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Can you fundraise in Silicon Valley while pregnant?
- drpp 11y agoI wrote an article about how my co-founder is pregnant and raising funding for our company, Sourcery. Investors are hesitant to bring up the issue in conversation for fear of coming off as an insensitive brute who questions a women's commitment to her company, but this is an important issue to address upfront. I try to lay out how we are preparing for this moment together.
- joshAg 11y agoDo you bring up the pregnancy when you meet with investors? I wonder if that would help or hurt compared to not mentioning it at all.
- drpp 11y agoSome have tried to hide this, and there are links to such accounts. But, "Na’ama is direct. She’s not the kind of person to pretend about anything. In the third trimester, her condition is nearly impossible to hide anyway. And yet surprisingly, most investors have scrupulously avoided discussing the fact."
- joshAg 11y agoI read that, but I can't tell if you meant that she's direct about it but waits until/if the investors bring it up, or if she brings it up with every investor, like Ms. Miller's adviser suggested.
- web007 11y agoThey may have avoided any mention for legal reasons. Pregnancy is one of the protected classes. If they talk about it and then don't give you funding, there are potential repercussions, just as if they discussed religion, race, etc.
- Alex3917 11y ago> Pregnancy is one of the protected classes. AFAIK protected classes don't apply to investors.
- xiphias 11y agoI thought that money raising is for people who put all their effort into making a fast-growing company and need money to make the growth even faster. It's about choosing not having a life in return for the possibility for creating a big company. I have no problem with that person being a male or female. But I can't imagine any person (mom or dad) being able to put 15 hours a day to a company with the baby after the baby is born. That's the first thing the article should deal with.
- CalRobert 11y agoA man can conceal the fact of his expecting a child soon. A woman, usually, is unable to do so. Both will be affected by the child, but the investor may be more likely to favour the man, which is unfair.
- CalRobert 11y agoIt's perfectly fine to disagree, but the courtesy of a counterargument would be appreciated.
- Lawtonfogle 11y agoAt the same time, a single man has less options for having a baby than a single woman, thus there is still inequality in the risk.
- CalRobert 11y agoI don't quite follow - you're saying it's easier for a woman to have a child than a man? From a purely biological perspective this seems backwards to me. A desirable man could conceivably produce many children over the course of nine months, while a woman can have only one pregnancy. Edit - I do recognize that in many species (humans included) females are more likely to reproduce than males. Given that the sorts of males who found companies are probably relatively high-status individuals, though, I would suggest that the likelihood of either being able to reproduce is pretty decent, and relates to choice rather than mate availability.
- wolfgke 11y agoCan you fundraise if you openly say that you have a time-intensive hobby that you will under no circumstances give up for working on your company? Thanks to modern contraceptive methods getting pregnant is a choice. The same as doing a time-intense hobby. If you would not finance someone who openly says that he/she will not give up his/her time-intense hobby for the company, isn't this the same as not financing people who are pregnant?
- aidenn0 11y agoWhat if the father will be the primary caregiver? Plenty of people will fundraise if their spouse has a time-intensive hobby.
- cdmcmahon 11y agoSo similarly, potential investors should screen all men to make sure they and their partner aren't expecting children anytime soon? This would maybe be a defensible* position if it were applied equally, but it's not. *But actually it's not really. In today's world, with varying family types and options for care, it is possible for people to have children and give their all to a company. For many (most?) people that isn't the best option, but it is possible.
- CalRobert 11y agoNot to mention that one has to wonder what the point of all this is if we're going to deny people one of the most basic aspects of the human experience. I'm all for family planning, smaller families for the sake of the planet, etc. but c'mon, are we going to tell ambitious people they can pretty much _never_ have kids? Aren't these the sort of folks we should be hoping _do_ make copies of themselves?
- wolfgke 11y agoWho says that you have to found a company and found a family at the same time? Why can't one do that at different times (e.g. some years between) when these goals won't be in hard conflict?
- xchip 11y agoAny stress the mother suffers will be passed down to the baby... "There are some data to show that higher chronic stressors in women and poor coping skills to deal with those stressors may be associated with lower birth weight and with delivering earlier," says Ann Borders, MD, MPH, MSc. She is an OB/GYN in the obstetrics and gynecology department, Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, at Evanston Hospital, NorthShore University HealthSystem. (source http://www.webmd.com/baby/features/stress-marks http://www.webmd.com/baby/features/stress-marks)
- rayiner 11y agoWhat's the actual long-term impact on the child?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- xchip 11y agoI suggest you should do some research. I wouldn't take risks/ try any experiments though :)
- ksenzee 11y agoThat is the mother's concern. It is not remotely the concern of anyone she is doing business with.
