[aculver]

In the later part of the interview she asks some questions about the recent discussions regarding minorities in the startup community. I thought his response was insightful:

"Well, I think the problem is upstream from us. I don't think it's that, like, huge numbers of women and minorities want to start startups and that we're filtering them out because they're not white or men or something like that. I think that the applicant pool, the applicant pool has the same problem that people see in our output, right? The same problem is in our input that people see in our output. The problem is further upstream. The problem is that the pool of startup founders is the people who are messing about with computers at age 13. If you want to fix the problem, that's what you have to change."

[gabaix]

It took him some time to come up with the right response and you could feel he was "computing" the right answer in his head. When he finally found it, it just felt a very natural conclusion. Paul defused the race bomb question with great calm and clear thinking.

[mc32]

After the incident involving Arrington, it'd be surprised if PG had not thought about the issue in that context and had reached some conclusion at that point --even if that conclusion was simply an affirmation of his experience and what amounts to his anecdotal evidence in the applicant pool.

[andrewhillman]

That's how he responds to all q's. He is so smart and so well thought out that you can literally see him thinking through the question to be able to give a clear thoughtful response. Whenever I see him doing an interview I always think he is operating on an another level.

[jdp23]

Some other incubators fund more women and minorities than YC, so this seems like it's only part of the story. A couple questions this leaves in my mind:

- what are they doing to broaden the applicant pool?

- have they considered that something about the process or their reputation might lead to women and minorities steering away from YC?

[pg]

Probably the biggest things we've done to broaden the applicant pool are Hacker News, Startup School, and all the essays I've written about startups.

I don't think there's anything about our process or reputation that directly discourages people of any gender or race. But we do prefer founders who are hackers, which presumably thus causes fewer members of groups that are underrepresented among hackers to apply to YC.

[kevincjemison]

It's definitely a complicated issue with no clear overriding cause. As a minority who did take apart his mothers computer at 13 and compressed the windows partition to install linux (woo hoo slackware) and has gone on to found a startup I think some of Paul's commentary is spot on. Though I was representative of some of the larger stats (single parent home, lower middle income specturm) I was also one of two kids on my block with access to a computer in the home, and my single parent was a teacher who made education a priority. If you looked at the cohort of kids I grew up with you'd find myself and 2 others out of 11 or so that are not either a. dead or b. in jail, or have been in jail. Why is that? I don't know and don't claim to know, but the road to changing it starts very young.

[csomar]

what are they doing to broaden the applicant pool?

And why you want them to do so? I personally want that YC or any other program select applicants based on their skills and abilities and not any other criteria.

[tikhonj]

I think broadening the applicant pool here means getting more underrepresented types applying rather than changing how you select them after they've applied. Just because you get additional, different people to apply does not mean you have to relax your admissions criteria; if anything, it's the opposite: you have more to choose from.

If this is not what was meant by that phrase, then it's what should have been meant and I stand by my point anyhow.

[rdl]

I think everyone wants YC to pick the best candidates (thus making the best startups who make the best products for us to use), but I also want them to not systematically overlook qualified candidates due to external factors. If there's a way to tweak early-childhood education to turn more women into potential startup founders, hackers, etc., that increases the number of startups and hackers available for startups, which is awesome.

It would be reasonable for YC to use successful women/minority applicants (Jessica Mah; Leah Culver; I'm sure there are others, plus of course Jessica Livingston's role as a partner) to demonstrate that women can be successful in startups. Other than that, it's really something for parents, K12 educators, etc. to address.

Women do seem to be a lot better represented in bio/biotech than in computers/ee, so if over time more startups happen in the bio space, that should help to address the imbalance too.

[dmix]

Thats very much a governmental approach to solving the problem. Patch the surface but never deal with the underlying problem.

[shareme]

I am sorry but PG is wrong and blindsided by experiences rather than knowledge.

Look at developing countries, their shares of minorities doing start-ups is at an all-time high.

No, in fact the USA problem is directly tied to housing debt and EDU debt being too high in a specific demographic age group that happens to be the talent and the co-founder pool for start-ups in the USA. Whereas if is compared to small business starts per year you see a shift towards more minority business starts bu not a huge increase.

[dctoedt]

Not sure I understand your comment:

* The share of minorities doing startups being at an all-time high in developing countries -- are you referring to people who would be minorities here in the US but are majority in their own countries? How does that refute PG's point about the problem in the US being "upstream" of YC?

* I don't get at all what you're trying to say in your third paragraph, about the USA problem being directly tied to housing debt, etc. -- again, how does that refute PG's point?