I remember when we were young,
To the days of sweets on tongue.

Progress report.

HTML5 and CSS3 are pretty much grasped. Random tags I need to remember but that comes with daily practice. I find that just skipping a few days w/o practicing leaves me seriously handicapped. Fittingly enough I made a cat photo page. Maybe that has to do with a Garfield looking cat crawling across my laptop when ever I am trying to work... damn you Mittens! Swift 2 will have to wait. Alvin(dog) almost knocked over my Macbook the other day. It's as if these animals have conspired against me.

Been really unmotivated to code lately. Programmers tend to be introverts so they aren't exactly jumping to meet people like me(non-programmer obnoxious type). I stopped going to meet ups because they seem to be a waste of time. Everyone there is either just a spectator or doesn't even code or worse. Just as Chris Hawkes said, "It's like a circle jerk of intellectuals practicing their extensive vocabulary". There is so much talk here in Houston about founding great tech companies and yet all everyone wants to do is just talk. I don't want to sit around and talk about other peoples accomplishments. I want to build something. UGh... Where are you back-end Developer???  Justin Kan and Garry Tan (2 of my biggest SV peeps) said these meet ups are a waste of time as well. I messaged them and they said, yeah F that, stay home & practice Swift 2. I did.

Anyway, I started running again. I run at Memorial Park on the west side of Houston almost everyday. There or the Heights. Typically 3-4 miles. I'm averaging 8 minute miles. I need to be down at 6 mins and push it up to 6 miles. The goal is 45 miles a week. I'll get there. If I could describe my run it starts off at the stretching area. Of course as a minimalist I started running with just shorts. I run one lap and I am finding a rhythm. I see the same faces giving the nod when I do. Not that I am terribly competitive, but I don't like getting passed. If I'm getting passed I feel like I am slowing down and that's not where I want to be. So far I'm only passed by 2 males. One of them in his younger 20's and the other is in his 60's I'm thinking, possible pro, definitely an alpha. I might start off in the other direction because I don't want to run with sunglasses but the sun gives me a mild headache running into it. So  wont go on another fitness tangent... BUT, I noticed that on my last mile I had a surge in energy to finish really strong and that is probably due to the fact that I am getting use to running the same lap. I guess I'm not pushing as hard mid way or something. I'll have to branch out. But running on asphalt is a nogo for me. Hmm, I'll figure something out later.

Enough about my fitness goals that mean nothing to you. So I've been seriously contemplating applying to Y Combinator. I need a back-end developer though. I may know just enough of Swift 2 to finally get the beta working. Could possibly code raid it together. In either case I still need traction before I go YC with a consumer app.

This whole VR/AR things is cutting into my sleep. The barriers to entry are what I would call "way too pricey". With the licensing agreements developers are afraid to touch it with a 10 foot pole. Upon some research I found that the fine print is not so different then that of IOS. Either way the reason so many people have iphones and androids is because while they may not be cheap, they come heavily discounted with service agreements thereby creating a great platform for Developers. I don't see that happening with these wearables, some of which require expensive PCs or gaming consoles. Speaking of wearables. I may get some type of fitness tracker. I don't know if the Fit bit is for me because if I'm gonna wear a wrist strap it better at least show me the time. Wait let me check to see if there is a premium fitbit that does. ----4 minutes later-- ok so upon further review the fit bit actually seems pretty cool. The Flex and Surge model are both something I might have to check out. I wonder if there is something wrong with the bracelet mechanism, I have found at lest 3 on the ground in the past few months and I always manage to find out who they belong to and return it. Hmm, I hope they did the honest thing and disclosed that some of the walking on their stats was from a stranger(me).... And I'm talking fitness again. My bad.

Preface: I'm a nobody in the tech scene tucked far away from SV in Houston Texas, for the sake of transparency, I am Hispanic. I identify as an American working on a beta consumer app. As I am neither White nor Asian and certainly of not wealth or expert coding skills, the reader should get a sense of unbiased opinion... At least that's what I'm going for, I happen to be male... oops.

