SocialMoth is no longer active. Paul is involved with Square (which is doing very well).
View 3 was shuttered soon after the batch and everybody went back to school, I believe.
White Noise is defunct. I'm not sure what Sean is up to these days.
Snipshot was a non-batch YC company, I believe (like Justin.TV). Funded by YC based on an existing relationship from a previous batch, but they weren't part of a batch. Not sure that makes it inaccurate...I guess that's the best place to list them, since they were funded around the same time and demoed on the same demo day.
WriteWith is defunct. Eric wrote for VentureBeat for a while. Phillip joined Auctomatic before their acquisition. Martin did something else, but I don't remember what.
I'm listed as a founder, and there's a link to my LinkedIn profile, but when I login with that LinkedIn auth, I can't edit details about my company. I should be able to :)
When you sign-in with Linked-in and go to your profile page you should see a "Edit" link to update your details. Please let me know if this is not working.
There's a real problem with the sex distribution numbers. Not saying it's a YC problem, but it is a problem. There're too many talented women out there to lose them to other industries. When we can pull them over here, watch out!
Jessica and pg have both spoken/written at length on the subject. They want to fund female-founded companies, but nearly none apply.
I've personally experienced this. I've tried to talk lots of people into applying for YC, or just starting their own company, over the years since we took part in 2007. About 50% of the people I've tried to convince were women. Only men applied or went on to start businesses. Not a single woman among my friends (among them one who works at Google, and another who started a non-profit foundation when she was 19 that still exists ten years later; these are not random people who don't get shit done; they're YC kinda people) takes my advice to start a company seriously.
The problem is, I'm pretty sure, both genetic and systemic. There's only so much we can do to fix it. At some point, women have to decide they are willing to take economic risks, and bet on themselves.
It might be the field. In our interviewing process we were blown away by four female engineers, 100% of which decided instead to start their own startup -- in cleantech.
I know of one incredibly talented potential female founder who applied with a killer idea and was rejected. I think it is very likely that YC has a strong bias towards men, which this data certainly supports.
I'm also not blaming YC for having a bias towards men. I think silicon valley in general has a bias towards men, and since YC is a for profit business they are making economically sound decisions. However, I think the situation sucks in general, and saying any fault lies with women is really unfair.
> I know of one incredibly talented potential female founder who applied with a killer idea and was rejected.
I know of dozens of incredibly talented potential male founders who applied with killer ideas and were rejected. Seriously.
> I think it is very likely that YC has a strong bias towards men, which this data certainly supports.
Why do you think it's very likely? What data supports that. As one of the other commentators already pointed out, the percentage of YC founders that are women is about equal to the percentage that apply. Saying that the "data support" the argument that YC is biased when there is such an obvious alternative explanation (namely, that there are less female founders) is disingenuous.
> since YC is a for profit business they are making economically sound decisions.
Wait, what? Are you saying that since Silicon Valley (I'm guessing you mean investors in this context?) favors men, YC intentionally (and consciously) chooses to fund men in order to increase the chances that YC founders raise subsequent rounds of financing? That's crazy talk...
> saying any fault lies with women is really unfair.
I don't think anybody is "faulting" women. They are just stating the facts - there are less female engineers, and less female YC applicants.
Egads. Do you know how many applications YC gets every batch? The last publicly reported number was something like 400, and that was years ago. I'm sure is dramatically higher than that now. The competition is insanely high, and the vast majority of insanely talented people with killer ideas get rejected.
Also, a "killer idea" isn't what YC looks for. They look for good teams.
