

Damn, Girl: New York Has Almost Double The Female Founders - rmah
http://www.betabeat.com/2012/04/11/damn-girl-new-york-has-almost-double-the-female-founders/

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kristianc
I wonder how much of tech's "gender divide" has to do with the way women in
tech are reported?

Take this article for example - it references the Akon song "Sexy Bitch" in
the title (yeah, real female empowerment there!), it doesn't mention a single
female startup or founder, and the picture is a generic Flickr grab of a woman
walking past a coffee shop in a short skirt.

All of it, even the fact that the section is called "Ladybeat" serves to
further this principle that there is a "Women's" tech ecosystem and it is
somehow different from the male one. I mean "female-friendly fashion and
beauty startups?" Come on.

~~~
unreal37
I think you're trying to find a conspiracy where there is none.

The lack of women in tech (and lack of women in science and math in general)
starts at a very young age - while boys are immersed in video games and girls
are having afternoon tea with their dolls. I doubt those 5-year-olds are
influenced by the way women in tech are reported.

Maybe society in general assigns gender roles that we all feel forced to
comply with. Or maybe we're just different. Can't men and women just be a bit
different?

~~~
kristianc
Although boys have outperformed girls in exams in maths at 16 here in the UK
for the last three years, girls had outperformed boys at maths for the decade
before that.

You're not arguing that men and women are "just a bit different" so much as
you're arguing that people should conform to gender roles which don't
necessarily apply.

What about gay people in tech - Peter Thiel, Tim Cook, Ben Ling? Shouldn't
they have been playing with Barbie dolls, or My Little Pony or whatever at a
young age too?

~~~
unreal37
Oh, I can definitely believe girls outperform boys at math tests and even
score higher on IQ tests.

The question is interests. Why aren't they as interested in pursuing careers
in those fields? Maybe we are just a bit different in that regard.

And as for your theory on gay people in tech, I am not sure what you're
saying. And not sure why you're even mentioning it actually.

~~~
vibrunazo
> The question is interests.

The point they're trying to make is that you have very little evidence of
that. Specially since girls of under 1 year old are already being surrounded
with girly themes from their parents. They grow up being fed girly toys and
mentality. Before a girl can even understand what a "toy" is, she is already
surrounded by dolls in pink dresses.

So it is really the girl's interests that differ from the boy's interests? Or
is it their parent's interests being pushed to them? You don't know this, and
you have absolutely no evidence to indicate that it's their born interest to
like one thing over the other.

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m_ke
It has everything to do with NYC being more than a tech hub. It's arguably the
fashion and business capital of the world and the startups that we get here
tend to reflect that. Having people from all backgrounds building businesses
around real problems in their industries sets it apart from SV, where you get
people doing startups for the sake of startups.

~~~
peterb
I agree with your general argument about NYC. SV isn't only where you get
"people doing startups for the sake of startups" (although it has that). It is
more technology focused and less "all business" like NYC.

~~~
m_ke
Of course not, but it's Disneyland for engineers and you don't get people from
other professions flocking to work there. My girlfriend is a med student and
she wasn't a fan of a suggested move to the Valley. My friends in finance
dream of Wall Street, those in arts wouldn't trade Broadway for anything and
all the fashionistas only hold Paris above 5th ave and SOHO.

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aristidb
New York never ceases to amaze! Almost half of founders are women... I'm sure
that can only be a good thing for the diversity of problems solved, and those
startups' availability to address wider audiences. Obviously Silicon Valley
needs to learn from NYC.

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Cushman
I wonder what this might have to do with it:

    
    
      > Local entrepreneurs are 4.3 times as likely to list 
      > “content” as their competitive advantage.
    

The Valley is very focused on tech; if we grant that tech as a subculture is
overwhelmingly male, it would make sense to see a higher ratio of women in
startups (and thus in areas) which are less tech-centric.

~~~
kscaldef
I figured this was likely to explain almost all of it:

    
    
        Founding Team Composition: Silicon Valley founding teams are 34% more likely to be technical heavy than founding teams from NYC. Whereas NYC founding teams are almost 2x as likely to be business heavy than Silicon Valley founding teams.

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discolemonade
The answer to why there are more female founders in New York than the Valley
is easy: Valley startups tend to be a lot more tech-heavy than NYC startups as
a whole. And women in general aren't drawn to deep technology. I find it
interesting how whenever issues of women and technology come up, everyone gets
all pc and pretends not to know what the root of the gender gap is. But then
if you ask them to count the number of women they know who are fascinated by
technology, mathematics and deep, impersonal abstraction, they can't. Human
nature doesn't change just because we pump a few billion dollars into figuring
out how to get girls to love STEM. It'll never change. Tech heavy centers like
Silicon Valley will always have a preponderence of male entrepreneurs and less
tech heavy centers like NYC will always be more appealing to female
entrepreneurs. Boys will be boys and girls will be girls.

~~~
Duff
Other highly technical areas, such as medicine, don't seem to have this
problem. The average doctor has a better handle on science and mathematics
that the most computer professionals ever had.

~~~
geebee
"Computer professionals" are not regulated or licensed, so the term may be too
ambiguous to have a meaningful discussion.

But your average engineering or computer science major at a reputable program
has to take far more difficult math than your typical premed.

Look through the requirements for medical school admission, and you'll see
many do not require more than a single year of calculus.

UCSD, for instance, even provides an easier track of calculus and physics for
biology majors, perfectly acceptable for medical school, but unacceptable for
math, physics, or most computer science or engineering majors.

<http://ucsd.edu/catalog/curric/BIOL-ug.html#major>

Yes, I know that anyone is allowed to read a book on PHP and hang out a
shingle as a "computer professional", so if you're including them, then sure,
I guess the average doctor has a better handle on math. And honestly, I'm glad
that this kind of freedom exists in the world of software. But I hope you
realize that the math background of a typical CS major from a good university
greatly exceeds what is required to go to med school.

