This is precisely why we conducted an experiment to remove the influence of variation in speech patterns, vocal intonation, nonverbal gestures and physical appearance. Note that the co-author on the male attractiveness in venture funding paper is a co-author on this paper, so we are well aware of these factors. I would point you in the direction of that paper as well since male not female attractiveness was found to improve funding outcomes.

That's good. (I see the article did mention "Controlling for factors that may influence funding outcomes — like measures of startups’ capital needs, quality, and age, as well as entrepreneurs’ past experience" but not the other factors.) How about height? I recall a study years ago that found that salaries for men increased by $1,000 per inch of height. CEOs tend to be tall.

It seems like the researchers missed a golden opportunity to also slice the data on objective criteria like height, age, etc., and look for other correlations.

Perhaps you should do a study to test your hypothesis?