- avoidance123 11y agoThese are societal and philosophical concerns. A child's physical development affects how they interact with society as they grow into adults. Should a pregnant woman be able to negatively affect her child's gestation because she can't wait three or six months to start a business? Additionally, should parents allow themselves to devote their attention to a startup over their children? In my opinion: Things that only affect her (abortion included) - her business. Things that negatively affect anyone else - her children included - societal, varying on impact.
- jstoiko 11y agoIf you have the "balls" to fundraise despite the fact that it shows you're pregnant, isn't that a good sign?
- mgrennan 11y agoThis is a great question. It forces the greater question: Can you "Be Dedicated" and be more than one thing. Silicon valley seems to believe: You can't be a CEO and pregnant. You can't be a lead programmer and old (> 30). You can't love both Linux and Windows. You can't be Democrat and vote for a Republican. How did we become so decided.
- NhanH 11y ago"Dedicated" as an attribute requires many other things. But in this case (and your first example), it's a matter of days having only 24 hours. And it's much different than the rest of your post
- dekhn 11y agoI've seen counter examples- plenty- for all of these- in Silicon Valley. Marissa was a pregnant CEO as was Anne Wojicicki. There are plenty more, as well. I'm > 30 and most of the lead programmers at my company are > 30 (I was a lead, then stepped down to IC role) with families. I love Linux and Windows and love both; I know other people who are happy with both OSes. And while democrats can't vote in republican primaries, they can vote in elections for members of either party.
- odinduty 11y agoThe question is not whether you can fundraise, the question is whether you are physically and mentally fit during and after the birth to run a company with the level of stress, anxiety, etc. it will mean and the huge amount of time you will have to dedicate to it.
- odinduty 11y agoIs that biologically, psychologically and technically speaking possible?
- CalRobert 11y agoYes. Evidence: Some children are raised by single fathers. It was only pretty recently that we managed to reduce the chance of death in childbirth for mothers to not-quite-terrifying levels.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y agoIs that a serious question?
- mrgoldenbrown 11y agoOf course it is. Why wouldn't it be? Plenty of single fathers out there.
- komali2 11y agoA quick google search shows, yes. Anecdotal, it's how I was raised.
- dang 11y agoPlease stop posting trollish comments to HN. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11361318 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11361318 and marked it off-topic.
- dluan 11y agoKudos to Naama! Would love to see some data eventually for interactions, to at least try to have a quantitative side to this too. Would be really interesting and could help guide other founders in a similar position.
- rsmsky1 11y agoThis is a serious question as a woman who has never been pregnant and perhaps not that knowledgable about pregnancies. Doesn't giving birth render you incapacitated for a certain period of time even if everything goes well and there's no guarantee after giving birth things will return to normal. Even in cases where one's life isn't at risk, there's a high risk of postpartum depression, etc. It seems very unfair to me that women have to deal with such things. I hope one day women won't need to have periods without taking any additional health risks and also that it will be easier for women to have surrogate baby carriers. Another serious question is wouldn't a nursery at work be disruptive if there is a lot of crying, etc. or how will it be set up so as not to bother people who are working.
- ksenzee 11y agoIt depends on the pregnancy and on the birth. Some women jump right up and get back into the swing of things. Most of us need recovery time. There is no safe assumption. Speaking of assumptions, there is no reason to assume a CEO mother would have a nursery at work. She might well have a stay-at-home spouse (I do) or a parent or nanny or any number of things.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- rsmsky1 11y agoHow long is the recovery time usually, I mean typically for the average woman? Also, I mentioned the nursery because in the post it said she would have a nursery at work.
- akud 11y agoIn my experience, people tend to seriously underestimate the amount of work a baby takes, and the strain it adds to relationships, work life, and emotional health. I certainly did. I think it's reasonable for investors to wonder if a person's commitment won't change when they have a baby. I would advise the authors that they really can't forsee what their priorities will be like when the baby comes. It sounds trite, but a baby changes your whole life. It will add an incredible amount of stress that will probably make you reevaluate your priorities. If I were an investor, I would hold off until they had the baby, and it was at least a few months old. Then both the founders could really know how committed they still were to the company. [edit: grammar]
- ergothus 11y agoPurely for the purposes of clarity: Is that you'd hold any founder expecting a baby to the same standard, male or female? (though it is normally easier to recognize a pregnant woman than someone with a pregnant partner) Or do you see the load you describe falling primarily upon women?
