance of getting an interview, even if they were young Elon Musk;
- as pg and co. will be the first to tell you, they make mistakes and don't fund promising groups all the time;
- simply getting a degree from any school (even Harvard) isn't a strong predictor of whether someone has all the skills to succeed at a startup (http://paulgraham.com/colleges.html), because colleges and YC are looking for somewhat different types of skillsets
> We decided that we were about 95 percent certain that if it had been 2 guys applying with this idea, YC would have at least given us an interview
What gives you that certainty? There are a lot of teams with similar credentials to yours that apply to YC and don't get interviews. Perhaps you didn't convey yourself well in the application or they simply preferred other applications.
It's crazy that people take their rejections from YC so personally (even posting Facebook updates like "we'll prove them wrong" etc). If there was something astonishingly impressive in your app that's different .. but just in my batch there were published PhDs, people who've written novels, sold companies, personally knew celebrities, some with millions of users already .. etc. For most "regular" competitive applications, there's a decent chance you'll be missed just due to randomness.
> It's an emerging green-tech niche in an industry beyond primed for some technical disruption.
That's what you think .. You can't just assume everyone (and the YC partners) are going to think the same way (and perhaps they didn't buy your line of thought).
We were not angry that the application I (early 30's F) and my cofounder (early 20's F) submitted was rejected from the last YC application process. But we were pretty confused. It's an emerging green-tech niche in an industry beyond primed for some technical disruption. Maybe I don't have CS degree, but I did earn a master's in a male dominated field. Over these last 10 years or so have learned enough to write all the code for our prototype. My cofounder went to Cornell. With just a tiny bit of help, we could have built something great. But instead she's interning at a newspaper, making $10 an hour, and I'm getting "it's just not a great fit" rejection emails.
We decided that we were about 95 percent certain that if it had been 2 guys applying with this idea, YC would have at least given us an interview. The fact of the matter is that Silicon Valley treats us very badly. If we can't put our talent and ideas to work "for the man", why is it so hard for us to put our ideas to work for ourselves?