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Nicolas Dessaigne

Plato Circles for Inclusion - Free mentorship for people from underrepresented communities

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Plato is launching "Inclusion Circles" to give people from underrepresented groups free access to the best tech leaders. Participants join a "Circle" that meets on a regular basis to discuss leadership and/or career topics.

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Quang HOANG
Maker
Thanks for hunting us Nicolas! And thanks for being a mentor for this initiative alongside 150 other mentors! A bit about my story, 50 years ago, my parents immigrated from Vietnam to France, and 5 years ago, I immigrated from France to America. A couple of folks have been helping me, Jason M. Lemkin, Michael Seibel, and others who trusted me despite my accent, origins, lack of experience, or race. I felt welcome and they helped to launch my career in the US. I won't ever forget this. I understand that not everyone has had this experience and despite this week DACA win, there is work to be done and for underrepresented/underestimated communities in the US. Today, Plato is launching this program to offer mentorship for 2,000 people of color and people from underrepresented communities in tech for free. Some confirmed mentors: * Michael Seibel (CEO @ YCombinator) * Cathy Polinsky (CTO @ Stitch Fix) * Prashanth Chandrasekar (CEO @ Stackoverflow) * Papanii Nene Okay (Director of Architecture @ Venmo) * Rukmini Reddy (ex VPE @ Abstract) * Donal Sumbry (Head of reliability Engineering @ Airbnb) * Erica Locheimer (VP Eng @ Linkedin Learning) * Jason Lemkin (CEO @ SaaSTR) * Elias Torres (Cofounder/CTO @ Drift) * Sara Garner (Sr Software Engineer @ Stripe) * Nick Caldwell (CPO @ Looker) * Jason Shah(Director of Product @ Airbnb) * Nicolas Dessaigne (CEO @ Algolia) * Shivani Sharma (Sr EM @ Slack) * Richard Sun (Sr EM @ Facebook) * Tido Carriero (CPO @ Segment) * Will Larson (CTO @ Calm) * Eddie Kim (CTO / Cofounder @ Gusto) * Cosmin Nicolaescu (CTO @ Brex) * Pooja Brown (VPE @ Stich Fix) * Nidhi Gupta (ex CPO @ Hired) * Michael Pryor (CEO / Founder @ Trello) * Juan B (fmr GM / SVP Prod/Eng @ Braintree) * Daniel Saks (CEO @ AppDirect) * Luc Vincent (EVP Autonomous Driving @ Lyft) * Asanka Jayasuriya (CTO and SVP Eng @ Sailpoint, former SVP Eng @ InVision) * and 100 more... Feel free to ping anyone (put them in a comment of this post), in Engineering / Product, willing to join us as mentors! We want all types of mentors, Male, Female, White, Black, Brown, Asian, LGBT, no matter your race, gender, or religion, join us! Or intro me quang@platohq.com In solidarity and hopefulness for change, thanks!
Nicolas Dessaigne
Hunter
I've been following Quang and Plato since their early days and I am super impressed by how they are reacting to the tragedies we have all been witnessing. With the Circles for Inclusion they use their expertise to make a difference in the world. I'm both proud and excited to take part in it as a mentor. Black lives matter.
Jean-Baptiste Coger
Maker
@dessaigne Thanks for hunting us Nicolas! Glad to be part of this needed initiative. So grateful for your ongoing support during all those years
Melvin
This is absolutely disgusting. Outright discrimination. Even though I understand the good intentions behind it; just because someone is a male and caucasian doesn't mean he does not benefit from this. Or just because someone is black doesn't mean he/she is at the bottom of the career ladder. I know enough white males who have a really bad background and enough black females who have a great background. If we let this happen, than we let racism happen. Let this sink in: We're upvoting racism. "Plato for exclusion", as you're excluding people based on their race. Absolutely disgusting. I hope someone will sue you for this. As we cannot let this happen. I'm absolutely shocked. This is even against the law, you're literally discriminating based on race.
Jasmine Sanchez
@melvin1 Hi Melvin, it's really unfortunate that you can't seem to see the good in this. I don't mean to be "preachy" here but I couldn't help the urge to respond to your views on this really great initiative. This never once stated that all white males have it easy but let's set this straight, being white is an automatic privilege simply because of one's skin color. Being white is a privilege across many spectrum's especially in tech. Numbers do not lie so please do some research. Also, just because you do not agree with this initiative, do not call this racism. At the very least consider it prejudice (although I don't believe this is). Racism towards white people simply does not exist. Racism only works because one group has power and other groups do not. And it is white people who historically, hold the power when it comes to racial divides. It is extremely insensitive of you to think of this as racism. That is a slack in the face to Black people and the 400+ years of oppression, hate, and injustices they have dealt with.
