Class is a problem, but the class issue isn't "poor Black kids from broken homes" (to quote some comments here) vs upper middle class FAANG employees and MIT grads. Being poor and uneducated is a barrier to being an employee in tech, but it's not the only barrier to getting funding. Anyone that can leetcode can get a job in tech. Raising requires a strong network, involves quite a lot of signaling and bias and gut feeling.
You have to be rich for class to be a major advantage when starting a startup, middle class isn't enough unless you're willing to expose yourself to a lot of personal risk. For various reasons middle class Black people with the skills to start a startup are more risk averse than white counterparts. For other reasons those same Black people get less funding than counterparts of other races.
I say this as a Black engineer from a middle class background that has been a founder, worked at FAANG and personally knows many Black founders that tried to bootstrap and failed to raise, even with strong pitches and profitable products. It's possible that these companies are fundamentally worse than all white founded companies that raise, but I rarely see Black people given a chance to fail. Class is not the only issue and it's not the main barrier for most Black people.
A lot of investors aren't actually interested in profitable products. Companies get over funded to the point where it is impossible to make a return by simply offering a product.
> SoftBank also runs the $100 billion Vision Fund, which is headed by Rajeev Misra and invests amounts larger than the entire new fund in startups around the world.
Neither Rajeev Misra nor Masayoshi Son sound like “white” names. I find it fascinating how Asians in general are excluded from the term “people of color”.
Because the term "[free] people of colour" is a direct translation of the French phrase "gens de couleur [libres]" used in the French West Indies during slavery times to refer to free people of mixed African and European ancestry.
Of course its now its just virtue signalling to describe some imagined unified faction of the rest of the planet opposing white people.
IMHO, it will end once American-born Chinese and Indian mothers realise they aren't part of it and that their kids bear the largest brunt of the interventions.
I don't see a contradiction. The fund will be dedicated to companies founded by PoC, but with a specific focus African Americans and Latinos in the US because by most metrics those groups are more systemically disadvantaged than others (not exhaustively of course, native americans still probably face the biggest obstacles)
Asians used to face a lot of discrimination in the US and very institutionalized one, not just of the "making fun of them by calling them Ching Chong" variety. There is a long and storied history, but it is never brought up because it provides some rather uncomfortable cognitive dissonances when trying to explain how Asian-Americans today are so much better off but other discriminated-against groups aren't. So you see the common trope where Asian-Americans and Indian-Americans are just passed over when talking about historical injustices because they don't fit the narrative.
The link below has a full history but, one of many points—
In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act—the only United States Iaw to prevent immigration and naturalization on the basis of race—which restricted Chinese immigration for the next sixty years. The "Chinese Must Go" movement was so strong that Chinese immigration to the United States declined from 39,500 in 1882 to only 10 in 1887.
They were pretty abused and stereotypes in the 1800’s. The transcontinental railway was built in large parts by Chinese workers, but if you look at the famous photo when the two lines come together and are joined by the Golden spike, there are not present. Also, there were some pretty racist cartoons about Asians in popular periodicals. Not to mention the interning of Japanese Americans during WWII.
So I think it would be incorrect to say that Asians do not have a historical baggage in the USA.
Limiting initiatives like this based on skin color, implies that the reason for them needing help is their skin color. What about white people that come from low-socioeconomic backgrounds? Broken families? Didn't finish high-school? Abused as a child/teenager? Single parent family? Aren't these the real reasons why people are disadvantaged? People of all colors come from these backgrounds.
I'm sick of the hypocrisy of people saying "Black people aren't more likely/less likely to x, it's their education/family/etc. that affects them" ... and then immediately turning around and giving help to people based on their skin color, rather than these other traits.
EDIT: What about somebody who is black, and comes from (yes, one of the rare unfortunately) a rich family or well off family? While not a majority, many POC work for FAANG companies. Are they eligible for this money purely because of their skin color, but disadvantaged people of any color are not?
> Aren't these the real reasons why people are disadvantaged?
No, or at least, not exclusively. There's tons of social science research in which, for example, two identical fabricated resumes were submitted for a battery of jobs, differing only by, say, a headshot of a black vs. white person, or a stereotypically-African-American name vs. a stereotypically white (or not-obviously-race-signaling) one. In these studies there are huge differences in response rates and callbacks, even when everything else about the resumes (educational attainment, experience, etc.). is identical.
