I believe there is truth to what you say. It's very difficult to prove of course, but I've definitely noticed that certain founders seem to face a lot more skepticism than others.

The great part about this business is that I can make money by investing in those that others are missing :)

Unless they are so discouraged and boo-ed down that they give up, don't bother, can't get what they need to make it work and so on. In which case, you are leaving money on the table by allowing HN to remain too much of a Boy Zone.

I hope not! Many of our best startups are disliked by hn...

It appears to me that women face special challenges in networking and this leads to challenges in problem solving for a fledgling business. I came to HN to network and, until very recently it was a major fail for me. It is gradually getting better, but it's taken a lot of work on my end to get it better.

I am not talking about "women need to be liked." I am talking about "Women need to be able to access knowledge that is currently overwhelmingly held by men." If they can't effectively do that, they are going to tend to have lower success rates.

Realistically, what could be done about it?

Serious question. I had the same reaction as you to these comments. It seemed like Jessica was getting a lot of skepticism relative to what PG or one of the male partners would have received from similar claims.

But I don't know how I would change things. Any suggestions?

Note: I'm truly baffled that many commentors here seem to think that judging character is i. impossible to do correctly, ii. undesirable, iii. skill in judging character is intrinsically impossible to evaluate

It is something I have been working on for a long time. I think things are getting better on HN. I think my comments here were relatively well-received. There was a time when my experience of HN was pretty negative.

If you are male, some things that you can do include:

Engage women in discussion about ideas and a) don't gush at them just because it's a woman speaking up b) don't give them condescending pats on the head of "encouragement" as if they would be more successful if only their girlie little feelings are helped to be more positive c) and invite them to push back.

I previously had a blog post about "shoving matches." I am not currently finding it, which may mean it was not republished when my blog was moved, likely due to combination of it probably wasn't that well written and I am frequently busy with other things. In a nutshell, think of the scene in "Remember the Titans" where the white team captain gets into a shoving match with a black team member. Initially, the black team member is afraid to push back. That's the kind of thing that could end badly in the racist environment in which they live. But the team captain shoves again and invites him to shove back. He does finally shove back, they engage in a friendly shoving match, and that is the moment where the team becomes a team and race stops mattering.

This can be done to a woman. It is possible to encourage her to argue with you in public in a way that is not dismissive of her. It is possible to invite women to stand their ground and defend their ideas. And that's one of the big things that needs to happen on HN.

Oh, actually I meant what could the mods do about it? Since you mentioned allowing HN to be a boy zone.

I think (hope?) I'm fine personally as far as female engagement goes. I run a forum in my niche, a niche that's slightly majority female.

It would be nice if there were a visible female presence on the mod team. And/or if Jessica herself would be so kind as to participate more regularly here. Either one (or both) of those would do wonders.

Having said that, the new moderator Dan G. has been a very valuable resource for me in the last year. I think appointing him was a good move and I think things are already moving in a better direction for HN wrt the participation of women here.

"Boy Zone" is tone deaf and insulting. You call yourself a woman yet refer to male participants, collectively, as boys. Quit it.

I used to use the term "Old Boys Club" on HN, which was not well received, in part because most members here aren't that old. When criticized for that, I asked for suggestions for an alternate term. No one offered me any. "Boy Zone" is a term I learned on MetaFilter which gets used as a label for a male dominated environment. I am open to suggestions as to how else to succinctly describe the situation. But, so far, having been on the look-out for other terms for a few years, "Old Boys Club" and "Boy Zone" are the only two I know of. Both are guilty of using the term "boy."

I appreciate the kind and considerate response. Thank you. Your thoughtfulness and good intentions are all I could ask for. Thank you.

Have you noticed any specific traits founders who face increased skepticism have that aren't apparent in other founders?

I read the blog post and I absolutely agree that there are "subtle dangers a woman faces daily in the pursuit of a serious career -- dangers most people do not speak about and often politely go along with, in a sheep-like fashion." I was in fact just arguing yesterday with someone here on hn who objected to an Outreach Programme for Women as discriminatory and I was arguing that institutional discrimination is pervasive and very damaging to women's careers (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9138481). Ironically, however, what I'm calling out Jessica on is one of the main things which contributes to institutional discrimination, namely not examining one's biases strongly enough. There are many well meaning men out there who think they're not sexist and don't want to be, but because sexism is institutionalized they don't even realize they are. In the same way, Jessica may think she's not discriminating against people from other cultures or people who may be socially awkward and such, but she may well be doing so. If both groups, if they were more aware of their biases, they would likely be less discriminatory.

