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As a counter-argument to this much discussed post on why white males dominate the tech blogging world, white male tech blogger Jason Calacanis took to Twitter today in using his own successful experience — and pretty much only that — to prove that such racism doesn't exist. Ignoring all the financial and institutional barriers that non-white writers might encounter — like the benefits of an unpaid internship and networking — Calacanis invoked the great Silicon Valley meritocracy myth, suggesting that anyone, regardless of race or socioeconomic background, can make it as a tech writer if they work hard enough. Why? Because that's how he made it. As Calacanis explained in a series of tweets that erupted into a conversation with other tech personalities including the author of the original post (Storified below via Buzzfeed), it only took a "simple" formula for him to transform from a lowly newsletter writer to the successful founder of Weblogs, which he later sold to AOL for $25-$30 million. Calacanis, now a 42-year-old Silicon Valley entrepreneur, said you just need 3,000 hours or so of blogging and you'll be fine:

1. start a blog, 2. Write daily for 2-3 hours for 1,000 days 3. Do that for 1 topic & you break in. -- it is that "simple" #hardwork — jason (@Jason) February 5, 2013

Calacanis went on to explain how he broke into the tech world as an "outsider" and how black and latino writers can do the same. He put in "10K" hours and "worked as a waiter to keep myself fed and wrote on nights and weekends" in order to write his popular dot-com era newsletter Silicon Alley Reporter, which led to Weblogs, where the formerly influential Engadget was the mothership. Much like the libertarian individualism that Silicon Valley (claims) to live by, Calacanis suggested that the tech world rewards hard work. Which, of course, coming from a white man, doesn't mean much for the plight of minorities.

Using such a singular experience as a successful white man to prove a point about a trend with black and latino writers is problematic, to say the least. But it's also upsetting that Calacanis's thesis reflects the general attitude of Silicon Valley, which fancies itself a true meritocracy, as this tweet exemplifies:

. @jengallardo @jbouie I can tell you the tech industry & tech media space are both largely post-race. Pure meritocracy... Page views rule. — jason (@Jason) February 5, 2013

Update 5:51 p.m.: Calacanis reiterates this point in a full blog post here, which starts with Kanye West lyrics followed by "I'm a white guy so I’m not allowed to talk about race." Further down he then states "the tech and tech media world are meritocracies.