The influence of race in the tech world

(written by lawrence krubner, however indented passages are often quotes). You can contact lawrence at: lawrence@krubner.com, or follow me on Twitter.

Interesting:

First, let me say, I think Mike truly believes everything that he has said about the tech world being a meritocracy. Lots of people believe that.

But I do not believe Silicon valley is a meritocracy. I would more properly say that tech *markets* are a meritocracy. There are very few businesses where a single individual in her bedroom can create a piece of software that can potentially touch millions of people without any additional capital. No matter how talented you are, if you want to open a hot new restaurant or a shoe factory, you need lots of money before you start. Not necessarily so with software.

Consumers and businesses, for the most part, don’t care what the ethnicity of their software or Internet service vendors are. Users want solutions. And so if an entrepreneur can get a great product completed cheaply, in many cases they can compete on totally even footing. Even if they ultimately need capital, explosive initial success knocks down all known barriers.

But the market *makers* operate in a world that is not particularly even-handed. The market makers are the folks that help new young companies and entrepreneurs by providing insight, mentoring, capital, and relationships. And this part of the tech world is driven by all the same types of biases that exist in the non-tech world. And it is *much* harder for even the most talented African Americans in the tech world to gain access to influential, insightful, connected mentors, let alone investors.

People, for the most part, want to work with people that are “like them” or that fit a pattern that appeals to them. There is an actual term for this among tech investors called “pattern matching”. It’s the idea that, without objective facts, one can decide whether someone is likely to be successful based on indirect criteria. In other words, when they see a particular pattern of “personhood” they are excited.

And these patterns are discussed openly in the tech industry around issues like age. Since it is only moderately politically incorrect to suggest that younger entrepreneurs are “better”, it is done all the time. The best example of this might be Mike Moritz from Sequoia Capital, perhaps the most influential of all venture funds, admitting on a TechCrunch Disrupt stage that they have a strong bias towards very young entrepreneurs.

But if you believe that age is the only criteria that VCs use for pattern matching I wanna smoke some of what you’ve got.

To be clear, I am not saying any VC says at a partner meeting, “you know I really like this company’s product but did you notice he’s a negro?”

Never happens.

But I firmly believe market makers, both investors and the people who help you get ready to approach them, seek out entrepreneurs who appeal to them on some less than objective, visceral level, who feel “comfortable” to them. They don’t *need* to actively filter out undesirable profiles. They just focus on what *does* appeal to them. They focus on the “patterns” they find appealing and I am confident that not only is age a part of many investors’ ideal patterns, but so are perhaps un-recognized criteria like race, gender, cultural affinity, etc. And on some level this should not be shocking as it reflects socialization that all of us must work hard and consciously not to act on.

Is this (racist/sexist/agist/_____ist)? Well in this context, using incendiary labels is only likely to make people more defensive. The bigger question is, is it a problem? Absolutely.

Is it possible to overcome these additional barriers? I have. But it is only by a sheer persistence and focus that, few other people, white, black, or otherwise, have. While I would never suggest that I am smarter than anyone else, my Arnold-Schwartenzegger-in-Terminator like determination has made my successes possible. Yes, I have definitely had help and support, but compared to some, not so much.

In fact some people get far more support than others. For example, I’m not going to name any names, but when a top tier VC writes a five million dollar check to a 19 year-old with a barely-beyond-napkin-stage *idea*, no customers and a fragile technology because they “present well” then clearly something else is at work. I am not saying that this exact scenario is common, but it does happen. And since everything is on a spectrum and I can guarantee there are no African-American, or for that matter Latino or female entrepreneurs that contribute such insane data points to that spectrum, it is troubling.

Post external references

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    http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2011/10/arrington-race-and-silicon-valley-i.html
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