At the risk of being a sexist pig, not funding a pregnant entrepreneur sounds like a pretty smart move. Attempting to start a company and a family at the same time would indicate to me incredibly poor judgement, and a lack of commitment to both the company and the family.
The Pregnant Entrepreneur And The VC Who Wouldn't Fund Her
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Re: The Pregnant Entrepreneur And The VC Who Wouldn't Fund Her
#12Interesting point. Hard to discuss too, because as always with women-related issues the heat is pretty high. However, let's play devil's advocate and extend it to the man's case too. If I put myself in the role of a VC I would think twice about hiring anybody who's going to have children soon. Children, from what I gathered, are emotionally and physically draining for both parents. If you add up the challenges of hav…
What point do you draw the line? Say a woman entrepreneur got married a year ago and it's getting to be 'about that time'. The inlaws are asking when they're going to hear the patter of tiny feet? Or what if you hear a couple saying 'they're trying for a child'? Do you want to hire someone at this age? What's the difference, they've got the same goals, one is pregnant, one isn't yet. It rapidly turns into sexism. So…
it's not everyone discriminating against her, its a VC deciding whether he should make a multi million dollar bet on her. startups are hard.
Re: The Pregnant Entrepreneur And The VC Who Wouldn't Fund Her
#13Um. The headline here says "The VC Who Wouldn't Fund Her" but the article talks about a VC that did fund her though expressed his doubts. Also he's one of "thirty plus" investors. Both articles were written a month ago and the company she founded has already shut down: http://blog.profounder.com/2012/02/17/profounder-shutting-do... However I'm sure Forbes and Business Insider are very grateful for the ad impressions.
Holy color clash batman!
That blog has to be the ugliest thing I've seen in a long time. Same for their actual (former) home page.
Re: The Pregnant Entrepreneur And The VC Who Wouldn't Fund Her
#14Interesting point. Hard to discuss too, because as always with women-related issues the heat is pretty high. However, let's play devil's advocate and extend it to the man's case too. If I put myself in the role of a VC I would think twice about hiring anybody who's going to have children soon. Children, from what I gathered, are emotionally and physically draining for both parents. If you add up the challenges of hav…
What point do you draw the line? Say a woman entrepreneur got married a year ago and it's getting to be 'about that time'. The inlaws are asking when they're going to hear the patter of tiny feet? Or what if you hear a couple saying 'they're trying for a child'? Do you want to hire someone at this age? What's the difference, they've got the same goals, one is pregnant, one isn't yet. It rapidly turns into sexism. So…
victork2 mentioned "anybody" having children and "both parents". I think it's clear that anybody who will have to deal with a new baby is going to be under additional stress. And the party becoming pregnant is going to be under even more stress. It is reasonable for those stress factors to be taken into consideration if you're making a decision about a person's likelihood for success. You can't simply ignore those facts for fear of being labeled a sexist, or anti-family, or something like that. Reality has a way of ignoring what is politically correct.
Re: The Pregnant Entrepreneur And The VC Who Wouldn't Fund Her
#15> I've never heard someone ask the same of a founder-CEO-dad, worrying about a slightly different dirty little thought: "An expectant father/CEO will fail his company." Well, of course I don't have any way of experiencing both and comparing them, but isn't a pregnancy much more difficult for the pregnant female? No matter how many times the dad runs out to buy watermelon at 4 in the morning, he doesn't have a living…
I've seen at least one company go on the back burner due to a founder-CEO becoming a dad. It's a very real concern. That said, I know quite a few new parents running startups without visible incident, so who knows.
Re: The Pregnant Entrepreneur And The VC Who Wouldn't Fund Her
#16I'm quite sure that most people in the Valley-VC-feedback-loop have no idea how they appear to the rest of America. Someone doubting another person's ability because she's a woman in a public blog, and then that woman calmly writing a public response, and then commenters here agreeing with the VC--it's like you guys are on another planet, one that mirrors 19th-century society.
