I disagree with your pov. I'm putting aside the trap this journalist sprung and focusing on your contention that going after certain people in not representative.
You seem to be totally ignoring how humans inherently work on a social level.
Why do people move to the bay? To be part of the community. And if that community is racist, it presents extra barriers. Not that I think it is in any way.
There are people who hold the keys to success or failure in terms of funding as you mentioned, but there are people, like the Mikes, pg, Steve Blank, Fred Wilson, Eric Reis, Joel Spolsky, etc. who hold an enormous influence over the community just from what they write. There are also many face-to-face communities in the bay area that are equally influential. There are also key schools where a lot of startups seem to emanate from in the US, so by extension those schools are also influential.
You can't pretend these 'power' centres don't exist in the startup world and if you were to try and identify why this demographic anomaly exists, who would you ask?
Them.
The reason it's the same in business is because generally business owners end up networking with other business owners, like startups network with other startups, because they want feedback/help/discussion from their peers.
That's what a community is and that's why politicians and reporters will go talk to these people, precisely because they know what they're talking about. In fact it is/was Mike Arrington's job to tap into the thoughts/hopes/fears of the startup community.
You seem to be totally ignoring how humans inherently work on a social level.
Why do people move to the bay? To be part of the community. And if that community is racist, it presents extra barriers. Not that I think it is in any way.
There are people who hold the keys to success or failure in terms of funding as you mentioned, but there are people, like the Mikes, pg, Steve Blank, Fred Wilson, Eric Reis, Joel Spolsky, etc. who hold an enormous influence over the community just from what they write. There are also many face-to-face communities in the bay area that are equally influential. There are also key schools where a lot of startups seem to emanate from in the US, so by extension those schools are also influential.
You can't pretend these 'power' centres don't exist in the startup world and if you were to try and identify why this demographic anomaly exists, who would you ask?
Them.
The reason it's the same in business is because generally business owners end up networking with other business owners, like startups network with other startups, because they want feedback/help/discussion from their peers.
That's what a community is and that's why politicians and reporters will go talk to these people, precisely because they know what they're talking about. In fact it is/was Mike Arrington's job to tap into the thoughts/hopes/fears of the startup community.