I wasn't suggesting that any of the women I suggested should apply to YC would have necessarily gotten in (none of the men I've recommended to YC have, so far). Odds are simply against it, but I think people should do it anyway, if they want to start a company that fits the YC model. My point was that of the people I've encouraged to start businesses, only the men have actually done so. The women always have too many good reasons not to. Their job pays too well, they like the food at Google too much and don't like to cook, they don't want to move away from their friends to live in the valley, they don't want to give up the security they currently enjoy for something uncertain, they don't want to give up their weekends, etc. There's always good reasons to take the safe path...men just seem to be more willing to ignore all those reasons and start a company anyway. Not all men or women fit this description, of course...free will seems to exist, and humans are widely variable. But, it's true enough of the time that I'm absolutely confident YC is not exhibiting a preference for male founders, and that the percentage of accepted female founders is reflective of the percentage of female applicants.
They've said in the past that the percentage of applicants who are women is the same as the percentage among accepted founders. Any bias therefore must happen at the self-selecting stage unless the female applicants are objectively better on average.
If you assume that the YC partners aren't biased (do you have any evidence otherwise?) this implies the self-selection isn't based on capability. (i.e. women seem equally confident to apply as men with the same abilities) Which pretty much just leaves us with the usual statistic of the percentage of women working in tech being low.
That women and men probably have different approaches to risk and reward, and that instinctively, women may choose more secure career paths over riskier ones.
There is much evidence of this, and not just in tech startups, and it's not merely anecdotal, though I think the overwhelming nature of the anecdotal is pretty convincing on its own. Vastly more men die in the line of work than women do, across many fields, for example. More men than women were pioneers by a couple orders of magnitude. More men choose the military, police or fire department as their career than women by an order of magnitude. More men become astronauts, revolutionaries, and stock brokers.
It seems highly unlikely that these disparities are entirely systemic, or based entirely on our society's norms and expectations; though I'm willing to believe that some of the differences are based on environment rather than genetics, and I hope that if I have daughters they will be given ample opportunities to choose any path they want, including startups (in whatever field startups are interesting in 25-30 years).
My point is that it is silly to suggest that just encouraging girls to take a more active interest in math and sciences will not solve this gender disparity. And, it may even be impossible to "solve" it. Women may just not want to start companies at the same rate as men. If that's the case, there's nothing we can do to "fix" it. I quoted "solve" and "fix" because it assumes that there's something wrong with people who don't want to start companies. I don't know that that's the case. We might be the ones taking unnecessary risks for things that may not be as good for long-term health, happiness, and well-being. After all, once basic needs are met, money doesn't buy happiness, and startups can be a lonely and stressful process that lasts years and may never pay off.
It's one thing to voice this as an opinion but to say it's actually genetic, meaning a biological function of being a female human? No. There is absolutely no evidence to support that. Women were given the right to vote less than 100 years ago, still aren't assigned to units likely to be engaged in combat so I think it would be extremely difficult for them to have held many of the positions you mention en mass. I remember listening to a program on NPR about one of the first female admirals, she said that in the 40s/50s female soldiers were made to take classes on etiquette ...this doesn't exactly set the stage for a woman taking on a risky position.
"It seems highly unlikely that these disparities are entirely systemic, or based entirely on our society's norms and expectations; though I'm willing to believe that some of the differences are based on environment rather than genetics" You're actually saying the reason that women aren't astronauts, revolutionaries and stock brokers is because they are genetically pre-disposed not to want to be in those position? I would again ask for your evidence supporting this.
"My point is that it is silly to suggest that just encouraging girls to take a more active interest in math and sciences will not solve this gender disparity. And, it may even be impossible to "solve" it. " I think you need to speak with more women. I am relatively young, 25-30 range and I can tell you that I was explicitly told math was "too hard for girls" and that I should "try writing, women are good at that" both by teachers, one of which was a woman. As a woman (in my experience) there are several people and indicators as you grow up telling you what women can and cannot do, should and should not do, Do and do not do. We are all socialized in different ways, men are told that "men don't cry" and "a real man does _____." Nature vs. nurture is a heated debate, I've just never heard an argument made that woman are naturally not in to risky behaviors.
"Women may just not want to start companies at the same rate as men. If that's the case, there's nothing we can do to "fix" it." Nearly every one of my female friends would like to start their own business, there are very real barriers and societal norms that make it difficult for them.
