7 ms·

I 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

by xiphias 11y ago

I 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 ago
A 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 ago
  It's perfectly fine to disagree, but the courtesy of a counterargument would be appreciated.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  At 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 ago
    I 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.
    - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
      A man cannot have a child by himself, he requires someone to be a surrogate mother, which is expensive, rare, and in many cases legally and ethically grey. A single woman can (due to certain medical procedures where the needed biological material is already in stock), and while a pregnancy is not cheap, there are no where near the significant legal and moral issues. Of course either could adopt a child if they really wanted to. So really we need to determine are we comparing extremes to extremes, or are we comparing what actually happens in the population (and at what point do we disagree and thus need to begin supporting our ideas).
      - CalRobert 11y ago
        I see what you mean. I misinterpreted your original comment, thanks for clarifying.
- RyanZAG 11y ago
  Would I invest in a startup with the founder about to have a baby? No. Either they will be dedicating a big part of their life in the near future to raising that baby correctly, or they will be ignoring that baby and leaving someone else to raise it. I find the second outcome even worse than the first, but I'm not going to invest in either. Now a man might be able to deceive me by simply not disclosing this while a woman is going to have a very difficult time. But I wouldn't say this is unfair: the man is simply easier able to pass off his awfulness than the woman. It's like saying a woman is more likely to be able to shoplift and get away with it than a man and this is unfair. I don't know if that is true, but if it is, it's certainly not 'unfair'.
  - CalRobert 11y ago
    A parent has to deeply consider whether they will be able to dedicate sufficient attention to their child and their company. Some may determine they can't, some that they can with reasonable accommodation, and some will decide to give either the child or the company short shrift. The woman, by virtue of being visibly pregnant, will have to suffer the potential investor guessing which of the three she is, while the man will not. The investor doesn't know what that person's family dynamic is. Similarly, lots of people make incorrect assumptions about what a physically disabled person will be able to accomplish, and the person with the disability suffers their bias. I think it's up to the person with the disability, or the parent, to judge whether founding a company is appropriate. Of course, that doesn't mean you have to fund them. After all, it's your money. All I'm saying is that there are a lot of preconceived notions we have about parenting based on very deep-seated cultural norms and biases which may not always be accurate.
  - rayiner 11y ago
    How much time does it take to "raise a baby correctly?" Parenting is heavily driven by cargo culting, old wives' tales, and conventional wisdom; but very little by actual data.
    - __abc 11y ago
      A metric major fuck ton. If you truly want to be present and have an active role in your child's life, growth, development et al it's going to force your priorities to shuffle around. If your "startup" is still a priority (but not above your child) you aren't going to be in the office from sun up to sun down. Period. You'll have to make up those hours later (when the child is sleeping) however, in months 0-24, that's really tough as most children (at least not mine) didn't sleep well during that phase. During those years, and for me it spanned 5 calendar years given multiple children, working late at night was a luxury, not an option I could plan on. I however, disclosed that when taking a CTO position at a company that just wrapped up a ~$20 dollar round. It was transparent to them and set the right expectations. I do acknowledge that a company in that stage albeit not out of the woods, is not in the same position in the seed, Series-A phase. If you look in my comment history I gave a "day in the life of" for my schedule on how I manage running a startup and keeping my family, health, self priority #1, #2, and #3. It's buried in there somewhere.
- x0x0 11y ago
  Bluntly, I assume a woman will be far more involved in childcare than a man. This is backed up by the fact that it's often true, and is a reasonable prior. A male ceo -- and I've worked for several of these -- can / often does have a housewife, and is able to dump virtually all childcare off onto her. Crucially including getting up all night to breastfeed. Women often don't have that and/or don't want that. Not to mention pregnancy can cause severe medical complications (physical injury, post partum depression, etc). I've also seen several ambitious women in my personal life have a baby then decide to transition to a more relaxed career track to focus on the child / have more children. If I were working for any ceo who decided to have a baby, but particularly a woman, I'd want to know about his or her commitment to the business that I'm investing my time, life, and money into. Being a ceo is generally not a 9-5 M-F job, so explaining how you're going to juggle that with the demands of childcare, breastfeeding should you chose to do so, business travel, business needs, etc is fair game when my personal financial results are entangled with the business outcome. If you're planning on doing what Marissa did and installing a nanny next to your office, great. If you're planning on taking 4 months off for your personal project, I'm going to re-evaluate my dedication to the business if the ceo isn't more dedicated than me. NB: I currently work for a female ceo; she and her partner have an au pair but he has damaged his career to provide more childcare than her.
  - ksenzee 11y ago
    > Bluntly, I assume a woman will be far more involved in childcare than a man. That's a fair assumption across an entire population, but I doubt it applies very well to the population of women looking for funding. They're going to be a lot more likely than the average woman to prioritize business over childcare, and a lot more likely to have a stay-at-home spouse.
    - Diamons 11y ago
      A child needs all the nurturing it can get. Choosing to start a company and raise funding while a human being needs you more than it ever will is selfish as well as morally and ethically wrong.
jlukanta 11y ago
They could if they have live-in relatives helping out, such as the grandparents of the baby.
jesstaa 11y ago
Expecting anyone to do 15hrs of useful work for a startup in a day is just foolish. There is lots of data to show that most of that 15hrs is just going to be a damaging waste of time. I would never invest in someone that naive.

