Eventually, some enterprising law firm is going to make a bundle. The legal culture in SV (WSGR and their ilk) are not steeped in class-action suits, several folks are going to get their asses kicked from the legal defense, if nothing else.

This should have happened long ago, and from what I have heard, Y-Combinator would be the best place to start.

You're making serious accusations against an individual and a company based solely on things you have read about on the Internet or heard anecdotally.

Wake up. Discrimination is not cut and dry, law is not cut and dry, and reality is not cut and dry.

I am not making any accusations against anyone - it is obvious that Paul Graham has an age bias - he says so all over the place, but there is no law against having a bias. Age discrimination is almost impossible to prove, but if it is being used in the decisions of who gets into Y-Combinator someone should look into it.

where has he said he has an age bias?

He does.

Has he said so in an essay? On a HN post? To YC founders in person?

See comment above. There was another interview or blog post where he talked about his preference for young people more extensively, but I can't find it. Do you happen to know how many people over 50 have been accepted into Y-Combinator?

I wonder how many people over 50 would apply? IIRC the seed capital they provide is probably small enough that a 50 year old would likely have that in their savings and possibly enough contacts/credit rating to get other funding directly.

The closest I could find was this: http://www.paulgraham.com/mit.html

But all he really says there is that younger founders have an advantage that they can live on less money.

You're thinking of someone else. Paul has corrected people here several times when they say something like, "I'd like to apply to YC but I'm X years old.". Usually his reply is approximately "We've funded several people ten years older than you.". I think the oldest YC funded founder is 50 something. So far.

Best comment of the whole damn thread.

I'm already shocked Google, Apple, etc, haven't been slammed with class-action suits for their overt anti-competitive hiring practices re: non-poaching, etc.

You can get sued for firing someone, but I'm pretty sure you can't get sued for declining to invest in a company (that would be very scary indeed.)

> but I'm pretty sure you can't get sued for declining to invest in a company

Try this for example: "Our VC firm does not invest in companies with black founders. We looked at the data, and companies with black-founders have a measurably lower ROI."

Are you still pretty sure?

Yes. There are specific laws that punish hiring decisions allegedly made because of race, gender, etc. There are laws that require government entities to treat all citizens equally, regardless or race. There may be (I'm not a lawyer) specific laws that forbid discriminating walk-in customers in stores or passengers in transport services. But, AFAIK, there are no laws that forbid having a principle of not ever buying (or investing) from companies run by black CEO's - it may (and should) be a PR disaster, but it's legal. There definitely are no laws that prohibit general discrimination for an unspecified purpose not specifically listed (such as hiring, etc).

If I have missed such a law, please do enlighten me.

As far as I know, I may pass a company directive that we'll only buy stuff from companies run by homosexual mormons born on friday the 13th; and that will be just as legal as those companies that have declared that they will only buy stuff from local companies. I may create an investment fund, stating that it will only invest in companies with Christian (or Islamic) values and it will be just as legal as creating an investment fund, stating that it will not deal with companies allegedly involved in bribery.

If someone was dumb enough to say exactly that, they should be sued for outright stupidity and perhaps for discrimination. I suspect that in practice, "those companies have not been the right fit for our investment philosophy" is as close as you'd get, and that's hardly actionable, even if you strongly suspect that their thesis is as offensive as "we invest in white people".

Excellent point. I doubt very much they would ever get sued - they are too smart for that, but it doesn't mean that what they are doing there is right. Could someone be so kind as to tell me how many people over 50 have been admitted to Y-combinator? How many people over 40?

That doesn't matter. What matters is how many qualified people over 30, 40, 50, 60 have applied to Y Combinator, and then how many have been accepted, vs. how many qualified applied/accepted 0-18, 18-22, 22-25, 25-30.

I think the group who actually get discriminated against, if otherwise just as qualified, are 0-18. That's who I would discriminate against, based on US laws, contracts, etc.

We know from public YC companies that the majority are in their 20s, but there are a lot in their 30s, and several examples in 40+. What we don't know is 1) how many applied in each age group and 2) were they of differing quality other than age.

I'd be inclined to suspect YC gets a lot of the best 20-something entrepreneurs to apply, but doesn't yet get a large percentage of the qualified 35+ year old entrepreneurs to apply. I think that's for three main reasons:

1) a perception that YC is youth-focused

2) diversity of resources and other diversity for older entrepreneurs (IMO, a 25 year old who just did a $50mm exit from his second company has a lot more in common with a 45 year old who has done the same, than either have with a 22yo who has done nothing but college or a 45yo who has worked for the local government in IT his whole life)

3) people get trapped into mortgage/family/etc. and aren't willing to take 3 months off and move to the Bay Area to do YC, even if they think they're willing to do a startup (3 months in the bay area is far from the greatest hardship you'll face...)

Maybe a controversial thing to say, but I doubt illegal in the same way it's not illegal to decide you won't let people of a certain ethnicity into your home.