It's true that many black people suffer structural disadvantages because of systemic lack of access to resources, etc. But they also suffer disadvantages because they're black.
I have a question, just because I don't know if there is data on this.
I've seen a bunch of studies on things like "stereotypically-african-american-name" vs "stereotypically-white-name", which are good evidence as to why a good hiring process should remove personally-identifying details from resumes.
Not just the name of the applicant, either -- school names and locations can also introduce unfair biases. Company names are unavoidable, I think: there are only so many companies that fit the description of "Social Network, Global, >10k employees, uses lots of Javascript" or "Privatized Intelligence Service, Global, >100k employees, uses lots of Go".
Buuuuuuut... is there research on what happens when you expand the number of dimensions?
E.g., add in a mix of broad cultural backgrounds (Pan-European, Latin, Arab, Chinese, African, etc.), test different raraties ("Smith" is common, "Chaucer" is rare, both are Anglo)
Does "Victoria Henderson" garner a statistically different response to "Vitalija Herrera" (Anglo vs Lithuanian)? What about "Nyala Aregawi" vs "Nadya Ahane" (Mixed Russian-Japanese)?
What happens when we mix in popular fictional names?
Solid bet there are boys out there named "Thor" and "Bilbo" by parents that are fans of Star Wars.
No idea what actual outcomes might be, the data could yield interesting results on hiring biases.
I don’t know if there is such evidence, and while it could be interesting to know just out of curiosity, it doesn’t strike me as particularly valuable to test the impact of adding additional irrelevant information to job applications.
But primarily, right? Bias plays a role, so everything else being equal, a black applicant will receive fewer callbacks than a white or asian one, but (and that's a big but) the primary issue is that usually not all other things are equal.
The average black person comes from a different socioeconomic background than the average white or asian person, so they'll usually not have the same level of education, but less so because of being discriminated against because of their race, but because of their class. More single-parent households, lower household income, their parents can't simply afford to hire tutors and put them through college etc etc.
That's what makes these things somewhat weird. Yeah, sure, a black guy from a rich family that attended MIT will have a harder time finding funding than his white or asian friends from the same background ... but he'll have a much easier time than some white kid from a broken home.
I believe two things to be true: class is the primary factor, not race. And it's more convenient to focus on race because it's much easier and feels less threatening to the (usually upper middle class and beyond) proponents. "We (as white people) need to share more" puts them in a group with (for the US) 60% of the population and is pretty abstract. Great for virtue signalling, terrible for concrete actions. "We (as rich people) need to share more" puts them in a much, much smaller group and suggests they could actually do something besides yelling at people to check their privilege: share some of the money they inherit. Great for doing something, terrible for virtue signalling because "well, put your money where your mouth is" is so obvious.
> Yeah, sure, a black guy from a rich family that attended MIT will have a harder time finding funding than his white or asian friends from the same background ... but he'll have a much easier time than some white kid from a broken home.
Even if your claims are supported by evidence, why is it a bad thing to want to correct that disparity? The fact that there also exist other disparities in the world doesn’t seem like a good reason to oppose correcting one particular disparity.
> Even if your claims are supported by evidence, why is it a bad thing to want to correct that disparity?
It's not "bad" as in "omg don't do that", it's just focusing on a less significant problem instead of the large problem, which it conveniently shifts focus from.
I don't think that it's intentional, but I'm absolutely sure that addressing the lacking social mobility in the US would benefit minorities much more than racism, because they are much, much more affected by it.
But there are programs that focus on access to resources based around class, and to the extent that there are factors besides class that matter (like race), exclusively-class-oriented programs fail to fully level the playing field. That this program exists to help combat bias doesn't stop someone else from starting a different program aimed at attacking a different angle with different eligibility criteria. The more the merrier.
> I'm sick of the hypocrisy of people saying "Black people aren't more likely/less likely to x, it's their education/family/etc. that affects them" ... and then immediately turning around and giving help to people based on their skin color, rather than these other traits.
In your imaginary world we should stop considering race all together. Logically that'd be "fair" right? But what about the million of POC who have been denied jobs, education, houses, etc who exist NOW today and have been set back from centuries of disenfranchisement. Is it fair to them? We don't get to turn back time, so initiatives like this at least attempt to help a group of people who've sorely been needed from the evolution of startups. This is a GOOD thing. More diverse folks means change. If you feel like it's "taking away" from your opportunity, maybe you should examine that a bit.
