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Wednesday Google hosted a special edition of their annual "Demo Day" event featuring 11 early-stage startup companies founded by women from eight different countries. More than 450 women from 40 different counties applied for a spot, and the winner of the competition was Bridgit, a fast-growing Canadian company which provides a mobile communications platform for construction teams. Online voters also awarded the "Game Changer" title to KiChing, a startup that's actively addressing Mexico's unique e-commerce challenges. But all of the startups at Wednesday's event were already actively raising series-A funding, and "We aim to help connect them to mentors, access to capital, and shine a spotlight on their efforts," said Mary Grove, the director of Google for Entrepreneurs, addressing the Demo Day audience in San Francisco.
(Score: 3, Troll) by The Archon V2.0 on Monday December 14 2015, @07:45PM
So I skimmed through the video... and watched one of the advertised women founders hand the mic off to a male co-founder as soon as questions were to be answered. So, yeah.
Just a nice little show to keep Google off the radar of bored college students with too small a courseload and too large a trust fund.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @08:08PM
Let me see if I understand your point: The companies participating in this event are not 100% female employees so it is actually a sham.
Where was this 100% female requirement stated?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 14 2015, @08:24PM
I think that what Archon was saying, is that at least one of those female entrepreneurs was a bubble headed piece of fluff, a showpiece, a trophy. He may or may not have meant to imply that more were bubble heads, but he most certainly seems to have implied that at least one of them was there for adornment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @08:36PM
Correct. A founder with business expertise rather than technical expertise is just a trophy and has no practical value in launching a startup.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 14 2015, @08:47PM
A founder who can't talk fluently in his own company's jargon is a showpiece. Male or female. And, yes, I've met those creatures in male form before. The dipshit's parents had money, so he went to a good school where he partied for 4 to 8 years, and after graduation Daddy set the putz up in business. And the stupid shit couldn't get anything right. The prick is an embarrassment to be associated with.
But, you go ahead and pretend that the woman who owns the company has some real purpose in being there, aside from having a pretty face when she goes soliciting funds.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @08:51PM
> A founder who can't talk fluently in his own company's jargon is a showpiece.
It is revealing that you've moved the question from who has the best expertise to address technical questions to being able to speak jargon. Can't win on merits of your argument, so you change the argument.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 14 2015, @09:37PM
Let's say that I'm an entrepreneur, and I go into the oil business. I can't tell you what a rig looks like, I can't tell you what grade of oil comes out of my well, I can't tell you anything about refining the oil, I can't tell you how I get my oil to market, I can't tell you the price of my oil at the market. I know diddly shit about oil. But, I'm a smooth talker, and I've talked a couple hundred (or thousand) people out of investment money. I approach you, to ask you for investment money, and I can't answer any questions about my business, aside from smooth reassurances that I plan to make money.
Are you going to give me money?
Now, try to follow this statement:
If I can't answer any questions about my product, the process by which I create my product, the market that I'm selling to, are you going to trust me with thousands, or millions of dollars? Are you going to invest your life savings in a showpiece? The bubbleheaded piece of fluff?
If so, you're a fool, and you'll soon be parted from your money.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @09:58PM
> Let's say that I'm an entrepreneur,
Except you aren't. You don't have half a clue as to what's actually needed in real life versus your own contrived fantasies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @11:29PM
Back in 1984 I was in my freshman year at a small college. One of the guys on the floor was a pretty unlikable guy. Didn't seem to do much but sit in his room and smoke. A good chunk of the way through first semester he's pulling about a 1.something GPA. We asked him what would happen if he flunks out and he says "My dad will buy me a company." That still floors me to this day. He didn't make it to sophomore year and I always hoped that his dad had more sense than to buy him a company until he showed any kind of aptitude first.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @11:50PM
> If I can't answer any questions about my product, the process by which I create my product,
> the market that I'm selling to, are you going to trust me with thousands, or millions of dollars
Yet again you move the goalposts.
Two founders on stage, one of them spends significantly more time making a presentation and from that you conclude that they have no actual knowledge about their own business. You assume:
Instead, you go straight to an assumption of incompetence because that's what you want be true - it confirms all of your most primal beliefs as proven by your use of terms of like "bubblehead" and "trophy." So much easier to assume the worst about people whom you don't know and have never been in their place before.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 15 2015, @02:18AM
What is it with you and goal posts? Did you run into them a lot when you were a kid? Are you related to Charlie Brown?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 15 2015, @02:26AM
Hey everybody, lookee here! Yet again runaway resorts to empty insults.
