
Female founders who've had a great 2016 - swiss2008
https://techcrunch.com/gallery/40-female-founders-who-crushed-it-in-2016/
======
danso
I support these kinds of lists. Like #BlackLivesMatter, the focus on a
purportedly disenfranchised group doesn't mean that the "main" group doesn't
matter -- but it's an acknowledgement that we see plenty of representation of
the main group -- in this case, men -- by default. Unless you believe that
there really are no barriers specific to women (and it doesn't necessarily
have to be sexism) and that women just are terrible at business/tech, why see
such lists as threatening to non-women?

Note: There's a (very gray) "View All" button in the top-right of the
slideshow. I was just going to complain about the hypocrisy of stuffing a list
of purportedly successful women into a photo slideshow in a cynical attempt to
increase page views.

~~~
matt4077
May be more necessary than usual – I got the feeling that women were
overrepresented in the "Founder-does-something-terrible" articles, at least on
HN.

Some was certainly deserved, although I'm not sure about the proportionality
of the 20th "No, seriously, Elizabeth Holmes is a terrible terrible person!"
\- article.

Some was offensive, misogynistic, backwards bullshit that I can only hope is
highly correlated with the writer's chances at next year's Darwin awards –
like about 90% of anything ever written about Ellen Pao.

Some was in between – Marissa Meyer comes to mind.

I have no idea why about a third of men feel threatened by the whole idea, but
I believe those are problems that need to be addressed offline. I've seen a
few cases where some measures to reduce discrimination succeeded even with
some initial scepticism. 1:1 talks seem to work quite well, as does starting
with something blatantly obvious (dropping the photo requirement for
applicants and blinding the names are two common options in my country). Once
you get a team above a certain threshold (around 35% women I'd say) the whole
dynamic shifts. Suddenly there's picnics and Tuesday morning runs and journal
clubs etc. That's something that everyone notices and I believe it has
dramatic impact.

The effects continue with any other measure of diversity you can introduce:
having a few different nationalities around is an improvement, having someone
with a completely different background can be a plus (met a 75-year old office
manager once who was beloved at her startup) etc.

~~~
parennoob
> as does starting with something blatantly obvious (dropping the photo
> requirement for applicants and blinding the names are two common options in
> my country

Unfortunately, very few efforts seem to focus on immediately applicable
solutions like this that solve the problem (if there is one) fundamentally.

None of the Big Tech companies for example (Google / Facebook / Apple /
Microsoft come to mind) currently do application blinding where possible, as
far as I know. All of them however are very eager to promote movements like
Girls Who Code because it's generally good PR and (I think) because it
increases the available labor pool for them.

~~~
matt4077
Blinding during interviews is obviously quite limiting – I probably wouldn't
want to hire someone without having actually talked to them.

But if I had to guess, I'd say these large companies are actually quite fair
in their hiring processes. Discrimination at that step in the process seems to
be more common at smaller or older companies. The worst, most blatant actual
case I have seen was the IT dept at a medium-sized bank.

At FB and Google I'd guess "career advancement" is more susceptible to biases.
As company tries to create "shallow hierarchies", the risk of competition
devolving into the law of the jungle increases (but, as I said, only guessing.
Have no experience with them).

~~~
parennoob
> Blinding during interviews is obviously quite limiting – I probably wouldn't
> want to hire someone without having actually talked to them.

How about blinding during resume screening? Replace female or male names with
a number or made up names. Phone screening even maybe, using some kind of
audio processing. I have never heard of these companies using any such
process.

Edit: Looks interviewing.io did such a process, here are the results –
[https://blog.interviewing.io/we-built-voice-modulation-to-
ma...](https://blog.interviewing.io/we-built-voice-modulation-to-mask-gender-
in-technical-interviews-heres-what-happened/)

------
dominotw
Links to the lists

1\. [https://techcrunch.com/gallery/18-more-female-founders-
whove...](https://techcrunch.com/gallery/18-more-female-founders-whove-had-a-
very-good-2015/slide/1/)

2\. [https://techcrunch.com/gallery/21-female-founders-who-
killed...](https://techcrunch.com/gallery/21-female-founders-who-killed-it-
in-2015/slide/1/)

I looked up people from first list on linkedin to see what path they took to
end up there. One commonality that immediately obvious is studying at Ivy
league/private university.

Perhaps a more inspiring new year list would have been " where you are born
doesn't seal your fate list", but thats not clickbait enough.

1\. Alex Depledge - University of Nottingham and the University of Chicago

2\. Minnie Ingersol - Stanford University and Harvard Business School

3\. Tracy Young - California State University-Sacramento

4\. Melody McCloskey - University of California, Davis

5\. Robin Chase - MIT and harvard

6\. Angie Nwandu - ?

7\. Payal Kakadi - MIT

8\. Maran Nelson - UT austin

9\. Adi Tatarko - ??

10 . Christina Lomasney - Harvard and University of Washington

11\. Piraye Beim - Cornell

12\. Valerie Wagoner - Stanford

13\. Hooi Ling Tan - Harvard and Bath

14\. Maria Ressa - ?