> While not a majority, many POC work for FAANG companies. Are they eligible for this money purely because of their skin color, but disadvantaged people of any color are not?
oh no, you found an edge case - better throw in the towel. If it can't be simplified into a single test then the whole thing shouldn't exist right? /s
Consider how hard you have to work to justify your line of thinking. Maybe the simplest answer is that you're wrong.
I personally hate these initiatives because they don't deal with problem at the core.
They should have policies that address every fund they manage, not some 100m, which is peanuts for them.
I really like how YC does it. Yes, there are problems with YC, but their main program is really good at taking people from different economic/social/racial backgrounds.
Have tonnes of friends from disadvantaged backgrounds and developing countries that got in. I don't understand why every fund can't do it.
Not only do they not deal with the problem at the core, these types of well meaning but misguided ideas often end up perpetuating the very problem they are meant to address.
So much of the policies from the left on race are examples of the shirky principle in action:
I suspect because it means acknowledging that there isn't particularly special about one's little in-group, and that talent also lies outside of how one identifies. For example, I've heard that good candidates are impossible to find outside of 'good universities', those being the ivy league, etc.
I agree that there should be more funds that support all kinds of backgrounds so that we can increase the diversity of people in the VC space. This reminds me a lot of the discussions about affirmative action in the US, which is divisive on both sides, and I do see a strong argument for using class as the main determinant. However, black founders often mention that they are declined funding because they don't look similar to the investors, and while most entrepreneurs need to go through a lot of investors, its often hard to tell if you're getting rejected because of your idea or the color of your skin.
Just because it would be ideal to have programs for all disadvantaged backgrounds doesn't make one specifically for POC bad imo.
> Limiting initiatives like this based on skin color, implies that the reason for them needing help is their skin color.
Systematic racism is very much real in the United States, putting minorities at a disadvantage exactly because of the color of their skin - socioeconomic background and upbringing aside. Affirmative action, and presumably this effort by SoftBank, is intended to address that.
As far as I can see, this doesn't exist in the tech world (any more). Most Fortune 500 companies go out of their way to hire minorities, even if they are less qualified. Colleges do the same. Minorities are not disadvantaged purely for their skin color in the tech world. They are disadvantaged because of their worse financial/education situation. And my point is that these traits that effect people in tech are not limited to PoC.
It makes sense to me. Its possible the poster is a person of color who simply never sees discrimination, but its more likely they are a white person who does not notice discrimination against people of color.
When the James Damore essay swept google, I briefly asked my female friends if they could simply tell me what discrimination they experience. But they were too worn out from every male colleague asking them the same thing to explain it all to each one.
What I realized I needed to do was start listening to women's stories more, and start believing things even when they don't make sense to me. I needed to be curious and look for problems that I had previously been blissfully unaware of. And with that change in mindset I started to see them.
We have to do the same with people of color. We need to listen to their stories and believe them. It's hard to give you a bulleted list which would clearly explain discrimination just as it was hard (and tiring) for women to explain their discrimination to me. But if you take "there are things you are not seeing about racism at the workplace" to be true, you can begin to cultivate a mindset that allows you to learn what is happening.
You say that you do not see racism in the tech world. If it isn't happening to you, it can be very hard to see. Just as I did not see the sexism in the tech world until the James Damore essay blew up at google and we finally prioritized listening to women's stories. And then (after a lot of personal work I did with the help from my caring female friends) it became clear.
So perhaps you do not see racism because you've assumed its not happening, and because it's not happening to you? From what I know about racism (as a white person), it must be impossible that the tech world is simply free of racism. It's just hard to see when you are not the victim. The answer I've found is to listen to people of color when they say they experience racism. Don't challenge each assertion, take it to be true and then look further for corroborating stories. You will find them.
Tech companies absolutely do not try hard enough to hire disadvantaged people color enough to offset the issue that comes with getting past interview processes staff with people with inherent prejudices.
Regardless if they get in the pipeline an issue a disadvantaged minority will have will be getting railroaded by say, an engineer who doesn't like said minority regardless of his competence level.
I think that your making assumption based on a lifestyle you don't live. You in the response a being flippant in saying well its not that bad. The fact is I doubt you have any idea. The fact is no is plenty of evidence that say with the same financial/education level a minority is disadvantaged and even with a greater financial/education level they are more disadvantaged.
I think your living in a reality of how you think the world should be instead of the one that exists.
