An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About

Re:An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About by doctorpangloss on Sunday August 18, 2013 @02:22PM (#6233577)

Did she have a hard time finding investors because it was a hardware business, or because she was a woman?

Did she ultimately get investment because she was a woman, in spite of the hardware business?

According to a friend's college thesis, there are lots of concrete reasons VCs don't invest in women.[0] In summary, VCs don't take a girl very seriously. The thesis makes the case though that there's real opportunity for women founders, not the least because they're so undervalued for reasons under than business fundamentals.

So maybe Meredith got investment precisely because she was a woman. The collection of investors is curious. According to CrunchBase, Marissa Mayer invested in 8 companies over the last 2 years (+Square in 2009), 7 of which have women founders or co-founders. Lady Gaga's manager, who I thought was not a professional investor, in fact makes a lot of investments. According to CrunchBase, 4 of 16 of his investments have women founders or co-founders. By comparison, VentureSource shows about 1 in 14 startups with funding have women founders or co-founders in 2010—more details in Alisha's paper.

Still, it would be wrong to accuse of sexism the "hundreds" of the investors who declined her project. She's an astrobiologist who wants to run a mass-manufacturing business. I'm not a venture capitalist, but I can see aversion to hardware manufacturing risk generally being the biggest factor here.

[0] http://alisharamos.com/women-vc-funding/AlishaRamos_Thesis.p...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About by jfb on Sunday August 18, 2013 @02:38PM (#6233647)

"Still, it would be wrong to accuse of sexism the "hundreds" of the investors who declined her project. She's an astrobiologist who wants to run a mass-manufacturing business. I'm not a venture capitalist, but I can see aversion to hardware manufacturing risk generally being the biggest factor here."

As physics as generally understood means this is 99% likely to be nonsense, another reasonable application of Ockham's Razor would be that the VCs passed because it's snake-oil.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About by vacri on Sunday August 18, 2013 @05:29PM (#6234315)

I've always found it odd that people talking about sexism use 'woman' like it's an adjective. Common use has made it one, but it used to be just a noun. Anyway, my point is that we don't say "man founders" or "man drivers" or "men professionals".

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About by rbehrends on Monday August 19, 2013 @04:00AM (#6236125)

Grammatically, it's an apposition [1] and "woman" is still a noun. This particular construct is uncommon in English, but not all that rare, either. E.g.: Science museum, prime time television, district court judge.

[1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apposition

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About by vacri on Monday August 19, 2013 @08:01PM (#6240730)

Thank you for the info, I hadn't come across that term before. There's still a difference in how we talk about men and women, which I find odd to engage in when trying to combat sexism, but I was unaware it was grammatically correct (and 'men [pastime]' just sounds wrong).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About by ihavedna on Sunday August 18, 2013 @07:12PM (#6234683)

It is because woman are considered to be the adjunct, not the norm, not the average, not the expected or assumed. Its even obvious in the word itself - a prefix on the word "man", which can and is often used in place of "person" or "human", and will describe a person who is more than likely assumed to be of the masculine persuasion.

A+ on not putting "Woman" in the headline for the article, though!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About by Filligree on Sunday August 18, 2013 @08:19PM (#6234889)

Appearances to the contrary, the word "woman" is not actually based off "man", or indeed very related.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About by iopq on Monday August 19, 2013 @05:20AM (#6236302)

Yes, it is. It's wif-man, so a "person who is a wife" as opposed to an unmarried girl. That's why women is pronounced [wimen], because that's the original etymology.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About by phaemon on Monday August 19, 2013 @05:11AM (#6236274)

Of course it is.

    wifman = female human
    werman = male human
    man = human

"wifman" became "woman" but the "man" is literally from "man" (meaning human). I'm not sure how much more related you can get.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About by eCa on Sunday August 18, 2013 @07:28PM (#6234731)

Me too. I've always thought male/female is a better fit (English not being my first language).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About by marshray on Monday August 19, 2013 @01:23AM (#6235777)

Women sometimes find 'female' offensive. I'm not sure I can fully explain the reason, but it has to do with its use as a biological term.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About by zacharycohn on Sunday August 18, 2013 @02:33PM (#6233612)

Lady Gaga's manager is very active in the startup/tech community and is a known angel investor.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About by doctorpangloss on Sunday August 18, 2013 @02:42PM (#6233664)

Corrected, I didn't notice his name in the article. Still, he invests in a disproportionately high number of women-founded/co-founded companies, 4/16 as opposed to an average of 1/14 (by 2010 figures). See edits.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About by foobarqux on Sunday August 18, 2013 @11:45PM (#6235488)

Any hits?

[ Parent | on HN ]