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Can you fundraise in Silicon Valley while pregnant?

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Re: Can you fundraise in Silicon Valley while pregnant?

#31

Post by ksenzee »

As someone who has personally been pregnant (several times!) let me assure you that when you see a pregnant woman, you have no idea whatsoever whether she is feeling

- well

- ill

- overwhelmed

- confident

- anything else

because every pregnancy is different, and every woman is different, and every family is different. You cannot safely assume anything about a pregnant woman. So her pregnancy can't help you reliably judge whether she can handle being CEO.

For that matter, you can't safely assume a woman is pregnant even if it seems obvious. I knew a woman with an abdominal tumor who kept getting asked when the baby was due.

Re: Can you fundraise in Silicon Valley while pregnant?

#32

Post by zxcvvcxz »

The better question is: should you?

It's bad from the child: stress on the mother can be transferred to the development of the child.

It's bad for the investor: this founder won't be able to dedicate the requisite amount of time to the venture as another unpregnant founder would.

Re: Can you fundraise in Silicon Valley while pregnant?

#33

Post by ksenzee »

rsmsky1 wrote: post #28

This is a serious question as a woman who has never been pregnant and perhaps not that knowledgable about pregnancies. Doesn't giving birth render you incapacitated for a certain period of time even if everything goes well and there's no guarantee after giving birth things will return to normal. Even in cases where one's life isn't at risk, there's a high risk of postpartum depression, etc. It seems very unfair to me…

It depends on the pregnancy and on the birth. Some women jump right up and get back into the swing of things. Most of us need recovery time. There is no safe assumption.

Speaking of assumptions, there is no reason to assume a CEO mother would have a nursery at work. She might well have a stay-at-home spouse (I do) or a parent or nanny or any number of things.

Re: Can you fundraise in Silicon Valley while pregnant?

#34

Post by wolfgke »

CalRobert wrote: post #23
cdmcmahon wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So similarly, potential investors should screen all men to make sure they and their partner aren't expecting children anytime soon? This would maybe be a defensible* position if it were applied equally, but it's not. *But actually it's not really. In today's world, with varying family types and options for care, it is possible for people to have children and give their all to a company. For many (most?) people that i…

Not to mention that one has to wonder what the point of all this is if we're going to deny people one of the most basic aspects of the human experience. I'm all for family planning, smaller families for the sake of the planet, etc. but c'mon, are we going to tell ambitious people they can pretty much _never_ have kids? Aren't these the sort of folks we should be hoping _do_ make copies of themselves?

Who says that you have to found a company and found a family at the same time? Why can't one do that at different times (e.g. some years between) when these goals won't be in hard conflict?

Re: Can you fundraise in Silicon Valley while pregnant?

#35

Post by ergothus »

akud wrote: post #30

In my experience, people tend to seriously underestimate the amount of work a baby takes, and the strain it adds to relationships, work life, and emotional health. I certainly did. I think it's reasonable for investors to wonder if a person's commitment won't change when they have a baby. I would advise the authors that they really can't forsee what their priorities will be like when the baby comes. It sounds trite,…

Purely for the purposes of clarity:

Is that you'd hold any founder expecting a baby to the same standard, male or female? (though it is normally easier to recognize a pregnant woman than someone with a pregnant partner)

Or do you see the load you describe falling primarily upon women?

Re: Can you fundraise in Silicon Valley while pregnant?

#36

Post by [deleted] »

ksenzee wrote: post #33
rsmsky1 wrote: post #28

This is a serious question as a woman who has never been pregnant and perhaps not that knowledgable about pregnancies. Doesn't giving birth render you incapacitated for a certain period of time even if everything goes well and there's no guarantee after giving birth things will return to normal. Even in cases where one's life isn't at risk, there's a high risk of postpartum depression, etc. It seems very unfair to me…

It depends on the pregnancy and on the birth. Some women jump right up and get back into the swing of things. Most of us need recovery time. There is no safe assumption. Speaking of assumptions, there is no reason to assume a CEO mother would have a nursery at work. She might well have a stay-at-home spouse (I do) or a parent or nanny or any number of things.

[deleted]

Re: Can you fundraise in Silicon Valley while pregnant?

#37

Post by Lawtonfogle »

CalRobert wrote: post #10
xiphias wrote: post #3

I thought that money raising is for people who put all their effort into making a fast-growing company and need money to make the growth even faster. It's about choosing not having a life in return for the possibility for creating a big company. I have no problem with that person being a male or female. But I can't imagine any person (mom or dad) being able to put 15 hours a day to a company with the baby after the b…

A man can conceal the fact of his expecting a child soon. A woman, usually, is unable to do so. Both will be affected by the child, but the investor may be more likely to favour the man, which is unfair.

At the same time, a single man has less options for having a baby than a single woman, thus there is still inequality in the risk.

Re: Can you fundraise in Silicon Valley while pregnant?

#38

Post by web007 »

drpp wrote: post #24
joshAg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you bring up the pregnancy when you meet with investors? I wonder if that would help or hurt compared to not mentioning it at all.

Some have tried to hide this, and there are links to such accounts. But, "Na’ama is direct. She’s not the kind of person to pretend about anything. In the third trimester, her condition is nearly impossible to hide anyway. And yet surprisingly, most investors have scrupulously avoided discussing the fact."

They may have avoided any mention for legal reasons.

Pregnancy is one of the protected classes. If they talk about it and then don't give you funding, there are potential repercussions, just as if they discussed religion, race, etc.

Re: Can you fundraise in Silicon Valley while pregnant?

#39

Post by chiph »

rsmsky1 wrote: post #28

This is a serious question as a woman who has never been pregnant and perhaps not that knowledgable about pregnancies. Doesn't giving birth render you incapacitated for a certain period of time even if everything goes well and there's no guarantee after giving birth things will return to normal. Even in cases where one's life isn't at risk, there's a high risk of postpartum depression, etc. It seems very unfair to me…

I think you need to talk to your mom about a lot of this. ;)

"Incapacitated" is the wrong word. "Sleep deprived" because junior demands he be fed a couple of times during the night is more accurate.

Having an infant at the office would be very disruptive. Their cries are designed by Nature to be annoying to adults so that they get the attention they need.

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