Maybe in Utah or San Diego. In Silicon Valley, half the employees are foreign-born, many of which haven't been indoctrinated. So occasionally, a black developer there will end up at a different company than he otherwise would, and of course he'll spend a bit more time getting dressed in the morning.
For founders dealing with VC, it's a different equation, so your intuition about "the tech world" doesn't exactly apply. Still, I agree with you. There isn't some untapped vein of black and latino American founders that other VC's are currently missing out on.
Intentions sound good, sure: we want to address inequality.
But is the solution “we will only consider people of specific racial backgrounds. We will reject you on the sole basis of your race”? Affirmative action has been firmly grounded in policies for decades. At what point do we do away with it, or decide that it needs to be rebalanced for groups that had potential reduced because of the results of affirmative actions good intentions? It’s made getting into college and many positions as an Asian American pure hell, despite being minorities and many coming from poverty.
This is slight variation on the theme of the Black Lives Matter vs All Lives Matter argument, and it's been addressed adequately on social media.
The fund isn't pointing out that "Only Black Founders Matter", it's saying that that group of people require attention at this point in time, and we're going to focus on them now and correct the systemic problems that have given them a disadvantage until this point in time.
We'll get to everyone else next. The principle of using the water wagon to save the house that's currently burning applies. The people starting this fund have decided that focusing on this group is a good start, other groups will come later after the problem is clear enough.
This is akin to the reservation system in India, which was amended to cater to this very problem by identifying "creamy layer"[1] who are higher income group coming from backward castes and they are not eligible for govt benefits.
The purpose of such initiatives is to counter the prevalent social bias. If two similarly educated and otherwise skilled FAANG employees pitch same idea to different VCs, the success ratio is tilted against POC.
Rest of the causes need to be looked upon at various stages of life and via various support measures, this particular caters to racial bias.
Aren't these the real reasons why people are disadvantaged?
Not when it comes to raising VC money, no. Typically people who manage to raise a round come from good backgrounds, middle-class families and have a high level of education. There are exceptions but that's a good general heuristic for a founder who has successfully raised money. If you're from a broken home, didn't finish school, or you were abused as a child you're much less likely to be raising money from a VC fund for a litany of reasons that all need to be addressed by society as a whole.
However, even though practically all the people who pitch to VCs are well-educated, relatively wealthy, middle-class people regardless of what color they are, it's still the case that more than 3/4 of deals go to white men[1]. It's extremely hard to raise, and even harder if you're in a minority group. VCs are systemically averse of doing deals outside of their comfort zone.
For Softbank to ring fence the equivalent of 0.1% of their Vision Fund as "this money is only for minorities" that's fine. To be honest it's not really enough.
I don't look at this news as a VC company going 'positive discrimination' but more as a VC company realising that it has a problem turning down deals that could make them money, eg minority-led startups, and doing something to fix that.
That's a valid stance. But reflect on why it matters to you. So what if someone is giving special opportunities to someone based on their skin color, or their gender? There are plenty of special opportunities to go around for all of us.
I think you'll get a lot of flak for this sentiment. But I used to feel the same way as you. What helped me change my mind was to realize that no one is taking away opportunities from me by giving them to someone else. "Opportunity" isn't a fixed pie. If we believe that wealth isn't a fixed pie, why not apply that same logic to opportunities and initiatives like this? It's worth thinking about, and deeply reflecting on.
And, you know, if someone was giving out special opportunities to certain people while denying them to us, that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Parents have been doing that for their own children since people were people. It's their money; they can put it toward whatever causes they want.
> So what if someone is giving special opportunities to someone based on their skin color, or their gender? There are plenty of special opportunities to go around for all of us.
I think this was the stance of the segregationists in the Jim Crow South. They called it “separate but equal”
“So what if someone is getting to drink from a certain water fountain based on their skin color, or their gender? There are plenty of water fountains to go around for all of us.”
Say there was a disease that predominantly affected a given race. Would you then object to a health system producing a tailored response to that group based on group characteristics?
Of course not, if race was proven to be the actual underlying factor. The point in the OP was that the underlying cause is not race, but other group traits (low socio-economic status, poor family background) - which people of all races can and do possess.
These diseases are based on genetic differences, and the tailored treatments are based on genetic differences. Are you really implying that there are genetic differences between the races that cause differences? I find that pretty racist.
