The effect of markets on discrimination is nuanced
The market-based defense makes so little sense in a market like the startup world. If you&#x27;re evaluated on product and technical performance, maybe (although there are still enough ways for human bias to creep in). But startups are, by definition, not valued for their existing technical &#x2F; business performance, but on the collective perception of future performance, informed by the knowledge that people (VCs, customers, potential employees, etc.) have of previous startups and how successful they were. If these people are doing their job <i>correctly</i>, there&#x27;s at least some bias present (e.g. all other things being equal, you should invest in the Harvard dropout with an idea for a NoSQL database but no code, over the Juilliard dropout with an idea for a NoSQL database but no code).<p>So naturally, if all the examples you have of successful startups involve people with characteristic X, and you have no data about people without characteristic X, the rational thing to do as a VC or potential early employee looking for startups, or a founder or hiring manager looking for employees, is to look for people with characteristic X. Let someone else do the research; it&#x27;s not up to you to invest your money or time on figuring out if people without characteristic X can also be successful.<p>And this is <i>stable</i>, regardless of what characteristic X is. Once the market is biased in favor of such people, for whatever reason -- including the &quot;actual&quot; racism or sexism that we think we&#x27;re past, but is sufficiently within living memory to have affected the market -- as long as the market is generally doing well (as startups are), it is more risk to figure out if characteristic X has any rhyme or reason behind it than to just assume it does. And especially given the high personal investment made by founders and early employees, adding even more unknowns is not super compelling.<p>The Greenspan anecdote is interesting because he knew -- not empirically, but <i>fundamentally</i> -- that women were capable of doing work as good as men, and he was willing to risk his company on that.