[Mz]

White males commit more murders than black males. Black males typically do more time on average.

It is a little like that. It isn't proportional.

Jessica Livingston is one of the two people who dreamed up YC. Paul Graham soon wrangled his previous confounders in on it. I hear vastly more about the three male cofounders than I do about the one female cofounder. Nor do I ever here her get credit proportional to PG. He was the front man. He was replaced by Sam Altman. Sam now gets most of the press.

Maybe this is Jessica being savvy and sidestepping the sexist bs in the world by trying to avoid press. Maybe she is way smarter than me. But I think YC is probably more "her baby" than Paul's or Sam's, yet I never see it framed that way.

If women are 2% of founders and get 1% of the credit, they are still being shorted.

[icebraining]

You see, sometimes one's perception of reality is just very different.

For example, you say that "I hear vastly more about the three male cofounders than I do about the one female cofounder."

I believe you - you hear what you hear. That said, I've been around HN for a while, yet I had to look up who the other male cofounders even were. Doing a search by their names, Jessica has easily three times more submissions about her than either Trevor or Robert.

And so when our perception is so different, many people will simply incorrectly assume dishonesty, because that's easier to picture. I find it unfortunate, but I don't think it can be avoided unless one's willing to be very detailed about the priors that led one to a certain conclusion rather than just state it and hope people will see it the same way.

[Mz]

Okay, run a little test: Compare Jessica to Paul Graham and Sam Altman instead of Trevor or Robert. Now, what kind of figures do you see?

She and Paul apparently cooked this idea up together. But it took forever for that detail to come out. For the longest time, my impression was that this was Paul's baby. I vaguely knew there was a female cofounder. It was much later that I heard that, really, this idea was her and Paul, not him and his prior cofounders.

[icebraining]

I fully agree, PG was (and is) much more visible than Jessica.

[Mz]

Thank you.