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Reflections on Being a Female Founder

tracy.posthaven.com

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Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#91

Post by nudpiedo »

> To top it all off, I felt I had to be a version of what I thought a good male CEO was, so that I wouldn’t be judged or treated differently. It would take me years before I realized how delusional I was. I became a better and happier leader by being honest in who I was.

So one of the main problems as female founder was to imitate men’s idealized CEO role?

Men also suffer trying to imitate idealized roles, but we do not have women’s specific problems which OP comments. I guess it would make a lot of sense that Tracy shows women how is the female CEO role that adapts better to her identity rather than wish for some sort of equality which will never happen just for claiming it.

Just a suggestion, but overall I enjoyed reading it as it is a good insight on some of the struggles female founders face which aren’t always obvious for men.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#92

Post by jimbob45 »

>Not a lot is written about being a female founder and CEO.

Seems like it’s the only thing female founders ever talk about. I’ve seen articles on the topic from Sarah Blakely, Bethenny Frankel, Elizabeth Holmes, and Sheryl Sandburg. I’m not opposed to exploiting any advantage you have as a businessperson but it’s bold to open with a bald-faced lie.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#93

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

ClassAndBurn wrote: post #20

Tracy was the best CEO I ever worked for. Hands down. She listened to everyone and made PlanGrid a place where everyone was empowered to make change. Her passion to solve problems was obvious and raw. She attracted people who were similarly passionate. I knew she had it harder than others when I saw one of our own VC's caller her a "little girl" while doing a fireside chat with her at PlanGrid. In spite of it all she…

It's terrible seeing my female coworkers blaming themselves for not getting promoted and internalizing it as "being too nice" or "being a pushover" when I know for a fact it's not true.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#94

Post by ci5er »

bsder wrote: post #70

> I think it is easier for predators to target their prey when they are alone. I was never alone. I hate that this is true. But it's probably valuable advice for any gender.

It's rough. And confusing. And surprising. For a guy anyway...

I have no illusions that it isn't 99.9% worse for a female, but when I was the founder/exec at a startup in the 90s, and driving staff home after happy hours, I was shocked at how physically aggressive some of them were about "going for it" with me in the driver's seat of a car. Some even got glitter all over my family sedan (ewww!). Which I then had to explain to my wife (that didn't go very well a couple of times).

Sometimes people didn't have an appropriate upbringing and have twisted morals or decision-making apparatii. I have the utmost sympathy for women, because they are "at risk" and I am not, but it's a weird weird world out there.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#95

Post by hinkley »

jjoonathan wrote: post #76
hinkley wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Postmortems often happen because someone ignored a pain point prior to the failure, rather than taking stock and doing some preventative work. The general pattern of pretending everything is ok is one of my least favorite things about tech culture. I was going to say 'tech people' but it's clear that there are people who don't like this pattern either. They tend to self-identify (sometimes privately) when I buck the…

Well, the root cause is probably that raising VC depends on keeping up appearances.

Why is it that everyone wants to be manipulated.

"Shooting the messenger" may looks like it hurts the other guy more but I've seen it screw up entire reporting hierarchies. By the time things go off the rails nobody higher than a level 1 manager has any damn clue what really happened, although they think they do based on the misinformation they've been fed.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#96

Post by tptacek »

umvi wrote: post #87
vmception wrote: post #66

> I think I was scared of what others might think of me as a new mother and CEO, maybe because of my own insecurities, maybe because of the societal norms ingrained in me. I see this so much from corporate career ladder focused women. People literally feeling guilty for wanting some aspect of motherhood, or going through some aspect of motherhood. (and then ironically apologizing about that, despite the core of their…

Personally, when I hear that a woman (or man) with kids is running a startup, I think "that kid isn't going to have the full attention of that parent..." Especially when I read stuff like: > I pressured myself into proving that I was as dedicated to PlanGrid as I always have been. I interpret that phrase as "...at the expense of dedication to my kid". I personally think it's okay to "be less dedicated" to work in ord…

You write "(or man)", but of course, it's not, really. My wife was asked in multiple interviews about her children and how she planned to care for them while working full-time. I've never even heard of a man being asked that.

