

Female CEOs at top Silicon Valley tech firms down to zero - nickb
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_9848633

======
jnovek
Out of curiosity -- are you guys aware of startups out there that have a
female co-founder? I'm aware of TipJoy (<http://www.tipjoy.com>), but no
others.

Also, anybody around here have a female co-founder on their team? If you ARE
the female co-founder, I'm not asking you to reveal your gender, I'm just
curious about whether there are other teams floating around with women in
them.

We have a female co-founder -- in fact, she is actually the one that hatched
our initial idea. But our product's demographic seems to be more women than
men, as well.

~~~
ivankirigin
I know two other husband & wife teams not in YC. PlayCrafter
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=243769>

And Sproost <http://www.sproost.com/>

~~~
jnovek
Ivan,

Thanks. Playcrafter looks seriously fun. They look like they could be a big
hit -- I'll keep my eye out for them when they have a public release.

What does Sproost do? Are they still in "stealth" mode, or is there a press
release somewhere in the world? I really like their design.

~~~
ivankirigin
Not sure how public sproost's ideas are just yet, so I would suggest just
signing up for the upcoming beta.

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vaksel
Is it really that different from anywhere else? Female CEOs are pretty rare
everywhere, no matter what field. And they have the disadvantage that, most
girls don't grow up to want to be CEOs of computer companies, they grow up
wanting to be CEOs of fashion magazines

~~~
cglee
The more interesting analysis is why do girls want to be CEOs of fashion mags
rather than computer companies? At what age do they make this choice, why?
Does it carry across different cultures? etc

~~~
oz
Simple. Girls are different from boys. Regardless of what we've been told that
male/female differences are simply matter of socialization, men and women are
different.

Let us reason together:

If you believe in God (at least the Christian God, as I do), then you accept
that men and women are different, with different social roles.

But even if you believe in evolution, why would the species have physically
different members. Evolution teaches that those more suited to reproduction
survive. What's more reproductively efficient than binary fission?

Men and women are intrinsically different. It's as simple as that.

~~~
cglee
I consider myself Christian, but I do not subscribe to the notion of specific
social roles per gender.

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auston
Gina Bianchini - <http://about.ning.com/>

~~~
jnovek
I hate to be nitpicky, but is Ning one of the "valley's 150 biggest
corporations"?

~~~
auston
I don't believe there is an accurate way to compile a list like that unless
private co's like Ning(or Xobni or Loopt) disclose revenues or employee
numbers or users or whatever your differentiating factor is to be considered
one of the 'valley's 150 biggest corporations'.

In this case, siliconvalley.com
[<http://www.siliconvalley.com/sv150/ci_8893849>] acknowledges the biggest 150
companies as Public companies which would mean Ning does not fall into that
category.

Although I do consider Ning to be a "top tech firm" in the valley.

~~~
nickb
> Although I do consider Ning to be a "top tech firm" in the valley.

Take away Andreessen and it's just another general social network.

~~~
auston
_Ning is not a social network._

I believe there is value in being able to create your own social network. I
mean ning is in use from several 'not-so-large-but-big' brands such as Singer
Natasha Bedingfield [<http://www.natashabedingfieldusa.com/>], Rawkus records
[<http://my.rawkus.com/>] and even Good Charlotte
[<http://goodcharlotte.com/>]

I personally use Ning to spawn my own social networks, and since it is fairly
easy to use it's rss feeds as a form of Content Management I see it's value.

Also, I recall seeing Gina Bianchini on the cover of Fast Company Magazine
[<http://www.beashowhosttips.com/ginafc.jpg>], not Marc.

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Prrometheus
"Greene's ouster may have stemmed from a dispute over business strategy,
rather than her gender"

How charitable of the author to decide that the company may have been
motivated by business concerns rather than pure misogyny.

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bayareaguy
Margo Seltzer - CEO SleepyCat (until Oracle bought them) -
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margo_Seltzer>

