http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Kapor The fact that Michael Arrington, snot-nosed latter-day startup wag, is attempting to discredit Mitch Kapor, one of the guys who made San Jose "Silicon Valley", says a lot. Almost as much as the fact that Arrington decided not to quote the paragraph in full: "Being meritocratic is a really worthy aspiration, but will require active mitigation of individual and organizational bias. The operation of hidden bias in our cognitive apparatus is a well-documented phenomenon in neuroscience. We may think we are acting rationally and objectively, but our brains deceive us." What Kapor is talking about is the fact that our bias isn't always evident to ourselves and that we have to be aware of it. Is he saying "Michael Arrington is a racist?" No, he's not: * * * A recent study, The Tilted Playing Field, indicates there are practices in recruiting, promotion, and retention within the IT sector which are problematic for women and under-represented people of color, and reduce their participation. Specific experiences of exclusion, bullying, difficulty balancing work/family are reported at much higher rates by underrepresented groups -- i.e African Americans, Latina/o/s, and women of all backgrounds. Another vicious cycle at play. "If I’m not going to be valued or respected, then I’m outta here." Meanwhile, Caucasian and Asian male engineers and managers report that their companies spend the right amount of time on diversity. Silicon Valley likes to think it operates as a pure meritocracy, e.g., it's the best teams and ideas which get funded. In practice, as luminaries from John Doerr to Ron Conway acknowledge, key decisions are often guided by a combination of pattern-matching based on superficial characteristics and the network of people you already know. More on this here and here. http://mkapor.posterous.com/ * * * Michael Arrington founded TechCrunch. Mitch Kapor founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Mozilla, UUNet and, oh, yes, spreadsheets. And he's married to this lady: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freada_Kapor_Klein I had some sympathy for Michael Arrington for a couple days - no mean feat. But now he just needs to STFU.