That's how you say, "I was totally wrong, you were right but I don't have the strength of character to own my mistakes" in runaway-speak.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 15 2015, @02:33AM
Empty insults? How so? You're our favorite stalker, following me from conversation to conversation. Always whining about moving goal posts. I can only presume that you have had intimate relationships with goal posts, and frequently.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 15 2015, @04:41AM
> stalker
You were the one who responded to my post. Narcissistic dumbass.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 15 2015, @05:56AM
Look who's got butthurt and starts calling names.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 15 2015, @06:35AM
Which argument did runaway make that I ignored?
(Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Monday December 14 2015, @09:40PM
Basically, yeah. I certainly could be wrong - a short presentation (and my tendency to skip around because corporate pitches don't interest me) is nothing much to go on. But to lay my implication bare: A short look at the video was enough to make suspicious that Google chose these groups because a woman was on the letterhead of the application and would subsequently be standing on their stage, not because the women had any tangible vision or leadership traits. If they were genuinely interested in drumming up capital for women leaders, wouldn't they have at least made sure the woman was doing the leading?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 15 2015, @06:47AM
We've been wishing Jews a "Merry Christmas" for about 2000 years. They don't shoot, bomb, or behead us in response.
Well that's just [timesofisrael.com] false. [christianpost.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 15 2015, @03:16PM
"Police arrested three Jewish suspects believed involved in the attack, some of whom were implicated in previous attacks on Christian sites in Israel."
Unlike Islam, Israel doesn't approve of burning Christian churches. The criminals involved were arrested, and presumably will be punished. Something to think about, huh?
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday December 14 2015, @08:49PM
The idea is that the one answering questions, i.e., the one who actually has any idea what's going on, is still male. Certainly there's nothing wrong with having a female "founder" step up to give a prepared speech, right?
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @09:33PM
> So I skimmed through the video... and watched one of the advertised women founders
> hand the mic off to a male co-founder as soon as questions were to be answered
Oh you did now, did you?
Well, I just skimmed the video and here's what I saw:
Presentation #1 Q&A @49:30
- woman answers all questions, man just stands next to her
Presentation #2 Q&A @57:50
- woman answers 2 questions
- man answers 2 questions
Presentation #3 Q&A @1:10:00
- no man on stage
Presentation #4 Q&A @1:13:00
- no man on stage
Presentation #5 Q&A @1:30:30
- no man on stage
Presentation #6 Q&A @1:38:00
- no man on stage
Presentation #7 Q&A @1:45:00
- no man on stage
Presentation #8 Q&A @1:53:00
- no man on stage
Presentation #9 Q&A @2:01:00
- man answers all questions, woman chimes in on one
Presentation #10 Q&A @2:09:20
- woman answers 1 question
- man answers 4 questions, woman chimes in on two
Presentation #11 Q&A @2:20:00
- no man on stage
- no real questions
So, based on exactly zero cases where the woman has no participation in the Q&A you conclude this was a "nice little show."
You only saw what you wanted to see.
It's always disappointing when someone lives down to a stereotype.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 15 2015, @03:57AM
The saddest thing is that in attempting to dismiss the validity of this event, Archon used the exact kind of sexist stereotyping that caused people to do a woman-focused event in the first place.
His 100% contrafactual post, the up-mods (without even a single down-mod or even a disagree so far) along with the enthusiastic support of posters like darkfeline and runaway1956 should be enough to convince even the most die-hard self-styled empiricist that sexism is endemic in our community. But what is certain to happen again (because it has happened so many times before) is that instead of turning that critical gaze inwards, he and his buddies will just do it all over again the next time soylent runs a story that makes them feel small. It will simultaneously comfort them and show everybody else that they are the problem they deny even exists.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 15 2015, @03:43PM
Someone accuses Google of poorly vetting their attendees and not actually caring about women entrepreneurs and just trying to appease college-age brats.
You accuse that person of sexism.
Which side of this is the MRAs? I'm having a hard time figuring it out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 15 2015, @04:44PM
Someone accuses Google of poorly vetting their attendees and not actually caring about women entrepreneurs and just trying to appease college-age brats.
He literally said that the women there had no "tangible vision or leadership traits." That's the way bigotry works - apply a negative stereotype in order to rationalize prejudicial beliefs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 15 2015, @04:18AM
Wouldn't the GP be talking about presentation 9?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 15 2015, @04:51AM
You mean the one where the woman responded to one of the questions too?
Ok, let's be charitable and give that one to him and see where it takes us. Lets be even more charitable and assume that it really was a case of hypocritical sexist manipulation rather than cooperation between partners - an assumption that wouldn't even occur to anyone if they were both the same gender.
What meaning can you draw from that 1 case versus the other 8 where women did 100% of the talking and the 2 where they still did 100% of the presentation and 30-50% of the Q&A? Is there some sort of "one drop" rule where because a single example doesn't conform to archon's arbitrary and one-sided standard that makes the entire event a sham?
Would that really be an intellectually honest conclusion? No. Of course not.