I (woman without CS degree) once pitched to an investor and his first question was “Okay, but who’s going to build it for you?”

Um... me? I _built_ it. It already exists and I have users and I said that several times but apparently the idea of me being able to do that on my own was simply too confusing for him to understand. His next question? “Who’d you hire to build it?”

facepalm

Ouch. Did you find a good investor eventually?

It's insulting for many white men who don't come from privilege - some from poor backgrounds, or rural backgrounds, or non-college educated backgrounds, or health status, etc, etc - to pull out the hackneyed "white male privilege" stereotype here.

Why not use the more accurate term for people like this, who went from a wealthy or upper-middle class home, to an Ivy, to a FAANG, to an easily funded startup? They're the elite, or the 1% of whatever similar term you want to use.

Because "white male privilege" sterotypes millions of white males incorrectly. But I know it's a very popular stereotype right now among part of the population, and so often hard to resist.

I think you are 100% right. I didn’t have the words for it I guess, just the emotion, and picked something off the shelf.

I’ll just add this though, I promise you 2 girls would never have gotten this funded lol.

And I ain’t a girl either, or a white knight.

> I’ll just add this though, I promise you 2 girls would never have gotten this funded lol.

You mean "girls", like Elizabeth Holmes, founder of the infamous Theranos [1]?

Incidentally, she fits the mold I describe above: highly privileged childhood (Dad an Enron VP, highly politically connected), to Stanford, to a well-funded scam start-up with a board packed with our nation's elite (eg, former Sec of State George Shultz).

And she's just the best known - there are other examples of scammy or poorly-conceived companies founded by (actually) privileged women.

Yeah, most of these wealthy, privileged founders of scammy companies are white men, but some are women, and some are not white. Crucially, even if most of them are white men, they only represent a very small fraction of us.

And the 1% are doing a tremendous job of playing us off each other for reasons of gender, race, etc, while they consolidate their power and privilege.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos

Aight, you got me. No sarcasm, we need better ways of describing this shit, I’m with you 100%.

Screaming at the top of my lungs:

Hey PG, I’m not a white dude or girl that went to Stanford. In fact, I did great and bad at school. So fuck you. I’m gonna take over your whole shit, so stop discriminating.

Dumbass couldn’t even spot a half assed mmo clone.

Plenty of reasons to actually criticize the company, without the intellectually lazy act of crying racial and sexual preference with no basis.

Plenty of articles, including this one, have interviewed insiders that have revealed that they got to skip the vetting process due to nepotism. You might want to re-asses your "high bar" and stop making "wild guesses".

I’m not married to this fight. Nepotism is a gameplay mechanic in the whole privilege thing. So is corruption, collusion, etc. The broader theme can still stand.

But, I don’t want this fight, and you are probably right I’m off base and too quick on the trigger here.