[prawn]

I always get the impression that they make a particular effort to understand groups outside their typical applicants and look for opportunities in other countries and cultures.

Surely there's every chance that your application isn't strong enough?

[rmena123]

By no means am I saying I should of been accepted. I'm actually saying the opposite, I don't fit the mold and probably lack many things, but I rather look at it as a whole. The truth is the staff at YC lack blacks or Hispanics. And just recently started accepting Hispanics and black founders out of a current trend/topic for tech companies to accept diversity. If it wasn't brought up, would YC have made it a point to accept more blacks or Hispanics/woman now?

I think YC is great, but they don't get the fact that founders can have a horrible application or even look horrible on paper.

Being an entrepreneur is not a cookie cut process, nor is business or anything else.

[prawn]

"And just recently started accepting Hispanics and black founders out of a current trend/topic for tech companies to accept diversity."

This is either very poorly worded or unfairly incorrect. When have they not accepted black or Hispanic founders?! They might have attracted mostly white/Asian applicants, but they have never precluded any group.

"...they don't get the fact that founders can have a horrible application or even look horrible on paper."

Of course they get that fact. They often speak about how often they miss opportunities - it's not a charity and they can't pick every winner in advance. They don't just judge applicants on paper. They take a video, and they look at product traction and so on. They have people from all sorts of backgrounds showing it's not a cookie cutter process.

But if you do a bad job at presenting/explaining yourself and your idea, there's every chance you'll have similar struggles pitching to investors and customers.

[rmena123]

Did you see any black or Hispanic founders in YC for the first years?

Not to repeat myself, but look at the YC staff today. How many? http://www.ycombinator.com/people/

[prawn]

There's at least one black guy in that list and he's been there for a few years. He was also involved in one of their early and well-known investments.

You've implied that they only started accepting black/Hispanic people like they've been banned or something?!

[jaypaulynice]

I think there are some implicit bias. I've noticed that most black startups in accelerators cater to other black groups or hail mostly from Africa.

If not being strong enough was a criteria then you could guarantee that every startup would succeed, but looking at a lot of accelerators, there is still a high rate of fail, so who is to say strong enough? I've also seen people you least expect to succeed often succeed and some that you would expect to succeed fail...

Your best bet as a black/latinx founder is to be that outlier or build something for your own group...