If that was her main point, fair. But she's out there naming names and strongly implying that they didn't help her due to their racism and/or sexism. That's a pretty nasty accusation to throw at someone. And the names she named were the people who bothered to reply to her at all - they just didn't spend an adequate amount of effort on her to not be called out like this. She called out the only people who would give her the time of day! I think any VC who sees this article will know what to do from now on...
I wouldn't have responded to her because I don't think her startup is particularly interesting or likely to be profitable. It's a low-effort idea. Easy to replicate, easy to cut the middle man out of, and has been done multiple times before. "Naming names" of people who declined to waste their money on your bad idea isn't social justice, it's entitlement.
A man, woman, or rhinoceros with a stellar résumé like her husband's, who I may also know personally, considering that I was on their contact list? Maybe.
Let us please stop pretending that the glaring difference between these two people is their race or gender and not a vast gulf of experience and credibility.
It seems that what happened is they didn't so much as glance at the pitch deck when "Nerissa Zhang" sent it to them. But then did when "James Zhang" sent them the same deck.
Because if they had looked at the deck when Nerissa sent it to them, they would have recognized James and also saw his impressive resume.
So if they are publicly proclaiming that they want to invest more in underrepresented groups, I don't think only reading emails from people with names like "James" in their contact list is going to make much progress towards that.
You're right, that's exactly what they did, because many of them knew him. They were from his contact list. I respond to basically every email from people I know, even if I think it's stupid. Emails from random people have to pass a much higher bar to get a response, and low-effort ideas with fraudulent reviews aren't going to clear that bar.
I used to be a freelancer. People would constantly ask me to build "the next Google" or "Facebook for X" that would assuredly make us both billionaires. I learned not to give them the time of day. If a friend or successful colleague did the same, I would respond out of courtesy if nothing else. If I really respected them I'd even entertain the possibility that I was wrong about their idea and hear them out.
There are some very obvious innocent explanations for this situation, but you seem to want it to be an instance of bigotry. In my experience this is a mindset that cannot be argued with, so I think I'm done here. Have a good night.
I totally get your point that it's crappy for VCs to talk the talk and act like they want to help under-represented people, but then go back to business as usual. That sucks. And I completely believe that it is harder out there for woman and people of color. But I don't think that naming names based on anecdotes like this actually helps. I wish I had better ideas, but I really don't think this is it.
It sucks for the founders but that's really just the nature of being a "salesperson" in any field - constant rejection and little insight.
It breaks my heart that the first reaction by our community isn't to integrate her lived experience, but to question it. It is to question her being and (implicitly) her right to be in these spaces.
Few have asked what they can do to help. Fewer have offered to help. Instead, commentators have noted her track record. Their comments seem to approach her as if she was the sole founder. She's not. They're equal partners. Why is one given a courteous reply and the other shown the door? Is it not a good signal that she was able to find and work with a highly qualified co-founder? And build the seed of a good team? Isn't it a famous industry maxim to invest in teams?
More disappointing are the comments questioning her accomplishments based on her marriage. They're negating her lived experience and drive based on whom she married. And they're saying that perhaps she owes all of her success - including the gyms - to him. In this very forum, she has been reduced to but an extension of him. And that's heartbreaking.
There's a lot of work to be done in the industry. And I hope that this is a moment of personal growth and reflection for most involved.
There will be a day when these replies will be looked as antiquated. I look forward with hope to that day.
Her story is a bit inconsistent here. She says that she e-mailed pitch decks from her e-mail and then sent the same message from her husband's account. Of the two responses she mentions one asked for her pitch deck and the other only responded after a Linked In message. So it doesn't seem like she was sending the same message and/or she was sending messages to people that her husband had a prior relationship with.
I downloaded the app and it's nothing special. It also looks like they bought a bunch of fake 5 star reviews at the end of January. There's nothing exciting there and nothing about her background that would lead anyone to believe that she would be a successful founder. Her pitch deserves to be binned and the only reason that it wouldn't would be because of some personal connection her husband had.
I took a look and yeah it's pretty obvious this is what happened. There are 88 reviews total, and all but three of them occurred in the 7-day period between 26-Jan and 02-Feb, of which all were 5-star reviews.
It seems like this sorry if thing should be easy for Google to flag?
Everybody has a "lived experience" and we don't integrate the "lived experience" of others without scepticism because that would make us easy to con.
