Its short, so this excerpt is most of the post:
Is there discrimination on Sand Hill Road? Of course. But most venture capitalists have enough sense not to express it. Most. One repeatedly successful entrepreneur tells Valleywag a recent anecdote which puts the "crass" in "meritocracy":
A VC at an unnamed firm blurted out, "Oh, thank God you're white" when my business partner and CEO walked in for their meeting. As way of explanation but without any embarrassment, the VC said that most of the founders they'd been meeting with were Indian or Asian. Needless to say, we cooled the discussions immediately thereafter.
Obviously, being African-American, this piece caught my attention. I don't think much about this stuff generally, but with the meteoric rise of Barak Obamba as the likely democratic presidential nominee and potential president, The Valleywag story drove me to try to reconcile the two concepts. Is America, and Tech America racist? And if so how do you explain Barack Obama?
In thinking about this issue, a few notions come to mind.
- Green is definitely more important that black, or white, or brown. Business transactions, at least in tech, I have felt are essentially colorblind.
- Hiring of course is not "a business transaction" in the same sense and is most definitely not color blind, as I can personally attest.
- There is still plenty of racism in America. The Younger you go the less there is. And by plenty, I don't mean by a majority. I just mean a relatively small number of people can do a disproportionate amount of damage.
- You only need 51% to win.
- It is exceedingly rare to hear anything directly racial, particularly in business, but it does happen. As in the Valleywag piece, it's usually "non-ethnic" friends and associates telling me some horrible thing some other "non-ethnic" person did, thinking it would be "cool." In these cases I often wonder why the inappropriate talker believes he can ever get away with inappropriate talk. In any case it is wonderful that these folks are occasionally indiscrete because you can't fight what you can't see.
- Ron Paul wrote in in a 1992 issue of the Ron Paul Political Report that "If you have ever been robbed by a black teenaged male, you know how unbelievably fleet of foot they can be." Despite this fact, he has received disproportionate and unrepentant support from many in the tech community, even after having been made aware of such statements. To me this does not represent racism in tech, but suggests a shocking level of insensitivity.
The tech business is no worse than the rest of America on issues of race, and is probably better. Publicly exposed incidents like the one recounted by Valleywag re-expose slowly healing racial/ethic scabs and makes us all a little more wary. This kind of exposure is unfortunate, but also unfortunately necessary, because while we are good, we can definitely be better.
UPDATE: well I have my first of what I am sure will be many, Ron Paul defenders. The above should be enough. My commenter suggests that the above Ron Paul statement isn't offensive, just true. Amazing. Anyway just to nail the coffin shut, Another Ron Paul racist Tidbit:
"Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system, I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal."
UPDATE 2: here's some more from Mr Paul.
"We don't think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That's true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such."
"We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, but it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings, and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers."
10 comments:
Coming from Zambia, I could well throw around the cliche` that some of my best friends are black, and it would be the god's honest truth. But none of these friends would even imagine sinister intent in somebody saying that black teen-aged males are incredibly fleet of foot; especially when that comes from the perspective of a white, older male.
That statement is... ahh what's that damn word again... true. As their hoards of gold from Olympics and such will attest.
I like your blog, you're in my feed reader even, but I have to put up my hand when a person who wrote a simple, truly benign fact (related to an infuriating incident about which the well-deserved emotive writing was dutifully held back) is not shunned by the tech community to your satisfaction.
This proves no insensitivity in tech, only an abundance of sensitivity in author. There's plenty of truly offensive material out there which would make far more compelling source material for such a post.
Wow. I've managed to avoid Ron Paul as much as possible and I don't know a thing about him besides that a lot of his fans are annoying. But this isn't just about Rom Paul.
I think that racism in technology is an opportunity for colorblind companies. The Sand Hill VC who won't invest in "ethnics" is missing out on (1/3? 1/2?) of possible deals, which is a sure way to miss some big home runs. The tech company that won't hire "ethnics" is limiting the talent pool and they weaken their ability to produce the best tech. Not only will they pass on "ethnics" who are above the company average, they will then have to lower their standards in the whites they hire to fill those gaps. Given sufficient competition, these companies will eventually lose and either reform or fold.
In college, I interviewed for an internship at Microsoft, and I was amazed at how many foreigners/immigrants there were there. Two of my three interviewers were foreign. In the cafeteria for lunch, white guys were possibly a plurality but definitely not a majority. This was in 2002 before their stock price plateaued and before Google started kicking their butt and raiding their talent. So it was pretty fair to say that at point, Microsoft had many of the best in the business, and most of them weren't American whites.
