
Investors prefer entrepreneurial ventures pitched by attractive men - eegilbert
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/03/06/1321202111.short
======
nicholas73
There is a misunderstanding of the difference of rated attractiveness between
men and women. Women's attractiveness has a direct correlation with her
reproductive capacity, whereas men's attractiveness has more to do with
probability of social dominance. That includes confidence, assertiveness,
aggressiveness, charisma, and of course height. Some of it is correlated with
health, but other factors are not. So there is a big confounder in this study
in that many of the factors for a man's attractiveness actually correlates
with his potential for success.

~~~
oh_sigh
> Women's attractiveness has a direct correlation with her reproductive
> capacity,

Source please.

~~~
kanja
This was a little harder to find than I expected:

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16555779](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16555779)

"These findings demonstrate that female facial appearance holds detectable
cues to reproductive health that are considered attractive by other people."

Found via
[http://asutriplehelix.org/node/99](http://asutriplehelix.org/node/99) which
also cites some other related papers

EDIT: I really, really enjoy finding cases where something I assumed to be
true is questioned on the grounds of scientific correctness. It is always a
wonderful opportunity to bring my thinking closer to reality, no matter if my
assumptions are true or false.

~~~
thenmar
I'd be a _little_ careful turning "detectable cues" into some kind of
axiomatic understanding of attractiveness.

------
not_that_noob
Very interesting.

The following is completely speculative - I know - but possibly relevant. Bear
with me.

I have noticed a difference among investors. There are the
engineering/slightly Aspberger's types who tend to be prior founders who
exited well. And then there are the HBS hail-fellow-well-met sports-loving
never-ran-a-company-but-i-know-im-a-genius types. Yes, huge generalization -
but those are the two bins I place them in. My observation in my experience is
that the first type seems to be less influenced by attractiveness and
appearances than the latter, and make better bets. I mean - take PG or AH.
Need I say more? Now, that's not to say the aspy-types are free of biases -
not at all - just that they are less likely to be swayed by attractiveness.

In any case, I wonder if other people have observed this effect or whether
it's just me.

~~~
loceng
I think you've added too many constraints to each group you define. You could
probably differentiate the groups between those who are theory driven (and who
use deep knowledge and understand to guide them) vs. those who are shallower
(or using emotional triggers of what excites them, and as such shallow or no
theory used when investing).

~~~
not_that_noob
The investors I've met clump into those two aggregates. I am not imposing any
constraints - just saying that the people I've met seem to line up into those
categories.

------
001sky
There is a little bit more color on some of the PR write-ups, see eg

 _They recruited 60 experienced and affluent backers to view video recordings
of 90 randomly-selected verbal business pitches made by entrepreneurs from
various sectors at three entrepreneurial contests in the US.

Investors were asked to rate the looks of the entrepreneurs and comment on the
pitch.

Researchers found that men who were deemed good looking were 36 per cent more
likely to be successful than those viewed as unattractive. However there was
no difference for women.

In a separate study they asked investors to listen to the same pitches
delivered by a man or a woman.

“We found that male-narrated pitches were rated as more persuasive, logical
and fact-based that were the same pitches narrated by a female voice,” the
authors concluded. . ._

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-
news/10688645/Goo...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-
news/10688645/Good-looks-help-you-get-ahead-in-business-if-youre-a-man-
Harvard-study-finds.html)

~~~
ifyoubuildit
I don't have much of a stats background... The first question that jumped to
mind is whether or not the quality of the pitch could have affected the
perceived attractiveness (could the investors have seen the people with better
pitches as more attractive?). Can that sort of thing be controlled for
somehow?

Edit: ah, the same pitches were read. Nevermind.

~~~
jonahx
Your original point still stands. It's possible that the men chosen to do the
readings just so happened to be better readers/pitchers than the women, even
with the exact same script. It's hard to think of a foolproof way to control
for that, other than getting a large enough sample and recruiting both men and
women of approximately equal experience. Neither of those is a perfect
solution, though.

Theoretically, you'd want some way to have the pitches read with precisely the
same cadences and intonations, but have the ability to just swap out a female
voice for a male voice. One could imagine a computer program which "female-
izes" a man's reading, though I doubt anything like this exists in a form
which produces a perfectly realistic sounding female voice.

------
bjourne
Not the first study who finds appearance to be significant in areas you
wouldn't expect it to be:

[http://www.nature.com/news/musicians-appearances-matter-
more...](http://www.nature.com/news/musicians-appearances-matter-more-than-
their-sound-1.13572) [http://www.forbes.com/sites/lisaquast/2011/06/06/can-
being-t...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/lisaquast/2011/06/06/can-being-thin-
actually-translate-into-a-bigger-paycheck-for-women/)
[http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/08/labour-m...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/08/labour-
markets-3)

Not to mention all the jobs where good looks is an explicit requirement such
as in modelling, acting or implicit like for waitresses or cashiers in fancy
clothing shops. It's a fascinating subject and it is very impressive that we
seem to be very close to quantify exactly how important beauty is. Even if it
is bad news for ugly people it is better if the facts are out there so
something can be done about the problem.

------
brd
Its been widely observed that attractiveness helps in most interactions,
especially sales related, so this is no surprise.

The real surprise should be that female attractiveness doesn't have a
significant impact. My initial guess would be that investors, unfortunately,
are so dismissive of female pitches that attractiveness can't even help.

~~~
theorique
It's probably a double bind.

If she's ugly: "Why would you want to fund an ugly girl? Let's get some
hotties in here."

If she's attractive: "She's too hot. How could she possibly be a serious
hacker / business leader? No one will take her seriously if she looks like
that."

Maybe this is too cynical? (I sort of hope so.)

~~~
pjc50
Institutional sexism is certainly a thing.

