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Author here. First off, I didn't use the phrase "white privilege" in the article at all. Privilege is a combination of factors. In my case some of those come from being White. Some come from being male. Some from being an American. Others from parents and grandparents on my side of the family and my wife's working hard so that they could have something to hand down to their children.

Secondly, I think one way to look at success is as the product of two factors: privilege and work/ability. I'm intelligent and I worked incredibly hard on my startup, but that is only one half of the equation. If I had multiplied those things by a privilege value approaching zero, there is a good chance my success would have also been close to zero.

I had a moderately high level of privilege. Many people have significantly more than I do. Many people (including White people) have significantly less. The specific point I was trying to make in the article is that if I had been given less privilege, I do not believe I would have been as successful as I was. And without any privilege, I am fairly certain I would not have been successful at all.

Yes! As the author of this article I was completely thrown off when a handful of people responded to with comments about guilt. I don't feel guilty at all for the privilege I have received, and I really tried hard to not come off as guilty-feeling in the tone of the article.

It is unfortunate that so many people jump immediately to feelings of guilt when considering privilege. A better response would be thankfulness for blessings received that you did not deserve and that not everyone gets. No matter your position in life, there are people who have been given more than you and less than you. I think the only useful response to understanding this reality is to feel thankful for what you have been given and to work to help others who received less.

Author here. I’ve only had a handful of negative reactions to this article, but pretty much all of them have been from white men. I guess I should have expected that. There is a current of guilt that many feel when contemplating privilege. It makes them uncomfortable and they’d rather lash out or argue it away than deal with it. If you find yourself feeling offended reading the article, here is some context:

1. Please don't read this as an attempt to speak for all White people. Or all men. No one can do that. We all have unique stories that trace their roots back through history. If I don't know you personally there is a good chance I don’t know anything about your story either. I don't presume to speak for anyone but myself.

2. I am in no way trying to say that my privilege comes purely from being White or that all White people have the same privilege as me. Many aspects of my personal privilege have nothing to do with my skin color. I absolutely benefit from the hard work and smart decisions of people in my family that came before me.

3. It is hard to argue that statistically a disproportionate number of non-White people get the short end of the stick when it comes to generational wealth and privilege in America, but again, everyone’s story is unique. There are plenty of people who are born with way more privilege than me. Not all of them are White.

4. I think guilt is the wrong response to privilege. Gratefulness is a much better response. Privilege is something given to you, that you did not deserve, and that not everyone gets. You don’t feel guilty when someone gives you a beautiful gift, you feel thankful. Maybe even loved. In an ideal world, those with privilege would have such a strong response of gratefulness that it would move them to kindness toward others. It certainly motivates me to work to make the world a better place—not out of guilt, but out of thankfulness for the undeserved blessings in my life.

I sold my company a couple years ago. Just took some time off to have a second baby and did some reflecting on the whirlwind of the past 7 years. This article is the result.

The realization that I would not have been successful without the privilege I was born into and married into was not a total shock to me - I've always been grateful for the opportunities I'm given - but something about the process of writing this really had an impact on me. Enough that I'd like to devote the rest of my career to efforts that level the playing field for potential entrepreneurs a little more. Still working out the details of what that could look like. Open to suggestions.

Then again, the number of users on the Internet has grown every year, so even if a browser just held its % market share steady, that would mean an increase in quantity of users.

Yeah - I'll go ahead and address this here since a couple people said something similar above. I suppose I could have prefaced the post with a note on the "gut feel" nature of my arguments. I spent a month or so evaluating the platforms, interviewing developers who were proponents of one or the other, talking to friends and colleagues who had strong opinions, reading lots of other blogs, and diving into tutorials and documentation for both frameworks. In the end, I formed my own opinions shaped by the people I talked to, the things I read, and my own experiences. In the post, I'm not even attempting to provide concrete data - and most of my points are about things that you'd have a hard time measuring anyway, like philosophy and culture.

I'm not trying to stand on a soap box one way or the other here. Maybe a less combative post title could have helped tone down the commentary. The reason I wrote the post was that I had found myself explaining my decision to a handful of people and I thought maybe more folks could benefit from the "research" (intentionally in quotes to designate that is was not "real" research) that I did while getting ready to make the decision.

If you want to fire arrows back and forth at each other, feel free. I'll probably not get too involved though since I don't always find those discussions productive.

- Jason (author of the original post)

Hi there - this is Jason - the guy who wrote the original post. I just found this forum with comments via a Google search. Actually, the only place I posted a link was on a moderated Django Google group. The linking and commentary came as a surprise to me - I wasn't really sure anyone would read it! Not sure who posted it to Hacker News.

My bad Jason. Your article struck a sour note with me that day for some reason.