Female CEOs at top Silicon Valley tech firms down to zero

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_9848633

by nickb • 18 years ago

18 23 18 years ago

mercurynews.com

auston3• 18 years ago

Gina Bianchini - http://about.ning.com/

jnovek3• 18 years ago

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

auston3• 18 years ago

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.

jnovek3• 18 years ago

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.

pg• 18 years ago

Of those YC has funded: Jamglue, Heysan, Songkick, Tipjoy, and one that hasn't launched yet.

ivankirigin2• 18 years ago

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

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

jnovek3• 18 years ago

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.

corecirculator• 18 years ago

Quantenna : co-founded by Andrea Goldsmith (Stanford prof)

gleb• 18 years ago

Meebo http://www.crunchbase.com/company/meebo 2 out of 3 founders are women.

tectonic• 18 years ago

http://www.casttv.com/about/

vaksel2• 18 years ago

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

cglee2• 18 years ago

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

oz2• 18 years ago

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.

vaksel2• 18 years ago

you don't meet Justin Timberlake or Jessica Alba being CEO of Flickr

oz2• 18 years ago

Exactly. Fact is, there are more men interested in computer science than women. In my year at uni, of a starting cohort of 120, around 15 were women.

I know it's not politically correct to say, but maybe men generally have more aptitude for the subject. Larry Summers, former president of Harvard was fired for saying this a few years ago. Camille Paglia, or some one else said "There are few female geniuses for the same reason there are few female serial killers." I hate articles that whine about female or ethnic under-representation in any field. Here in Jamaica, 80% of uni grads are women. Yet no one complains that men are under-represented.

"Google and Hewlett-Packard are examples of companies that generally do a good job of supporting and promoting women managers, according to Beecham and others. There are smaller companies and start-ups run by women, as well."

This is what I dislike the most. No one should be promoted because they are a woman. The best person for the job should get it, period. And women should be careful that they are promoted but not respected, like some of the 'token' black people at some firms. And from what I've seen, real geeks tend to be very meritocratic. Promotion based on gender can only cause problems. and these problems will seethe, because no one who wants to keep their job is gonna protest it.

Logically, if we hold that women and men are equal, and both equal under the law, then it should not be a big deal if a female CEO leaves, or if the number of female CEOs in a particular field is low.

thaumaturgy• 18 years ago

| ...but maybe men generally have more aptitude for the subject.

Maybe, but there is also a lot of subtle social conditioning that tells girls and young women that there are gender-specific subjects and roles. (Likewise for guys, too.)

| "There are few female geniuses for the same reason there are few female serial killers."

You have to be careful about differentiating between innate or potential genius, and expressed genius. There could be a lot of very smart women out there that aren't getting noticed.

Creativity, scientific (or field) achievement, and corporate ladder-climbing has been correlated to testosterone in men. I wonder if there'd be a similar correlation among women?

Prrometheus• 18 years ago

"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.

bayareaguy• 18 years ago

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

Female CEOs at top Silicon Valley tech firms down to zero

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