~~~
penrod
A nitpick about terms, but not all discrimination against women is
'institutional' sexism. Institutional prejudice may be sufficient but is
definitely not necessary for acts of sexism to occur. People are quite capable
of acting on innate or pre-learned biases.

------
skywhopper
Sounds like a strong case for intentionally skewing investment decisions
towards women founders, as if the general population is unconsciously biased
towards men, then there are likely many women founders who could generate a
great return on investment but who aren't being given the chance to do so.

~~~
Fomite
Given the many fits pitched about the female founders conference, women-
focused coding programs, etc. can you imagine the storm of indignation that
would emerge if it ever became public that a fund was doing this?

~~~
saiana
It's public. Every woman knows this. Every female startup founder is painfully
aware of what this study confirms. They experience this all the time.

~~~
Fomite
I meant a deliberate choice to institutionally favor female founders to
correct for what the study (and experience) has shown, which is what the
poster above me suggested.

It's a suggestion I actually agree with, but the shitstorm that would ensue...

------
pdfProvider
PDF Here: [https://mega.co.nz/#!QlA0kTgK](https://mega.co.nz/#!QlA0kTgK)
Decrypt key: i3efFy0wv6R9Qjfw3_XkTUm9aC9Ea9PetMPMX58ogrI

------
johnny99
This is unfortunate, and hardly unique to entrepreneurship.

In 'Blink' Malcolm Gladwell describes how orchestras hold blind auditions,
with the performers behind screens, to avoid this kind of bias.

Perhaps VC pitches should follow suit.

~~~
Goladus
> Perhaps VC pitches should follow suit.

Question is how to eliminate unwanted bias while keeping the relevant
information. With an orchestra audition, it's easy to isolate and evaluate the
relevant skill: ability to play the specific instrument.

------
lifeisstillgood
Anyone got past the login? Apart from the usual methodological checks, I would
be interested to know if they controlled for the gender of the _investors_.
Getting more investment if you are more _attractive_ is hardly a surprise,
what does surprise me is female attractiveness did not count.

So either we are seeing a genuine, global, cross-society level bias against
women (possible), or we are seeing male investors wanting to invest in people
they think are like themselves (attractive, successful men) or we are seeing a
mislabelling of attractive (George Clooney is intelligent, articulate,
methodical _and_ good looking. Matt LeBlanc is just good looking (!)

So if they did what I suspect, got a bunch of male students to rate
attractiveness of female entreprenuers and females to rate males, then what I
guess is the boys picked the ones with big breasts and did not care if she was
intelligent, the girls were more likely to pick "life partner", which includes
good looking but also "able to provide".

Weirdly it might be useful to control females choosing "attractive" with their
menstrual cycle.

WOw - complicated world I make up at times

~~~
aet
From the paper: Study 2 (the gender study). We recruited a nationally
representative sample of 521 Americans (46.64% female) over Amazon’s
Mechanical Turk (www.mturk.com) to participate in a study.

~~~
humanrebar
Nationally representative, assuming the entire nation is on Mechanical Turk?

EDIT: What's with the downvotes? There seems to be some selection bias built
in to the sample. If not, please explain.

~~~
Fomite
You can adjust and weight samples. Basic survey methodology.

------
gmays
There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the
world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how
we look, what we say, and how we say it. -Dale Carnegie

Not much of a surprise, same goes for picking presidents and other political
leaders, even CEOs. Charisma has a lot to do with leadership and
persuasiveness.

That said, it always surprised me how much of our community seems to at times
take pride in the disheveled, socially awkward appearance...as if it's a badge
of honor or something. To me, that's just as bad as the dumb jock persona. Why
not be well-rounded? Why not take as much pride in our health and appearance
as we do in our intellect?

------
crusso
So, all else being equal (the pitch, the idea, etc.) the study found that
people looking to invest realize that attractiveness can play a role in the
success of the venture.

Since the success of the venture depends upon a lot of sales and marketing of
an idea both internally and externally... why is this a surprise?

Investors are worried about the success of the venture and their ROI. They
understand that attractiveness can impact it.

------
wudf
paying $10 for this article isn't gonna make me any more handsome

------
djyaz1200
“When there’s an elephant in the room introduce him.” ― Randy Pausch

------
llcoolv
How is attractiveness evaluated? Because the standards for male attractiveness
are very loose and often a great degree its perception is determined by the
other factors.

------
joliss
Does anybody have access to the PDF?

I'd be interested in effect size in particular. The abstract only says
"profound".

~~~
andor
Study 1 - Likelihood of winning pitch competition. Gender and attractiveness:

    
    
      Male/High       0.39
      Male/Low        0.29 n=70, p=0.042
    
      Female/High     0.21
      Female/Low      0.18 n=20, difference not significant
    
    

Study 3 - Likelihood of investment on scale from 1 (low) to 7 (high)

    
    
      Male/High       5.21
      Male/Low        4.59 p=0.024
    
      Female/High     4.14
      Female/Low      4.35 difference not significant
    
      Each participant rated 1 pitch, n=520

------
vyala
scary, are investors turning as gay? this science survey is very stupid,
without qualifying what is attractiveness.

------
ulfw
Oh such surprise!

------
kelvin0
The article should have been titled: Attention seeking paper desperately
succeeds at stating the obvious (while keeping a straight face)

~~~
scarmig
Because no one on Hacker News has ever questioned whether sexism exists in the
startup world.

~~~
kelvin0
It's funny to think that in 30 years, there will be a TV show called Mad Geeks
... recounting the tales of the good ol' boys of Silicon Valley. Their sexist
ways will be so funny to watch (exaggerated of course ;-)

------
markb139
Oh, I'm buggered then. 6ft6 ugly 116kg monster. Better stick to the day job