~~~
Duff
Math is one letter of the STEM acronym that you threw out there. CS is a
essentially a branch of applied math, so sure, you have a deeper math
background if you have a BS from a rigorous program.

I guess your point is that girls can't hack diff eq? Whatever -- most CS
majors know jack about organic chemistry, biology, or other premed programs in
undergrad, and know nothing about what is taught in med school.

~~~
geebee
I guess your point is that girls can't hack diff eq?

No, and it's remarkable that you would conclude that this is my point when all
I have addressed, in any way, is the difference in mathematics requirements
for college majors typical of "computer professionals" (CS and "related
fields") and pre-med or life science programs.

most CS majors know jack about organic chemistry, biology, or other premed
programs in undergrad, and know nothing about what is taught in med school.

Right, and most premeds or physicians know very little about differential
equations, mathematical optimization or stochastic processes. I didn't claim
that CS majors have a better background in life sciences than physicians, but
you did make the claim that your average doctor has a better grasp on math
than most computer professionals ever had.

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jgrahamc
There's also a demographic difference between New York and Silicon Valley.
Some figures from the 2010 census:

    
    
       New York City, Female persons: 52.5%
    
       San Francisco County, Female persons: 49.3%
       San Mateo County, Female persons: 50.8%	
       Santa Clara County, Female persons: 49.8%

~~~
Jun8
Exactly. I remember reading dating scene analyses that report the ratio of 2:1
for men and women around SF whereas in NYC it is just the reverse. This neatly
explains the x2 factor.

~~~
T-hawk
A female population of 52.5% explains the effect for dating, but not for
founding companies. The difference is because it's the surplus that matters
for dating but the entire population for founding.

Suppose that 42.5% of the population are women in a marriage or committed
relationship, and then by definition 42.5% are also committed men. That leaves
10% of the population as single females and 5% as single males, and there's
your 2:1 ratio for dating, created by just the small female surplus.

Would that hold for founding companies? I don't think so. Any of the 52.5%
females could start a business, as could any of the 47.5% males. The small
excess of women doesn't create a 2:1 ratio here. (There may be some
correlation, that married and settled women are less likely to start a
business, but the population ratio can't explain the entire outcome.)

~~~
Duff
I don't know if the startup founder demographic is well defined enough to make
a definitive statement.

There are probably significant demographic divisions (race, educational
background, housing rent/own ratio, size of industry clusters, national
origin, income distribution, etc) that probably have an impact.

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sycr
I'd be curious to know the kinds of industries female founders in NYC
gravitate towards - or if there isn't a clear cluster at all, and it's a
fairly even distribution. If it's the latter, what does New York have that
other cities don't?

~~~
rmah
One of the biggest that I know of is Gilt Groupe, founded by Michael Bryzek
and Alexandria Wilkis Wilson. Many of the execs are also female. They're doing
quite well, with revenues of apx $500mil in 2011. They do flash sales of
apparel and the like.

~~~
dpritchett
Ms. Wilson's pedigree includes Phillips Exeter, Harvard (twice!), Merrill
Lynch, and Louis Vuitton. That list says a lot about the NYC ecosystem. How
many people with her background are going to make their way to SV to try a
pure-tech play?

[1] [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alexandra-wilkis-
wilson/0/17b/84...](http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alexandra-wilkis-
wilson/0/17b/849)

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hugs
I noticed this last Fall at the Open Hardware Summit in NYC. That event has
become the must-attend event for those involved in open source hardware.
(Arduino team members, et al.) The event was founded and chaired by Alicia
Gibb and Ayah Bdeir. And the speaker list was way more gender-balanced than
your typical SF/SV event. No one was asking "where are the women?" at
OHSummit. (But if they did ask, the answer was: "Everywhere! And they're
leading the charge!")

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vishaldpatel
New York also has a little more than double the females.

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iamgilesbowkett
I'm glad to hear this. The sexism in SF/SV is one of the major reasons I moved
away.

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nirvana
I think NY and SV differ culturally and thus differ in the mix of startups
that take root there (hence the %400 higher likelihood of listing "content",
for instance.)

This may mean that women are more likely to pick areas for doing a startup
that are consistent with the NY startup culture than the SV startup culture.

On the other hand, I can imagine that many startups in NY are funded by well
heeled individuals (many of whom are women) in a sort of friends-and-family
fashion that is more casual than the VC & Angel style of SV. This is purely
speculation, but given my interactions with venture capitalists, I think their
thinking and focus is more... conservative and traditional.... and that this
may well mean women led companies are less likely to find funding in SV than
the same company in NY.

If this perspective is correct, then we may find that with startup
crowdsourcing, an even higher percentage of women will get funded than in SV.

~~~
Radzell
I agree silicon valley from what I have seen since trying to get into startups
NY seems to be the more professional of the two more suit and button ups.
Silicon valley is more technical geek and their startups seem to be more based
technical performance. I personally being technical don't really like the NY
mode but I can see why people like it.

~~~
Drbble
Please don't confuse "professional" with fancy taste or cold-weather clothing,