That's my point. To talk about differences isn't racist. It's how they are used to keep power structures in place that is. Your definition is IMO not helpful in any way. If racism were so simple to define then as people we wouldn't have had any problems eradicating it, would we?
No. Racism in its broadest, widely-accepted usage, refers to the treatment of people based on the belief that one race is superior to another. This program, as far as I can tell, makes no claims about any race being superior to another race.
A black man and an Asian man rob a bank together. They are caught, charged, and found guilty of the same crime.
The black man is set free because his race is over-represented at the local jail, but the Asian man serves 8 years in prison.
Because nobody is saying someone is superior to another person here, the above example is not racist and totally fine, in your definition of racism. Even though it is obviously deeply unethical and unfair.
That thought experiment does not reflect any realities of the real world that we are discussing, so I don’t find it particularly interesting. The analogous situation would be if judges systematically sentence Black men to twice the jail time for that crime as Asian men, and someone proposed correcting that disparity by cutting the Black man’s sentence in half (so that it would match the Asian man’s sentence). I would support that.
I hear you. But so what if it’s inconsistent? Why does it matter?
It’s a bit like criticizing SpaceX for spending so much money going into space when that money could be used here at home, to solve real problems.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like the root cause of the frustration here is what you pointed out: Right now you can create a girls-only club, but not a boys-only club. But the truth seems to be that you can create a boys-only club, and people do. They just don’t call it that.
If the objection is that you can’t openly do that without being criticized, then that’s valid too. But that’s how people feel right now. It’s not possible to say “Well, you should feel differently.” Or at least not effective.
If an initiative is helpful, why not let them? After all, we don’t know if this will help.
But it is done to white people, and in huge proportions. White people are much more likely to be hired than black people given the same resume. See other comments for more details.
But its a known and well studied fact that people of color are discriminated against in all areas of life, what this means that white people experience special advantage in all areas of life - so all the other startup funds are for white people (especially men) ahead of people of color.
This is precisely how you achieve consistency, by adjusting for well-established differences in how different groups of people are treated. How else would you suggest achieving consistency, given that the status quo is not consistent? Surely by definition you need to depart from the status quo.
If you look at tech and most startups, an overwhelming amount of founders come from a similar background: white, male. I don’t have the data on this but you could for example make inferences from the YC summer and winter showcases.
I would expect that what this helps to do is encourage participation from ethnic minorities in the US.
And to your point on white people from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. Sure it is good to lift all people up in society, but they certainly don’t have to face racial discrimination in the workplace or admissions pipeline. Failing to acknowledge that race is a factor in many people’s lives experiences is a failure to acknowledge systemic racism. This is an attempt to recognize that and correct that. And as other commentators have said, this by no means implies that other initiatives have to be mutually exclusive l.
People in all countries get measles. Should we help every country equally? If, gasp, there's a rich kid in Pakistan who may get a free measles vaccine, is that evidence to stop fighting measles in Pakistan?
White families have ten times the average wealth versus black families. Putting aside the significant mountain of evidence racial bias in hiring, in tech, in basically every facet of life, that single statistic should be evidence enough that more funding is necessary for minorities.
And what hypocrisy? You can say that black people are not inherently different but face different circumstances due to societal problems. That's not hypocrisy. That's simply acknowledging that race plays a factor in nurture but maybe not nature.
It would be more appropriate to have on a economy basis. Recently the Indian Government took this step to provide 10% additional reservation based on for the general category (forward caste people). There was huge outcry in the country from people belonging to the backward castes, but most of it came from political quarters. I think in general all people want is not to be left out rather than deny other people's rights.
I think you can have different initiatives targeting different issues. Like many have said, being a minority itself is a disadvantage. Cristian Cooper (Harvard grad) is an example.
But I also understand what you mean about people ignoring socioeconomic status or other issues when they are not at the center of the spotlight. I think it's quite clear most companies doing this just for PR. BLM movement has been going on for years, yet these companies never care to actively support it, until now that they've seen "oh shit, people actually care - better get on it now." Let's see whether this is truly a wake-up call for people to address injustices of all kind, starting with racial problem, or simply a 'trend'.
“This system of helping people does not help all people who need help, therefore it is bad.”
No. This comment is similar to responding to “black lives matter” with “all lives matter”.
Helping a subset of those who need help is acceptable too.
Put aside your hardwired, human-as-social-animal unfairness alert criticism, and recognize that this is a good thing, and it is better that this exists than the case where it does not.
