Here's Who Gets VC Money: White People In Their Late 30s en-us Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 -0500 Thu, 25 Dec 2014 01:04:10 -0500 Nick Saint Orlando Roebuck Wed, 04 Aug 2010 14:40:37 -0400 Curtis, To your point, Tristan Walker graduated from Stanford and lives in Palo Alto, therefore, he was not burdened with the hurdles of an "outsider". So, even though he is a minority, he was still privileged to begin with. The only African-american founding "outsider" I am familiar with who has reached a liquidity event with a start-up is Clarence Wooten: Additionally, I agree with your assessment of why African-american founders cannot "go for it", and I can speak from experience regarding the condescending attitude exhibited by many VC's toward minorities. My suggestion would be, if you're only looking for 25K and haven't already, try applying to one of the seed investment incubators like Y-Combinator: or LaunchBox Digital: They will provide you with funding and VC introductions. And/or try New York's funding market first. A move to DC, Boston or New York/New Jersey would be much less expensive at this critical stage of the company, and Silicon Valley will always be there. Nick Saint Wed, 04 Aug 2010 08:22:10 -0400 Pretty sure Sarcasm Joe was being sarcastic. Who is talking about racism? Curtis Smith Tue, 03 Aug 2010 21:50:14 -0400 Will do. Thanks. praetor Tue, 03 Aug 2010 18:06:27 -0400 Hi Curtis, As you are moving to San Francisco, if you'd probably like to swop experiences with a fellow black tech entrepreneur, then send a tweet to @prettylittleceo and I'm sure she'll be able to give you some advice in regards to raising funding for your startup. Good Luck! Curtis Smith Tue, 03 Aug 2010 13:40:06 -0400 I'm about to move from Cleveland (may as well since LeBron left) and head to LA and maybe San Francisco depending on how the quest for angel funding goes in either city. At any rate as the founder of, a mobile and social network marketing platform, I know it will be a bit of a struggle. I think I’ll eventually find a great angel out there somewhere, but I’m told VCs are a rather dismissive condescending bunch to women and minorities. That’s to be expected since I’m pretty sure the majority consist of white males over the age of 55. From my experience (I’m 45 and have had a number of jobs in tech and management) many in this group simply have systemic issues. God help them. Anyway I remember someone asking Chris Dixon why he thought there aren’t more black founders. His reply was, “that’s a good question, I don’t know.” That was a truly disappointing response from someone I follow and respect. Chris is smart enough to know precisely why. Its largely cultural. The startup community is like a reverse high school where the geeks rule. If you’re not in the right nerdy clique you won’t get key introductions to investors. My biggest challenge is going to be meeting the right people as an outsider from another city. Much easier to do if you look like everybody else and enjoy the same activities, music, and wear Birkenstocks. The other reason is that many black founders are not in a position to “go for it.” Our families don’t have a ton of money and uncle Johnny the real estate guy can’t write a 25K check to get things going. After engineering school, we need to start earning, not living on cat food at a startup. My engineering degree is from Howard University who produces some of the best black engineers in the nation. Pardon the bias. Every year during company recruiting, Microsoft, Ford, Texas Instrument, Motorola etc. swooped into town and picked the best and brightest to work in corporate America. That’s just how it is. I’ve had to work for 20 years just be able to afford to try a startup. What I love seeing is talented young guys like Tristan Walker, VP Biz Dev at Foursquare. There is hope. I’m sure he’ll start his own deal one day if Foursquare creates its own PayPal mafia. beentheredonethat Tue, 03 Aug 2010 13:06:44 -0400 Because it's a slippery one to refute. Simplest is to just play it back on them. Tell the liberal to give up his job, and his money, to the "oppressed". pinkobane Tue, 03 Aug 2010 12:46:43 -0400 Dangit, and the Japanese have free translators, and the Latinos do not. -OG Why does anyone care about this? Is the government going to dig into this and start mandating that there be a quote on VC monies. God I need to move to Mexico or something. AdGuy Tue, 03 Aug 2010 12:26:54 -0400 Oh the poor bitter middle aged white man. He just cant get a break...oppressed and misunderstood, he just wallows in his own pity and of course blames the President... Its all a conspiracy by the colored people to take away his country! Please people, if your life sucks its because you suck not because your skin is white, brown, yellow or black. Who cares who you think you are, its what you do that matters. 1termpresident Tue, 03 Aug 2010 12:07:11 -0400 Why is racism the only argument the liberals use? Sarcasm Joe Tue, 03 Aug 2010 12:01:55 -0400 Wait...this can't be right... I thought that diversity, affirmative action and the election of President Obama gave people of color a leg up in this post-racial world of ours. These are shocking statistics.