[gagmaker]

> harder time starting a startup

and you certain its all due to their skin color etc? Sorry, I'm having a hard time to believe it.

> we also want to do targeted outreach to underrepresented

Having that much resources to invest (limited, are they?), you likely will end up funding a business based on founder's skin color. Sorry, but that how it looks like from outside.

[pixelcloud]

It's basically designed to the ycombinator staff can not be subconsciously racist towards founders.

If a group applied with a great idea in the "normal" pool of applicants I suspect they would fair perfectly find against the 6500+ applications.

Obviously, YCombinator is worried about their image and cannot figure out how to "close the gap" without this.

[13thLetter]

"It's basically designed to the ycombinator staff can not be subconsciously racist towards founders."

Which brings up another interesting point. Are all the ycombinator staff comfortable with being accused of being racists? What would happen to any ycombinator staff who publicly objected to this accusation?

[danenania]

Everyone is racist on some level, including those who would prefer not to be. It is deeply ingrained through constant cultural conditioning and has been shown to be true in many many studies.

It's much more worse to claim that you are in no way racist, since this just suppresses the problem. All you can do is accept that you have deep sub/unconscious biases and try to correct them in your conscious mind, though no one ever fully succeeds.

Eventually, hopefully, we'll all evolve in a better direction. In the meantime, this office hours is a good idea.

[foiboitoi]

It's ridiculous to start going back to this sort of racism. This is the "affirmative action or positive discrimination" that is tearing apart Africa right now.

The only sort of racism that should even be considered these days would be genetic research of ethnic groups. That's not something evil BTW. Researching those prone to heart disease, cancer or have positive/useful genes that could be used to protect all of us in the future. Alas, we aren't living the movie Gattaca yet.

[13thLetter]

> All you can do is accept that you have deep sub/unconscious biases and try to correct them in your conscious mind, though no one ever fully succeeds.

The difference between this and "We are all sinners; all you can do is accept Jesus into your heart" seems to be merely a manner of terminology.

[aianus]

> It's basically designed to the ycombinator staff can not be subconsciously racist towards founders.

The solution to being subconsciously racist is to be overtly racist instead? Come on.

[pixelcloud]

I'm just pointing out a perspective :)

I cannot imagine that YCombinator did not offer equal opportunity's for all applicants. But they have been slammed with some negative press over the past 2 years (and PG specifically), regarding diversity and women founders.

It is not all that surprising. They explicitly said last year they were going to do something to improve diversity.

[pavornyoh]

@Pixelcloud, very well put!!