>It is to question her being and (implicitly) her right to be in these spaces.
I'll question her right explicitly to be in those spaces. Nothing she has made impresses me and I wouldn't give her money in the VC's shoes.
>There's a lot of work to be done in the industry. And I hope that this is a moment of personal growth and reflection for most involved. There will be a day when these replies will be looked as antiquated. I look forward with hope to that day.
Your blind belief in peoples lived experiences led you to seemingly get hoodwinked by somebody who develops mediocre products backed by seemingly fraudulent reviews. You're so caught up in your own superiority that you fail to reflect on the ideological blind spot that makes you easy to con.
Many VCs, founders, and DNI leaders have echoed that All Raise is primarily a way for VCs to improve their personal brand around women in tech. They don't make investments, don't run substantial programs, and spend much of their time/money on PR.
If these VCs were serious, they would commit X% of investments or X% of investment dollars to the groups they publicly support in panel after panel after tweet after TechCrunch interview.
What is frustrating about these investors (and YC) is that it all is very surface level. I'm sure they believe they are doing the right thing but all of their assumptions, ideas, pipelines, and teams, all are informed by those biases. And there isn't enough being done to deconstruct that. For example, what does it mean to say 'too early' to an under-represented founder? who is the comparison to? How many of your last X investments or team members came from Stanford or ex-FAANG?
Let's put in place processes, time allocations, smaller programs. And let's put all of this in place first for those raising their first rounds - the angel or the mythical pre-seed.
We can make a simple law:
If a VC has to operate in US, they must reserve X amount for the minorities.
If VCs think it's unfair and that minorities are not good investment then VCs can figure out how to "uplift" the minorities by creating much needed programs and network for them.
What's your track record?
Nobody has ever promised that money will be given for phenotype traits alone.
She is not asking for money "just because" she is a woman. She is asking for a fair chance. And we need to give folks from under-represented communities a more than fair chance to combat inherent selection bias.
It leaves them as a statistical someone with an objectively poor resume.
If you want more women founded companies, you need more women engineers. If you want more women engineers, you need more women cs majors. If you want more women cs majors, you need more women interested in and excelling at math in high school.
It may not be 'fair' that the statistical woman has a 'worse' resume, nor is it 'fair' that the statistical rich kid has a 'better' one, but its asinine to address fairness at the narrow end of the funnel.
There are a lot more meaningful and effective actions that can be implemented now, which would correct things in a shorter length of time. I do think that the 'pipeline' is the fundamental way to fix the issue -- but I think that the best way of creating that interest is to present those under-represented groups in our society now, rather than later.
Where is the evidence that she didn't get one? A fair chance is not a guarantee of funding.
It baffles me that people constantly make this low-effort "read the article" remark as if (A) it's not explicitly against the rules here, and (B) it's impossible for two people to read the same article and draw different conclusions from it.
But I digress. I can put myself in the shoes of a VC for a second and know that based on a quick glance at the app's website and app store page, I wouldn't invest in it either. It's unoriginal, unlikely to be profitable, and the reviews are suspicious at best. No need to download it to see that.
Not reading or responding isn't unfair. VCs get inundated with proposals like hers. I'm a white guy who used to do freelance work. I've sent out hundreds of personalized cold emails to businesses looking for work, and got responses to maybe 5 of them, all of which were negative or "we'll keep your information on file". Maybe my sales pitch sucks. Maybe my portfolio sucks. Or maybe they just weren't interested in what I was offering. Maybe that's the case for her, too. Where's the evidence that either of us were treated unfairly? I am not entitled to anyone's time or money and neither is she.
Have we reached the point where not responding to a cold email is an act of bigotry? I myself get inundated with messages from recruiters. I respond only to the tiny fraction that are actually interesting and relevant to my skillset. It never even occurred to me to respond or not based on the gender or race of the recruiter. Does that make me a bigot?
Interest in running a company or technology is not at issue. You have a bunch of founders in this thread with demonstrable (as in: they have founded companies) interest in doing these things, and they're having trouble getting over the line because of bias.
Perhaps the VCs they pitched to read the same paper, and jumped to the same conclusions you did. If so, that's super fucked up.