You may be right, maybe I called Jessica out because she's a woman. I really don't think so, but am open to the suggestion I did. I really don't see anything in my post, however, to indicate gender bias was a factor. In fact, I was calling her out for precisely the type of thinking which leads to gender bias.

People who have good social radar are often imprecise and hand-wavey in their explanations of it. I have had to learn to explain it in much more precise terms. And I have had some relatively unusual opportunities to firm up my mental models and make it more data-driven, because the audience I had (my very aspie older son) needed that in order to understand it at all.

So, most people with good social radar are not going to be able to readily give the precise, data-driven explanations that the HN crowd values so highly. But the reason I suspect Jessica is being dismissed based in part on her gender, rather than the hand-wavey nature of her assertions, is because of the framing of the criticism she is getting. As I said earlier, a lot of the comments here do not boil down to "please, show your work and prove you are right." They boil down "Oh, you are full of shit and no one can know that and, god, my respect for YC just plummeted" as if she had confessed that her method for deciding who to accept involved casting their horoscope or consulting a psychic.

When I first joined HN, the top three people here all had about 50k karma and there was a much more collegial environment than currently exists. I was never given access to that collegial environment. I never got a mix of some acknowledgement that I might have a point and some criticism that not everyone agreed with me and the opportunity to state why I thought x, y or z. Instead, men on the leaderboard closed ranks. For a long time, if I said anything, you could bet dollars to donuts that two different people (not the same ones every time) from the leaderboard would chime in to announce how wrong I was.

It took me literally years to figure out that this was going on in part because, for a woman, I had a high amount of karma and I was, thus, rocking the boat. Initially, I had no idea because, at the time, my karma was so far off from qualifying for a bottom rung on the leaderboard that I figured I was a Nobody and no one should be noticing me at all. However, I was able to infer (based on that social indicators in the way people reacted to me, in spite of the lack of hard data – in other words, “social radar”) that I was apparently prominent for a woman, in spite of my pathetically low amount of karma. Eventually, I was able to dig up real data proving that fairly firmly (in spite of the limits on the data available to me). Once I understood the position I was in, I was able to quit attracting so much damning attention.

So what I am telling you is that a) Hacker News has deteriorated in some ways generally, which has hurt the experience of most members and I would like to see the bar raised such that the collegial environment returns generally and b) I would like women included in that respectful debate of ideas in a way I do not believe they have been previously included. And one way you can help achieve that, if you so desire, is to change the manner in which you criticize women and their "hand-wavey" attempts to express themselves.

One thing that would really, really help a whole lot is make damn sure you understand that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." In other words, just because women are generally going to not be good at defending their positions on terms that the men here will readily accept does not, by itself, prove they are wrong. Just because the explanation is hand-wavey does not mean she is full of shit. Ask better questions. Encourage women to get the data that backs up their position. If they can't immediately do so, genuinely "agree to disagree" instead of pissing on them like they aren't worthy of any respect. Give women an opportunity to grow into the ability to communicate in more precise terms and learn to effectively back up their statements. Because shooting them down and pissing on them is not something that will ever help women up their game and learn to go toe-to-toe with the big boys. It merely excludes them.

And thank you for reading my blog post and engaging me in good faith.

I absolutely agree with you in some respects. I took exception to your initial comment because it was a direct reply to mine, which I think very clearly wasn't "Oh, you are full of shit and no one can know that and, god, my respect for YC just plummeted", but very plainly "please, show your work and prove you are right." If you had made your reply to one of the former type of comments, I likely wouldn't have said anything since I expect I would have thought it was right on to make such a comment. So, really, I thought I was unfairly getting labelled as sexist.

I do however vehemently disagree with this: "In other words, just because women are generally going to not be good at defending their positions on terms that the men here will readily accept does not, by itself, prove they are wrong." I think here you are in fact buying into gender stereotypes and doing women a disservice. Some women can be and are just as analytical as men and some men can be and are just as strong with the soft skill stuff as women. To start thinking of these things in terms of gender just perpetuates the status quo. If anything, YCombinator itself is doing that very thing, with the three men as the analytical ones judging the tech and Jessica, as the woman, as the soft skills person. It's quite possible that it's just a coincidence it worked out that way and they all seem to be happy with those roles, but isn't it a little bit fishy that their roles line up with gender stereotypes so neatly?

