Silicon Valley VCs and the Gender Gap

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%."

Re:Testosterone

[FooAtWFU]

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 [google.com]

Re:Testosterone

[Anonymous Coward]

The Economist carried an article to that effect recently: "Hormones, not sexism, explain why fewer women than men work in banks" [economist.com]

Also, one should take note of the following considerations about how different variance in willingness to take risks can explain the effect and why we should start to also look at the bottom of the society. [fsu.edu]

Re:America is already screwed up

[RCL]

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.

Re:I RTFA(bstract)

[baronben]

Okay. I'm a geographer too, and I like that article, so I brought it up. If you want a more rigorous study, check out Coleman and Robb 2008 (http://ssrn.com/abstract=1260980). Right now it's just a working paper, but I think it's been accepted for publication. It's based off the Kauffman Firm Survey, which is a longitudinal survey of 4,928 entrepreneurs. It's get a crazy amount of data on all of them, like over 1,000 questions. It's an amazing resource, and even better, most of the data is publicly available! Check it out at Kauffman.org/kfs. This study shows fairly conclusively that women have a much harder time getting capital, even after controlling for individual and personal characteristics.

Re:Time for....

[russotto]

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?

Re:America is already screwed up

[Anonymous Coward]

did you ever go to highschool? there's no added stress involved with *not* trying out for the cheeleading squad. in fact, if any given girl is not already in that particular clique there is more stress involved in trying out than not. i've never understood the things people think are 'hard'. like ignoring sports. i did the same, focusing on sciencey things and guitar. you know why? i sucked at sports. still do, and i do realize this is a feedback loop, but the loop started with sucking at sports. can you imagine the crap i would have gotten if i had gone to try out for the football team? wontonly displaying my atheltic suckage openly? trust me, it was easier for you to choose the path you did than to try to fit in with the stereo types.