Granted, Hank, I think there is a different kind of racsim against African Americans (and Africans) in tech, probably because there hasn't been a big mold-breaking African American tech entrepreneurial success story. I nominate you, Hank for that level of paradigm-shifting success!
"I nominate you, Hank for that level of paradigm-shifting success!"
Thanks peter!
Regarding Ron Paul, I specifically didn't want to make this about him or black/white because, as you say, the issues is broader as indicated by the Valleywag article. I just couldn't let it be believed that there is any gray area regarding Mr. Paul. Personally any kind of ethnic or racial or cultural bias is equivalently troubling to me.
I dont think the Bay area visibly discriminates against skin colour. Indeed, the computing industry is incredibly global there -any coffee shop has about 17 languages being spoken, all wittering on about atom feeds, facebook apps and VC-backed projects. It is more of a competence-ocracy than a place that cares about where you went to school/college, or ethnic origin.
That said: there is the implicit assumption that women can't code; their job is marketing. I don't think that's true -some of the best team members I've had are women- but its a geek-centric world view. There's also the oddity that most of the support staff -the people in hotels, restaurants, gas stations are hispanic. I've always felt that odd, as if there is one layer of global IT folk, and the under-staff of spanish-speaking servants.
Here in the UK, there's less of an ethnic split, though the computer companies have people from all over Europe. Britain discriminates more on education than skin colour though there's an implict bias there. We're dealing with that by sending our UK/US passported, multi-racial, grandparents in separate EU countries, child to the most expensive school in the city. We are buying his way into the establishment.
Didn't Paul say some other person had written those comments, he had never seen them and he does not agree with them and they do not represent his views?
I agree it makes sense someone should take responsibility for a magazine that goes out in their name, but I doubt that Oprah agrees with or reads everything that goes out in her magazine either.
Paul had a lot of good points to make during his campaigning about how the justice system is biased against blacks and he planned to fix that.
Fred,
Thanks for your comment. But the evidence against Mr. Paul on this is pretty overwhelming. But just a few points:
1. If a pro neo-nazi article "slipped through" oprah would know about it.
2. There was never any other byline in the newsletter but Ron Paul's.
3. The newsletter was only 8 pages. Hateful ideas would have been very hard to miss.
4. The primary stuff I quoted he actually *admits to* and defends. He thinks that it is perfectly appropriate to say that if you have ever had your purse stolen by a black teenager you know how fleet of foot they can be.
5. He was lying when he said he didn't write certain things. In pieces he said he didn't write he referred to a woman as being his wife who happened to have the same name as his wife. He also I believe refers to being in congress. So this uncredited other author is never named and all of the personal references match him. Again, he is lying.
6. personally, I don't care what supposedly good programs he puts forth. I wouldn't vote for David Duke, or Osama Bin Laden, or anyone else who had a reprehensible history regardless of any recent conversion to decency.
Hank,
Just catching up on feeds after a busy week. This one being off the usual topics was nonetheless very interesting. I agree with you all the way up to "I wouldn't vote for . . . anyone . . . who had a reprehensible history regardless of any recent conversion to decency." Wow, no forgiveness! I personally think that this is one of the big problems in America -- we don't forgive one another -- ever. I'm not, of course, suggesting that forgiveness should equal a vote without some demonstration of "conversion." Nor am I suggesting a vote for Ron Paul. However, hope for positive change is one of the hallmarks of humanity. In that spirit, I must have read you wrong on this. Keep up the great work -- your insights constantly amaze me.
Curt
Curt,
You are right.
Its just that the "conversion" bar has to be pretty high. Disavowing what you said before because you are in a presidential campaign doesnt quite cut it for me. But I agree with the spirit of your comment.
Hank,
You are right, as well. I think we are all very careful about political "conversions" in particular. History is not on the side of their being genuine. I think this is one of the things that hurt Mitt Romney, for example.
Thanks for the excellent content, and keep up the good work!
Curt
As a hispanic, I understand deeply the issues of racism, straight forward or undercover...
The only thing that should matter in tech, I guess, are:
-Are you good enough to pull "X" task?
-Can I trust your work?
That applies to EVERY color of skin, because intelligence goes beyond skin deep.
Regarding the conversion idea, I think is really difficult for a tiger to take off it's stripes, let alone become a veggy.
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