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The essential DEI training for startups, delivered over text.
Course Authors
Ellen Pao
After 20 years as an entrepreneur and investor, I now run Project Include, a non-profit that uses data-based, practical solutions and recommendations to bring fairness to tech. At Reddit, I was the first major social platform CEO to ban revenge porn, unauthorized nude photos, and cross-platform harassment.
Tracy CHou
I'm a software engineer, diversity advocate, and now founder and CEO of Block Party, building solutions for online harassment. I was previously an engineer with Pinterest, Quora, and the US Digital Service, and I'm most well known for my work getting tech companies to release their diversity data.
Camilla Guo
I'm head of Product at Arist (YC S20), and love to build technology that makes space for conversations. I'm currently a rising junior at Pomona College studying Computer Science and Art.
About the Curriculum
True diversity means stronger teams, better financial returns, inclusive products, and a more innovative world. By targeting startup founders and founding teams, we can accelerate meaningful, enduring diversity and inclusion in the tech industry.
With that in mind, this course is practical and aimed very specifically at instructing startup teams (and specifically their leaders) on how they can start prioritizing DEI sooner rather than later.
| Day | Topic | Preview |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Let's start with our stories. | 👩🏻Hi, I'm Ellen. In 2012 I sued my then employer and VC Kleiner Perkins for gender discrimination. In 2015 I lost that court battle, and it remains a landmark trial because these cases are usually "settled" out of court. In 2015, 👩🏻💻Tracy wrote a Medium article that held companies accountable for real diversity numbers. At the time, every company had some way of hiding or muddling the data on women actually in engineering roles.🎙️Along this timeline, diversity became a beat in tech.... |
| 2 | What does success look like? | 💡You may think, "But I'm not racist or sexist, so there really isn't any more work for me to do." This is the result of using D&I to feel good about yourself, instead of... |
| 3 | "It's hard to measure at this stage." | ⏪Yesterday we talked about success in diversity being a continuum of improvement, not a checkbox. However, be wary of using this as an excuse to not have real, measurable goals... |
| 4 | "No women that I know have had this experience" | 🧪 Having a small headcount != a dearth of diversity data. Experiment first with questions, before jumping to solutions. After discovering the fact that only 1 out of every 8 founders in YC is a woman, don't... |
| 5 | "It's a pipeline problem" | 🙅🏽Not being top of the funnel doesn't absolve you of responsibility, right? Sales doesn't get to clock out early when Marketing does a poor job... |
| 6 | Who do you want to 10x if you succeed? | 🧢Look at your cap table. One of the points we have been making since day 1 is that you can only manage what you measure... |
| 7 | What does it mean to be a problem solver? | ♻️Iterate. Iterate. Iterate. If you're not embarrassed by your first attempt, you tried too late. Sound familiar? All of these nuggets of wisdom apply to your... |
| 8 | Business vs. Moral incentives | 🎭Should you incentivize DEI efforts on your team with fear about the negative repercussions of not having any DEI training, or are there actual business advantages that are compelling? ... |
| 9 | Recap before 5 days of actions | 🔒 No Preview Available 🔒 |
| 10 | Start building your network | 🔒 No Preview Available 🔒 |
| 11 | Write a Code of Conduct | 🔒 No Preview Available 🔒 |
| 12 | Follow these POC leaders on Social Media | 🔒 No Preview Available 🔒 |
| 13 | Transparency = Intellectual Honesty | 🔒 No Preview Available 🔒 |
| 14 | What's next? | 🔒 No Preview Available 🔒 |
Why text message?
Arist is the first text-message learning platform. We aim to become the #1 tool for all mission-critical training. We know this is possible because text-message courses are cost-effective, accessible, and effective.
Online learning was broken even before COVID-19. The data has shown that MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses) simply cannot democratize learning:
Text messages are frictionless. You are probably carrying a phone on you right now if you aren't reading this on one.
We believe that text message is the future of learning. In fact, it's already happening right now. Every day, people are spreading and consuming information on their phone in short, digestible bites of information. Think about every infographic and thread you've read on Instagram and Twitter. People love to use their phone to learn.
So we made it our mission to deliver high quality content straight to your pocket. We know the medium works, but a lot of the content you consume on your phone is misinformation, disinformation, or simply hard to remember. We created a learning model that helps you retain and reinforce everything you learn.
And it's working. Text-message courses are being used for everything from Anti-racism 101 to training Sudanese journalists on how to cover COVID to Disaster Preparedness in California (just text LISTSOSCA to 72345). The results are in:
Questions?
Pricing
We firmly believe that DEI education requires a budget and cannot be free or unpaid labor. We work hard to make the pricing accessible with the commitment of a founder to distribute it among their entire team.
| License | Price per enrollment | Discount |
|---|---|---|
| Individual | $39 | Full Price |
| Team | $19 | 50% |
Thanks for investing in DEI education.