At the risk of merely digging my grave deeper (since I am a tad busy today):

I do however vehemently disagree with this: "In other words, just because women are generally going to not be good at defending their positions on terms that the men here will readily accept does not, by itself, prove they are wrong."

I apologize if it sounded like I was promoting gender stereotypes. I have my own personal biases that do sometimes come out that way. But let me be clear: My intent was to make the point that women are often ganged up and dismissed in a way that is toxic and really hard to cope with at all, much less argue effectively in the face of. So, given the degree to which women are underrepresented in STEM and on HN, I think a reasonable assumption is that most women here will have a certain lack of experience of effectively going toe-to-toe with the big dogs. It would be nice if the big dogs did not try to eat their lunch and, instead, engaged in some basic respect for boundaries while women try to get their sea legs as HN gradually changes to become more female-friendly.

I don't hesitate to debate with anyone here. For a long time, it really made my experience here miserable in a way that did not seem typical for what was happening with men who engaged in debate. I think the collegial environment that existed at that time, from which I was largely excluded, has deteriorated some, thus harming the experience for everyone. I would like to see the general atmosphere here improve to something more akin to what it was when I originally joined. But I would like to see it not reserved for the men this time around. I would like it to be a more inclusive environment.

So let me attempt to reframe that as: If a member here happens to not be good at defending their position, regardless of who they are, that shouldn't be reason to simply be dismissive of them or make them look stupid. It is a good general rule of thumb. If it is actually applied consistently, it will help level the playing field so women aren't facing such an uphill battle.

Edit:

As for making you feel unjustly attacked, I will note that my original reply to you was this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9147934 You opted to not respond at all to my assertion that people can tell such things. You just kept arguing that there isn't enough data, the example offered you by paul was not sufficient and so on. So, in the context of the general atmosphere, that began to look to me like, no, your inquiry wasn't really about "So, how do you know?" Instead, it was a polite way to be dismissive -- that when push comes to shove, "la la la not listening -- no amount of data will ever be enough." You seem to not be giving much credence to the things that are being said in support of what she said.

So that is where my parent comment of this particular discussion came from in asking why you are being so dismissive.

I do understand that it is often more engaging to argue with people where you disagree and that there can be a lot of non-sexist factors influencing your choice as to what to reply to in this discussion. But having been on HN a number of years, I have seen this far too often where I ever so politely have my character assassinated in ways that would make me look like a lunatic to protest it. It's really maddening. So the context and pattern of behavior here matter. I mention that since you seem genuinely interested in understanding how to do this better.

Take care.

> No, the comments here are mostly dismissive of the very idea that anyone can be any good

But this isn't something people are pulling from nowhere. There's plenty of research showing that people are lousy at making judgements. She hasn't said how she can make good judgement or how she knows she makes good judgement - there's just a bunch of handwavey stuff and people are criticising the handwavey descriptions, not necessarily her work.

I worked in insurance for over 5 years. The fraud department had many of the same practices I have long used to judge social situations and character and what people are really up to. I processed claims and part of that job was keeping an eye out for indicators that it should be referred to the fraud department for further investigation -- ie judging if the paperwork submitted indicated that this person was possibly/probably a lying scumbag, engaging in a crime and of poor character.

There are well developed paradigms in, for example, police work and courts of law for judging who is probably telling the truth, who is almost certainly full of shit, what the evidence supports, and so on.

I will reiterate: Just because most people are terrible judges of character and overestimate their own ability does not prove Jessica is terrible at it. And just because her explanations are hand-wavey and not as precise and data-driven as the HN crowd would prefer, that does not prove she is simply self-deluded and full of shit.

If people were really criticizing the hand-wavey descriptions, as you claim, they would be making different criticisms from what I have mostly seen here. The door has mostly been firmly closed to discussions of how this works when it is done well. There haven't been questions about how to do this in a more data-driven, less hand-wavey way. It has mostly just been a matter of pissing all over her and dismissing her claims.

I don't actually know that she is or isn't getting more criticism because she's a woman. I just think you really underestimate how much contempt is stewing for YC and PG.