A presentation I gave at General Assembly in June 2012 about the state of women in technology.

1. State of the Startup:
Women in Tech
@jessicalawrence

2. This is a bra. And I start with this for a number of reasons. The bra has long been a symbol -
even if it’s been a misconstrued and inaccurate symbol - of the feminist movement. This is
the symbol of the elephant in the room every time we have conversations about the status of
women. It tends to derail conversations and sometimes cause people to tune out. For two
reasons: one, there are a lot of people who don’t believe that this is a conversation that we
still need to have. Yup, women earn more Bachelor’s Degrees then men. And yep, we’ve got
the right to vote. But take one look around any tech event, and you’ll catch a glimpse into why
we still need to have this conversation. The other reason is that it feels like anytime a
conversation is about women in an industry it gets shifted to a conversion about feminism.
And not feminism as it is meant to be interpreted and understood - but as the man-hating,
bra-burning sensationalized feminism that makes people feel that women are claiming
entitlement and sometimes even superiority based their chromosomes.

3. $12 Billion
So let’s get past bras, unless we’re going to talk about them in business. Which by the way is
a $12 billion dollar business. And that brings me to what this conversation is about - it’s
about business and how understanding the tech industry, making smart decisions within the
tech industry - requires understanding the role that women play.

4. % $ ?
To understand the current state of women in tech, we need to look at three things:
1. How many women are involved in tech and what they’re building
2. What funding looks like for female-founded startups
3. And then why - why things might be the way we are - what is the environment that women
are functioning in and why it matters that we change them

5. %

6. US population

7. This is the tech industry - 25% women

8. But in startup world, it’s more like this - 5%

9. Overall, fewer than 5% of startups
are owned by women.
http://onlinemba.unc.edu/mba-at-unc-blog/women-at-work-infographic/

10. And it usually feels like this

11. In New York, 20% of startup
founders are female.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/10/startup-genome-compares-top-startup-hubs/

12. On average, 25% of NY Tech Meetup
attendees are women.

13. Between March 2010 and June 2012,
12% of applications to demo at
NY Tech Meetup were submitted by women

14. In 2011, only 12% of computer science
degrees were awarded to women.

15. Only 1.5% - 3% of open source
developers are women.

16. Of the Fortune 500 companies, 4% have
female CEOs.

17. http://onlinemba.unc.edu/mba-at-unc-blog/women-at-work-infographic/

18. The percent of women on
56% of Facebook’s users are women.
Facebook’s board? 0%
And as we look at what happen’s when companies grow up...we start seeing the same
disparate ratios reflected in their boards of directors.

19. Alright, so even if we are still looking at huge disparities in the percentage of women building
things...there are still a lot of women out there building things...so what are they building?

20. If you’re like most people, you will probably guess that they are building a company in one of
these categories.

21. Shopping. Fashion. Beauty. This is often called the Pink Ghetto

22. In 546 female-founded tech companies, the top industries that the women
founders are focusing on are:
1. TECHNOLOGY — 74 startups including CloudFlare, GeoMagic, HarQen, Ning,
Sense Networks,Six Apart.
2. BUSINESS — 71 startups including Candid Capture, ConsumerBell,
ContactKarma, IndieGoGo,Minted, Quantum Retail Technology.
3. MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT — 71 startups including Blip.tv, BlogHer, Ground
Report, Huffington Post, MingleMedia TV, 6Waves LolApps.
http://www.women2.com/challenging-the-pink-ghetto-women-start-more-tech-companies/

23. Retail: Fashion: Beauty:
$4.7 Trillion $199 Billion $330 Billion
But the Pink Ghetto is big business

24. $
So let’s take a look now at funding - both from the perspective of what women get and how
female-led companies perform

25. Male-owned businesses receive
95% of VC funding awarded.
http://onlinemba.unc.edu/mba-at-unc-blog/women-at-work-infographic/

26. Only between 3% and 5% of
women-owned businesses
receive venture capital
Only 10% of venture
capitalists are women
Women are just 12% of all
angel investors
http://onlinemba.unc.edu/mba-at-unc-blog/women-at-work-infographic/
Top stat: vs. 26.1% of male owned businesses

27. Loosecubes 7.8
IndieGogo 15

28. http://onlinemba.unc.edu/mba-at-unc-blog/women-at-work-infographic/

29. “ As a group they (women-led Fortune 500
companies) outperformed the overall
market–companies dominated by male
chief executives–by 28%, on average, and
topped their respective industries by 15%
[in 2010]. ”
http://community.nasdaq.com/News/2011-11/girl-power-list-of-companies-with-female-ceos.aspx?storyid=101171#ixzz1xi6JrlR2

30. ?
So why are things the way they are?

31. STEM
Women have a long history of not being involved in STEM careers. There are many long-
standing societal reasons for this.

32. The tech industry has been an almost single-sex industry for a long time, which has
significant implications.

33. But that shouldn’t be used as an ongoing excuse.

34. Golden Gate Ruby Conference: Matt Aimonetti’s talk “CouchDB + Ruby: Perform Like a Pr0n Star.”

35. Lawsuit by Ellen Pao - Kleiner Perkins
Women usually won’t talk on the record about the experiences they have
What is the truth?

36. Paige Craig, Good Angel
Male VC opening up a conversations about concerns about funding women

37. “ Women feel less comfortable in engineering
than men, and lack the “professional role
confidence” that male engineers seem to
acquire easily. ”
- From a study by MIT social scientist Susan Silbey
#1 reason there aren’t more women involved in tech isn’t work/life balance - it’s this:

38. Thank you.
Jessica Lawrence
@jessicalawrence