Women Win the 10th Annual Crunchies
Silicon Valley’s “Oscars” were the most diverse in history
Earlier this week, Tech Crunch hosted “tech’s big night out” — The 10th Annual Crunchies. All of the technorati dressed up in their finest (or their finest hoodie) and cheered on the industry’s biggest winners of the past year, while poking more than a little fun at themselves. Didn’t make it to the big event? Don’t worry, it’s available online to stream over at TechCrunch.
In addition to specifically giving awards for social impact (to the Kapor Center) and inclusion (to Project Include), the 10th annual Crunchies was decidedly more diverse than in recent years.
Reflections on Award Inclusion
It’s easy to overestimate the importance of industry awards and with far less eyes on the Crunchies than say, the Oscars or Grammies (Silicon Valley is not Hollywood after all) does it matter who wins the little monkey statues? The answer is complicated — but at the end of the day representation matters.
The Crunchie categories have changed over the years, responding to new technology and trends. Historically, there have only been a few categories for individual contributors — Founder and CEO of the Year were staples until this year (CEO was dropped) and individual Angel and VCs of the Year were added pretty early on (starting with the 3rd event in 2010).
Yet, there wasn’t a single female winner for any of these four categories in the first 8 years of the Crunchies.* Kirsten Green, this year’s “VC of the Year” winner is only the second woman to win a Crunchie in one of these categories (Cyan and Scott Banister won Angel of the Year last year, although Cyan has since come out as genderqueer).
While female leadership is still woefully underrepresented in the business world as a whole, our work with female leaders and executives from tech have shown us they are out there having major impact. Shining a light on more female leaders in tech not only portrays a more honest reflection of our industry, it’s also (hopefully) inspiring startup founders to build more diverse, and better functioning, teams.
*Source: Previous award winners available on Tech Crunch’s website: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017
