Great post when it comes to illustrating female erasure in history. I also appreciated your making the important connection to why this absence of women particularly matters in VC. As the industry that fuels 11% of our GDP growth as well as many of the very coolest companies and jobs, VC has a lot of responsibility (and credit) for shaping our society.
As a female founder who tried and failed to raise venture capital (my company got funded and thrived anyway), I look hard for progress. I don’t want the women coming up behind me to see what I saw in every single VC firm. Those visits were a lot like the shock of encountering Trump as President. It changes your world view to encounter such a blatantly 1960’s agenda and leadershp.
In the last nine years since I started paying attention to your industry, we have seen zero progress where it matters: in the numbers. Under 3% of funding is going to female CEO’s and similar dismal proportions of female investing partners persist (new study out of Babson, confirming the same dismal 2014 numbers). VC’s expect startups to show them results, yet they themselves are strangely mathematically challenged when they look inward. VC’s openly and knowingly failing founders, their LP’s and broader society, but the boys club seems too lucrative or comfortable to bother improving.
Your post is important and insightful. I had never heard the Rockefeller Brothers story — what great reporting. Now please show us the money. We want funding, not endless hand-wringing.