15\. Danielle Morrill - ?

~~~
morgante
I'm sick of hearing this meme that Ivy league universities automatically mean
you were born wealthy.

Top universities have, by far, the most generous financial aid you can get out
there.

~~~
rubicon33
I'm really skeptical that the financial aid you speak of is as accessible as
you think it is.

Speaking completely anecdotally, someone very close to me chose not to go to
Stanford, simply because her family couldn't afford it. And that was with a
scholarship.

I've never asked her about financial aid, and if she investigated it. My guess
is though that she fell into the category of middle class... aka, too rich to
qualify for financial aid, too poor to afford $100K+ a year college.

~~~
closeparen
Upper middle class, maybe. This can happen when your household income is
$200k. Not $55k (national median) and certainly not below.

Higher ed financial aid leaves middle-upper middle class kids in a tough spot
because their parents don't feel like they have income to spare, but the
financial aid office doesn't feel they need charity. But this does not really
happen to socioeconomically disadvantaged children, only those too far into
the upper middle class.

The line where this happens is a lower income in mediocre private schools, and
a higher income on good ones.

~~~
chongli
_Higher ed financial aid leaves middle-upper middle class kids in a tough spot
because their parents don 't feel like they have income to spare, but the
financial aid office doesn't feel they need charity. But this does not really
happen to socioeconomically disadvantaged children, only those too far into
the upper middle class._

They've got this thing nailed down to a T. Upper/middle kids can't go because
their parents can't afford it. For a variety of reasons, lower income kids
can't get the marks to get in to these schools so they never reach the point
where financial aid would matter.

This lets these schools preserve their elite enrolment while providing
nominally _generous_ support.

~~~
tzs
The income distribution at Harvard doesn't fit your theory:
[http://features.thecrimson.com/2013/frosh-
survey/admissions....](http://features.thecrimson.com/2013/frosh-
survey/admissions.html)

~~~
chongli
_About 14 percent of the incoming freshman said their families earn above
$500,000_

Sure it does. If everybody in the US had equal access to primary and secondary
education and Harvard had income-blind admissions, do you really think that
number would be so high?

~~~
morgante
Harvard does have income-blind admissions. Admissions officers don't look at
your financial aid information when you apply and it's not a factor.

Of course, there's still the factor that wealthy parents can pay for a better
education. Also that intelligence is largely hereditary.

~~~
chongli
Harvard has 30 percent legacy admissions. Those are definitely not income-
blind.

~~~
morgante
While I agree that legacy admissions should probably be phased out, they're
still "income blind." Knowing someone's a Harvard graduate does not mean you
know their income.

------
HaveCourage
If this list was "Young founders" or "xyz state founders" no one would bat an
eye.

Please let men and women be differently abled. Equality is the opposite of
specialization. Specialization is power in a complex world. Video on that
idea:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNz5WXwKHsU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNz5WXwKHsU)

Sexual dimorphism has outcompeted equality. Equality lost.

------
facepalm
"we see plenty of representation of the main group -- in this case, men -- by
default."

So where is the list of male founders who kicked it in 2016?

I would be less bothered by such lists without the undertone of "we need such
lists because of sexism".

~~~
dang
Please see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13261688](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13261688)
and the links there.

We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13260049](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13260049)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
facepalm
Why do you make me off-topic and not the comment I replied to who started it
by claiming over representation of men? Anyway, have it your way...

------
exstudent2
BLM is a group that represents economically disadvantaged people. This list is
pulled from the upper most echelons of society. Do you think it's ok to
represent the wealthy as somehow oppressed?

Please don't take my question as an attack, I'm genuinely curious how people
who support these initiatives view wealth.

~~~
dang
We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13260049](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13260049)
and marked it off-topic.

------
dmsv
I always feel sad when I see these lists. I've always heard once we have
female founders then we will see companies that are useful to women. But all
those companies looks so useless to me. I think the problem is that they're
targeted toward rich women. I hope someday people will create companies for
poor women.

~~~
Joeboy
I thoroughly agree about some of these (artisanal tampons, eyebrow pomade),
but Open Bionics is a _great_ thing and some of the others definitely look
like worthwhile ventures.

~~~
cbeach
To claim Samantha was the founder of Open Bionics does a massive disservice to
the CEO, Joel, who is the guy that actually came up with the concept (before
Sam joined as a "bizdev" person). It's Joel who had been making bionic hands
since his teens, and who spoke at the Hacker News London conference about his
work.

But hey ho - I suppose we have important social engineering to do...

~~~
dang
> _But hey ho - I suppose we have important social engineering to do..._

Please drop the ideological vitriol from your comments here. It breaks the
rules, poisons the discourse, and discredits the substantive point you were
making.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
malloreon
Will techcrunch publish a similar list for non-white founders?

~~~
blowski
That's the problem with these kinds of lists - why not lists for gay founders
and over-60s founders and disabled founders? Making lists of people in groups
that suffer discrimination doesn't do any harm, but it's not clearly helpful
either.

~~~
tptacek
That an initiative to correct an imbalance doesn't correct _all_ imbalances is
hardly an meaningful criticism. It's true: there aren't enough technology
entrepreneurs of color, and probably not enough disabled founders either.
Start the thing that helps those cohorts, by all means.