- akud 11y agoAny founder, male or female. I'm male, and having a baby has been a whole lot more strain then I expected. Granted, I try to take an active role in caring for the baby, so that's different than your typical male CEO maybe.
- GauntletWizard 11y agoI think it's a lot easier to tell that a female founder is about to have a baby. Most VCs would probably balk if they heard from a founder "My wife is eight months pregnant", but men have the option of not bringing that up, while it would be a challenge for a pregnant woman to hide it.
- ergothus 11y agoCompletely true, and I alluded to that in my question. I was simply trying to understand if the above poster was saying "I consider any founder about to have a child as more risky" or if the above poster was saying "I consider any WOMAN about to have a child as more risky". In the latter case it doesn't matter how easy/hard it is to determine if someone has a pregnant partner. As that poster has indicated it's the former, this difficulty of detection does become an issue: One that I have no good solution to. As it happens, I fully believe in the difficulty of raising young children, for any gender, so I think it's a legit concern, but it raises an automatic advantage to men over women even when they're otherwise in the same situation.
- ksenzee 11y agoAs someone who has personally been pregnant (several times!) let me assure you that when you see a pregnant woman, you have no idea whatsoever whether she is feeling - well - ill - overwhelmed - confident - anything else because every pregnancy is different, and every woman is different, and every family is different. You cannot safely assume anything about a pregnant woman. So her pregnancy can't help you reliably judge whether she can handle being CEO. For that matter, you can't safely assume a woman is pregnant even if it seems obvious. I knew a woman with an abdominal tumor who kept getting asked when the baby was due.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago>because every pregnancy is different, and every woman is different, and every family is different. You cannot safely assume anything about a pregnant woman. So her pregnancy can't help you reliably judge whether she can handle being CEO. Couldn't this logic be applied to almost anything about any person and thus leave one saying that nothing can reliably be used to judge whether someone can handle being a CEO?
- ksenzee 11y agoNo, I'm simply saying that pregnancy is a less reliable guide than you might assume if you have a fixed idea of what it means to be a pregnant woman.
- blablablame 11y agoMan here, wife went through hell in her pregnancy so I might be biased, but talking with other pregnant women in our lives, in general, they are happy to be pregnant, but from that, the feeling is more skewed to the complaining/problems than the I can do this mentality. More 'I want to lay in bed all day' vs 'things to do, lets hush hush hush, do things, build stuff'.
- zxcvvcxz 11y agoThe better question is: should you? It's bad from the child: stress on the mother can be transferred to the development of the child. It's bad for the investor: this founder won't be able to dedicate the requisite amount of time to the venture as another unpregnant founder would.
- NTDF9 11y agoI recently discussed this with my girlfriend. I can only conclude that there are 2 sides to the story, let's call them 2 truths: Truth 1: No individual (regardless of sex) can run a startup as a CEO if they are incapacitated somehow Truth 2: Individuals (regardless of sex) need to prioritize. NOBODY can have it all. With that in mind, women need to understand that: 1. They will be incapacitated if they get pregnant 2. They need to choose if they want to be CEO or a nurturing mother. Both cannot happen concurrently because the woman will be overwhelmed and do worse in both roles. It is also unfair on both the child and investors to give only half of yourself. So choose one. This also applies to men. A man cannot go become a CEO if he's broke and needs to feed his family. Go get a job and get rid of immediate concerns first so that you can give your best to both your family and investors.
- mentat 11y ago> A man cannot go become a CEO if he's broke and needs to feed his family Your biases are showing. But really, I'm not sure what you're saying here. People living in partnership with others can raise children AND do other things. This is not "having it all", this is working hard to make your life what you want it to be.
- NTDF9 11y ago> Your biases are showing. - As much as we want it, a man can never become pregnant. The woman will have to do the pregnancy part. - As much as we want it, a pregnant woman can never work at her optimal. The man will have to do the optimal working part. So, if the partnership desires a kid, it means pregnancy for the woman and for the man to provide stability in those times. Is this a personal bias or reality?
- jackweirdy 11y agoWhat is "Optimal Working" and why should we believe that anyone is doing it at the moment? I think you're chasing some fantasy perfection state that isn't really achievable
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- eob 11y agoI asked this question of the Boston VC community as a soon-to-be father, and the resounding advice was: "wait until the baby is at least a few months old" There are a lot of logical reasons for this that you already know, so I'll just vouch for the emotional one, which is a style of thinking that's going to become more prominent in you as soon as you hold your child. I'm really glad I waited. Unless fundraising now is life-or-death for your company, I think you'll both be really glad if you wait, too.
