Sounds like you, your friend, and their YC founder friends were actually hurting women by spreading untrue rumors that underplayed the true importance of these women in YC.
And yet there is no sense of remorse or apology for that.
Where is the indignation now towards yourself and them? Or is that only reserved for people who are actually doing something in the world?
It's not my place to ask, but if I were Jessica I would probably appreciate an apology. She said you made her so angry that it was difficult to remain calm. If you make someone that angry in real life based on your own mistake, wouldn't you normally apologize for it?
But my greater point was that there is generally too much criticism and indignation that are substituting for listening and understanding. Put yourself in the place of PG and YC in having unjustified criticism like you posted directed at them. And maybe take that to heart before you throw stones.
"Yes, I absolutely am sorry and saddened to have made JL upset. Again, it's been my understanding that while the female partners are great and I'm sure sit in on important decisions, they are primarily YC's accountant and lawyer. If that's not their main role at YC, I and others are mistaken. For the record, I think JL is /great/ and YC would do itself a lot of good to hire other women like her."
I can confirm that you and others with this understanding are indeed mistaken.
Based on my extensive experience with all of them, I would shuffle your words around a bit and suggest a more accurate characterization is:
YC's female partners are great and make and participate in important decisions. Though it is not their main role at YC, two of them have chief responsibility for YC's own finance/accounting/legal needs.
In hiring Kirsty and Carolynn, YC did hire other women like Jessica, at least on the "great-ness" scale.
And I wholeheartedly agree that YC would do itself a lot of good to hire other women like all three of them. Just as it would do itself a lot of good to hire other men like pg, pb, Robert, Trevor, Kevin, Aaron, Geoff and Garry.
If you are genuinely taking requests, I'd personally ask you to ask your friend to query their YC contacts on these subjects:
1) whether they can actually describe in some detail what JL / KN / CL do at YC (hint: they're easily seen to be quite active, so one might wonder what's keeeping them so busy)
2) whether they ever bothered to arrange office hours with any of them to see whether they could be helpful (YC partners' schedules are oversubscribed so you can't expect them to come to you to offer help)
3) whether they ever drafted a contract or financing document during their early stages without consulting KN or CL (and if so, why they chose to make important decisions without the advice of experts who are strongly incentivized to help them free of charge)
4) whether their company survived long enough to need advice on financing, contracts, or founder issues such as a departing founder or bringing on a late-stage founder
I think that would help to clarify how justified the initial claims were.
And yet there is no sense of remorse or apology for that.
Where is the indignation now towards yourself and them? Or is that only reserved for people who are actually doing something in the world?