Affirmative action isn’t fair either, but it is still a good thing that it exists.
Once everyone in society is treated equally and has equal opportunities, then and only then can we start criticizing equality improvement efforts on fairness.
There is no requirement that helping people who need help be done so fairly or evenly. Abandon that concept.
With these questions is often a matter of scale. Let's take a minority person and a non-minority person applying for the same apartment. The landlord doesn't care about their background. He just thinks the non-minority person is less likeable and gives the apt to the minority person. Fine. However, if you this 100x or 1000x, the minority people will most probably lose out because of racism.
It's nice that they're doing this, but I think they could increase their funding for minorities. We've seen them have bigger funds for vaporware that didn't really pan out
I think we all know that all lives matter, but the point is that black lives are in danger thats why were saying black lives matter
Ignoring specific subsets of systematic issues are synonymous with tone deafness
This initiative isn't about the BLM movement (though probably inspired by it given recent events). It's about closing the gap in terms of business opportunity. And my point is that there are many people of all colors who are disadvantaged because of educational background, family situation etc. I never see VCs or Fortune 500s doing much for them. Doesn't have the same clout in terms of social justice points. Using minorities to boost their shitty reputation after the WeWork saga is pathetic.
There should be programs that endeavor to compensate for the inequities between socioeconomic background, family situations, etc. And indeed there are such programs. That’s not mutually exclusive with the need for programs like this one. They should all exist.
Based on past threads, I think that a majority of HN views startup funding as competitive, and acknowledges the risks from a lack of funding - some from first hand experience, and that adversity is not evenly distributed among non-minorities, and that for technology product adoption nobody looks at the team just the usefulness, so anything other than a level playing field will be frowned upon here.
I am an immigrant where I live, so i will take the liberty to ask:
- Do the behaviors we have been seeing on television from law enforcement in the US extend to offline business relationships in the US in more subtle ways? For example would a minority with a new product be given a lower preference to demo their stuff at a technology meetup? Would they be passed up for a promotion at work because the boss preferred someone who looked like him?
- Is there a systemic variation in the quality and accessability of human relationships for some groups? (vital for recruiting, selling, partnering, fund raising, launching, ecosystem and user community building). For example would it be harder to sign up beta users for an enterprise product?
Those are the core issues they could face, and they are very real in some places in the UK.
If this is a case, perhaps it is warranted or you will have capable people unable to contribute.
This is a good idea; it makes sense to test for opportunities to profit from racism and pick up high-value entrepreneurs of colour.
The HN title should be changed though, it says 'minorities' while the original article says 'people of colour'. I assumed it would be targeting Asians from the HN title.
I like it. Very clever. If there are founders out there who are capable but underserved sorely because they're not in the right social circles then this is a good attempt at capitalizing on that.
I love watching the market in action. Wonder if it will pay off.
Well, the theory is that they think YC’s selection process drops capable people for whatever reason (insufficient room, poor selection criteria, etc.). It’s definitely worth a tiny bet.
A person snatched stick of a blind man and threw it, another helped him cross the street. Both treated him differently because he was blind. Only one of them was asshole.
Try this argument the next time someone calls you racist for assuming all Asians are good at Math.
Maybe the blind guy did not want to be patronizingly helped with crossing the road. Maybe he would have asked for help if needed it and could have done without a sighted knight.
If these arguments sound perverse just swap out some other 'issue' and they will start sounding familiar.
I'm not sure I understand your counterpoint analogy. Regardless, I take issue with your second statement on the blind person asking for help if needed. Minorities do ask for help, I think it's disingenuous to imply that minorities have never requested assistance in being treated more like the majority. I think many times we push responsibility for achieving equality onto those who are treated unequally, the old 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps'. Martin Luther King Jr: "it's a nice thing to say to people that you oughta lift yourself by your own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he oughta lift himself by his own bootstraps."
Race isn't a disability. The analogy has pretty awful implications. "We need to help them because they can't help themselves" Even if that's not true today it will become the truth in the future as more people take advantage of the special treatment. The reality is that you actually need to put in the hard work. Yes it sucks but there is no free lunch.
It will serve its purpose, which was never really about skin color (e.g. VCs are already very active in India whose inhabitants have a dark complexion).
Supporting BLM seems like a net positive for companies, there’s no marketing downside. It’s perceived as The Right Thing. I’m sure more companies will follow.