- mmcclure 11y ago> But just because they aren’t asking, it doesn’t mean the pregnancy isn’t foremost in their minds. It is almost worse left unaddressed. > On a call last month, a male investor finally raised the issue of pregnancy > After the call with the investor who questioned whether her pregnancy would affect her ability to close the round, Na’ama was stirred. She told me that this is the first time she felt what it is like to be a woman, rather than a person, in her interactions with investors. This feels like it might be a reason (although I'm sure there are others) that investors don't bring it up. You talk about being uncomfortable with people not bringing it up, then someone does (in a way that didn't seem inappropriate based on what you wrote, but I could be misreading), and then it makes you uncomfortable that they asked. It feels like there's really no way to win from the investor side. Na'ama sounds like she handled the question really well, which seems like a big win for her in an investor's eyes (at least the good ones). From your perspective, if she's got a great answer to the question, wouldn't you want an investor that asks you how this major, life changing event is going to affect your team? For the sake of conversation (since this is being had in other threads) let's assume that said investor would also ask a man that question if they knew his partner was about to have a child.
- chumbucket 11y agoThis thread is what it would be like if "The Vagina Monologues" were performed by an all-male cast in front of an all-male audience.
- tryitnow 11y agoReally people? Remove the fact that she's pregnant from the picture, instead focus on the fact that she's unlikely to be highly involved in the company for approximately 6 to nine months regardless of the reason. Sometimes that happens to founders. Then evaluate the investment opportunity conditioned on this. That could be fine. Or not. I may evaluate the company as simply having a temporarily inactive co-founder. That's hardly uncommon. Not ideal, but if everything else is in place (remaining team can meet or exceed expectations) then, sure I'd invest. And no, I don't expect founders to put in 15 hours days as a rule. That means you're hardly getting adequate sleep and will end up making moronic decisions. That's frankly idiotic. I don't care how much you work. Focus on the metrics that matter. Some startups require 10+ days, some don't. Some require greater time commitments in some periods and less in other periods. There's so much rigid thinking in the comments about this story. Learn to focus on the most relevant aspects of the problem. Namely, a major life event is coming up - is there a reasonable plan in place to handle it? If yes, then proceed to follow your usual path of analyzing an investment. It's funny how men get so irrational when faced with a woman's pregnancy. I would say this though. It's incumbent on the founders to initiate this discussion. Just like it's important for an employee who is expecting to take significant time off to put in a request well in advance. tldr; I don't care if you're planning to take two months off to go surfing or to have a kid. Just let me know how you plan to handle that and I'll evaluate your company on its merits.
- melindajb 11y agoThis thinking in this thread is the reason women are leaving tech in droves.
- melindajb 11y agoThis thinking in this thread is the reason women are leaving tech in droves.
- mboer 11y agoThis is a thread of generalizations heaped upon already heavily beleaguered minorities, given that most people who suffer from these generalizations are women and trans men. Here are some links, to pieces regarding people who have had kids and startups, really the only people who're qualified to comment on the subject, and you can choose to educate yourselves (or, you know, not): http://www.californiababy.com/meet-jessica.html http://www.californiababy.com/meet-jessica.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/business/nurturing-a-baby-and-a-start-up-business.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/business/nurturing-a-baby-... http://mamalode.com/story/detail/an-interview-with-michelle-vick-co-founder-of-the-baby-box-co http://mamalode.com/story/detail/an-interview-with-michelle-... http://fortune.com/2015/06/22/founder-startup-hidden-pregnancy/ http://fortune.com/2015/06/22/founder-startup-hidden-pregnan... http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/02/05/tinsel-founder-aniyia-williams-on-building-a-hardware-startup-from-scratch-while-pregnant/#gref http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/02/05/tinsel-founder-aniy... This is your bonus piece: http://madamenoire.com/599068/pregnant-woman-finishes-psych-exam-during-active-labor/ http://madamenoire.com/599068/pregnant-woman-finishes-psych-... Finally, I'm going share a story about my friend from grad school who wrote her thesis while 7-9 months pregnant, landed a tenure track faculty position in the physics department of the university where she teaches straight out of grad school, gave birth, returned to successfully defend her thesis, and she currently has 2 incredible children and a 25-person lab. Her partner is a very talented chef. So, you know, two demanding careers. I honestly don't even know what else to say, other than suggest that a better more fruitful question would be, "What can be done to help technical founders who are pregnant and/or have families?"