The Wikipedia article on Damore's memo lists a number of substantive criticisms[0]. For convenience, I'll list them here:
This Vox article[1] gives a brief background of Damore's argument from biological essentialism. It references the general consensus that the premise (that cultural and sociological gender roles result from innate and immutable differences in gender biology and neurology) has been discredited[2,3], as well as a Stanford research paper[4] which concludes “Through a rather constructivist approach most studies show that no scientific experiment has proved the existence of systematic and/or significant biological sex differences in most cognitive functions.”
This BBC article[5] mentions a criticism by a cognitive scientist, This Intelligencer article[6] lists numerous criticisms and rebuttals by scientists, referencing this Quora article by an evolutionary scientist[7], and another criticism from studies of gender and STEM[8].
Now, that's as many as I've been willing to list because I'm now thoroughly bored of hunting down sources, but there are many others I haven't listed if you want to do the research yourself. Now granted, wikipedia also lists a number of counter-criticisms, but that alone doesn't render the criticism invalid, it merely demonstrates the existence of a controversy.
I'm leaving this comment here for future reference, and referring to it every time I notice someone bringing up the myth that Damore's memo is based on rock-solid, unassailable science, or that no "substantive" criticisms have or can been made.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Ch...
[1]https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/8/8/16106728/google-fire...
[2]https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2016/may/...
[3]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/07/silico...
[4]http://genderedinnovations.stanford.edu/images/TR3_Stereotyp...
[5]https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-40865261
[6]https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/08/some-scientific-argu...
[7]https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-bio...
[8]https://www.vox.com/2017/8/11/16127992/google-engineer-memo-...
> He uses primarily stereotyped misconceptions about men and women to argue that “gender gaps [do not always] imply sexism,” and declares that “discriminating just to increase the representation of women in tech” is “misguided and biased” as well as “unfair, divisive, and bad for business.”
The question of stereotyping is addressed in the memo itself:
> I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes. When addressing the gap in representation in the population, we need to look at population level differences in distributions. If we can't have an honest discussion about this,then we can never truly solve the problem.
Can you point to where in Damore's memo he relies on stereotyped misconceptions? I've read it many times and I didn't see anything fitting that characterization.
Specificity would be helpful.
Where people have made scientific claims I've asked them for the source of their information. This is a reasonable question - not a "demand".
When someone replies to you citing another argument, it's reasonable to read that argument and to point out any flaws in it if you see them. That's what I did here. Was I not supposed to read it?
My argument doesn't rely on any citation other than Damore's memo itself, since it is the topic of discussion. I've already provided a link to that but here it is again for convenience: [1]
I followed the witch hunt against Damore very closely both at the time and since.
Without exception, every single critique I've read of Damore's memo is either a straw man, ad hominem, or a combination of both.
If you know of any counterexamples I'm happy to review them, but please pick the strongest argument rather than a long list[2]
[1] https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...
Hope I'm not speaking too soon, but it seems like actual liberals on the left are finally waking up to this Kafkaesque ideology they've been making excuses for [1]
[1] https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/
That's why I asked to see the track record. You won't get anywhere in this business without a track record. Moreover, if you do have a track record being a woman is an advantage these days, not a disadvantage. There are a lot of VCs chomping at the bit to invest into women- and minority-led startups. But they won't give you money if they don't have some degree of certainty that you can do what you're promising to do.
Ex-Google was a meaningful distinction 15 years ago. Today it does not remotely entitle you to being funded.
Many VCs today recognize that Google is an extremely bureaucratic place that does not resemble a startup and I know more than a few who view Google experience as a negative signal.
And that would be accurate, to a large extent. But it's also one of the few remaining _technically competent_ places that does not hire people who can't code.
That is why I qualified my statement by saying that the prospective founder would be _technically_ capable, not capable in general. If anything, they could be less organizationally capable, but that can be resolved with the right co-founder.
To put it into more concrete terms: say you had a million dollars and would want to allocate it towards a bet in order to potentially turn it into a lot more. Who would _you_ pick, someone with tech aptitude credentials (which a substantial stint at Google as an engineer all but guarantees), or someone with no discernible credentials?
Note that I'm not even mentioning race here. Race/gender/sexual orientation is 100% irrelevant in this calculation unless it actually confers an increased chance of turning $1M into $10M. E.g. as an investor I'd probably prefer a gay person to lead a gay dating service, just for the domain expertise. I'd still require that they have technical and/or business chops, however.