by xiphias 11y ago

CalRobert 11y ago

A 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 ago
It's perfectly fine to disagree, but the courtesy of a counterargument would be appreciated.
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
At 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 ago
  I 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.
  - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
    A man cannot have a child by himself, he requires someone to be a surrogate mother, which is expensive, rare, and in many cases legally and ethically grey. A single woman can (due to certain medical procedures where the needed biological material is already in stock), and while a pregnancy is not cheap, there are no where near the significant legal and moral issues. Of course either could adopt a child if they really wanted to. So really we need to determine are we comparing extremes to extremes, or are we comparing what actually happens in the population (and at what point do we disagree and thus need to begin supporting our ideas).
    - CalRobert 11y ago
      I see what you mean. I misinterpreted your original comment, thanks for clarifying.
RyanZAG 11y ago
Would I invest in a startup with the founder about to have a baby? No. Either they will be dedicating a big part of their life in the near future to raising that baby correctly, or they will be ignoring that baby and leaving someone else to raise it. I find the second outcome even worse than the first, but I'm not going to invest in either. Now a man might be able to deceive me by simply not disclosing this while a woman is going to have a very difficult time. But I wouldn't say this is unfair: the man is simply easier able to pass off his awfulness than the woman. It's like saying a woman is more likely to be able to shoplift and get away with it than a man and this is unfair. I don't know if that is true, but if it is, it's certainly not 'unfair'.
- CalRobert 11y ago
  A parent has to deeply consider whether they will be able to dedicate sufficient attention to their child and their company. Some may determine they can't, some that they can with reasonable accommodation, and some will decide to give either the child or the company short shrift. The woman, by virtue of being visibly pregnant, will have to suffer the potential investor guessing which of the three she is, while the man will not. The investor doesn't know what that person's family dynamic is. Similarly, lots of people make incorrect assumptions about what a physically disabled person will be able to accomplish, and the person with the disability suffers their bias. I think it's up to the person with the disability, or the parent, to judge whether founding a company is appropriate. Of course, that doesn't mean you have to fund them. After all, it's your money. All I'm saying is that there are a lot of preconceived notions we have about parenting based on very deep-seated cultural norms and biases which may not always be accurate.
- rayiner 11y ago
  How much time does it take to "raise a baby correctly?" Parenting is heavily driven by cargo culting, old wives' tales, and conventional wisdom; but very little by actual data.
  - __abc 11y ago
    A metric major fuck ton. If you truly want to be present and have an active role in your child's life, growth, development et al it's going to force your priorities to shuffle around. If your "startup" is still a priority (but not above your child) you aren't going to be in the office from sun up to sun down. Period. You'll have to make up those hours later (when the child is sleeping) however, in months 0-24, that's really tough as most children (at least not mine) didn't sleep well during that phase. During those years, and for me it spanned 5 calendar years given multiple children, working late at night was a luxury, not an option I could plan on. I however, disclosed that when taking a CTO position at a company that just wrapped up a ~$20 dollar round. It was transparent to them and set the right expectations. I do acknowledge that a company in that stage albeit not out of the woods, is not in the same position in the seed, Series-A phase. If you look in my comment history I gave a "day in the life of" for my schedule on how I manage running a startup and keeping my family, health, self priority #1, #2, and #3. It's buried in there somewhere.
x0x0 11y ago
Bluntly, I assume a woman will be far more involved in childcare than a man. This is backed up by the fact that it's often true, and is a reasonable prior. A male ceo -- and I've worked for several of these -- can / often does have a housewife, and is able to dump virtually all childcare off onto her. Crucially including getting up all night to breastfeed. Women often don't have that and/or don't want that. Not to mention pregnancy can cause severe medical complications (physical injury, post partum depression, etc). I've also seen several ambitious women in my personal life have a baby then decide to transition to a more relaxed career track to focus on the child / have more children. If I were working for any ceo who decided to have a baby, but particularly a woman, I'd want to know about his or her commitment to the business that I'm investing my time, life, and money into. Being a ceo is generally not a 9-5 M-F job, so explaining how you're going to juggle that with the demands of childcare, breastfeeding should you chose to do so, business travel, business needs, etc is fair game when my personal financial results are entangled with the business outcome. If you're planning on doing what Marissa did and installing a nanny next to your office, great. If you're planning on taking 4 months off for your personal project, I'm going to re-evaluate my dedication to the business if the ceo isn't more dedicated than me. NB: I currently work for a female ceo; she and her partner have an au pair but he has damaged his career to provide more childcare than her.
- ksenzee 11y ago
  > Bluntly, I assume a woman will be far more involved in childcare than a man. That's a fair assumption across an entire population, but I doubt it applies very well to the population of women looking for funding. They're going to be a lot more likely than the average woman to prioritize business over childcare, and a lot more likely to have a stay-at-home spouse.
  - Diamons 11y ago
    A child needs all the nurturing it can get. Choosing to start a company and raise funding while a human being needs you more than it ever will is selfish as well as morally and ethically wrong.

jlukanta 11y ago

They could if they have live-in relatives helping out, such as the grandparents of the baby.

jesstaa 11y ago

Expecting anyone to do 15hrs of useful work for a startup in a day is just foolish. There is lots of data to show that most of that 15hrs is just going to be a damaging waste of time. I would never invest in someone that naive.