At any rate, someone else's child care arrangements are absolutely none of your business, and this isn't a reasonable point to make on this thread.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#97

Post by belorn »

microcolonel wrote: post #74
belorn wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many times in the article she perceive male founders as stoic machines that regardless of health or mental state would go to work and operate as if nothing is wrong, and then goes to copy that. That is a stereotype that is hurting both men and women, and removing that would resolve a lot of the hardship.

Is it really hurting them? Seems like both she and the people she sees succeeding as leaders act that way. Being indomitable and regulating your emotions seems to be part of the formula for effective leadership; why would we expect otherwise?

Pretending that physical and mental health problems does not exist is a problem. It is sad aspect of human life that we reward social status and monetary rewards to those who are successful at hiding it, and punish those that either refuse or fail.

It seems worth to ask if there is a better way. It also seems that in a time where we care about inclusivity and diversity we need to let go of the perception that only people with perfect health should be allowed to lead.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#98

Post by _7fvc »

I started a company 8 years ago. I went through startup literature. I tried to follow the advices. We got our product going for 2 years. But we couldn't make it big. We eventually transitioned to contracting work. We were basically working for a bigger company. Except we had the freedom to work from home. We're about to fold during this pandemic. I'm happy with the choices I made.

My take away lesson is most of the startup advices are molding us into stereotypes. You have to come up with a business model and projection. You have to have more than 1 founder. Silicon Valley is where you want to be. We have to do xyz to raise funding. These advices distract us from building products and selling to customers. They also create unhealthy relationships.

I think corporate structures and funding industries have baked-in inequalities. They are optimized for pattern matching. They discriminate against a lot of things: company size, gender, race, etc. When you follow company building advices, you are trying to retrofit into these structures. Stereotypes and discriminations come with them. You'll be disappointed and unhappy.

For my next projects, I don't seek out for advices. I build stuff, find users, find customers. The only advice filter is: help me find customers.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#99

Post by geebee »

tptacek wrote: post #96
umvi wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, when I hear that a woman (or man) with kids is running a startup, I think "that kid isn't going to have the full attention of that parent..." Especially when I read stuff like: > I pressured myself into proving that I was as dedicated to PlanGrid as I always have been. I interpret that phrase as "...at the expense of dedication to my kid". I personally think it's okay to "be less dedicated" to work in ord…

You write "(or man)", but of course, it's not, really. My wife was asked in multiple interviews about her children and how she planned to care for them while working full-time. I've never even heard of a man being asked that. At any rate, someone else's child care arrangements are absolutely none of your business, and this isn't a reasonable point to make on this thread.

I don't think they're supposed to ask about that - I believe that kind of question can be legally actionable.

You're probably correct that employers assume these things won't be an issue for men - though I did read a paper (sorry no cite) that found employers are unusually punitive toward the relatively small number men who scale back for child care. It's the flip side of the assumption they won't be taking time off - when they do, employers treat it as a misrepresentation of intent.

Re: Reflections on Being a Female Founder

#100

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

_pzdn wrote: post #24
ClassAndBurn wrote: post #20

Tracy was the best CEO I ever worked for. Hands down. She listened to everyone and made PlanGrid a place where everyone was empowered to make change. Her passion to solve problems was obvious and raw. She attracted people who were similarly passionate. I knew she had it harder than others when I saw one of our own VC's caller her a "little girl" while doing a fireside chat with her at PlanGrid. In spite of it all she…

man, that sounds like a trashy thing (for the VC to have done).

I worked for a woman cofounder. It's incredible the things some VCs told her, including trying to get the other founder to drop her from the deal explicitly because of her gender.

Make no mistake about it, the ugly goes way deeper than just a bad comment here or there. Thankfully the trend is toward better.

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