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Silicon Valley VCs and the Gender Gap

Posted by Soulskill on from the bake-me-a-pie dept.

fysdt writes with this excerpt from TechCrunch: "An analysis of Dunn and Bradstreet data shows that of the 237,843 firms founded in 2004, only 19% had women as primary owners. And only 3% of tech firms and 1% of high-tech firms (as in Silicon Valley) were founded by women. Look at the executive teams of any of the Valley's tech firms — minus a couple of exceptions like Padmasree Warrior of Cisco — you won't find any women CTOs. Look at the management teams of companies like Apple — not even one woman. It's the same with the VC firms — male dominated. You'll find some CFOs and HR heads, but women VCs are a rare commodity in venture capital. And with the recent venture bloodbath, the proportion of women in the VC numbers is declining further. It's no coincidence that only one of the 84 VCs on the 2009 TheFunded list of top VCs was a woman. ... Additionally, it is harder for women to obtain funding than for men. ... historically, women-led companies have received less than 9% of venture capital investments; in 2007, the proportion of funded female CEOs dropped to 3%."

3 of 375 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Testosterone by FooAtWFU · · Score: 3, Informative
    Testosterone has been noted for its role in motivating for achievement and risk-taking, particular with regards to Finance. I understand the effects are supposed to be complex, though, as with all hormones, and there are women who have high levels of it as well, so... well, just use caution before generalizing, kthx.

    Google sez: testosterone+finance

    --
    The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
  2. Re:America is already screwed up by RCL · · Score: 5, Informative

    Women do compete between themselves more than men do. Men are able to organize large and hierarchical structures (e.g. military, church etc) while women usually prefer horizontal relations exactly because they are less willing to subordinate.

    Women are just not that keen on taking risks, they prefer long-term stability - that is probably why they are not numerous in risky businesses like being a VC. And I do agree, that's natural: males are nature's way to experiment while female's role is to pick the most successful one among them and reproduce his genes. Somehow it is akin to VC's role in business, though.

    --
    Coding etudes
  3. Re:Time for.... by russotto · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is an awful lot of bitterness towards women on this site. Where it comes from, I don't know; but it is present across the tech sector.

    Stereotypical interaction between proto-slashdotter and female of similar age in junior high and/or high school

    PS: "Hi."
    FSA: "Eww, get away from me, you little creep."

    Understand now?