4 ms·

It sounds like you want the venture capitalist/investor to go to the female founders. This isn't how it works. VC have so many people pitching ideas and compa

It sounds like you want the venture capitalist/investor to go to the female founders. This isn't how it works. VC have so many people pitching ideas and companies to them every day. they don't need to go looking for more. It's extremely competitive for everyone and I think what they are saying is that they don't have many female founders coming to them and pitching. This actually makes sense because the number of Female founders is much lower than male founders and only a small percentage of each will take the time and effort to pitch their idea to the VC. You may think you were being funny with your eye-rolling pictures randomly selected from TV/movies, but it does nothing to actually help your cause and your

drdeca 10y ago
It looks like you didn't finish that last sentence.
neom 10y ago
As a male NYC founder, I know many, many, many, many female and people of colour entrepreneurs here in Manhattan. They are busy being founders, building their companies, CEO'ing, maybe attending pitch events here and there that are important to them and their business. However, they are busy. If diversity is something that an event organizer truly feels is important and are not just doing it so they don't get thrown under the bus, they are going to have to put some effort into making sure those people know about the event and are applying. Effort is not saying "Oh I wish we had more women" at the end. Taking action affirmatively to seek out groups of woman founders and telling them you're looking to include other perspectives in your pitch, that you want to create safer environments for everyone, that you want to show positive role models, whatever the reason it's not simply enough to hope people come or ask people to ask their business friends, you have to work on it if you want to change it, much like everything. Finally, it's not particularly safe for women in Manhattan, or women in technology here in the US, so I wouldn't be surprised if there is a component of fear involved.
new299 10y ago
But if you read the article, in this specific case, the event organizer was going looking for female founders... but seemed to totally ignore the ones that were standing right in front of him and ignored the easily accessible resources at his disposal.
- chinese_dan 10y ago
  They ignored the one from the article, which I think is the main point of contention. Now, the other part of this is the companies the female founders were pitching. Venture capitalists will only want to go that extra step if they think the idea is worth the investment and can make a quick ROI. Since there aren't as many women there in the first place (we don't have exact numbers, but the article), and the ones that are there have to have an idea worthy of a pitch, my point still stands. Getting a pitch is mostly about having a good business idea and not about race or gender. I keep reading that women are paid 70 cents to the dollar to men. If this were actually true, why wouldn't the venture capitalists be fighting each other to get cheap labor? After reading the article again, I'm also a little shocked that the author is trying to make a point about being excluded while at the same time pointing to an entire list of groups that are exclusive to a specific gender or sexual preference. Shouldn't we be fighting for equality instead of creating more exclusive groups? Why do you expect this behavior of others if you can't behave that way yourself?
  - matt4077 10y ago
    Oh wow, this reads like the index of a book on sexism in the 90ies... > I keep reading that women are paid 70 cents to the dollar to men. If this were actually true, why wouldn't the venture capitalists be fighting each other to get cheap labor? This doesn't even make sense, since founders are not employed by VCs. But regarding the talking point you're repackaging, the idea is that people actually value women less then men so they wouldn't recognize the bargain they're getting. But the topic is much broader including, for example, jobs traditionally reserved for women to have lower wages across the board, even when the requirements are the same. An example I seem to remember is nurses vs. <some technical job I forgot>: both require comparable education, but nurses are paid 30% less per hour. > After reading the article again, I'm also a little shocked that the author is trying to make a point about being excluded while at the same time pointing to an entire list of groups that are exclusive to a specific gender or sexual preference. That's answered elsewhere in the thread, but basically the thinking is it's ok because (a) women may need these events so as to avoid being "grabbed by the pussy" and (b) it's a false equivalence because these groups don't create injustice but try to make up for existing injustice. See also every argument about affirmative action ever. > Since there aren't as many women there in the first place [..] getting a pitch is mostly about having a good business idea and not about race or gender. This seems to be making the point that it's not statistically significant if of four chosen founders, none are women because the number of women in the population of founders is equally low. Let's say only a quarter of founders are women that gives about a 30% of an all-men panel of four (0.75^4). That's not significant based on the standard p-value cutoff, but I'm almost sure this isn't the author's first event and she may have gone into it with a certain `prior`.

drdeca 10y ago

It looks like you didn't finish that last sentence.

neom 10y ago

As a male NYC founder, I know many, many, many, many female and people of colour entrepreneurs here in Manhattan. They are busy being founders, building their companies, CEO'ing, maybe attending pitch events here and there that are important to them and their business. However, they are busy. If diversity is something that an event organizer truly feels is important and are not just doing it so they don't get thrown under the bus, they are going to have to put some effort into making sure those people know about the event and are applying. Effort is not saying "Oh I wish we had more women" at the end. Taking action affirmatively to seek out groups of woman founders and telling them you're looking to include other perspectives in your pitch, that you want to create safer environments for everyone, that you want to show positive role models, whatever the reason it's not simply enough to hope people come or ask people to ask their business friends, you have to work on it if you want to change it, much like everything. Finally, it's not particularly safe for women in Manhattan, or women in technology here in the US, so I wouldn't be surprised if there is a component of fear involved.

new299 10y ago

But if you read the article, in this specific case, the event organizer was going looking for female founders... but seemed to totally ignore the ones that were standing right in front of him and ignored the easily accessible resources at his disposal.

chinese_dan 10y ago
They ignored the one from the article, which I think is the main point of contention. Now, the other part of this is the companies the female founders were pitching. Venture capitalists will only want to go that extra step if they think the idea is worth the investment and can make a quick ROI. Since there aren't as many women there in the first place (we don't have exact numbers, but the article), and the ones that are there have to have an idea worthy of a pitch, my point still stands. Getting a pitch is mostly about having a good business idea and not about race or gender. I keep reading that women are paid 70 cents to the dollar to men. If this were actually true, why wouldn't the venture capitalists be fighting each other to get cheap labor? After reading the article again, I'm also a little shocked that the author is trying to make a point about being excluded while at the same time pointing to an entire list of groups that are exclusive to a specific gender or sexual preference. Shouldn't we be fighting for equality instead of creating more exclusive groups? Why do you expect this behavior of others if you can't behave that way yourself?
- matt4077 10y ago
  Oh wow, this reads like the index of a book on sexism in the 90ies... > I keep reading that women are paid 70 cents to the dollar to men. If this were actually true, why wouldn't the venture capitalists be fighting each other to get cheap labor? This doesn't even make sense, since founders are not employed by VCs. But regarding the talking point you're repackaging, the idea is that people actually value women less then men so they wouldn't recognize the bargain they're getting. But the topic is much broader including, for example, jobs traditionally reserved for women to have lower wages across the board, even when the requirements are the same. An example I seem to remember is nurses vs. <some technical job I forgot>: both require comparable education, but nurses are paid 30% less per hour. > After reading the article again, I'm also a little shocked that the author is trying to make a point about being excluded while at the same time pointing to an entire list of groups that are exclusive to a specific gender or sexual preference. That's answered elsewhere in the thread, but basically the thinking is it's ok because (a) women may need these events so as to avoid being "grabbed by the pussy" and (b) it's a false equivalence because these groups don't create injustice but try to make up for existing injustice. See also every argument about affirmative action ever. > Since there aren't as many women there in the first place [..] getting a pitch is mostly about having a good business idea and not about race or gender. This seems to be making the point that it's not statistically significant if of four chosen founders, none are women because the number of women in the population of founders is equally low. Let's say only a quarter of founders are women that gives about a 30% of an all-men panel of four (0.75^4). That's not significant based on the standard p-value cutoff, but I'm almost sure this isn't the author's first event and she may have gone into it with a certain `prior`.