Andrew Amedu
@melvin1 @jasmine_sanchez Thank you, Jasmine. I was about to respond to Melvin, I couldn't have said it better.
Melvin
@jasmine_sanchez @unrelearn No, I do not disagree with this iniative. It’s great to give people a chance. It’s great to give ALL people a chance. But excluding people based on their race is by definition racism. You cannot think of something as racism. It is, or it is not. It’s insane and absurd to believe you cannot be racist towards one group just because of their skin color. Racism should not exist, not against blacks, not against asians, not against arabics and not against whites. Period. And excluding one group of people based on their race and gender is absurd. There’s no other word for that than racism. We’re fighting against racism on the streets. And applaud that same thing on the internet. You’re on the wrong side of history here. But I see they've changed the message on the website from "As a white male you're not welcome". To: "We discourage participation if you're not a member of an underrepresented group". Which does no longer exclude a group based on their ethnicity. In the Netherlands we help people with a bad background as well. There are a lot of organisations that take care of people no matter their ethnicity. Every group in society has people at the top and at the bottom. As a white male, my career's going great. But my older brother (also a white male) at he same time wasn't as lucky. And an organisation recently started helping him. It's insane to think they wouldn't have given him a chance based on his gender or race. Thinking he had "white privilege". You know what that white privilege brought him? No roof above his head, a drug addiction and multiple suicide attempts. Imagine people like him, wanting to participate in this opportunity. Improving their lives. And being refused because of his skin color in the name of "against racism". There's nothing that could justify that. You shouldn't look at someones skin color, but at their actual background. As what you said: numbers don't lie.
Lloyed Lobo
This is a great initiative by the Plato team to give back to the community and support people of color. We should all be using the extra time we have to make a positive impact on the lives of others and I'm thankful to Plato for facilitating that.
Quang HOANG
Maker
@lloyedlobo Thanks for being a partner and thanks for opening up your community and all the great mentors you brought to this initiative!
Liam Boogar
I've been a huge fan of Quang since the very beginning! Love the energy that he has put into the complex, rarely formalized world of mentoring. What a great way to leverage his platform and give back to the community!
GiveMeTap
This is a great initiative and I am looking forward to seeing this develop. Congrats on this!
Gilles Poupardin
Very important work. Amazing how you put this together in such a short time. Thanks for doing this Quang, JB and team!
Jean-Baptiste Coger
Maker
@gillespoupardin Thanks a lot for you support Gilles
Julien Kernec'h
Awesome initiative!
Paul Salmon
Great initiative! The mentor community is amazing!
Evan Heim
This has the power and potential to do amazing things and I can't wait to see where it goes!
Gopi Fichadiya
This is awesone! Such a great initiative to give back to the community and support people of color!
Jasmine Sanchez
Wowww the lineup is incredible! Almost seems too good to be true haha. Excited to be joining my first session next week!
Shimon Mazor
I love this, would like to see this take off!
Don Le
LOVE this. My team an I are launching an app that focuses on mental health for underrepresented communities. Awesome to see others doing great things.
Barbra Gago
Congrats @qhoang09 & @jb_coger!
Peter N
That's cool! Goodluck! I myself have recently started an online community where we bring top machine learning and AI researchers and practitioners for live online zoom lectures, with audience from all over the world. Free high quality and personal ML education to anyone. Would love to see if there is a way to collaborate if it is relevant :)