TABLESTAKES

Katharine Jiang
Nov 7 · 3 min read

When it comes to tablestakes, women must be included. The tech industry looks a lot different than it did a decade ago, however, there is a lot more work to do when it comes to gender disparity in distribution of wealth. Even though tech companies are hiring more women, the amount of ownership women have is extremely low compared to that of men. Women own less equity on average, and more specifically, women own 49 cents to every dollar men own.

“96% of equity value is held by the top 20% wealthiest (founder and employee) equity holders. Of the wealthiest owners, only 9% are women.”

These numbers come from a study done by Carta, a cap table management platform. Carta has the data of more than 800,000 equity holders to run this kind of study, and the results are telling. There is a gender equity gap that is prevalent.

Why is this important? Why do we need more women on cap tables? Cap tables have been dominated by one specific demographic for a long time. Think PayPal mafia.

“Only 20% of cap table millionaires are women, and of hundred millionaires just 12% are women.”

It’s time to bring new voices and perspectives to the table. In 2015, a group of women started #ANGELS, an investment collective with a mission to close the gap table and get more women on the cap table. Since then, they have invested in over 80 companies, and inspired others to start angel investing and breaking into the world of VC.

So why is there such a lack of diversity in cap tables?

Women do join tech companies, but not at the right time, in the right role.

There are disproportionately more men founders than women, and the founding team and first employees, owning the most amount of equity, usually spring up through inner networks. People hire people similar to themselves. This goes to show how important it is to be proactive when building a team from ground up. Attention to diversity must start in the very beginnings of a company.

There have been amazing women founders and investors who have mowed a way for others to continue paving. Tracy Sun, co-founder of Poshmark, highlighted “what you do in the early days really influences what you do later.” Naomi Ionita joined Menlo Ventures as the first female partner, which inspired a second woman to join the VC. Jennifer Neundorfer co-founded Jane VC and is changing the game by investing in solely female led startups. In the words of sarah kunst of Cleo Capital:

“I invest in people who are smart and make money. I believe women and minorities are smart people who can make money, so I end up investing in a lot of them.”

Attending Carta’s Tablestakes event and seeing so many women and men! come out to support each other and this agenda gives me hope for the future of tech.

The future is founded, funded by females.


This is an analysis and summary of Carta’s study and Tablestakes event that I attended on Nov 4, 2019. All quotes were taken from the published study and event.

Katharine Jiang

Written by

hacker, designer, entrepreneur

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