
The Pregnant Entrepreneur And The VC Who Wouldn't Fund Her - daegloe
http://www.forbes.com/2011/04/21/pregnant-entrepreneur-ceo-and-the-venture-capitalist.html
======
victork2
Interesting point. Hard to discuss too, because as always with women-related
issues the heat is pretty high.

However, let's play devil's advocate and extend it to the man's case too. If I
put myself in the role of a VC I would think twice about hiring anybody who's
going to have children soon. Children, from what I gathered, are emotionally
and physically draining for both parents. If you add up the challenges of
having a startup, which is like another child well that's a good damn reason
to refuse investing.

The problem is that pregnancy and a child coming soon can be physically seen
on a woman, but we can't ask a VC to be blind on that.

~~~
mattmanser
What point do you draw the line? Say a woman entrepreneur got married a year
ago and it's getting to be 'about that time'. The inlaws are asking when
they're going to hear the patter of tiny feet? Or what if you hear a couple
saying 'they're trying for a child'?

Do you want to hire someone at this age? What's the difference, they've got
the same goals, one is pregnant, one isn't yet.

It rapidly turns into sexism. So she's going to have to take a while off.
She'll have some hormone stuff to deal with. What do you know about that
couple? Maybe Dad's going to be the one changing the diapers and getting up at
3. What right do you have to judge?

The whole point is that life goes on and constantly discriminating against
women because of this is just wrong.

The point is that she thinks she can handle it, she thinks her team can handle
the slack, she's putting her ass on the line. Fair enough, go for it.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_Do you want to hire someone at this age? What's the difference, they've got
the same goals, one is pregnant, one isn't yet._

The only difference is that with a hiring decision, the law demands the hiring
manager should ignore the risks to the business. In aggregate, this is a
transfer of wealth from shareholders to pregnant women (in practice, childless
women are also harmed [1]).

 _What right do you have to judge?_

The VC has not only the _right_ to determine how his fund's money is spent,
but also the responsibility to do so in order to maximize returns.

As long as P(big success | funds preggo) < P(big success | funds slightly less
awesome non-preggo), it is the VC's responsibility to choose the non-pregnant
person. He would be throwing away his client's money otherwise.

[1] In practice the biggest losers seem to be childless women since the market
for hiring women becomes a lemon market. Employers are not able to
differentiate lemons from cherries and wind up paying all sellers less.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons>

~~~
feral
>As long as P(big success | funds preggo) < P(big success | funds slightly
less awesome non-preggo), it is the VC's responsibility to choose the non-
pregnant person. He would be throwing away his client's money otherwise.

With that line of logic, where do you stop? Is there any variable on which its
not OK to condition?

I actually think its fair enough to say that there are certain factors that we
all agree, as a society, that we should ignore, when it comes to decisions
like this.

Sometimes we might codify that agreement to ignore into law, like the hiring
law you mention which prevents discrimination on certain grounds. But the
reason it has been so codified, is because we agree that type of
discrimination is globally bad, right?

Would you really argue that VCs are supposed to absolutely anything to
maximise returns, within the law, even something we all know is bad?

~~~
yummyfajitas
I don't see any compelling reason why the choices of an entrepreneur are a
variable that the VC should ignore. Could you explain why you believe this?

(As a side note, I also see no reason why shareholders of corporations should
have any special obligation to subsidize parents. But that's a separate
debate.)

~~~
rwallace
> I don't see any compelling reason why the choices of an entrepreneur are a
> variable that the VC should ignore.

Many people agree that e.g. the entrepreneur's religion and sexual preferences
are variables the VC should ignore, even if they were statistically correlated
to success. Do you disagree with that position?

> I also see no reason why shareholders of corporations should have any
> special obligation to subsidize parents.

I do: the parents are subsidizing the future. The shareholders' money is going
to be pretty worthless to them in the long run if there is no next generation
of workforce from whom to purchase goods and services.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_Do you disagree with that position?_

Yes.

But lets ignore my position, I'd like to extend your logic. You want VCs to
make suboptimal investments for political reasons. Should you also be
obligated to invest some fraction of your 401k in businesses you think are a
suboptimal investment? If not, why not?

 _I do: the parents are subsidizing the future. The shareholders' money is
going to be pretty worthless to them in the long run if there is no next
generation of workforce from whom to purchase goods and services._

This argument is far more broad than you realize.

For example: "parents are subsidizing the future. The childless career woman's
money is going to be pretty worthless to her in the long run if there is no
next generation of workforce...".

Therefore, we should force childless career women to subsidize parents.

Do you believe the latter as well? If not, why not? What distinguishes
childless career women from shareholders?

~~~
rwallace
I believe childless people of both sexes should have to pay their share of the
cost of raising the next generation, yes.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Do you believe all investors (including Joe 401k) should be forced to make bad
bets for political purposes, or only some? If so, which ones?

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quackingduck
Um. The headline here says "The VC Who Wouldn't Fund Her" but the article
talks about a VC that _did_ fund her though expressed his doubts. Also he's
one of "thirty plus" investors.

Both articles were written a month ago and the company she founded has already
shut down: [http://blog.profounder.com/2012/02/17/profounder-shutting-
do...](http://blog.profounder.com/2012/02/17/profounder-shutting-down/)

However I'm sure Forbes and Business Insider are very grateful for the ad
impressions.

~~~
enjo
Holy color clash batman!

That blog has to be the ugliest thing I've seen in a long time. Same for their
actual (former) home page.