Why jornalists write "minorities" and not "Black and Latino"? This is what they are doing, they are promoting two ethnicities. Even more, when White America is becoming a minority in many places in the US and soon in all the US.
These past few months have been endless blunders and bad news for SoftBank. They’re definitely not putting $100 million into a goodwill and equality fund. They’re putting 100 million into PR and advertising with the benefit of getting some returns.
But companies do this because they know it works, so I guess I can’t say it’s a dumb financial move.
I've never understood this argument in the context of investing. If there was an opportunity to get outsized returns by investing in the people this targets, then investors would already be going after these opportunities, motivated by the returns alone. They wouldn't even need the social signaling aspect of announcing a fund like this. If anything, they'd probably keep such details of these good deals to themselves to avoid having too much money chase after such deals and raise the price of the deals and make their investing terms worse.
If maximum returns meant picking people based on race, they’d do it. If it doesn’t, they’ll announce that they’re picking people based on race as a good-will move. They’re probably not burning money with this decision, but they’d probably make more if they picked based on some other metric. The PR is the important thing here, which is why they’re making a point of announcing it to the world.
Yeah. I wasn't disputing what you're saying. I'm just disputing the point I was replying to where they talked about getting returns.
That thesis makes sense in some markets such as lifestyle products and services catering to a market segment. Fashion and entertainment are a perfect examples.
In the context of technology however, there's nothing about building the next platform as a service for example that would lend itself to be more successful if it were built by a specific demographic. If that were the case, investors would already be chasing those opportunities.
This is a cute little gesture, but it is ultimately bound to fail.
The root cause of the problem of poverty for minorities, is far beyond the scope that this idea can even solve.
We effectively need a reset in our capitalistic system.
For far too long, we have used GDP as the measure of wealth of a country. But we now live in a world, where money essentially has no bounds to reality anymore. It is tied to nothing, but it is the driver of everything.
The Fed and other central banks, are used to print money out of thin air, and give it to banks, to lend out, or to buy back loans from corporations.
People blindly believe that this will not cause inflation, but instead, it drives up asset inflation, which drives up the cost of everything else. This is the hidden inflation, that takes money out of your pocket, and is beyond your control.
This is where the government needs to step in and put in policies to protect the people.
Instead of GDP, we need to measure QOL, or the Quality of Life.
This is the measure of how well the median person’s quality of life is, in terms of how much they earn, and how much their rent and mortgage is. As well as other factors like, access to modern basic necessities: electricity, shelter, clothing, healthcare, transportation, communication, and food.
No person, should be required to spend over 50% of their income on housing. There is just no money left over afterwards to pay for anything else. You will forever be, bound to a life of poverty and destitution, as well as your children.
Additionally, we need to remove housing as an investment vehicle. Instead of creating wealth for all, this has become the driver of massive inequality.
Housing needs to be for people to live in, and not for speculation. The government should mandate the building of more housing, to increase availability, and to drive down costs. And people should be able to afford and own their own homes. And maybe to kickstart a post-industrial society, the government should back the mortgage, where you just need to work a meaningful job in society, for 20 years, and the house is yours. The government will pick up the remaining tab on the house afterwards.
This will give you a home, and the security you need to be safe and whole. You can raise your family and your children, without the fear of poverty, or crime, or a lifetime servitude of debt.
And for things like food, the vegetables and fruits, can be grown in massive automated vertical farms. And one day, tended to by robots, for monitoring and harvesting. No more need for back breaking labor performed by humans. Let the robots do all the work. The software for it will be developed by programmers, and the fruits and vegetables will be monitored by using adaptive machine learning software.
These are bold challenges, and we need bold leaders to think beyond their myopic economic view of the world, where they only think of enriching themselves and their cronies, and actually do their job to govern, and to lead and guide the people.
You have to be rich for class to be a major advantage when starting a startup, middle class isn't enough unless you're willing to expose yourself to a lot of personal risk. For various reasons middle class Black people with the skills to start a startup are more risk averse than white counterparts. For other reasons those same Black people get less funding than counterparts of other races.
I say this as a Black engineer from a middle class background that has been a founder, worked at FAANG and personally knows many Black founders that tried to bootstrap and failed to raise, even with strong pitches and profitable products. It's possible that these companies are fundamentally worse than all white founded companies that raise, but I rarely see Black people given a chance to fail. Class is not the only issue and it's not the main barrier for most Black people.