Re: The Pregnant Entrepreneur And The VC Who Wouldn't Fund Her
#17Interesting point. Hard to discuss too, because as always with women-related issues the heat is pretty high. However, let's play devil's advocate and extend it to the man's case too. If I put myself in the role of a VC I would think twice about hiring anybody who's going to have children soon. Children, from what I gathered, are emotionally and physically draining for both parents. If you add up the challenges of hav…
What point do you draw the line? Say a woman entrepreneur got married a year ago and it's getting to be 'about that time'. The inlaws are asking when they're going to hear the patter of tiny feet? Or what if you hear a couple saying 'they're trying for a child'? Do you want to hire someone at this age? What's the difference, they've got the same goals, one is pregnant, one isn't yet. It rapidly turns into sexism. So…
Do you want to hire someone at this age? What's the difference, they've got the same goals, one is pregnant, one isn't yet.
The only difference is that with a hiring decision, the law demands the hiring manager should ignore the risks to the business. In aggregate, this is a transfer of wealth from shareholders to pregnant women (in practice, childless women are also harmed [1]).
What right do you have to judge?
The VC has not only the right to determine how his fund's money is spent, but also the responsibility to do so in order to maximize returns.
As long as P(big success | funds preggo) [1] In practice the biggest losers seem to be childless women since the market for hiring women becomes a lemon market. Employers are not able to differentiate lemons from cherries and wind up paying all sellers less. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons
Re: The Pregnant Entrepreneur And The VC Who Wouldn't Fund Her
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
What point do you draw the line? Say a woman entrepreneur got married a year ago and it's getting to be 'about that time'. The inlaws are asking when they're going to hear the patter of tiny feet? Or what if you hear a couple saying 'they're trying for a child'? Do you want to hire someone at this age? What's the difference, they've got the same goals, one is pregnant, one isn't yet. It rapidly turns into sexism. So…
victork2 mentioned "anybody" having children and "both parents". I think it's clear that anybody who will have to deal with a new baby is going to be under additional stress. And the party becoming pregnant is going to be under even more stress. It is reasonable for those stress factors to be taken into consideration if you're making a decision about a person's likelihood for success. You can't simply ignore those fa…
> victork2 mentioned "anybody" having children and "both parents".
That's great, but the practical reality is that you're unlikely to see a male founder asked anything similar, or be judged based on it. There's still a societal conception that "the woman will take care of the kids," so the new-child flak that would potentially make a founder look worse doesn't necessarily affect potential male founders to the same degree. It still boils down to a male-privilege issue (I mean, like the story said, have you ever heard of somebody claiming that an expectant father being likely to cause his company to fail?).
(Aside: the story sucks and is misleading, however, because a VC did fund her project. Good for both of them. I hope they kick ass.)
Re: The Pregnant Entrepreneur And The VC Who Wouldn't Fund Her
#19Interesting point. Hard to discuss too, because as always with women-related issues the heat is pretty high. However, let's play devil's advocate and extend it to the man's case too. If I put myself in the role of a VC I would think twice about hiring anybody who's going to have children soon. Children, from what I gathered, are emotionally and physically draining for both parents. If you add up the challenges of hav…
What point do you draw the line? Say a woman entrepreneur got married a year ago and it's getting to be 'about that time'. The inlaws are asking when they're going to hear the patter of tiny feet? Or what if you hear a couple saying 'they're trying for a child'? Do you want to hire someone at this age? What's the difference, they've got the same goals, one is pregnant, one isn't yet. It rapidly turns into sexism. So…
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Re: The Pregnant Entrepreneur And The VC Who Wouldn't Fund Her
#20Looking at this from a purely business point of view (which I guess a VC does), funding is not charity. Investing in someone who's about to start a family, male or female, sounds like a bad investment.
So, is a VC a bad person for not investing in what could be a bad investment?