Changing Culture in Venture for Women

It has been known for many years now that startups that are founded by women return more than those by men. As Amy Millman writes: "As the Financial Times reports, for every dollar given by investors, women-led start-ups generated 78 cents compared to 31 cents at companies founded by men. The study concluded that firms should be placing more of their funding in the hands of women, who “consistently under promise, and over deliver.”

Nothing has changed as a result of this knowledge. There's a systemic bias against female entrepreneurs, difficult to uproot, and though there are many women joining the venture industry -- like myself-- they are often subject to the same biases--or unspoken pressure from their (usually male) LPs. We have to figure out how to change this, and it is changing culture, which is difficult. See this diagram of "pace layers" by Stewart Brand which shows the speed at which different aspects of our world change. 

We know how hard it is to change infrastructure and governance, it is much more difficult to change culture, and the change is slow. It is embedded, it has existed for many decades, and it operates within a larger patriarchal culture in the tech industry in particular, and the larger society in general.

We should be studying culture change to change the prospects of women in the innovation economy. Something tells me this won't happen from within. We've seen a flurry of hires by longstanding venture fund of their first female partners, but my sense is that will do little to change the culture in those firms. We have to build new firms, new institutions, new forms of funding to get this off the ground. The Zebra movement shows promise, and there are other initiatives like Indie.vc and B-Corp business models that also support women-led businesses.