
Calacanis on Ellen Pao and Fixing the Gender Issue in VC - rsobers
http://calacanis.com/2015/03/23/mansplaining-the-ellen-pao-trial-fixing-the-gender-issue-in-venture-capital/
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foobarqux
> Venture capital used to draw the best of the business-school crowd, but
> today it’s being taken over by 30- and 40-year-old founders who have the
> credibility of having run a business.

From what I can tell senior partners are still predominately MBAs. Beyer,
Doer, Boetha, Gurley, Khosla, etc

~~~
CurtMonash
Khosla was a Sun founder. Doerr was an HP exec, albeit not terribly senior
IIRC.

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needacig
Ok, but "be a billionaire and start a VC firm" and "kick ass" aren't
actionable pieces of advice for anyone except the half-dozen or so women he
mentioned.

I appreciate the characterization of VC firms as clubs though. That makes
sense.

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youngButEager
What doesn't make sense in my circle is this.

If EP was so adamant about trying to 'bring KPCB along' and change it's 'boys
club' culture -- which _really_ rings with JC's point #2 --

\-- why did she leave VC? She's 100% convinced she got passed over for
promotion at KPCB for illegitimate reasons.

Thus she's convinced she has a lot to give in VC. And she has years of
experience.

And there _are_ other VC firms with a very inclusive environment for both
genders.

Why on earth abandon a highly remunerative career path, if she's confident of
her VC talents? Being CEO of Reddit isn't bad, but financially she'd be MUCH
better off sticking with what she knows.

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CurtMonash
A note on Ann Winblad. It took her and John Hummer 18 months or so to get
their fund started. They had one substantive hook -- they promised to be the
first software-only VC firm. (Accel, already well established then, was just
software-mainly.)

They also had a gimmick -- their visual. Ann is tiny, while John is a former
NBA forward. If there isn't a full 1 1/2 foot difference in their heights,
it's close to that. As Ann told the story then, it helped people remember
them. :)

Ann, by the way, was a founder, while John had worked for another VC (Pitch
Johnson) and elsewhere in finance (Victor Niederhoffer) after his hoops career
ended.