Stanford professor Margaret Neale's research shows that diversity, not just women but simply people of different backgrounds, makes a team perform better. (https://gsbapps.stanford.edu/facultyprofiles/biodetail.asp?i...). So there is evidence that Y Combinator companies would benefit from having more women on board, and not just because the gender ratios look better to the outside world.
I love that Jessica is leading the Female Founders group on Grub With Us (let's have more please!). What other efforts could be undertaken to solve the problem? How about more Grub with us dinners where Y Combinator founders can meet women with Y Combinator potential?
This is like saying there's a real problem with the lack of black coaches in the NFL. So what? May the best people be suited for the job, regardless of race, gender, age, etc.
Do I think more women should be involved? Sure, I'm all for equality. But any such effort to detract women from other industries, I think would be better suited by detracting talented people (women and men) from other industries (say like maybe Wall St.?)
On the other hand, is there a deep rooted reason in our system why women are detracted from joining the tech startup scene? Possibly. Maybe that's where some effort should go first.
This statement basically could not be less accurate. The NFL itself thought there was a huge problem with the lack of black coaches in the NFL, so it took a pro-active approach by making the Rooney Rule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooney_Rule), in which a minority head coach must be interviewed (not hired), in the case of a head coaching vacancy. And what happened? Well the number of minority coaches role greatly from 2 at the end of the 2002 season to 7 currently.
Basically the NFL front office realized that a lot of the owners had some unconscious bias against minority head coaches, and thus they made a rule which forced them to at least acknowledge there were quality minority coaching candidates out there. And once the owners were forced to confront this, they started to agree and hire minority candidates.
I think there are a lot of parallels between this and the current gender disparity in YC. In order to solve such a systemic problem, you have to take big steps. YC doesn't want to take big steps, and thus the problem wont get solved, and people will continue to muse about how women just aren't trying hard enough. Reminds me of the prevailing wisdom in 2000 when everybody said minority head coaches just didn't have what it took to run an NFL team.
I don't follow football, but I do watch the superbowl, and I frequently see teams with black head coaches on the field.
It's easy to pretend there are no barriers, or that the barriers are related to talent, but whether YC is biased or not (I don't think it is), this says a lot about how much we lose as a society when talent goes untapped for no good reason.
It is a very serious problem, but one that is difficult to solve. Especially when science and tech are male dominated fields. I think it begins with empowering the younger generation of women (think school aged K-6) and getting them interested in math, science and tech.
Can somebody who is more versed in this board explain to me why a comment like this would be downvoted? I don't understand what is wrong with this type of comment. Additionally, the comment I made responding to it was downvoted. I'm honestly curious...
When I got here it was just one downvote, so it's probably risky to ascribe one reason to it, and this is way too much of a generalization anyway, but I'll put it out there anyway...
I've met a lot of hacker types who are vehement about the fact that they are not racist or sexist, to the point that they take offense that women are kept out of technical fields due to sexism. I believe this could lead to a kneejerk reaction that gender equality is a non-issue, and any attempts to address it are nothing more than affirmative action undermining technical merit.
Why just track YC? Why not open it up to all the tech incubators or the entire startup scene and have something really useful and a competitor to crunchbase.
With all the contact information available if you really want to know something like this then why not fire off a mail. My perception is that the guys that get funded are usually just decent guys in the most part, sure they wouldn't mind if the information isn't too obtrusive.
Great Work. Like the design and the intuitive design a lot.
One small grammatical error:
On the companies page, you have "Founder this company". Perhaps, you could change it to "Founder"/"Founder of this company".
great site. all of the companies have $0.00 listed for their funding, which is incorrect of course. could probably pull some data from crunchbase api. would also be interesting to see which angels/vc's funded them and if there were certain investors that heavied up on YC companies
the design is great. i checked out your credits page and you listed blueprint. you must have used something else as well to help design the website. please explain.
Also I would like to be able to edit my company's info.