 

What if I told you that Diversity was and never will be the viral coefficient to any startup. Stay with me. It's no news that the Tech scene is mostly populated by male whites and Asians that can code. This can probably be mostly attributed to gender roles growing up. Females were likely given dolls while males took to console gaming and Legos. I'm sure we could delve even further into this and bring up the amount of men in science prior to the tech boom but lets keep this short and to the point.

I watched Evan Spiegel (Snapchat Founder) be questioned about diversity numbers within his Snapchat team during his [1] Re/Code interview with Walt Mossberg. He didn't have the numbers off the top of his head and I believe it's because it's not something that really matters to him. Now hold on I'm not attacking the Billionaire founder lets just be real here. What if I told you that his application had amassed billions of views a day without the explicit attention to Diversity numbers? Would that mean anything to you?  His main goal is probably to ensure Snapchat is stocked with Alpha type engineers, regardless of their demographic. The amount of women, men, Hispanics, Indians, etc. is completely irrelevant. Hire the most qualified candidate.

Now I can definitely see the merit in reaching out to a broader demographic, affording individuals the opportunity to gauge interest in Tech via coding outreach programs. It's really admirable. Despite there being what I would describe as an "overwhelming plethora of coding resources" available online and for free mind you, there still seems to be a skewed graph of tech participants. Why is that? Well it's going to take time. Most women in their early 20's came of age within stricter gender roles. So maybe staring into an inverted screen most of the day has less appeal to a young educated woman whom likely had colorful toy dolls pushed on her as a youth. It's going to take time as many of these demographics that are being called into tech already have their own industries that they focus on and dominate. Sports and music across all sorts of genres are almost entirely skewed.

I've come to realize that if enough White/Asian Men assemble and generate wealth that what ensues is a glaring sense of exclusion, finger pointing, and accusations at them. What comes next is a discussion of “What are you doing to diversify your team?” as if an all White/Asian tech team conspired to exclude and was caught. The real question is where is the empirical evidence to support the claim that Diversity, outside the realm of skill sets, should be the only way to form a team. Now, there certainly is nothing inherently wrong with it. I mean, organic anything is always a plus in my book, therefore, if a diverse team forms organically then hack on. So long as you know your Users in and out with a flush understanding of communication, there is opportunity regardless of the demographics. It does help if someone on your team fits the demographic and background of your target Users. However, is this the argument of most Diversity advocates, from what’s in my news feed, no. My thesis is this:

Diversity may come in handy, but there is no sufficient evidence or moral high ground to cast a stigma on efficient non-diverse teams.

There are times when I'm listening to speakers at events and there's a sense of accusation at the Tech scene. The claim I am sensing is that the Tech scene is preferential to Whites and Asians, that minorities and women are either not funded or hired simply for being just that. The public has created an atmosphere of shame to cast on nerds. When did we change our stance of marveling at their innovation, uniting in servers, and gathering under the cloud as we uploaded to it only to cast such a scorning on the nerds that made it all happen. To me, this growing trend is shameful. If I were a person embarking into a life of uncertainty, risking debt, relationships, heightened stress levels, etc., the last thing I want is to be accused of is exclusion.  Founders have enough problems, so if and when you come out on top, maybe that's cause for celebration and not sitting in at the Crunchies [2] taking scathing remarks because you happen to be a White/Asian successful founder.

"Look, guys, for thousands of years guys like us have gotten the shit kicked out of us.
But now, for the first time, we are living in an era where we can be in charge and build empires.
We could be the Vikings of our day." -Richard Hendriks in the HBO series Silicon Valley.

In closing, I want to say that even if the teams themselves are not diverse, the effects of their innovation are. Indirectly, we all have in someway benefited from the nerds. It use to be that the term "Nerd", was derogatory and used to describe socially awkward, geeky people. Hackers, as they are more frequently referred to as, have finally reached a spot in the sun and their success is in everyone's palm staring back at them. This is their time. Let them have it, no matter who they happen to be.

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