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codinghorror
It's particularly significant that this is twins we're talking about, not just
a "typical" pregnancy.

Let me tell you from personal experience that twins, two babies in parallel,
are FAR more than twice the work of two sequential babies.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

------
Tichy
I'm sorry but to me it sounds like a lot of bla bla about how their startup is
all about work life balance, and a small footnote addressing the real
"problem": "yeah, I have planned for that".

It's crazy to assume that having twins won't have any impact whatsoever. Even
if she says she will hire full time help. Is that a 100% certainty? Or just a
70% certainty or whatever? Even if she is 100% determined now to have full
time help, she might change her mind once the babies are there (nobody knows
what it really feels like before they have their own kids). Even with full
time help, I suppose either she won't be breastfeeding or it will be a lot of
hassle.

So while I won't say it is impossible to work at the same time (although
personally I can't see how, I have a lot of respect for anyone with twins to
begin with...), there still is some distraction. Seems to me it should be the
right of a VC to take that into account.

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oconnore
> I've never heard someone ask the same of a founder-CEO-dad, worrying about a
> slightly different dirty little thought: "An expectant father/CEO will fail
> his company."

Well, of course I don't have any way of experiencing both and comparing them,
but isn't a pregnancy much more difficult for the pregnant female? No matter
how many times the dad runs out to buy watermelon at 4 in the morning, he
doesn't have a living thing growing in his uterus.

I don't agree with the statement, "a pregnant ceo will fail her company". I
might agree with the statement, "all else being equal, the person with less to
overcome is more likely to succeed". And likeliness of success is pretty much
what VCs do.

~~~
snprbob86
I've seen at least one company go on the back burner due to a founder-CEO
becoming a dad. It's a very real concern. That said, I know quite a few new
parents running startups without visible incident, so who knows.

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notatoad
At the risk of being a sexist pig, not funding a pregnant entrepreneur sounds
like a pretty smart move. Attempting to start a company and a family at the
same time would indicate to me incredibly poor judgement, and a lack of
commitment to both the company and the family.

------
waterlesscloud
Headline is completely misleading and unfair to the VC in question.

From his post where he voiced his thoughts on the topic- "Ultimately I decided
to invest, namely because I gave a commitment to invest and decided that
pregnancy shouldn’t impact my decision."

<http://www.businessinsider.com/women-founders-2011-4>

------
harel
Kids and startups are doable. Like she mentioned in the article - its about
prioritizing and the support you have at home and at work. I'm speaking as a
father of two boys and a as someone at his third venture.

The most unintentionally interesting point of this article, which was written
in 2011, is that going to profounder.com reveals that they are now closing
down, due to regulatory restrictions that prevent them from growing their
business.

------
pan69
Looking at this from a purely business point of view (which I guess a VC
does), funding is not charity. Investing in someone who's about to start a
family, male or female, sounds like a bad investment.

So, is a VC a bad person for not investing in what could be a bad investment?

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steve8918
I'm guessing the original author didn't read the BI article because the VC
_DID_ fund her.

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hudibras
I'm quite sure that most people in the Valley-VC-feedback-loop have no idea
how they appear to the rest of America. Someone doubting another person's
ability because she's a woman in a public blog, and then that woman calmly
writing a public response, and then commenters here agreeing with the VC--it's
like you guys are on another planet, one that mirrors 19th-century society.

~~~
Tichy
Not her ability because she is a woman, but because she is pregnant. In what
enlightened part of the world would that not plant a seed of doubt in people's
minds?

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ibotty
"Nearly all my 30-plus investors responded immediately with enthusiasm and
congratulations, and many of them also offered to help [...]"

i certainly did not expect this. i'm always pessimistic about gender issues in
the real world. maybe it is better than i think (not good, that's for sure).

~~~
WalterSear
They all said, "A baby and a start up? Good luck with that."

------
robwgibbons
It doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman: starting up a company when you
know you have twins on the way is a really ballsy move. Like, ballsy to the
point that I personally believe it shows a lack of dedication to the company,
the babies, or perhaps a bit of both.

A startup company is basically a newborn baby. It requires continuous
attention and care, cleaning and feeding. Except, unlike in the case of twins,
it can't be given a bath and fed alongside another baby. This baby is an
attention-hungry baby with special needs and demands, which requires focused,
dedicated care to thrive and grow.

And to reverse the analogy, caring for children is in itself a full-time job,
just as hard if not harder than starting a company. When shit hits the fan and
you get 3 hours of sleep every night for a week, which of your dependents
becomes your priority? Are you going to care for your children or get hard
work done?

I'm not arguing that it can't be done, but I also think there's little
argument that taking on both significantlty drives down the odds of success,
to the point that it's questionable why any VC _would_ give them their money.

I say either found your company before you have kids and wait until the
company is no longer a newborn, or have your kids before you found and wait
until the kids are no longer newborns.

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1234the1234
The problem is instead that to make the asset class decide we're worth their
investment, we can't have families or pretty much anything else beyond
providing them returns to support their lifestyle.

Good grief. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates ripped all of you guys off soooo bad and
it's like none of you get it. 80k at 80 hours a week is less than someone
makes in a supermarket. Suckers, all of you.

~~~
bkrausz
Actually, that works out to $20/hr, which would be pretty good for a
supermarket salary.

~~~
Turing_Machine
$20.00/hour is not at all unheard of for an experienced checker at a major
chain (it varies a lot depending on the area of the country, though).

