Why not just narrow it down to communication barriers? It has really nothing specifically to do with accents. Two people with the same heavy accents may perfectly understand the other - or maybe not at all. That still comes down to issue with communication. How about making the statement that 3 year olds are terrible CEOs - they're terrible at conveying a story, and I'm not even sure they're speaking English when they make sounds!
Spoken language is an strong indicator of education and class. I'm guessing that native english speakers with poor communication were hardly ever accepted to YC, while non-native english speakers with good educations were. That would explain pg's data, at any rate.
"Communication skills is an strong indicator of education and class." is probably what you meant to say - though I'd disagree, and say it's more experienced based. You last sentence suggests that the non-native English speakers were accepted only because they had good educations, though again I'd imagine that someone could have a strong accent - and still be highly educated.
> "Communication skills is an strong indicator of
> education and class." is probably what you meant to
> say...
No, actually, I said exactly what I meant to say: The accent you speak with is a social (class) marker. I refer you to Oscar Wilde's Pygmalion [1] for a humorous introduction to the concept. Those with "low class" accents are often presumed to be uneducated, whether they're brilliant or not.
> You last sentence suggests that the non-native
> English speakers were accepted only because they had
> good educations, though again I'd imagine that someone
> could have a strong accent - and still be highly
> educated.
Not quite... I'm suggesting that despite their strong accent (and their difficulty in making themselves understood), their other credentials, education included, gained them acceptance to YC, whereas the native speakers with "low class" accents weren't accepted in the first place. Hence the data makes it look like this is about strong foreign accents when in fact it's just about poor english communication skills. (The non-native speakers may be William bloody [2] Shakespeare in their native language.) Again, this is just my hypothesis about why pg's data looks like it does. Feel free to make up your own.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_(play)
[2] For the humourless pedants: This is a joke. I know
that Shakespeare's middle name was't "bloody."
I agree, I was about to post this same sentiment. There are people who speak perfectly good English but they are simply bad at communicating, the net effect is the same, they are unable to lead because people cannot understand their ideas.
