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It's ludicrous to think good ideas only come from North America and white males. Carmichael Roberts agreed with me. His words were that my question felt "pierci

It's ludicrous to think good ideas only come from North America and white males. Carmichael Roberts agreed with me. His words were that my question felt "piercing" because he was not at liberty to tell me about some of the companies outside the US with diverse leadership, but he said he will soon say more. Rodi Guidero agreed and said to look at the BEV team. It's very diverse: http://www.b-t.energy/ventures/team/ http://www.b-t.energy/ventures/team/ We've tried being gender and race blind. But it's not helped us much, because systemic biases can't simply be overcome that way. There are good ideas in all corners, but if you want to elevate those that don't come from privileged backgrounds you have to work harder.

blindman100 8y ago
Since when have we tried to be gender or race blind? Martin Luther King preached that, but policy has never been toward gender and race blindness. Gender and race blindness is an untried concept. It would be nice to try.
- akshatrathi 8y ago
  We've tried in some ways. What do you think no-discrimination policy is at work is about?
drited 8y ago
'It's ludicrous to think good ideas only come from North America and white males' That's a straw man argument because I did not assert that (and obviously wouldn't because it would be a stupid thing to think). Maybe he thought your question was piercing because it implied you suspected he was racist or sexist or not concerned with gender and race bias. Fwiw I'm from one of the excluded categories. I think they should just focus on tackling carbon reduction as they see best fit. If they achieve their mission it'll benefit every man, woman and child on earth. It's unreasonable to expect them to be omniscient. They are a small fund with a small sample of investments. Skew doesn't necessarily mean they have gender or race bias. Elevating isn't their goal. Reducing carbon is. If we don't do that, there may be no races left to worry about equalising.
- akshatrathi 8y ago
  I think you can do both. If anybody has the resources to do that, BEV does.
  - drited 8y ago
    It would certainly be laudable if they could. The article was fascinating, thanks for answering questions!
  - eloff 8y ago
    That's a terrible idea. They should be focused on finding winners regardless of diversity.
bufbupa 8y ago
"It's ludicrous to think good ideas only come from North America and white males." Sure, not what gp said, but agreed. "but if you want to elevate those that don't come from privileged backgrounds" Just some unsolicited feedback, the original race/gender quote from the article and this statement leads me to interpret that you either value equality of outcome (EG: all of these startups should have proportional distributions of gender and race in all positions) over technological advancements, or that you suspect the organization is biased to some detrimental degree. This feedback isn't meant to insinuate that you actually believe either, just that it was my interpretation from the seemingly out of context nod to race/genders of the startup founders. For example, if you'd have included a quote along the lines of "The startups announced by BEV so far are all above 6' tall". The statement would seem to insinuate that there's either something wrong with being 6' tall (analogous to something wrong with being white/male), or that the organization seems to unfairly favor tall people.
- hef19898 8y ago
  There is nothing wrong with being a white male nor with being 6 foot tall. But maybe there is something wrong when white males are overrepresented (in my opinion there is). Also, there is no historical bias towards 6-foot people. But there was, and is, a lot of bias towards white males. For me it's fair enough to call that out.
fvdessen 8y ago
> but if you want to elevate those that don't come from privileged backgrounds you have to work harder. I'm not white yet from a very privileged background. I find the way you so casually equate ethnic origin and social background to be quite shocking frankly.
- kibdescarto 8y ago
  What race do you consider yourself to be fvdessen? http://frederic.vanderessen.com/ http://frederic.vanderessen.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric-van-der-essen-a4337328/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric-van-der-essen... https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=fvdessen https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=fvdessen
CuteBrowser 8y ago
Bhenchod no point inserting useless sjw talking points when they are not relevant to what the parent asked. Why worry about color is what he asked. Maan chuda

blindman100 8y ago

Since when have we tried to be gender or race blind? Martin Luther King preached that, but policy has never been toward gender and race blindness. Gender and race blindness is an untried concept. It would be nice to try.

akshatrathi 8y ago
We've tried in some ways. What do you think no-discrimination policy is at work is about?

drited 8y ago

'It's ludicrous to think good ideas only come from North America and white males' That's a straw man argument because I did not assert that (and obviously wouldn't because it would be a stupid thing to think). Maybe he thought your question was piercing because it implied you suspected he was racist or sexist or not concerned with gender and race bias. Fwiw I'm from one of the excluded categories. I think they should just focus on tackling carbon reduction as they see best fit. If they achieve their mission it'll benefit every man, woman and child on earth. It's unreasonable to expect them to be omniscient. They are a small fund with a small sample of investments. Skew doesn't necessarily mean they have gender or race bias. Elevating isn't their goal. Reducing carbon is. If we don't do that, there may be no races left to worry about equalising.

akshatrathi 8y ago
I think you can do both. If anybody has the resources to do that, BEV does.
- drited 8y ago
  It would certainly be laudable if they could. The article was fascinating, thanks for answering questions!
- eloff 8y ago
  That's a terrible idea. They should be focused on finding winners regardless of diversity.

bufbupa 8y ago

"It's ludicrous to think good ideas only come from North America and white males." Sure, not what gp said, but agreed. "but if you want to elevate those that don't come from privileged backgrounds" Just some unsolicited feedback, the original race/gender quote from the article and this statement leads me to interpret that you either value equality of outcome (EG: all of these startups should have proportional distributions of gender and race in all positions) over technological advancements, or that you suspect the organization is biased to some detrimental degree. This feedback isn't meant to insinuate that you actually believe either, just that it was my interpretation from the seemingly out of context nod to race/genders of the startup founders. For example, if you'd have included a quote along the lines of "The startups announced by BEV so far are all above 6' tall". The statement would seem to insinuate that there's either something wrong with being 6' tall (analogous to something wrong with being white/male), or that the organization seems to unfairly favor tall people.

hef19898 8y ago
There is nothing wrong with being a white male nor with being 6 foot tall. But maybe there is something wrong when white males are overrepresented (in my opinion there is). Also, there is no historical bias towards 6-foot people. But there was, and is, a lot of bias towards white males. For me it's fair enough to call that out.

fvdessen 8y ago

> but if you want to elevate those that don't come from privileged backgrounds you have to work harder. I'm not white yet from a very privileged background. I find the way you so casually equate ethnic origin and social background to be quite shocking frankly.

kibdescarto 8y ago
What race do you consider yourself to be fvdessen? http://frederic.vanderessen.com/ http://frederic.vanderessen.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric-van-der-essen-a4337328/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric-van-der-essen... https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=fvdessen https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=fvdessen

CuteBrowser 8y ago

Bhenchod no point inserting useless sjw talking points when they are not relevant to what the parent asked. Why worry about color is what he asked. Maan chuda