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If the fact that the applicant population is slanted towards a particular gender means (or is caused by the fact) that it is harder for the other gender in that

If the fact that the applicant population is slanted towards a particular gender means (or is caused by the fact) that it is harder for the other gender in that field, then the smaller population will in fact be better on average than the larger, because it will have taken them more motivation, determination, work and ability to win over others just to get them to where they are. At least, this seems like the most likely explanation for the fact that individuals in the much smaller group of female startup founders outperform the male startup founders that has been reported in a number of places. e.g. > For growing start-ups, those with female founders almost universally outperformed their male-only counterparts. The fastest-growing companies at 200%+ growth, are 75% more likely to have a female founder. https://www.tinypulse.com/startup-culture-report https://www.tinypulse.com/startup-culture-report > Once again assuming a normal distribution with neither men nor women over or underrepresented in skill level This is probably wrong, and if your hiring practices assume it in a scenario where it is harder for one gender to even make it to the applicant stage then they are unfairly discriminatory.

imron 9y ago
> means that it is harder for the other gender in that field, then the smaller population will in fact be better on average than the larger, because it will have taken them more motivation, determination, work and ability to win over others just to get them to where they are. Do you have any studies or statistics to back you up or is this just what you believe? Also, how does it account for males that come from a poor/under-privileged backgrounds that also requires them to have more motivation, determination, work and ability to win over others and get where they are? > The fastest-growing companies at 200%+ growth, are 75% more likely to have a female founder. Revenue growth is meaningless without any sort of revenue numbers to compare it against - compare growing revenues from $5,000/year to $15,000/year (200% growth) with growing from $10,000,000 to $20,000,000 (100% growth). As a corollary to your point though, how many women founders are there in unicorns? Unfortunately not that many: http://swaay.com/todays-unicorn-companies-where-are-the-women/ http://swaay.com/todays-unicorn-companies-where-are-the-wome... Would such companies be more or less successful with female founders, I don't know, but I suspect gender doesn't really play much of a role, in much the same way I suspect that gender of founders doesn't play much of a role in revenue growth. > This is probably wrong, So you think that there is difference in ability based on gender?
- kybernetikos 9y ago
  > Do you have any studies or statistics to back you up or is this just what you believe? I wasn't clear enough. There are some situations where smaller subgroups are overrepresented at the top of the field compared to their starting position, startups being one. This is something that can be observed as an empirical fact. The reason for it is perhaps a matter for debate as working out reasons is harder to study and I don't know of any that do in this case, but the most likely seeming reason to me is what I said - that in a field where the predominate culture has a preference, those who don't meet that preference will have to be better just to pass the bar for entry. Here's a similar article on female CEO performance: http://fortune.com/2015/03/03/women-led-companies-perform-three-times-better-than-the-sp-500/ http://fortune.com/2015/03/03/women-led-companies-perform-th... guessing at the same underlying reason as I did. > As a corollary to your point though, how many women founders are there in unicorns? I actually don't know, since it's difficult to find stats and there is a relatively small population of unicorns (meaning that any conclusion would have to be caveated), but I know of these unicorns with women on their founding teams: Ant Financial, Alibaba, GrabTaxi, Houzz, SunRun, Gilt Groupe, renaissance learning, lynda.com, cloudflare, kabam, 23andMe, fanduel, nextdoor, medallia, eventbrite, and there are a few unicorns that were spun out of other companies with women taking a lead role in that process. FirstRound.com has an interesting article: > companies with a female founder performed 63% better than our investments with all-male founding teams. And, if you look at First Round's top 10 investments of all time based on value created for investors, three of those teams have at least one female founder — far outpacing the percentage of female tech founders in general. http://10years.firstround.com/#one http://10years.firstround.com/#one > So you think that there is difference in ability based on gender? I didn't mean to make any statement on that topic. I was trying to say that if you assume that your applicants (not the population in general) have ability normally distributed regardless of gender, then you're probably wrong.

imron 9y ago

> means that it is harder for the other gender in that field, then the smaller population will in fact be better on average than the larger, because it will have taken them more motivation, determination, work and ability to win over others just to get them to where they are. Do you have any studies or statistics to back you up or is this just what you believe? Also, how does it account for males that come from a poor/under-privileged backgrounds that also requires them to have more motivation, determination, work and ability to win over others and get where they are? > The fastest-growing companies at 200%+ growth, are 75% more likely to have a female founder. Revenue growth is meaningless without any sort of revenue numbers to compare it against - compare growing revenues from $5,000/year to $15,000/year (200% growth) with growing from $10,000,000 to $20,000,000 (100% growth). As a corollary to your point though, how many women founders are there in unicorns? Unfortunately not that many: http://swaay.com/todays-unicorn-companies-where-are-the-women/ http://swaay.com/todays-unicorn-companies-where-are-the-wome... Would such companies be more or less successful with female founders, I don't know, but I suspect gender doesn't really play much of a role, in much the same way I suspect that gender of founders doesn't play much of a role in revenue growth. > This is probably wrong, So you think that there is difference in ability based on gender?

kybernetikos 9y ago
> Do you have any studies or statistics to back you up or is this just what you believe? I wasn't clear enough. There are some situations where smaller subgroups are overrepresented at the top of the field compared to their starting position, startups being one. This is something that can be observed as an empirical fact. The reason for it is perhaps a matter for debate as working out reasons is harder to study and I don't know of any that do in this case, but the most likely seeming reason to me is what I said - that in a field where the predominate culture has a preference, those who don't meet that preference will have to be better just to pass the bar for entry. Here's a similar article on female CEO performance: http://fortune.com/2015/03/03/women-led-companies-perform-three-times-better-than-the-sp-500/ http://fortune.com/2015/03/03/women-led-companies-perform-th... guessing at the same underlying reason as I did. > As a corollary to your point though, how many women founders are there in unicorns? I actually don't know, since it's difficult to find stats and there is a relatively small population of unicorns (meaning that any conclusion would have to be caveated), but I know of these unicorns with women on their founding teams: Ant Financial, Alibaba, GrabTaxi, Houzz, SunRun, Gilt Groupe, renaissance learning, lynda.com, cloudflare, kabam, 23andMe, fanduel, nextdoor, medallia, eventbrite, and there are a few unicorns that were spun out of other companies with women taking a lead role in that process. FirstRound.com has an interesting article: > companies with a female founder performed 63% better than our investments with all-male founding teams. And, if you look at First Round's top 10 investments of all time based on value created for investors, three of those teams have at least one female founder — far outpacing the percentage of female tech founders in general. http://10years.firstround.com/#one http://10years.firstround.com/#one > So you think that there is difference in ability based on gender? I didn't mean to make any statement on that topic. I was trying to say that if you assume that your applicants (not the population in general) have ability normally distributed regardless of gender, then you're probably wrong.