> VCs invest into your track record and the ability to put together and retain a good team. "Ex-Google" is a good signal that the person can at the very least _technically_ do what they are promising to do, once they take the cash.
> Nobody has ever promised that money will be given for phenotype traits alone.
Who knew, thanks for enlightening me. Let's just say that I have VCs emailing me now.
And women even more so, not because of any inherent differences in anything but the selection process biases.
Women of color even more so, not because of any inherent differences in anything but selection bias.
Just watch the biases and the whole process even out to an actual chance for all the ideas floating around.
Doesn't have anything to do with teams or ROI when you're talking to a first time pitcher.
They might as well bring in a psychic to pick their investments. But they can't let their LPs know that. They've got to justify their fee and so they will do it the safest way possible which is to be copycats or at most choose the most defensible options.
If they were black or women they might have assumed it was a matter of VCs being racist or sexist. But this is probably wrong.
Because of these three attributes, one is not like the others.
"I’m a Black woman, mom of three, and I don’t have an Ivy League degree."
Because, regardless of their own race or gender, VCs are highly connected members of the Ivy League.
VCs don't like poor people for the same reason most rich people don't for thousands of years. They believe that poor people are losers. And why would an investor want to bet on a loser?
Regular racism and sexism is when the reason you're not given a chance is because of direct racial or gender-based bias. Systemic racism and sexism can additionally include scenarios where the systems in place (such as the private Ivy League club) might not necessarily be intentionally racist or sexist, but rather just incidentally racist or sexist.
From the article, when a venture fund hides their email or contact information, that's not directly racist or sexist. However, if it prevents people outside of your existing network from contacting you, and your existing network happens to be underrepresented on the basis of color or gender, then it's certainly going to help perpetuate the already-existing under-representation in your network, regardless of whatever the root cause of it may be.
What portion of non-rich people make up the VC network? It's definitely lower than the percentage of women or black people. No one is more "underrepresented" than non-rich people.
VCs are the 1%. Their target of exclusion is the 99%. Most don't care about race or gender. They will overlook almost any attribute if they see dollar signs, race, gender, and even someone's poor background. Because their primary concern is money.
And since VCs hate poor people. And they know this about each other. Even those VCs that don't hate poor people will be more reluctant to fund poor people because they know other VCs are assholes. If other VCs will discriminate then the company may have trouble raising money and is more likely to fail. This is one of the major the systemic problem.
Believe me, it is much worse when after every negative interaction, you have to check if it was because you are female, or black or X. White male founders will not have to worry about that additional male tax.
She's receiving equal treatment.
But she's expecting and explicitly asking for preferential treatment based on the her belief that VCs have promised it.
It could be that these VCs were never intending to offer preferential treatment. Or that they meant that they would offer preferential treatment to black members of the Ivy League. Neither of these answers would be surprising.
Oh, but it can. That's kinda one of the points.
> Or that they meant that they would offer preferential treatment to black members of the Ivy League. Neither of these answers would be surprising.
Not surprising but inconsistent with the talk.
As a female founder (not black though), we went through a similarly congnitively dissonant process. A-List investors who would publicly talk about supporting female founders would behave the worst (esp. female investors, Hi Aileen!), investors whose entire brand was around supporting ethical startups (or insert any similar alternative movement) would be the least interested in that aspect (Hi Spero Ventures!) All of that, along with a healthy dose of rudeness.
In our experience, those at the very very top of the totem pole gave us the fairest chance, and those below them, were the very worst. In the end, it was hard no to feel that an investor's Twitter persona was a sham, in the end they would invest only in the hottest SAAS startup by an ex-Googler.
FWIW, I know my experience was not alone. There are tons of now well-funded female founders who will echo this sentiment. I just wish there was a way to have a public list of those who walk the talk and those who just tweet the walk..
EDIT: Adding something from thread below to focus more on solutions, and providing perspective on why what is happening is not enough.
>...What is frustrating about these investors (and YC) is that it all is very surface level. I'm sure they believe they are doing the right thing but all of their assumptions, ideas, pipelines, and teams, all are informed by those biases. And there isn't enough being done to deconstruct that. For example, what does it mean to say 'too early' to an under-represented founder? who is the comparison to? How many of your last X investments or team members came from Stanford or ex-FAANG?
> Let's put in place processes, time allocations, smaller programs. And let's put all of this in place first for those raising their first rounds - the angel or the mythical pre-seed.